Valley Line LRT | TransEd/Marigold | City of Edmonton

[awstott]

It seemed odd that some of the sidewalks were replaced.

It's pretty standard to replace sections due to a poor cure or finish. Devlin construction did out neighborhood rehab and there are like 36 spots identified around our main road where pieces of the sidewalk need to be repaired. Too bad Devlin went bankrupt so they will never be fixed.

Some repairs make sense but not the volume we are seeing on the valley line. Wonder if some of it has to do with their winter construction and it being too cold to cure properly?

 

[quit]

Anyone know what the daily financial penalties to Transed are at this point?

Crazy to say, but if the piers have to be replaced, one could see the west leg almost catching up to the opening of the south leg.

 

[northlands]

I'm far from an expert on this, but I would suspect the issue is less in the shape of the piers, but in the quality of the concrete work & materials. A "Y" shaped pillar is pretty standard practice. Hopefully Marigold is working to different specs, or at least checking in with TransEd as to what went wrong.

Not to worry, probably half of Marigold Infrastructure staff are from TransEd, given TransEd's construction teams were largely winding down right before Marigold began onboarding en masse.

Ironically, EllisDon is the corp looking to build the Prairie Link high speed rail line between Edmonton and Calgary, yet they can't even get concrete poured right locally here. And they got kicked off the Jameson job. Some real bad looks for them.

 

[Gronk!]

A brief history of the twists, turns and bumps in the road to build the southeast Valley Line LRT

The latest detour on the way to ride the Valley Line came at a grand scale, with cracks forming in the giant concrete piers holding up the elevated LRT track.

edmontonjournal.com

 

[The_Cat]

See cracks, expect a repair!

 

[The_Cat]

I saw some Park Ready Mix trucks on site at Davies Station and 69 Avenue.

 

[CplKlinger]

Edmonton AM: A structural engineer explains what concrete cracks mean for the future of the Valley Line LRT

 

[Dubas]

I wonder if the 98 Avenue bridge should also be checked.

This was the first thought I had as well. They already had enough issues re-engineering that bridge once...

 

[David A]

I think Councillor Cartmell is 100% correct here. The P3 model is not responsible for the cracks, but it is not a good idea anyways.

P3 model not responsible for latest Valley Line LRT issues, Edmonton city councillor says​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-council-valley-line-southeast-lrt-1.6550441

 

[whatchyyc]

At this point, in future lines the engineers just need to copy whatever design they used in Vancouver for the raised skytrain sections. I don't recall any of the newer lines running into these types of issues, and with the seizmic issues need to account for a lot more. It should be easier and cheaper to build the same system here, even accounting for slow load and the freeze/ thaw conditions.

Plus the gigantic gantry for stringing together the precast girders looks cool as hell

 

[edmontonidiot]

I think Councillor Cartmell is 100% correct here. The P3 model is not responsible for the cracks, but it is not a good idea anyways.

P3 model not responsible for latest Valley Line LRT issues, Edmonton city councillor says​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-council-valley-line-southeast-lrt-1.6550441

I really like Tim Cartmell. I've send him a couple of emails in the past, and he responded back every time with thoughtful responses. I think he's wrong though, and he's moving goal posts. Nobody is suggesting that the P3 model itself caused the cracks, but instead, it lead to them.

The issue with the P3 model is it usually leads to the lowest bidder. A major project, with this many hands on deck, didn't fail because of design errors, and suggesting such, is a little much. You can't cut in some areas. There should have been multiple opportunities to correct these so-called design failures. How did that not happen? Where is the oversight?

I would be willing to bet that either TransEd was capable of completing the project, but felt pressured to complete deadlines, or they weren't, and the project should have been awarded to a higher bidder.

If it wasn't a P3 model, the City of Edmonton would have more say, more responsibility and more oversight, which is what makes P3 models so problematic. I don't believe for a second that this couldn't have been foreseen. I don't have a lot of faith in the city, but I have less faith in any contractors in this model. It's a recipe for disaster.

 

[EdmTrekker]

I think Councillor Cartmell is 100% correct here. The P3 model is not responsible for the cracks, but it is not a good idea anyways.

