ION Phase 2 - Cambridge's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

Part of the issue with Hamilton is that they want this LRT for completely free. Ford is talking about the $5B cost, when it's actually $3B (still 3x more than original estimate). So are we to assume that Ontario was also going to pay for the operational cost as well? I believe here in KW we're paying 100% of the operational costs (which then you have to minus any funds already received from user payments and federal and provincial transfers).

All the cost figures I was able to find said about $1M for the capital costs (construction and running stock, I expect), and that does not appear to have changed significantly. Is the $3M including something like $2M for operations?

The $5.5M number that Mulroney threw out boggles the mind. Apples and watermelons?

[panamaniac]

I think Dr Evil must have given you those numbers!

[danbrotherston]

Sometimes I complain about all the mistakes made in building the LRT. And sometimes I cannot understand how it managed to get built at all.

Our society is basically built nothing ever right now.  Never mind what China can do, if we actually built the things we planned to build, we'd at least be building something.

Part of the issue with Hamilton is that they want this LRT for completely free. Ford is talking about the $5B cost, when it's actually $3B (still 3x more than original estimate). So are we to assume that Ontario was also going to pay for the operational cost as well? I believe here in KW we're paying 100% of the operational costs (which then you have to minus any funds already received from user payments and federal and provincial transfers).

Not sure what you mean by "Our society is basically built nothing ever right now.  Never mind what China can do.."

For one, we have built things, such as our own LRT. As for China, they have 40x the population and super cheap labour and lax safety rules and environmental rules, compared to Canada. If they couldn't build things, something would be seriously wrong with them.

As for this region, I suppose we should be proud of ourselves. We have an LRT, long before places like Hamilton, London, Mississauga, Brampton, Quebec, and Winnipeg. We had an expressway, before many other cities (including Hamilton, Winnipeg and London doesn't even have one). The region has taken it on the chin more times than most places, yet we plck ourselves back up and become better. We're a stubborn region, refusing to ever give up.

Moments like this, I think I'm glad we live in a region that dives right in and gets things done. We would be totally different if we were to back down and give up like so many other cities.

I am not sure how this will affect stage 2 of the LRT. The region was never asking for 100% costs to build the LRT, let alone operate it. So the province committing to $500M isn't unreasonable -- if it's even that high for the provincial portion. Guess we'll see.

Our region may be an exception but I've seen dozens of HSR plans, TTC plans, even highway plans, in Ontario cancelled during the time I've paid attention. It's astonishing just how many times Toronto has decided not to build transit. And now their system is crumbling under the load.

[Coke6pk]

Hamilton is all NDP MPP's, hence easy to cancel.

Cambridge is PC, so funding is more likely to be approved....

Coke

[MidTowner]

LRT is at least as justifiable along the B Line as it was along King in KW. I say this as someone who lived near Main Street in Hamilton and have experience with the 5's and 10's overcrowding, and routine pass-bys.

I'm not sure if it would have been politically possible for Hamilton to chip in for LRT. For sure it would have been difficult. And, with the funding model that we pursued in Waterloo Region, Hamilton would not be experiencing what it is this week. It's harder to mess around with multiple other funding partners, and harder to discuss ballooning costs when multiple other levels of government remain committed.

I don't think this Hamilton decision has a tonne of bearing on Ion Phase 2. In fact, I think that this provincial government would be eager to pitch in three or four hundred million dollars against a billion dollar transit project in Waterloo Region, in order to say that they are willing to fund transit projects when they are well-managed financially.

[timc]

I'm not sure if it would have been politically possible for Hamilton to chip in for LRT. For sure it would have been difficult. And, with the funding model that we pursued in Waterloo Region, Hamilton would not be experiencing what it is this week. It's harder to mess around with multiple other funding partners, and harder to discuss ballooning costs when multiple other levels of government remain committed.

I remember the province not living up to expectations on LRT funding for ION ("up to two thirds" became a cap of $300 million). It was almost enough to kill the project before it got started. Local taxpayers stepped up to cover the shortfall of over $200 million.

[Bytor]

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/12/arm...-hamilton/

[jeffster]

Part of the issue with Hamilton is that they want this LRT for completely free. Ford is talking about the $5B cost, when it's actually $3B (still 3x more than original estimate). So are we to assume that Ontario was also going to pay for the operational cost as well? I believe here in KW we're paying 100% of the operational costs (which then you have to minus any funds already received from user payments and federal and provincial transfers).

