News & Events

CDAO's awareness campaign catches media interest

August 10, 2013

The following is summary of selected earned media coverage related to CDAO's Eglinton Crosstown media relations initiative:

(where noted, click in the media name to link to the appropriate story)

TORONTO STAR, Aug 07, 2013

By: Transportation Reporter Jumbo contracts are supposed to drive competition among construction companies and save Ontario tax dollars on big infrastructure projects such as roads and hospitals. But the province’s construction industry is sounding alarm bells about the $4 billion Infrastructure Ontario (IO) contract to build the stations and maintenance facility for the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT. The Construction and Design Alliance of Ontario — which represents engineers, architects, road and residential builders — says the contract, part of a “P3” public-private partnership is too big, squeezing out the very competition it was supposed to inspire and potentially costing up to $500 million more than it should .... (FULL STORY)

TORONTO STAR, Aug 08, 2013

By: Transportation Reporter Ontario engineers are adding public safety concerns to questions about the cost of the Metrolinx mega-contract for the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT. The Consulting Engineers of Ontario, which represents about 200 firms, says public safety, as well as tax dollars, are at stake when a contract becomes so large it squeezes out local companies and provincially certified professionals, who should be overseeing the technical specifications. The Crosstown stations contract, being handled by Infrastructure Ontario (IO), the government agency in charge of public-private partnerships, is estimated to be worth $4 billion, according to the Construction and Design Alliance of Ontario (CDAO). One bidder will be selected to build all the stations and the maintenance facility for the new transit line ... (FULL STORY)

 

NATIONAL POST, Aug 02, 2013

By: Sarah-Joyce Battersby “Buy local” is a common refrain in grocery store aisles and at farmers markets, and now construction companies are chiming in, as an industry group sounds the alarm over the bundling of light rail transit lines into a “mega-project” they say will exclude smaller Ontario firms and cost taxpayers an extra $500 million. Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario have combined the Eglinton Crosstown and Scarborough LRTs — including up to 32 stations and stops, tunnels, elevated sections, signals, and a storage facility — into a single project tender. It’s a move that pushed industry concern over the growing scope of infrastructure projects to the brink, says Clive Thurston, chair of Construction Design Alliance of Ontario — a coalition of industry groups representing engineers, architects and builders ... (FULL STORY)

DAILY COMMERCIAL NEWS, July 30, 2013

By: Kelly Lapointe, Staff Writer The bundling of the $4-billion Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown project will cost taxpayers more than half a billion dollars in construction and design costs, says the Construction & Design Alliance of Ontario (CDAO). “We’re not saying ban all bundling, what we’re saying was this was not a project that should have been bundled,” said CDAO chair Clive Thurston. CDAO executives recently met with Ontario infrastructure and transportation minister Glen Murray and Infrastructure Ontario (IO), seperately, to discuss their concerns about the increasing trend towards the “needless” bundling of construction projects ... (FULL STORY)

CANADIAN ARCHITECT, Aug 08, 2013

As the largest Canadian public transit project to launch in over 50 years, the Eglinton Crosstown provides a critical opportunity for Ontario architects to participate in something monumental for Toronto. But Infrastructure Ontario’s decision to bundle the LRT stations and maintenance facility construction into one mega-contract will dramatically limit participation from Ontario architects as no local firm is big enough to undertake the estimated $1.75-billion architectural component alone. Currently, only two consortiums have expressed interest; one is Canadian-based, and a foreign multinational firm is leading the other ... (FULL STORY)

CANADIAN CONSULTING ENGINEER, Aug 06, 2013

The Construction Design Alliance of Ontario, an organization representing a cross-section of organizations including Consulting Engineers of Ontario, is raising an alarm about the disadvantages of "bundling" or aggregating projects into one mega-size endeavour. In particular CDAO points to the $4 billion project to build the new Eglinton Crosstown transit line in Toronto. Infrastructure Ontario chose to bundle the construction of the stations and maintenance facilities into one massive project. As a result, only two consortiums have expressed interest, one from Canada and the other a multi-national conglomerate ... (FULL STORY)

