OT: OT thread number 11 | No More Bad News PLEASE!

[joestevens29]

I just... that seems shocking to me. Particularly since it hasn't even been cold yet. Concrete shouldn't really have risks of cracking to high temperatures from thermal expansion, as the concrete expanding would put it in compression. Effect would be strengthening as it's basically free pre-tensioning.

Concrete is very strong in compression, if it's failing in August that suggests a severe design oversight that would be even more dangerous in the cold when you'd expect the concrete's thermal expansion to put it in tension where concrete is a weaker material.

And Edmonton's design ambient temperature is like 50degC per building code.... that's not even considering global warming effects where you'd expect 20 to 30 years from now that 50degC looks more like 60degC. I mean it was hot this year, but not like scorching record breaking hot.

Somebody f***ed up big time, may even go to jail. In the very least, I can't imagine they ever practice engineering in Alberta again.

They f***ed up so bad on 75st. They had to redesign shit because when the put up the piers to cross the road they realized that if they built across the way it was designed that it wouldn't work. I can't remember what they said was the issue in the news, but it never made it to the news that the original design was flawed.

So who the hell knows what they did back then and if the piers I heard about are the ones in question.

I question if the concrete used ended up being the right type and if it actually passed tests. There is a lot of shit that gets passed that should fail, but for some reason they do these whole wait and see scenarios. It might not end up being an issue, so lets maybe not look at it now is the motto. Or we know life expectancy is reduced so we will come up with a number that we will penalize you with. Only to find out the original guess on expectancy was wrong and the cost is greatly higher than what it should be.

Think we should be thankful they found this now and not after the warranty period when taxpayers would be screwed and have to foot another bill

Edit: I'd be curious what the penalties are for the delay on this project.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I just... that seems shocking to me. Particularly since it hasn't even been cold yet. Concrete shouldn't really have risks of cracking to high temperatures from thermal expansion, as the concrete expanding would put it in compression. Effect would be strengthening as it's basically free pre-tensioning.

Concrete is very strong in compression, if it's failing in August that suggests a severe design oversight that would be even more dangerous in the cold when you'd expect the concrete's thermal expansion to put it in tension where concrete is a weaker material.

And Edmonton's design ambient temperature is like 50degC per building code.... that's not even considering global warming effects where you'd expect 20 to 30 years from now that 50degC looks more like 60degC. I mean it was hot this year, but not like scorching record breaking hot.

Somebody f***ed up big time, may even go to jail. In the very least, I can't imagine they ever practice engineering in Alberta again.

First thing I thought is that Deep cold cycles are more of a challenge to concrete. lol in our temperate climate that they're saying its a heat related problem. lol how do they even build in Arizona?

That 18 of the 44 piers are already showing cracks means the problem is endemic, and not at all isolated, and hints clearly at a design and engineering flaw rather than one or two piers not being constructed right. What a f***ing boondoggle. The reality now is that all of those elevated tracks are going to have to be removed and worse scenario (or best?) all the piers removed and new Piers made. This could take years at the snails pace this thing has been build at.

Of note there were also monumental f*** ups at the Whitemud freeway crossing. You'll see few mentions of this in print but they had to install and remove the bridge sections 2-3 times to get it installed right. Assuming that it is... They wouldn't fit. What does that say about how much expansion factor alone was factored in for a summer/winter climate?

I wonder how many problems there will continue to be on this line. What another LRT nightmare in this city.

They f***ed up so bad on 75st. They had to redesign shit because when the put up the piers to cross the road they realized that if they built across the way it was designed that it wouldn't work. I can't remember what they said was the issue in the news, but it never made it to the news that the original design was flawed.

So who the hell knows what they did back then and if the piers I heard about are the ones in question.

I question if the concrete used ended up being the right type and if it actually passed tests. There is a lot of shit that gets passed that should fail, but for some reason they do these whole wait and see scenarios. It might not end up being an issue, so lets maybe not look at it now is the motto. Or we know life expectancy is reduced so we will come up with a number that we will penalize you with. Only to find out the original guess on expectancy was wrong and the cost is greatly higher than what it should be.

Think we should be thankful they found this now and not after the warranty period when taxpayers would be screwed and have to foot another bill

Just mentioned the same thing and that it had precious little mention in the news. What I heard from speaking with reps is that the sections didn't fit. I mean its only a span of a freeway. They got even that limited span wrong. That doesn't bode well either for the myriad problems they probably end up with on the elevated sections.

