Valley Line LRT/ Valley Line West | ?m | ?s | City of Edmonton

I see more bollards going up at points where the track crosses (e.g., 83 Street South of Whyte). Also,, a bunch of concrete work taking place at a few intersections.
 
EtoV said:
Yup its pretty convenient that the CPC was able to force cities to use P3 funding, and now that the CPC are out of power conservative slanted papers are able to put the blame on cities and conveniently ignore that at the time, the choice was P3, or no LRT at all.
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Well, we've had "no LRT at all" for the past 2+ years, P3 or no P3.

You also forget that a P3 was used for the Canada Line in Vancouver and Richmond, and it has been very successful. Opened ahead of schedule, ridership exceeding expectations. The belief at the time was that other municipalities would be able to deliver high-priority, big-ticket infrastructure projects using a similar arrangement and have equal success.

The fact that Edmonton and Ottawa screwed up with their LRT P3s doesn't mean the concept itself is flawed.
 
The_Cat said:
I wonder how many Valley Line LRT meetings degenerated into “do it this way” from some authority.
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The problem, as we've seen in Ottawa as well, is that municipal governments are promising and demanding incompatible things from major transit projects. In Edmonton with the Valley Line the city was delivering to Mill Woods the long-promised rapid rail transit to downtown, but simultaneously insisted that the system would be "sensitive to neighbourhoods", have multiple local stops and have a minimal footprint. The city claims that the system will offer superior travel times to buses, yet admits the LRT won't necessarily have signal priority (unlike the Capital and Metro Lines). The transportation department claims that the line's crossings won't cause major congestion, yet declined to insist on grade separation at major crossings like 82 Avenue.

It was the same in Ottawa. The transportation department (rubber stamped by municipal council) insisted that they wanted a tram, not a Metro vehicle. Yet the volume of passengers they wanted the system to carry was Metro-grade. The city insisted that a proven vehicle be used, even though they were aware that no manufacturer currently offered a vehicle that exactly met Ottawa's requirements. Municipal officials wanted a tram that was already in service elsewhere, yet the model that Alstom tweaked in order to satisfy Ottawa's demands had never operated in temperatures as cold as Ottawa's.

The whole mess with the Valley Line is the result of the city wanting a bunch of things that simply don't mesh. It's like going to a car dealership and telling the salesperson that you want a high-performance car with top-of-the-line features but don't want to pay any more than $25,000 and won't buy anything used. At some point, somebody has to say "You can't get everything you're asking for. There is no one, nowhere, who will deliver exactly what you want for the price you're willing to pay."
 
TravellingChris said:
The problem, as we've seen in Ottawa as well, is that municipal governments are promising and demanding incompatible things from major transit projects. In Edmonton with the Valley Line the city was delivering to Mill Woods the long-promised rapid rail transit to downtown, but simultaneously insisted that the system would be "sensitive to neighbourhoods", have multiple local stops and have a minimal footprint. The city claims that the system will offer superior travel times to buses, yet admits the LRT won't necessarily have signal priority (unlike the Capital and Metro Lines). The transportation department claims that the line's crossings won't cause major congestion, yet declined to insist on grade separation at major crossings like 82 Avenue.

It was the same in Ottawa. The transportation department (rubber stamped by municipal council) insisted that they wanted a tram, not a Metro vehicle. Yet the volume of passengers they wanted the system to carry was Metro-grade. The city insisted that a proven vehicle be used, even though they were aware that no manufacturer currently offered a vehicle that exactly met Ottawa's requirements. Municipal officials wanted a tram that was already in service elsewhere, yet the model that Alstom tweaked in order to satisfy Ottawa's demands had never operated in temperatures as cold as Ottawa's.

The whole mess with the Valley Line is the result of the city wanting a bunch of things that simply don't mesh. It's like going to a car dealership and telling the salesperson that you want a high-performance car with top-of-the-line features but don't want to pay any more than $25,000 and won't buy anything used. At some point, somebody has to say "You can't get everything you're asking for. There is no one, nowhere, who will deliver exactly what you want for the price you're willing to pay."
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The consortium new exactly what was wanted and bid according if they can’t meet that obligation it is 100% on them no one is asking them to exceed their obligation. What does sensitive to neighbourhoods have to do with fault signal cable or shoddy pier design? Answer. Absolutely nothing.
 
it doesn’t matter if it’s p3 or design/bid/build or ipd or design/build or construction management or fixed price…

if those setting it up and those participating in it all do their jobs well, the project will go smoothly. if any of them don’t do their job well - or don’t understand their job - then it won’t.

it’s less about the form of delivery and contracts used and all about good team building and management.
 
I still wonder if some of the contractors (or subcontractors) thought of this as a job they could make a lot of bucks on.
 
The_Cat said:
I still wonder if some of the contractors (or subcontractors) thought of this as a job they could make a lot of bucks on.
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well none of the bid or joined the team with the intention of losing money (nor should they).

as to whether the intention was "to make a lot of bucks", even within a p3 - and for the p3 proponents themselves - it was a competitive process so it's not likely anyone would have been successful with that approach.

if anything, it's my guess that too many of the participants ended up being under water almost from day one, most likely from either having underbid or underestimated the length of time the project would take (if you have allowed for overhead in your bid for 24 months and the project takes 60 months) or both. the only way to survive is then to try and maintain performance at absolute minimum standards, push for extras wherever possible, and hope to get to the end unscathed. the more of that that is taking place, the greater the likelihood for the train wreck we've been watching unfold.

i have no inside knowledge whatsoever but all the signs are there. as to who’s at fault, it's ultimately with the party that set up and managed the process because it's a process management failure, not an individual contractor or sub-contractor failure.
 
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