All the cost figures I was able to find said about $1M for the capital costs (construction and running stock, I expect), and that does not appear to have changed significantly. Is the $3M including something like $2M for operations?

The $5.5M number that Mulroney threw out boggles the mind. Apples and watermelons?

My understanding that the cost ballooned to $3B for rolling stock, property acquisitions, construction, and everything up to service date. That additional $2B is operational costs for whatever number of years. That $2B is disingenuous -- it's like our costs also went up to whatever, but also included operating it for 30 years (was it just over $2B for KW?). But that's how it went from $1B to $5B. As far as I know, neither the provincial or federal are on the hook for anything else regarding the ION.

In Hamilton, I believe that Metrolinx was going to run this system, paid solely by the province, with no money from the city, though apparently Hamilton was going to keep the fair money.

Now, personally, I never understood how this project was only going to cost $1B in the first place. KW was close to $800M -- and that was years ago that we started. Factor in inflation, our system is probably closer to $1.1B now, if we were to start. A good chunk of our LRT is along previous rail corridors, and also within a relocated hydro corridor. That saved a lot of money. When the first heard of Hamilton LRT, I though initial costs would be close to $2.5B, and was surprised that it was going to be so little.

My guess is that the previous Liberal government pushed this project and left out certain numbers, and perhaps the $1B cost was for only rolling stock and basic rail construction (not including utility relocating, ripping up roads, demolishing homes/businesses, not including purchases of homes/businesses, no environment assessments, etc).

[jeffster]

I'm not sure if it would have been politically possible for Hamilton to chip in for LRT. For sure it would have been difficult. And, with the funding model that we pursued in Waterloo Region, Hamilton would not be experiencing what it is this week. It's harder to mess around with multiple other funding partners, and harder to discuss ballooning costs when multiple other levels of government remain committed.

I remember the province not living up to expectations on LRT funding for ION ("up to two thirds" became a cap of $300 million). It was almost enough to kill the project before it got started. Local taxpayers stepped up to cover the shortfall of over $200 million.

IIRC, though I could be wrong, the region was going to do 1/3 and the province 2/3 of the costs -- then at some point, the province said no to 2/3, but the federal government kicked in 1/3 almost last minute (likely a 2011 Tory election promise to the cities). (I believe the region had hoped for 1/3 from the federal government originally but didn't have high hopes that Ottawa would give us anything -- so they were prepared to fund 1/3 of the project with the province doing 2/3)

[danbrotherston]

All the cost figures I was able to find said about $1M for the capital costs (construction and running stock, I expect), and that does not appear to have changed significantly. Is the $3M including something like $2M for operations?

The $5.5M number that Mulroney threw out boggles the mind. Apples and watermelons?

My understanding that the cost ballooned to $3B for rolling stock, property acquisitions, construction, and everything up to service date. That additional $2B is operational costs for whatever number of years. That $2B is disingenuous -- it's like our costs also went up to whatever, but also included operating it for 30 years (was it just over $2B for KW?).  But that's how it went from $1B to $5B. As far as I know, neither the provincial or federal are on the hook for anything else regarding the ION.

In Hamilton, I believe that Metrolinx was going to run this system, paid solely by the province, with no money from the city, though apparently Hamilton was going to keep the fair money.

Now, personally, I never understood how this project was only going to cost $1B in the first place. KW was close to $800M -- and that was years ago that we started. Factor in inflation, our system is probably closer to $1.1B now, if we were to start. A good chunk of our LRT is along previous rail corridors, and also within a relocated hydro corridor. That saved a lot of money. When the first heard of Hamilton LRT, I though initial costs would be close to $2.5B, and was surprised that it was going to be so little.

My guess is that the previous Liberal government pushed this project and left out certain numbers, and perhaps the $1B cost was for only rolling stock and basic rail construction (not including utility relocating, ripping up roads, demolishing homes/businesses, not including purchases of homes/businesses, no environment assessments, etc).

Inflation doesn't work that fast.  Even with inflation from 2010 (which I don't think would have been the target year for construction costs) CPI calculator still has our project at less than 1B.

Is the Hamilton project not a similar scope to ours? Where 1B would be a reasonable estimate, and 3B seems off (and of course 5B is a complete fabrication).