Lets be clear too that Whitemud freeway was impacted for at least 3 years while they were trying to get their shit together building a standard "light rail" freeway overpass. If the Henday was built like this it would take a century to complete. Theres more overpasses on Gateway alone than this whole LRT project. Of course that was a provincial project. not a f***ed up City of Edmonton undertaking.

 

[joestevens29]

First thing I thought is that Deep cold cycles are more of a challenge to concrete. lol in our temperate climate that they're saying its a head related problem. lol how do they even build in Arizona?

That 18 of the 44 piers are already showing cracks means the problem is endemic, and not at all isolated, and hints clearly at a design and engineering flaw rather than one or two piers not being constructed right. What a f***ing boondoggle. The reality now is that all of those elevated tracks are going to have to be removed and worse scenario (or best?) all the piers removed and new Piers made. This could take years at the snails pace this thing has been build at.

Of note there were also monumental f*** ups at the Whitemud freeway crossing. You'll see few mentions of this in print but they had to install and remove the bridge sections 2-3 times to get it installed right. Assuming that it is... They wouldn't fit. What does that say about how much expansion factor alone was factored in for a summer/winter climate?

I wonder how many problems there will continue to be on this line. What another LRT nightmare in this city.


Just mentioned the same thing and that it had precious little mention in the news. What I heard from speaking with reps is that the sections didn't fit. I mean its only a span of a freeway. They got even that limited span wrong. That doesn't bode well either for the myriad problems they probably end up with on the elevated sections.

Lets be clear too that Whitemud freeway was impacted for at least 3 years while they were trying to get their shit together building a "light rail" freeway overpass. If the Henday was built like this it would take a century to complete. Theres more overpasses on Gateway alone than this whole LRT project. Of course that was a provincial project. not a f***ed up City of Edmonton undertaking.

I don't know that they'll remove them. They'll find a way to work around doing that.

They should remove them, but there is no way that would ever happen. It would end up in the courts with people pointing figures in every direction.

For the sake of taxpayers I sure as hell hope whatever they end up doing to fix it comes with a damn good warranty

 

[Drivesaitl]

I don't know that they'll remove them. They'll find a way to work around doing that.

They should remove them, but there is no way that would ever happen. It would end up in the courts with people pointing figures in every direction.

For the sake of taxpayers I sure as hell hope whatever they end up doing to fix it comes with a damn good warranty

Doesn't the P3 contract include operations time period? Typically these can be from 25yrs on such projects. I thought one of the reasons that this type of project and funding was undertaken was to avoid municipalities being on the hook.

just checked. The operations contract on this line is supposed to be for a 30yr timeline.

 

[joestevens29]

I don't know why, but this city just can't have any sort of large project without major hiccups. There is so much that happens that taxpayers never hear about, but it's not like our City council ever does anything about it. Instead they worry about vehicles that are too loud and want to start restricting times when certain vehicles can be in certain areas.


This is a favourite of mine as well. This is one of many projects that came in way over budget. Like who in the f*** is giving them their budget numbers? Whoever is running some of these departments needs a good kick in the ass.

50 Street rail overpass costs up by $34.3 million from last budget, more than double 2018 estimate

Building overpass at 50 Street rail crossing will cost $34.3 million more, council heard before unanimously approving the boost on Monday.

edmontonjournal.com

Doesn't the P3 contract include operations time period? Typically these can be from 25yrs on such projects. I thought one of the reasons that this type of project and funding was undertaken was to avoid municipalities being on the hook.

just checked. The operations contract on this line is supposed to be for a 30yr timeline.

Yep my bad. Completely forgot about that.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Groat road bridge buckling. Remember that one. Just happened to be on the main road arterial to DT and resulted in such a lengthy delay in finishing that project. That project was supposed to be a signpost in not awarding projects to the lowest bidder. Then the Walterdale bridge fiasco. or the Metro line testing. The list is so long. What this city touches it f***s up. If the city designed the Henday it still wouldn't be built.

I'd like to the see the city even try (no I wouldn't) to construct some level crossing like the High Level bridge now. Even a century ago without all the heavy equipment and engineering available today they could construct faster.

Edmonton must provide unintended case example on what not to do engineering courses. Oh look, all the steel spans for the simple span bridge buckled, we must have done something wrong...

Try building the Firth of Forth bridge...

 

[iCanada]

Hopefully city has some good liquidated damages and performance bonds on this contract.

