Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[Millennium2002]

@dubsH: Heheh. Yeah. They lost tonight. Oh well...

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I like that information that you pulled out from the UBC study a decade ago. Clearly, it was already known by then that LRT will cost more and cause more problems in the long run. With the change in government however priorities shifted and then got sidetracked by the Olympics.

To be honest, the current open house discussions are a little pointless. Some things, like the new residential developments at UBC, have changed, but we're still going through those old same options like if their disadvantages had been magically cured (LRT and BRT in particular). There may be some room to institute bus improvements but there's not much leeway left, and we all know (or most of us do recognize) the problems inherent with LRT on busy streets.

If anything should happen, the discussion should focus now on BRT or SkyTrain routes, options, and alternatives and eliminate LRT altogether.

[mr.x]

^ at the end of the day, it'll be SkyTrain on either Broadway or 10th...the only questions are: to Arbutus or UBC? and bored or cut and cover?


Current public consultations are only meant to entertain local businesses, NIMBY's and local residents, and light rail enthusiasts.

[Millennium2002]

Originally Posted by mr.x

At the end of the day, it'll be SkyTrain on either Broadway or 10th...the only questions are: to Arbutus or UBC? and bored or cut and cover?
Current public consultations are only meant to entertain local businesses, NIMBY's and local residents, and light rail enthusiasts.

Agreed.

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by mr.x

^ at the end of the day, it'll be SkyTrain on either Broadway or 10th...the only questions are: to Arbutus or UBC? and bored or cut and cover?


Current public consultations are only meant to entertain local businesses, NIMBY's and local residents, and light rail enthusiasts.

In some cases you might be able to switch some people to skytrain.

But certain people who we all know. Wouldn't switch even if we all grabbed a hammer and started wacking some sense into them.

[deasine]

Originally Posted by cabotp

In some cases you might be able to switch some people to skytrain.

But certain people who we all know. Wouldn't switch even if we all grabbed a hammer and started wacking some sense into them.

I actually think these open houses are important as it gives a chance to properly educate the public on the goods and bads of each transit mode. These open houses marked a change in media reporting in the public, and definitely a good change.

[trofirhen]

I know bored tunnel costs more than cut-and-cover, but HOW MUCH MORE? Could anyone fill me in on this with a few statistics. I'd really appreciate that.

I'm also going on the assumption that bored tunnelling is better, but is it faster, or not? Any comparison lists would be great. Thanks again.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

I know bored tunnel costs more than cut-and-cover, but HOW MUCH MORE? Could anyone fill me in on this with a few statistics. I'd really appreciate that.

I'm also going on the assumption that bored tunnelling is better, but is it faster, or not? Any comparison lists would be great. Thanks again.

The City has created a bylaw against cut and cover, for what it's worth.

In theory C&C is faster, because they have the potential to dig up the whole line at once, whereas boring is a slow linear process, and can stall if the machine breaks down, they hit harder rock than expected, etc. I'm not sure cost is much of an issue.

The ideal solution would be two boring machines beginning at each end. Fast, clean, less disruptive. At a cost premium of $100m for example, I'd consider it worthwhile.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

I know bored tunnel costs more than cut-and-cover, but HOW MUCH MORE? Could anyone fill me in on this with a few statistics. I'd really appreciate that.

I'm also going on the assumption that bored tunnelling is better, but is it faster, or not? Any comparison lists would be great. Thanks again.

I've been told that TBM vs. Cut and Cover come to within a few % of each other. ie: one may be $1.00 billion, the other may be $.95 to $1.05 billion, which can fall within the contingency amount. This assumes that the construction can be done by either method.

However, if you're dealing with deep tunnels, TBM could have the advantage over C&C. If you're dealing with shallow tunnels (right under the street surface), C&C may have the advantage. If you're dealing with hard rock like volcanic granite, C&C may not work because of the need for drilling & dynamite. If you're dealing with sandy-clay soils, neither TBM nor C&C may have an advantage over the other because of the preparation needed to the soil before a tunnel could be created. Some soil conditions may preclude any type of tunneling - too hard to get through, or the soil conditions are too loose or too watery to be a stable construction site. And of course if you're trying to get across water like False Creek, you have few choices other than TBM.

