Spring Garden Streetscape

[ILoveHalifax]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Easy for a city planner to say regarding loading. Try moving a heavy pallet of goods down those sidewalks. Assuming you could even get your truck onto one of those side streets in the first place. This is shaping up to be another HRM planning disaster.

...over snowbanks, icy sidewalks, slush/snow covered sidewalks

[atbw]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Easy for a city planner to say regarding loading. Try moving a heavy pallet of goods down those sidewalks. Assuming you could even get your truck onto one of those side streets in the first place. This is shaping up to be another HRM planning disaster.

The side streets probably will be tighter, but some are getting rearranged to be one way so...we'll see I guess. I don't see the trucks, as they are, navigating those bump out curbs extremely well though. As for moving goods, it might actually be less of a pain with more sidewalk space.

[Summerville]

you make it sound as if there are currently loading docks along the street front.

Considering the newer developments on the street on both sides,...which stores are actually serviced directly from Spring Garden Road? most appear to have loading docks on the side streets. And anything delivered to a store that is serviced from SPR would have to be delivered by hand any way.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Summerville

you make it sound as if there are currently loading docks along the street front.

There are. They are called parking spaces, loading zones or taxi stands, none of which appear in this new proposal.

It is rather different moving a pallet across a sidewalk versus moving one along a sidewalk full of pedestrians for a full block.

[Dmajackson]

The tender was released today for this project. It closes on March 30th. Add in time to evaluate and approve a bid means construction should begin sometime in May/June.

[mleblanc]

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

The tender was released today for this project. It closes on March 30th. Add in time to evaluate and approve a bid means construction should begin sometime in May/June.

Shame this took so long. The pandemic would have been a perfect time for this to be done.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by mleblanc

Shame this took so long. The pandemic would have been a perfect time for this to be done.

The pandemic is/was a big fail for public works in Canada. Last summer was the perfect time to do outdoor projects. The economy was soft, traffic was low, and the covid risk was low to nonexistent. The failure to take advantage of the situation is not unique to Halifax.

Cities really need to have a diverse range of projects that are "shovel ready" at any time.

[Keith P.]

Another street wrecked. Hope some of the businesses can survive, but this in summer 2021 combined with COVID 2020 is a double whammy.

[atbw]

Originally Posted by mleblanc

Shame this took so long. The pandemic would have been a perfect time for this to be done.

I think this one was banking on a slower vaccine roll-out and a summer more similar to last. With the accelerated roll-out, I think that calculus has changed. Still, better to have it done now than next year when things are much more likely to be back to pre-pandemic levels.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Meh... I don't see the timing as much of a big deal. Construction is inconvenient, and will always be.

We can't base construction schedules on the timing of a pandemic. It has to follow the normal procedures, and people will adjust to the inconvenience as they always do. We are an adaptable species.

[ns_kid]

It's being reported that three bids to undertake the Spring Garden Road revitalization have come in well over budget. Brycon Construction put in the lowest bid at $11.2 million, $800,000 over budget. Other bids, from Dexter and Ocean, were even higher.

Despite the sticker shock, Sue Uteck of the SGR Business Association says she hopes the work will go ahead this summer. Councillor Mason agrees, saying, "Now really is the time to do this work, not once economic recovery has really started next summer."

[Saul Goode]

With material prices and labor availability continuing to change so rapidly I don't think we should be at all surprised by this.

With things so fluid right now and for the foreseeable future, I'm not certain whether HRM should just bite the bullet and go ahead anyway, but there's certainly an argument that that would be the right thing to do.

[atbw]

Originally Posted by Saul Goode

With material prices and labor availability continuing to change so rapidly I don't think we should be at all surprised by this.

With things so fluid right now and for the foreseeable future, I'm not certain whether HRM should just bite the bullet and go ahead anyway, but there's certainly an argument that that would be the right thing to do.

I think with things still being more locked down now than they would be next summer, it’s still the right time. I’m sure businesses would prefer to serve next years tourists with a new streetscape vs. a construction site.

Though the Mills building project, and Clyde Street projects have combined to make walking in the area an absolute pain.

[Saul Goode]

Originally Posted by atbw

I think with things still being more locked down now than they would be next summer, it’s still the right time.

I tend to agree. My comment was actually more a consideration of the extra cost - do we eat it now or later? I think I vote now. It'll certainly never get cheaper and it's virtually inevitable that the work will be done at some point no matter what.

The project has been bandied about for a decade. Time to spit or get off the lot. Wait - that's not quite how that saying goes, is it?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Saul Goode

I tend to agree. My comment was actually more a consideration of the extra cost - do we eat it now or later? I think I vote now (it'll certainly never get cheaper) - and it's virtually inevitable that the work will be done at some point.

