Quote:
Originally Posted by ken0042
I think it could be started now. Keep in mind there are a lot of steps needed before a shovel hits the ground. I can't see the planning, bidding, and awarding of the contract taking less than a year. At that point (January 2012) the guys building the West leg will be on different kinds of construction. The overhead trusses and tunnels will all be dug; and they will be laying track, running cable, and installing cool LED lights at the stations.
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That is a good point. If they can make it work like than then good. I just think there are other factors rather than just plopping down money for the LRT.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazrim
The same contractor would only be used if they sucessfully won the bid for the project, and there's no guarantee that would happen. Single sourcing a project as large as an LRT line would never happen.
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Well that is obvious.
I think that if the current contractor is willing to give a discount since they would not need to transport equipment, it is not a reaching conclusion to assume that they would be able to provide the most competitive pricing.
The point is, sure lots could get done but if the money/contractors time/planning time will have those funds expended for something that isn't useful it would make more sense to wait a while. For example, and this is kind of simplified, you wouldn't want to buy land, build station, lay track and run out of money and only be able to have stations reach from the Eastern edge of 10th Ave to Lynnwood or Ogden and then be waiting on money for stations and tunneling in downtown and south of Glenmore.
Something else, I just thought of: The whole 24th St/Ogden Rd/Glenmore interchange that is in planning would need to be pretty much finished (or at least started) to incorporate the crossing at Glenmore for the LRT. No idea on the time table for that, if it has even gone past the planning stages.
The LRT should be a one shot deal, unless the current economic client means that we can get it built cheap now, using some alternate source of funding rather than Greentrip (P3 etc)