However, this assumes one TBM machine doing all the work. You could speed this up by having a TBM create the westbound tunnel starting at VCC, and another TBM create the eastbound tunnel starting at Arbutus (or UBC), with each tunnel being created full-length by each TBM. Doubling the number of TBM machines & Crews means spending money quicker, but might be offset by faster completion time (and earlier start to revenues).

Another alternative is to have four TBMs running simultaneously:
a) westbound tunnel starting at VCC ending at Arbutus;
b) eastbound tunnel starting at UBC and ending at Arbutus
c) eastbound tunnel starting at Arbutus ending at VCC;
d) westbound tunnel starting at Arbutus ending at UBC;
Again, more TBMs and crews means construction is done faster and money is spent quicker ( ie: 1.5 years vs 4.5-5 years construction time), but you are also getting revenues earlier too.

The number-crunching will need to be done to see if the extra expense of running 2 or 4 TBMs and crews simultaneously to speed up construction is compensated by earlier revenues from earlier completion.
(and some friendly rivalry between the TBM crews won't hurt either)

Part of that number-crunching is the test drilling needed to be done along the route to see what the soil conditions are - those results will determine the costs of using C&C vs. TBM methods.

[jsbertram]

*deleted double post*

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

I've been told that TBM vs. Cut and Cover come to within a few % of each other. ie: one may be $1.00 billion, the other may be $.95 to $1.05 billion, which can fall within the contingency amount.

I know that this is probably a minority opinion on this forum, but I'm actually glad that Susan Heyes won her case and I hope it's upheld. I say this because cut-and-cover construction imposes an undisputable economic cost - to businesses for lost revenue and to the citizenry for inconvenience, delays and detours. I believe this cost needs to somehow be factored into the equation when a new line is built so that the best construction option for everyone is chosen.

I'm not categorically against cut-and-cover construction. I can imagine scenarios where it could well come out ahead even when the impact of indirect economic costs is taken into account. But I do think that those factors need to be considered, and the best way to do that is somehow attach a real cost to them.

[djh]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

The City has created a bylaw against cut and cover, for what it's worth.

It's very naive and uneducated of the CoV to pass a bylaw banning Cut and Cover construction. Is that really what the bylaw says, does anybody know?

There may be many construction cases where Cut and Cover is the only realistic way to progress a construction project. It may even be the only way to progress a particular part of a construction project (I'm talking about more than just the UBC Line). Are the city councillors such experts on civil engineering that they can rightfully take a tool out of the box of the engineers? Such a short-sighted decision might mean project engineers have to consider extremely expensive or complex alternatives to Cut and Cover, to get their developments completed - in some cases, prohibitively expensive, so projects get shelved.

Wouldn't it have been better - if it really is the case that the CoV have banned Cut & Cover - to have phrased a bylaw on a more general and non-technical language, viz: "Any construction that has potential to affect access to street-level property must not reduce pedestrian or street-level access; any reduction must be compensated by the developer based on year-on-year averages and projections" or something similar. This would ensure than developers made sure the businesses or residences affected were not blocked behind a wall of construction, and the developers would be ingenious in their construction and traffic mitigation solutions, and move as fast as possible to prevent any levied penalties, at their expense.

[lightrail]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

I know bored tunnel costs more than cut-and-cover, but HOW MUCH MORE? Could anyone fill me in on this with a few statistics. I'd really appreciate that.

I'm also going on the assumption that bored tunnelling is better, but is it faster, or not? Any comparison lists would be great. Thanks again.

Bored tunnelling is more expensive and takes longer usually. it also requires the trains to be deeper underground, so less convenient for the user. Bored tunnelling was used in London as early as 1902 because the roads were so narrow, digging trenches was not possible, plus London Blue Clay was ideal for tunnelling through. Bored tunnels deep underground allowed the tunnels to run under buildings and under services such as sewers and water lines. The bored tunnel under downtown Vancouver on Canada Line does make sense as cut and cover under water is difficult, it needed to be deep to pass under False Creek and the Canada Line passes under buildings (on the curve turning onto the Granville Street alignment).

Given the width of Broadway and our roads generally, bored tunnelling doesn't make any sense. All it does is save a couple years of disruption during construction, but at a high cost. Cut and cover with trains just under the roads is better in the long run - cheaper to maintain and easier to access.