P3 model not responsible for latest Valley Line LRT issues, Edmonton city councillor says​

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-city-council-valley-line-southeast-lrt-1.6550441

Of course it is - the City agreed to that model and it is what it is and delivered what it did - a fuck up. Quit putting lipstick on the pig!!

 

[northlands]

I really like Tim Cartmell. I've send him a couple of emails in the past, and he responded back every time with thoughtful responses. I think he's wrong though, and he's moving goal posts. Nobody is suggesting that the P3 model itself caused the cracks, but instead, it lead to them.

The issue with the P3 model is it usually leads to the lowest bidder. A major project, with this many hands on deck, didn't fail because of design errors, and suggesting such, is a little much. You can't cut in some areas. There should have been multiple opportunities to correct these so-called design failures. How did that not happen? Where is the oversight?

I would be willing to bet that either TransEd was capable of completing the project, but felt pressured to complete deadlines, or they weren't, and the project should have been awarded to a higher bidder.

If it wasn't a P3 model, the City of Edmonton would have more say, more responsibility and more oversight, which is what makes P3 models so problematic. I don't believe for a second that this couldn't have been foreseen. I don't have a lot of faith in the city, but I have less faith in any contractors in this model. It's a recipe for disaster.

The P3 model is absolutely flawed for a project of this scope, and I love to crap on the City, but I'm struggling to see this as a low bidder issue. There were only three bidders for the project and supposedly a more holistic approach was taken which included evaluating the experience of the consortiums in delivering large scale infrastructure and light rail projects.

TransEd's design and construction is by Bechtel (the largest EPC firm in the world) and EllisDon (one of the largest GCs in Canada), plus assistance from IBI & Arup (both experienced consultants in the engineering/project mgmt world). Of course, there's a lot more to proper due diligence in procurement for a project of this scale beyond those simple metrics, but these aren't dinky inexperienced companies so I think it's fairly safe to assume there was due diligence done. I think your former point was more to the mark (pressured to complete deadlines), in which that's a failure of the consortium and hard to place onto the City given the nature of P3 projects with the little oversight nor responsibility. If TransEd felt they could not meet the outlined project milestones, they should have either included that in their bid or not submitted a bid. Maybe they did and the City did move forward with TransEd regardless, but I suspect we'll never know.

I think all we can really expect from here until it opens is a helluva lot of finger pointing, but for us on the outside looking in, it's pretty hard to discern the real liability.

 

[edmontonidiot]

The P3 model is absolutely flawed for a project of this scope, and I love to crap on the City, but I'm struggling to see this as a low bidder issue. There were only three bidders for the project and supposedly a more holistic approach was taken which included evaluating the experience of the consortiums in delivering large scale infrastructure and light rail projects.

TransEd's design and construction is by Bechtel (the largest EPC firm in the world) and EllisDon (one of the largest GCs in Canada), plus assistance from IBI & Arup (both experienced consultants in the engineering/project mgmt world). Of course, there's a lot more to proper due diligence in procurement for a project of this scale beyond those simple metrics, but these aren't dinky inexperienced companies so I think it's fairly safe to assume there was due diligence done. I think your former point was more to the mark (pressured to complete deadlines), in which that's a failure of the consortium and hard to place onto the City given the nature of P3 projects with the little oversight nor responsibility. If TransEd felt they could not meet the outlined project milestones, they should have either included that in their bid or not submitted a bid. Maybe they did and the City did move forward with TransEd regardless, but I suspect we'll never know.

I think all we can really expect from here until it opens is a helluva lot of finger pointing, but for us on the outside looking in, it's pretty hard to discern the real liability.

Yeah, you might be correct on this. I thought I read somewhere, either from Mack Male or someone else adressing the issue on how bidding is set up in this model, but I dunno. I'm working, plus studying for some more some certification's. 16+ work days; my brain hurts right now.

I definitely agree on the finger pointing 100%. I doubt without any inside info, that anyone will know who’s actually at fault here.

 

[David A]

Of course it is - the City agreed to that model and it is what it is and delivered what it did - a fuck up. Quit putting lipstick on the pig!!

Well less we forget, there was the Metro line big f*ck up that took years to fix and a long list of other projects with problems (bridge, overpass ....)

Different companies, different structure of project. What is the one thing all of these projects have in common - the City of Edmonton. Coincidence? N0 !!!!!!