TransEd is a one time shell company for a partnership between EllisDon and Bechtel and Bombardier, with Fengate Capital as their financial partner.

If we don't have performance bonds secured by a 3rd party TransEd likely won't exist if we ever go to collect future damages.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Hopefully city has some good liquidated damages and performance bonds on this contract.

TransEd is a one time shell company for a partnership between EllisDon and Bechtel and Bombardier, with Fengate Capital as their financial partner.

If we don't have performance bonds secured by a 3rd party TransEd likely won't exist if we ever go to collect future damages.

Nailed it. Thats the difficulty with such arrangements and doing them with shelled consortiums. Who really is left holding the bag 10,20yrs later when this line could be a worse shitshow?

Not a good look at all on EllisDon either as they would be most involved on the construction/design end.

 

[Stoneman89]

Southeast LRT delayed yet again.

Unbelievable.

Well actually it is believable. Theres been so many delays and this one is "indefinite"

Long-delayed $1.8-billion Valley Line LRT stymied yet again

TransEd CEO Ronald Joncas said cracks discovered in concrete piers that support elevated tracks, crews now “exploring options” to strengthen

edmontonjournal.com

So now the piers on the elevated portion of the line are now mostly cracking. jebus my first thought when they built this was consult with the Skytrain engineering and just replicate exactly what elevated supports are there. But they went with different support engineering.

This is an extreme f*** up at the midpoint of the line. Note that they are now just going to start consultation on how to fix this HUGE problem. The news they're not telling people now because taxpayers, transit users will go nuts is this delay could be very long. It took them along time to build the supports and elevated rail structures currently there. The cracks are apparently significant enough to pre-empt even testing of cars going over them. I mean this is a transit development that was delayed one year just figuring out what to do about an unknown block of cement under the river when they were building the bridge.

Why have some of these idiots not been fired by now? This Joncas tool sounds like he couldn't find his ass if he used both hands. Every single person connected with this catastrophe should be canned.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Why have some of these idiots not been fired by now? This Joncas tool sounds like he couldn't find his ass if he used both hands. Every single person connected with this catastrophe should be canned.

I wonder how many asshats working with City Hall that have been finding worst contractors for decades are still around or collecting their handsome retirements. Basically everything connected with the city is worth canning and starting over from scratch. Except then they might hire worse candidates. Joncas himself doesn't exactly instill confidence.

But this has been the typical big expenditure COE project from the beginning. One person working, 25 people holding up shovels.

No word of a lie. I've seen up to 20people at one intersection getting paid all day to watch the train go by. Apparently they have a dozen replacements for everytime the couple people holding up stop signs get tired of their job. I've driven the complete section of line before this concrete pier fiasco and they have to have employed hundreds of people just to watch the f***ing train testing. They have them in place. At each station, intersection, crossing, etc. Its beyond the pale.

What do you do? "I get paid"

The testing of the line has been going on now for a complete year. I underestimated how long its been earlier. This very short 13km line is now 2yrs late with no sign of ever opening.

Heres more of the snails pace these things go at. The problems with the Concrete piers was detected by inspectors and reported on JULY 18. Thats several weeks ago. They've done essentially nothing but navel gaze and build some scaffolding and cover up the piers since then. They still don't have a clue what to do. What they been doing the past close to a month? Figuring out how they were going to explain this way and hiring legal teams?

Why did this come out August 10. Every taxpayer or resident deserves to know. It took almost a month just to report this latest fiasco to the public.

 

[bellagiobob]

 

[joestevens29]

Hopefully city has some good liquidated damages and performance bonds on this contract.

TransEd is a one time shell company for a partnership between EllisDon and Bechtel and Bombardier, with Fengate Capital as their financial partner.

If we don't have performance bonds secured by a 3rd party TransEd likely won't exist if we ever go to collect future damages.

I'm very curious on performance bonds, because they can be rather tricky.

I'll have to investigate on how they work on a P3 with a long maintenance, but how useless our City is I can see things being messed up.

A lot of times you get a performance bond for the length of the expected time to complete the work. Now that the work has been extended has the City actually gotten a new bond?

I'm wondering if projects like this would have 2 bonds. One for the initial work and then one for the maintenance.

 

[joestevens29]

I wonder how many asshats working with City Hall that have been finding worst contractors for decades are still around or collecting their handsome retirements. Basically everything connected with the city is worth canning and starting over from scratch. Except then they might hire worse candidates. Joncas himself doesn't exactly instill confidence.