Boring machines are expensive. On the Channel Tunnel when the two boring machines met mid-channel, they simply drove them deeper and buried them - cheaper than trying to take them out.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by lightrail

Bored tunnelling is more expensive and takes longer usually. it also requires the trains to be deeper underground, so less convenient for the user. Bored tunnelling was used in London as early as 1902 because the roads were so narrow, digging trenches was not possible, plus London Blue Clay was ideal for tunnelling through. Bored tunnels deep underground allowed the tunnels to run under buildings and under services such as sewers and water lines. The bored tunnel under downtown Vancouver on Canada Line does make sense as cut and cover under water is difficult, it needed to be deep to pass under False Creek and the Canada Line passes under buildings (on the curve turning onto the Granville Street alignment).

Given the width of Broadway and our roads generally, bored tunnelling doesn't make any sense. All it does is save a couple years of disruption during construction, but at a high cost. Cut and cover with trains just under the roads is better in the long run - cheaper to maintain and easier to access.

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I'm not contradicting what you say, but your statement is largely in opposition to the reply by jsbertram. He says boring is roughly the same cost as cut-and-cover (depending on soil and rock conditions, of course) and that boring is faster than cut-and-cover. Your statements are largely at odds with each other, but I make no judgements.

One thing I believe is certain. Boring is by far the better option if the tunnel is going all the way to UBC, once you get past Alma, where the escarpment rises up steeply.

[mezzanine]

I know that this is probably a minority opinion on this forum, but I'm actually glad that Susan Heyes won her case and I hope it's upheld. I say this because cut-and-cover construction imposes an undisputable economic cost - to businesses for lost revenue and to the citizenry for inconvenience, delays and detours. I believe this cost needs to somehow be factored into the equation when a new line is built so that the best construction option for everyone is chosen.

For me it boils down to priorities - how do we balance the need to protect existing residents and business and the need to build trasnit infrastructure in a cost-efficient and flexible manner? Can we protect for every contingency?

This judgement was a bad thing for transit infrastucture as IMO evergreen is on hold pending further clarification from the courts. I'm no lawyer, but this person is:

As documented in the Heyes litigation, now under appeal, the transit builders switched from tunneling to cut and cover when the cost of tunneling ballooned, an additional cost that federal and provincial funders refused to cover. Exacerbated by the poor soil conditions, cut and cover caused significant disruption to neighborhood businesses for far longer than had been predicted in the environmental assessment. None of this, of course, is unusual. What is unusual is that Ms. Hayes was awarded $600,000 for nuisance, in the absence of any evidence that they transit builders had been negligent, and even though cut and cover had been specifically approved through a federal and provincial environmental assessment.
...
I agree that it would have been fair and appropriate to build reasonable compensation for affected neighbours into the budget, in advance, and the federal government should have paid its share. But I am very concerned about the social impacts of having these issues resolved after the fact, in a civil court, where the funders who helped create the problem are nowhere to be seen, and any damages will have to be paid for by the transit riders.
Limitations on liability always cause problems for those who are thereby denied compensation for some or all of their losses. But we have such limits in several areas of law in the pursuit of a general public policy. The example I mentioned, barring claims in nuisance against municipalities for sewer and water backups, causes genuine hardship to some individuals, but every government in Canada decided that it was necessary.

http://envirolaw.com/olympic-overhang-transit-class-action/

And even implementing a mitigation funding plan has mixed results at best, and is certainly no guarantee of any store going out of business.

In all of the cases studied, direct financial assistance in the form of loans was one of the most controversial topics. Transit properties worked with local banks, cities, non-profits, and foundations to establish a loan process. It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of such a strategy, however, because examples of such programs have had mixed results. Seattle, for example, had an extensive loan program established, yet its effectiveness is challenged. Portland administered a similar program and claims more success.

http://nexus.umn.edu/Theses/ReubenCollins_ProfessionalPaper.pdf

And even if the C-line was surface transit, that's no guarantee construction won't raise the ire of local people on the line.

The city is facing a new storm over the troubled St. Clair streetcar project, in the form of a $100-million lawsuit that casts a shadow over Toronto’s massive planned light-rail expansion.


