Shift: London's Rapid Transit Initiative

[jammer139]

They have now done the topcoat of pavement between Egerton and McCormicks on Dundas St. Some changes with new turn lanes that never existed before.

[jammer139]

CTV piece on the BRT work around the College.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/london/article/th...-by-construction-trying-to-get-to-class/

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by jammer139

CTV piece on the BRT work around the College.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/london/article/th...-by-construction-trying-to-get-to-class/

That's too bad about the lights at the Cheapside entrance being temporary. I've seen some pretty risky left turns out of the college and this fixes it. Hopefully they will stay. Proper crosswalks here would also eliminate a crossing a bit further west on Cheapside.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by jammer139

CTV piece on the BRT work around the College.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/london/article/th...-by-construction-trying-to-get-to-class/

There is a road reconstruction project going on and locals are very inconvenienced. Yawn.

Increasingly lazy newsgathering seemingly used to generate content. Infrastructure remediation happens all the time everywhere every single year. It's part of life and not really news. They could literally have an article template to be used over the years with appropriate blanks that could be filled in with specific year, location, and aggrieved individuals for each situation.

A more positive perspective however is that if this really is considered newsworthy, then things in this part of the world really aren't that bad overall.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Snark

There is a road reconstruction project going on and locals are very inconvenienced. Yawn.

Increasingly lazy newsgathering seemingly used to generate content. Infrastructure remediation happens all the time everywhere every single year. It's part of life and not really news. They could literally have an article template to be used over the years with appropriate blanks that could be filled in with specific year, location, and aggrieved individuals for each situation.

A more positive perspective however is that if this really is considered newsworthy, then things in this part of the world really aren't that bad overall.

Reminds me of the stereotypical news story about gas prices

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But if anything this news piece does help get the word out for people to avoid the area. The construction has spillover effects on nearby roads and all the arterial around Fanshawe slow to a crawl between 4-7pm.

[jammer139]

City looking to add another $800K on the Wellington Gateway portion of BRT project. They had previously already added over $1.1M to the original $6.4M+ cost of consulting fees.

Where is the fiscal update on the BRT projects? It's been at least a year since we last heard the projects were over $175M over budget. The municipal election is now just over 13 months away.

https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=118771

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by jammer139

City looking to add another $800K on the Wellington Gateway portion of BRT project. They had previously already added over $1.1M to the original $6.4M+ cost of consulting fees.

Where is the fiscal update on the BRT projects? It's been at least a year since we last heard the projects were over $175M over budget. The municipal election is now just over 13 months away.

https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=118771

The document is suggesting that the latest round of additional money being allocated will be going toward the planning for stormwater and water service infrastructure changes, predominantly the replacement (and relocation for more convenient maintenance) of aging infrastructure that was not identified during the initial design scope. The justification is that they should be replaced during construction activities and future-proofed instead of having to shut the BRT down to complete the same replacements ~10 years from now.

It is unfortunately not uncommon to have scope creep occurring as a project moves from initial to detail design/construction due to certain things being excluded from the scope of initial design. IMO it is a procurement model issue since detail design and construction costs are estimated based on the initial design, which is always going to result in things being missed or new problems being identified.

[jammer139]

Oxford and Second to be closed for 2 weeks starting Monday

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/if...e-is-on-your-commute-read-this-1.7636388

[Djeffery]

As mentioned on the London Roads thread.

[haljackey]

This vid shows what Waterloo Region did right, and as a result what London has done wrong

• Video Link

[Snark]

Originally Posted by haljackey

This vid shows what Waterloo Region did right, and as a result what London has done wrong

The video has some very good and valid points, mostly on the project management side of things such as the Waterloo project having tight specs and scope from the start. The video has a few important errors, and the title of the video is a bit misleading: a capital cost of a billion dollars (in today's dollars) for a community of half a million is an awful lot of money - in fact by far and away the most expensive single thing to ever happen in that area. It was not built "for cheap" as the video is titled, it just wasn't obscenely costly as similar projects in other jurisdictions. The other element the he glossed over and is often a huge cost driver in such projects is the cost of relocating utilities. He correctly mentioned that the Waterloo Region system has about a third of it on old railroad right-of-ways nearly devoid of utilities, and a lot of money was saved - but he didn't stress that lot of other municipalities don't ever have such a luxury. Once older roads get opened up, many costly surprises can await.

Outside of the uninspired choice of mode (BRT vs LRT), what has London done wrong? The Waterloo LRT system is 19 km. in length at a cost of about a billion dollars, the current London BRT system will be about 15km and 45% of the cost of Waterloo LRT, in spite of general civil construction costs doubling from those of 10 years ago.

[jammer139]

Curry's owners ending their run.

https://lfpress.com/business/local-busin...rant-ending-40-year-run?itm_source=index

[jammer139]

Interesting to see continuing work on the west bound lanes of Oxford St in front of the College for the BRT reconstruction.

[jammer139]

So expropriation is still an ongoing issue for the city on the Wellington phases of the BRT project. Apparently there are cases now at the OLT and courts and completion is not expected until 2028.

https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=121029

[jammer139]

Public Art coming to BRT Bus Shelters.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/publ...ns-brt-shelters-as-city-hall-seeks-ideas

[jammer139]

Chamber backs north BRT ahead of Provincial Budget consultations.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/lond...-end-brt-push-ahead-of-provincial-budget

[GreatTallNorth2]

I can't get too excited about bus non-rapid transit.

[jammer139]

It's interesting that the contractor is working thru the winter months on the Oxford St E. west bound lanes of the project. It's rare to see unless there has been some timeline pressures applied.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/lond...-five-year-high-after-january-job-losses

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by jammer139

It's interesting that the contractor is working thru the winter months on the Oxford St E. west bound lanes of the project. It's rare to see unless there has been some timeline pressures applied.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/lond...-five-year-high-after-january-job-losses

Probably over confidence from the last couple winters. What a winter this has been to work through, (or so it has looked like out my window as I have been recovering from knee replacement 11 weeks ago. Pain sucked but at least it's been a good winter to be off work lol).

[jammer139]

Award of contract for the Wilkens to Baseline section of Wellington Rd rebuild.

https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=122112