But this has been the typical big expenditure COE project from the beginning. One person working, 25 people holding up shovels.

No word of a lie. I've seen up to 20people at one intersection getting paid all day to watch the train go by. Apparently they have a dozen replacements for everytime the couple people holding up stop signs get tired of their job. I've driven the complete section of line before this concrete pier fiasco and they have to have employed hundreds of people just to watch the f***ing train testing. They have them in place. At each station, intersection, crossing, etc. Its beyond the pale.

What do you do? "I get paid"

The testing of the line has been going on now for a complete year. I underestimated how long its been earlier. This very short 13km line is now 2yrs late with no sign of ever opening.

Heres more of the snails pace these things go at. The problems with the Concrete piers was detected by inspectors and reported on JULY 18. Thats several weeks ago. They've done essentially nothing but navel gaze and build some scaffolding and cover up the piers since then. They still don't have a clue what to do. What they been doing the past close to a month? Figuring out how they were going to explain this way and hiring legal teams?

Why did this come out August 10. Every taxpayer or resident deserves to know. It took almost a month just to report this latest fiasco to the public.

I don't know that there is anything wrong with this. They probably found issues, but aren't going to run to the public immediately. Probably got more opinions

 

[bellagiobob]

There is a better chance that the Gondola ends up moving people downtown earlier and at a more productive pace than the LRT. Didn’t think they could screw things up worse than they did with the Metro line, but that was apparently just the warmup act.

 

[The Head Crusher]

The more and more my kids make me watch Paw Patrol, the more I empathize with Mayor Humdinger. His methods are questionable, but his intentions are for the best of the residence of Foggy Bottom. Plus he isn't bumbling from one emergency to another like a particular chicken wielding mayor.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I don't know that there is anything wrong with this. They probably found issues, but aren't going to run to the public immediately. Probably got more opinions

The multiple "we don't know whats going on, don't know why this occurred is not necessarily in line with that. This is a Civic project with civic investment. Its evident Sohi found out late as well. Sohi can be reactive in the moment. He was still feeling that moment so I wonder if word got to him late as well. He was fuming.

But overall I was commenting on how long it took just to clear throat on the latest boondoggle. That doesn't bode well for how long its going to take to remedy when they're still getting around to disseminating info. Everything on this project is on a snails pace including release of pertinent, critical information.

I don't doubt that Transed and its consortium are already looking for legal opinions. This is the piers of an elevated track segment showing uniform crack problems and the line hasn't even been in operation yet. Can't be understated what a huge problem this is and the issues are described as "significant".

The reality when shit hits the fan like this is people innately want to run and hide. I wonder if we see some firings and resignations.

 

[Fixed to Ruin]

The more and more my kids make me watch Paw Patrol, the more I empathize with Mayor Humdinger. His methods are questionable, but his intentions are for the best of the residence of Foggy Bottom. Plus he isn't bumbling from one emergency to another like a particular chicken wielding mayor.

What about the episode where he brings the smelly flower to stink out Adventure Bay. How does that help anyone?

 

[Fixed to Ruin]

The LRT has cracks in its concrete piers. Hmm, where have i seen that before?

 

[The Head Crusher]

What about the episode where he brings the smelly flower to stink out Adventure Bay. How does that help anyone?

Clearly it will make Adventure Bay less desirable place to live or visit, thus improving the appeal of Foggy Bottom. This intern brings more business to and/or improves the value of property of those in Foggy Bottom.

Again methods questionable, but the intent behind them is in the best interest of his town.

 

[Fixed to Ruin]

Clearly it will make Adventure Bay less desirable place to live or visit, thus improving the appeal of Foggy Bottom. This intern brings more business to and/or improves the value of property of those in Foggy Bottom.

Again methods questionable, but the intent behind them is in the best interest of his town.

Can't argue with that.

 

[Senor Catface]

Crazy.

@Buffaloed passed away.

Anybody who has been on the boards for a long time knows he was a big part in keeping it together.

 

[McDNicks17]

Crazy.

@Buffaloed passed away.

Anybody who has been on the boards for a long time knows he was a big part in keeping it together.

Really sad news.

The original Admin. This place wouldn't exist without him.

 

[yukoner88]

Professional ball cleaner......... Right on cue

 

[Slats432]

Crazy.

@Buffaloed passed away.

Anybody who has been on the boards for a long time knows he was a big part in keeping it together.

 

[Stoneman89]

Professional ball cleaner......... Right on cue

I wonder how she is at "multi-tasking".