[jeffster]

My understanding that the cost ballooned to $3B for rolling stock, property acquisitions, construction, and everything up to service date. That additional $2B is operational costs for whatever number of years. That $2B is disingenuous -- it's like our costs also went up to whatever, but also included operating it for 30 years (was it just over $2B for KW?).  But that's how it went from $1B to $5B. As far as I know, neither the provincial or federal are on the hook for anything else regarding the ION.

In Hamilton, I believe that Metrolinx was going to run this system, paid solely by the province, with no money from the city, though apparently Hamilton was going to keep the fair money.

Now, personally, I never understood how this project was only going to cost $1B in the first place. KW was close to $800M -- and that was years ago that we started. Factor in inflation, our system is probably closer to $1.1B now, if we were to start. A good chunk of our LRT is along previous rail corridors, and also within a relocated hydro corridor. That saved a lot of money. When the first heard of Hamilton LRT, I though initial costs would be close to $2.5B, and was surprised that it was going to be so little.

My guess is that the previous Liberal government pushed this project and left out certain numbers, and perhaps the $1B cost was for only rolling stock and basic rail construction (not including utility relocating, ripping up roads, demolishing homes/businesses, not including purchases of homes/businesses, no environment assessments, etc).

Inflation doesn't work that fast.  Even with inflation from 2010 (which I don't think would have been the target year for construction costs) CPI calculator still has our project at less than 1B.

Is the Hamilton project not a similar scope to ours? Where 1B would be a reasonable estimate, and 3B seems off (and of course 5B is a complete fabrication).

I believe its route takes it along a much different course than here. I read a different article (from the Toronto Sun) and it stated "The province claims the total project would cost $5.5 billion — $4.6 billion of which would be capital costs that the province would be expected to pay."

One huge thing to keep in mind, KW was willing to make compromises along the route. It's going through some areas that perhaps it could have gone elsewhere. It's travelling along transit corridors (saving hundreds of millions) and the hydro corridor (probably another $100M). Also lots of negativity from those along the route. Everything is going to be more expensive.

Another factor is we had Grandlink building ours -- Metrolinx is doing Hamilton. Sooooo, follow the money.

[MidTowner]

There are significant differences between the Ion and the proposed Hamilton LRT, exactly. The route along existing corridors is a big one. I also remember reading that land was going to be a significant cost- Hamilton is in a real estate boom/bubble right now, and a lot of the property being acquired would have experienced a big run-up in price. There's also the bridge over the 403, and whatever the solution was going to be for the spur to the Hunter Street terminal.

[ijmorlan]

In any case, to claim a run-up in project costs before the bids from the RFP respondents come in seems not to be in good faith.

Unless they’re prepared to be very specific about what was missing from the previous cost estimates, which I haven’t seen — just some vague handwaving about how evil the Liberals are/were.

[Bob_McBob]

Hamilton's mayor just released the province's cost estimates after they refused to do it under the guise of "proprietary and confidential information". It looks like added about $3 billion for long-term financing, operations, and maintenance, and $500m for contingency and escalation to the basic capital costs. For reference, ION's contingency fund was about $12m.

https://www.hamilton.ca/government-infor...ncial-cost

[jeffster]

Hamilton's mayor just released the province's cost estimates after they refused to do it under the guise of "proprietary and confidential information". It looks like added about $3 billion for long-term financing, operations, and maintenance, and $500m for contingency and escalation to the basic capital costs. For reference, ION's contingency fund was about $12m.

https://www.hamilton.ca/government-infor...ncial-cost

Gotta admit, Fred is sassy. Salty too, over the outcome.

I still think Hamilton should take some of the burden, but that city be looking for freebies only. And at that, the majority of people were still against it. Seeing the reaction to my friends in Hamilton and they're all praising Ford, a dude they normally hate.

I imagine the hatred is based on this: The original city of Hamilton, is about 330,000 - roughly. You probably have 140,000 living "Up the mountain" so 190,000 people living "down the mountain". I would guess that those from Ancaster, Dundas, Stoney Creek and "Up the Mountain" have little interest in this project....not to mention the rest of Hamilton which butts up against Cambridge and the 401.

What I have never understood, much like I don't understand the people of Woolwich, why do you care? Not your cash, technically.