REM delayed by Covid
The REM won’t be ready for the end of 2021 as promised. Covid is one reason, but we’re only now being told about an explosion in the Mount Royal tunnel in July that was also a setback. The price tag has also risen by $80 million, which is certainly not going to be the last word on costs.
ant6n 17:00 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
Wait, I thought the thing was supposed to open in 2020. I mean that’s why it had to be pushed through in a couple of months, without much consideration or real planning, back in 2016, because it had to be finished right away.
…Of course they’ll blame Corona.
Ephraim 17:41 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
Why would we care about a price tag… isn’t this privately owned by the CDPQ?
DeWolf 18:42 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
Ephraim, the price matters because the Caisse is the public pension plan. It’s our money.
In any case, I don’t think these delays are unreasonable. The century-old explosive material left behind in the tunnel is rather alarming, as is the CDPQ’s assertion that parts of the tunnel are structurally unsound. It makes you wonder about the AMT’s competence given that they swore the tunnel was safe several years ago.
I’m not sure why ant6n is scoffing at using the pandemic as an excuse. I wasn’t able to get spare parts for my bike all summer because of Covid-related delays at the factory. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a vast construction project has also been affected by the pandemic.
Ephraim 19:21 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
DeWolf – They have to report annual, but that’s about it. The Quebec government I think ends up owning 40% and the CDPQ owns 60%. The point of having the CDPQ do it is that they don’t have a lot of the limitations that the Quebec government would have to follow.
Tim 21:16 on 2020-11-11 Permalink
You say limitations Ephraim, I say oversight.
David188 02:26 on 2020-11-12 Permalink
All good points. Even a somewhat well-reasoned anti-REM stand has to give way to the fact that the COVID shutdowns delayed this project, with financial impacts to both the project and the major stakeholders, that can’t be attributed to incompetence/poor planning/malfeasance/conspiracy theory/etc. Also well said is that as it happens, the stakeholders are CDPQ-Infra, our government, and pretty much everyone who lives in our region – and all of us suffer as a result of this delay, like we suffer from COVID. Well said too is that the cost of these delays will probably be absorbed by taxpayers, not just in higher build costs but, more broadly, to subsidize the decline in expected revenue to our cities, STM, and our pension system, which is out there in the market doing the best they can, ultimately for us.
Ant6n 03:56 on 2020-11-12 Permalink
I generally had the impression the construction industry wasn’t too Affected by corona overall, but I’m currently in Europe. As for cost overruns, there’s a tendency that the cdpq won’t pay them, they will try to offload them either to their contractors or the public. It’s not that I’m anti REM, I‘m against cdpqinfra. They are a pretty dishonest organization, and together with the cdpq and the liberal government have come up with a project that’s structured to suck a lot of money and a lot of control out of the public transit system, while being full of odd planning choices that seem short sighted and focused on political interests of the liberals and financial interests of the cdpq. At this point I think I’m allowed to be cynical…
ant6n 06:20 on 2020-11-12 Permalink
@DeWolf
To counter the missing bike parts example, I’ve been hearing a lot about German rail vehicle maintenance all year, and the impression is that while there was a bit of an interruption in the supply lines back in April, especially with the full lock-down in Italy and Spain, overall the effect of Corona has not been as strong as anticipated. Basically, the complete fleet of tens of thousands of vehicles kept running, there wasn’t a huge crunch because of missing parts due to Corona. Heavy industries weren’t as affected as culture, the media or education.
dhomas 07:34 on 2020-11-12 Permalink
I have many friends in the construction industry who tell me that they have had TOO much business this year, on account of the pandemic. People who would usually go on vacation during the summer could not this year and instead spent that money on their homes. It might not translate into large scale construction like the REM, but I can say that residential construction did not slow down at all. In fact, it probably accelerated.
david352 18:21 on 2020-11-12 Permalink
I work in the construction industry and can tell you that the impacts are varied. It’s much harder to get funding for certain kinds of projects, materials coming into Canada are more expensive because of slowdowns around the world and something truly remarkable happening with oceanic shipping costs, the cost of labor in multiple areas/specialties has gone up as the supply of workers has gone down and, consequently, many projects are on hold. There’s a lot more too. I don’t know the specifics of the REM, but it’s not like they’re slapping up a single family home – this project involves pre-cast materials shipped in, engineers and other highly skilled professionals, covid protocols, funding decisions made from on high, etc.