TTC signals it has learned from troubled Spadina subway

But TTC CEO Andy Byford and chair Josh Colle have both suggested it may be time to look for a new way to deliver mega-projects.


Thestar.com
March 26, 2015
By Tess Kalinowski

There were no good options, lamented TTC chair Josh Colle.

In the end, the TTC had to find a way to complete the over-budget, late Spadina subway extension as soon as possible, he said. So the transit agency’s board approved on Thursday the hiring of an outside engineering firm to oversee the remaining 30 per cent of the project by the end of 2017.

The move will add $150 million to the subway’s $2.6 billion budget. But that is less than the $185 million that TTC CEO Andy Byford said it would cost if the TTC continued to manage the project on its own. That option, one of four that were put before the board, would also have the latest completion date - mid-2019.

Although some TTC commissioners wanted a competitive bidding process for the project management contract, the TTC will sole-source the deal and Byford confirmed he already has his eye on a company.

He will report back late this year on how the TTC proposes to better handle its next big build, the Scarborough subway.

By then though, a third-party review of all TTC capital projects - a move proposed by Colle - will also be complete.

Both he and Byford have publicly admitted that it might be time for the TTC to surrender big construction projects, given the enormous task of operating and modernizing the transit system.

One sign that the TTC has already learned from the mistakes on Spadina was the board’s approval of a recommendation to restructure another of the TTC’s mega-projects, the $562-million re-signaling of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway.

“We are indeed looking more closely at projects,” admitted Byford.

A review of the project by TTC deputy chief operating officer Mike Palmer, brought from England last year, confirmed that “the re-signaling scheme was overly complicated.

“There were too many contractors involved. We absolutely had to simplify that project in order to protect time and budget,” said Byford.

So the TTC has transferred a major piece of the automatic train control contract from Ansaldo-STS to Alstom Power Transport. The move won’t change the overall cost of the project but will reduce the number of contractors. Too many contractors have been cited as a key problem on Spadina.

The change will also mean 25 to 30 fewer weekend subway closures between now and the new signal system’s launch by 2020.

Meantime, York Region councillors approved an additional $60 million for Spadina – its share of the $150 million requirement.

“It is disappointing to us that this project has slipped off schedule and that it requires more budget funds,” said York CAO Bruce Macgregor, who was co-chair of the executive task force overseeing the Spadina project.