The "sticker shock" reporting often feels pretty arbitrary. What if $13M had been the chosen value and the bidders came under? Or maybe they bid $X + some number they think the city will accept. Then of course there are the cost overruns after the contract is awarded. Does awarding a higher contract value up front tend to reduce overruns? I don't know.

We are in a period when the government is more or less printing money and we're seeing inflation in some areas (e.g. construction materials) even though the CPI is not very high. These cost increases are not really surprising. But life goes on and cities still need to maintain their infrastructure. That ties in with another somewhat odd aspect of this, how infrastructure renewal downtown is often presented as a special extra. The sidewalks and layout of SGR do not seem to reflect the present needs of the street and a lot of the physical infrastructure is quite old and tired.

[Saul Goode]

Originally Posted by someone123

The "sticker shock" reporting often feels pretty arbitrary. What if $13M had been the chosen value and the bidders came under? Or maybe they bid $X + some number they think the city will accept. Then of course there are the cost overruns after the contract is awarded. Does awarding a higher contract value up front tend to reduce overruns? I don't know.

We are in a period when the government is more or less printing money and we're seeing inflation in some areas (e.g. construction materials) even though the CPI is not very high. These cost increases are not really surprising. But life goes on and cities still need to maintain their infrastructure. That ties in with another somewhat odd aspect of this, how infrastructure renewal downtown is often presented as a special extra. The sidewalks and layout of SGR do not seem to reflect the present needs of the street and a lot of the physical infrastructure is quite old and tired.

All good points, and all lead me to the same conclusion - do it now.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

The "sticker shock" reporting often feels pretty arbitrary. What if $13M had been the chosen value and the bidders came under? Or maybe they bid $X + some number they think the city will accept. Then of course there are the cost overruns after the contract is awarded. Does awarding a higher contract value up front tend to reduce overruns? I don't know.

However, it's not arbitrary. When contracts are created to be put out for tender, cost estimates are calculated beforehand. In this case the estimates were probably calculated before pandemic cost increases came into effect, and thus the "sticker shock" when contractors came back with pricing based on current costs.

Cost overruns only occur if a problem arises that wasn't foreseen and thus covered in the contract. Therefore, a higher cost up front wouldn't result in cost savings from overruns. It might result in a better quality job with a longer lifespan and less repairs/maintenance in the future, but that's a separate issue.

Originally Posted by someone123

We are in a period when the government is more or less printing money and we're seeing inflation in some areas (e.g. construction materials) even though the CPI is not very high. These cost increases are not really surprising. But life goes on and cities still need to maintain their infrastructure. That ties in with another somewhat odd aspect of this, how infrastructure renewal downtown is often presented as a special extra. The sidewalks and layout of SGR do not seem to reflect the present needs of the street and a lot of the physical infrastructure is quite old and tired.

I agree. It should be done now as the costs are not going to decrease anytime soon. Budget could be taken from something of lower priority, like that silly flyover ramp off the Macdonald, for example.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Looks like it is moving ahead:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...mber-1.6052457

Part of Spring Garden Road in downtown Halifax will be closed to vehicles until the end of November, starting on Monday.

The closure will allow streetscape work to take place between Queen and South Park streets.

The popular shopping area will remain open to pedestrians.

Bus stops on the affected stretch of road will be moved to Morris Street, where the routes will be detoured.

Sue Uteck, the executive director of the Spring Garden Road Business Commission, said her organization has been working with merchants in the area since early January to prepare them for the construction.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

However, it's not arbitrary. When contracts are created to be put out for tender, cost estimates are calculated beforehand. In this case the estimates were probably calculated before pandemic cost increases came into effect, and thus the "sticker shock" when contractors came back with pricing based on current costs.

Sure, but to get at my point imagine 2 scenarios.

1) The price of project inputs goes up in 2019. HRM staff estimate in 2020 that it will cost $20M. The winning bid accepted by HRM council is $19M.

2) HRM staff estimate in 2020 that it will cost $18M. The price of project inputs goes up in 2021. The winning bid accepted by HRM council is $19M.

Scenario (2) is a "cost overrun" scenario with attendant news articles. Scenario (1) is the opposite, maybe with some good news articles. Both result in the same expenditure. Ultimately the core questions are what the city spends and what the value of the service is. Maybe we can say something about the accuracy of projected costs too but I doubt that HRM staff can accurately predict events like the pandemic.

Note the overall background here is growth, inflation, and HRM delays for one reason or another. So gradual escalation in costs is going to be the norm.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Looks like it is moving ahead:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...mber-1.6052457

Someone should take an inventory of businesses on SGR that are currently operating (no doubt many on life support already due to the lockdown) and then do a comparison in a year's time when this is done and the street is made hostile to visitors from outside the immediate neighborhood. We could well see SGR turned into a much larger and more tragic Granville Mall wasteland.