Lawyer Stephen Edell, who is representing dozens of merchants and landlords along St. Clair Avenue West, yesterday issued the claim against the city, the province and the Toronto Transit Commission.


“The record of what happened on St. Clair is a clear and obvious one,” Mr. Edell said, citing “many besieged merchants on the street, many who are holding on to their stores by the flimsiest of margins, many of whom have lost their businesses.”




Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs...ver-streetcar-debacle.aspx#ixzz0nkGOWZ2n

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

And even if the C-line was surface transit, that's no guarantee construction won't raise the ire of local people on the line.

I guess where I'm coming from is that I'd hope that in an ideal world the Susan Heyes case would inspire two results:

1) Indirect costs borne by third parties as a result of construction are factored into the decision process.

2) The above could perhaps be done by compensating third parties in return for indemnification so that court cases such as this are avoided in the future.

I know that it's naive to think that it will be that simple, but in principle I think those are laudable goals.

Of course the big downside to this is that if it significantly raises the budget cost for construction then it could put the entire project in jeopardy. But as we've seen, local business opposition could do the same thing.

[nname]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I say this because cut-and-cover construction imposes an undisputable economic cost - to businesses for lost revenue and to the citizenry for inconvenience, delays and detours.

But in some cases, bored tunnelling would just cause the same amount of distruption, if not more. Even if the entire tunnel is constructed using TBM, they still need to construct the stations using cut and cover, and the stations are usually located at intersection - which would cause much more distruptions than the construction at mid-block. And the station is deeper, meaning it would be larger and take much longer to construct - this would also cause more distruption compared to cut and cover method. Consider Davie, which is about as wide as Cambie at some point, was closed completely during Canada Line construction. If that section is built by cut and cover (lets assume it is possible), would it require the similar closure?

Originally Posted by jsbertram

I've been told that TBM vs. Cut and Cover come to within a few % of each other. ie: one may be $1.00 billion, the other may be $.95 to $1.05 billion, which can fall within the contingency amount. This assumes that the construction can be done by either method.

Is this just the cost of tunnelling, or the cost include tunnel and stations? I would think the major cost difference are the stations.

[twoNeurons]

Remember, people... it's likely the line will run under 10th. Cut n' Cover on 10th is far far far less disruptive than on Broadway itself.

[officedweller]

Agreed. It's all in the details...

[SFUVancouver]

There is a missing piece to the discussion of LRT vs RRT (SkyTrain) at the open-house meetings and that is the operations and maintanence centre (OMC). The SkyTrain network already has an OMC while any LRT/Streetcar option will require the construction of one. An OMC requires large amounts of land adjacent to the line and if LRT were run between Commercial Drive and UBC where would the OMC go? How much more would the per-kilometre cost of LRT increase if the the OMC were factored in?

In the absence of a large and readily available parcel of land along the Broadway corridor for an LRT OMC it would suggest that the RRT to Arbutus/Olympic Line LRT from Main Street Stn to UBC option will be the only viable option for LRT since it would allow the LRT component of the line to makes its way to the False Creek Flats and possibly take advantage of the City-owned land underneath the viaducts for an OMC and storage tracks. That is certainly at odds with the NEFC high level review and it could represent a major City subsidy, in the form of the opportunity cost of not realizing the highest and best use of that land.

Another option would be a below grade OMC within the footprint of the existing UBC bus loop, or possibly an at-grade OMC that would be enclosed within the envelope of a new large mixed-use building on the site of the existing bus loop. Either option would be excruciatingly expensive to build and severely trucate any LRT fleet expansion in the future and its compatability with surrounding uses would be problematic.

The bottom line is that I think the OMC issue will become a major thorn in the side of LRT advocates for the Broadway Corridor line.

[NucksFanInVan]

I agree that the OMC facility will be a challenge for LRT. But possibly also for SkyTrain... I seem to recall reading somewhere that the existing OMC at Edmonds is more or less at capacity for storage, and could do heavy service but not park the extra trains from the Evergreen line.

My suggestion would be to build a major OMC as part of the Evergreen project then extend Skytrain to UBC, taking advantage of the two storage / service yards in the 'burbs. Planning ahead is the key element.