The Scarborough Subway project got a major kick down the track when the Toronto Transit Commission voted to award a contract to Scarborough Link Joint Venture, a consortium of transit and development firms, to manage the project on its behalf during its most recent meeting.

This group would manage the project scope, budget and schedule for all phases of the project, through to the end of the project to extend the TTC’s 2 Bloor - Danforth subway line northeastward to the Scarborough Town Centre area and beyond. This includes, among other things:

• reviewing the “constructability” of all aspects of the project;
• assessing risks resulting from various components of the project;
• buying any property necessary to build the line, stations and other infrastructure supporting the project;
• co-ordinating road closures during construction;
• co-ordinating agreements with utilities, if construction on the project impacts the utilities’ rights-of way, meaning power, telephone, gas, water and sewer lines;
• developing a detailed construction schedule;
• controlling costs;
• reporting on the progress of the project,
• presenting designs for various parts of the project to the public, third parties and approval bodies;
• providing technical support to other contractors during construction of the project; and
• testing, commissioning and delivering the completed line to to the TTC and its passengers.

NOW’s Ben Spurr explains in a recent news article that the transit commissioners

“approved the contract despite objections from Councillor Josh Matlow, who wrote a letter urging the TTC to defer the issue, arguing that it was “premature” to hire a company to manage the subway construction when the city has yet to complete an environmental assessment of the extension.

“That study is expected to be completed next year. Matlow warned that it might conclude that Mayor John Tory’s planned SmartTrack line - which would run along the GO rail corridor just west of the Scarborough subway - could undermine ridership projections for the extension and render it redundant.

“TTC CEO Andy Byford… supported awarding of the contract. He told the board that it’s important to assemble a project management team early in order to hit the ground running once the environmental assessment is done.

“‘If you don’t, what you are doing is incurring delay at the start that will almost certainly have a knock-on both financially and in terms of schedule,’ he told the board.

Matlow had previously expressed his concerns about the project during the City Council meeting of February 10, 11 and 12. At that meeting, he asked staff to detail costs resulting from the city deciding to cancel work on a project to replace the TTC’s 3 Scarborough rapid transit line with light rail transit. (That move resulted in Metrolinx billing the city for about $75 million that it had already spent on the LRT project, including work on a facility to store and maintain transit vehicles for the line. During the recent Council meeting, councillors voted to simply receive Matlow’s inquries and not refer them to staff to act. That meant that Council was ignoring Matlow’s request and, basically, re-approving the Scarborough Subway project.

The contract has an “upset limit” of $80 million. That means that total costs of the various services that the joint venture will provide can’t amount to more than $80 million over the ten-year life of the contract. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the price that the TTC pays for these services will necessarily total $80 million.

Spurr writes,

“Byford said that even without final plans for the subway, the project team could get working on tasks like designing the tunnels. He stressed that the contract does not commit the city to paying the full $80 million — that figure is only the maximum the city could be billed. He told reporters the contract included “escape clauses” which could get the city off the hook at minimum cost if plans for Scarborough transit change.”

According to Rahul Gupta, InsideToronto.com’s transit reporter,

“Even though the city has only just begun work on an Environmental Assessment (EA) planning study to determine the line’s best alignment, TTC CEO Andy Byford insisted it still made sense to get the SLJV contract out of the way now.

“‘The direction from city council is clear and that is the TTC is directed to proceed with construction of the extension and therefore it makes sense to start gearing up for the project,’ said Byford [after the meeting].

“‘You’ve got to start acquiring both specialist resources like building tunnels but also populating management teams for skills we need.’

“With the EA not expected to be completed until 2016 Byford said the contract language accounts for changes to the plan, such as if it shifts east of the Scarborough RT corridor so as not to conflict with the SmartTrack plan, itself under study.

“Appointing a project management team now before planning details are finalized shows the TTC is learning from past mistakes such as work on the delayed Spadina subway extension, [the Toronto Transit Commission’s chair, Councillor Josh] Colle said.

“‘If there’s ever a time where it showed there’s a template not to follow, that made it clear to people,’ said Colle of the Spadina extension work which saw a project team appointed only after the EA was completed.

Under the terms of this contract, Scarborough Link Joint Venture would manage the project with a team of about 30 per cent TTC and 70 per cent consultant staff. This is the secod major contract for the subway plan. The Transit Commission approved a five-year contract in December a five-year contract for designing the tunnels. The TTC plans to award another four contracts for consultant staffing in specific specialty areas, which, in turn, will enable staffing of the project team to proceed.

Now that the TTC has awarded this contract, the number of consulting staff will ramp up as the project progresses. Initially, the project team will start with senior staff to establish project strategies and schedules, and then, as design begins, add more staff to manage developing the design and reviewing the “design deliverables”, and co-ordinate awarding of contracts to construction subcontractors.

The TTC board also asked staff to report back on overall governance structure and project schedule.