URBAN TORONTO, Aug 07, 2013

Along Eglinton Avenue signs of construction of the new Eglinton Scarborough Crosstown LRT are springing up. Road closures, piling rigs, excavators and the familiar sound of backup beeping are all part of the largest transit infrastructure project in Canada in over 50 years. While work is progressing steadily, with tunnelling contracted and started in June, the project is not without its controversy and objections. The Ontario Association of Architects has raised concerns about the procurement process for the $1.75 billion architectural component of a bundled Request For Proposal worth about $4 billion in total ... (FULL STORY)

NEWS TALK 1010, Jim Richards Show, Aug 01, 2013

CBC RADIO ONE, Here and Now, Aug, 01, 2013

Bill Birdsell of the Ontario Architects Association, explains why small, local architectural firms could give the Eglinton Crosstown stations a neighborhood feel - but they're not getting the chance. Listen audio

ON-SITE MAGAZINE, July 31, 2013

About half of a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money could be spared from the Eglinton Crosstown transit project if it was tendered into smaller pieces, says the chairman of the Construction Design Alliance of Ontario (CDAO). “Simply put, bundling the station and maintenance facility construction into one contract has hamstrung the tendering process, limited competition, stifled innovation, and isolated the small- and medium-sized construction and design firms,” said Clive Thurston, who is also president of the Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA) ... (FULL STORY)

RENEW CANADA MAGAZINE, Aug 12, 2013

Ontario and Toronto taxpayers could save up to half a billion dollars in construction and design costs for the Eglinton Crosstown transit project by tendering it differently, according to an analysis by the Construction Design Alliance of Ontario (CDAO). (Metrolinx has since responded.) “Simply put, bundling the station and maintenance facility construction into one contract has hamstrung the tendering process, limited competition, stifled innovation, and isolated the small- and medium-sized construction and design firms,” says Construction Design Alliance of Ontario chair Clive Thurston. “This procedure will cost taxpayers more in the end. It is a case where bigger is not always better.” ... (FULL STORY)

INFRASTRUCTURE JOURNAL, Aug 30, 2013

By: Vince Calio, North American Reporter There is no doubt that Infrastructure Ontario (IO) is one of the world leaders in executing complex and innovative P3s for infrastructure, but some are saying that the agency has bitten off more than it can chew with the roughly US$4.8 billion Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit (LRT) P3. Criticism is that the project is too big to be handled by a single P3 consortium being led by industry construction groups in Canada. The project is also being criticized because only two bidders have responded to the RFQ, which was issued in January. In May, the due date for responses was delayed by a month to give bidders more time to respond. (FULL STORY)

PROGRESSIVE RAILROADING, Aug 07, 2013

A coalition of construction, design and engineering firms has raised concerns that the "bundling" of station and maintenance facility construction for Metrolinx's Eglinton Crosstown light-rail transit (LRT) project in Toronto is limiting competition at the expense of taxpayers. An analysis conducted by the Ontario General Contractors Association (OGCA) on behalf of the Construction Design Alliance of Ontario (CDAO) determined that Ontario and Toronto taxpayers could save up to $500 million (in Canadian dollars) in construction and design costs for the Eglinton Crosstown project by tendering it differently, CDAO officials said in a press release ... (FULL STORY)

RAIL, TRACK, and STUCTURES, Aug 07, 2013

According to an analysis by the Construction Design Alliance of Ontario (CDAO), Ontario and Toronto taxpayers could save up to half a billion dollars in construction and design costs for Metrolinx's Eglinton Crosstown transit project by tendering it differently. "Simply put, bundling the station and maintenance facility construction into one contract has hamstrung the tendering process, limited competition, stifled innovation and isolated the small- and medium-sized construction and design firms," said CDAO Chair Clive Thurston. "This procedure will cost taxpayers more in the end. It is a case where bigger is not always better." ... (FULL STORY)

INTERNATIONAL RAILWAY JOURNAL, Sept 11, 2013

Toronto could never be accused of lacking a vision for the development of its public transport system. From the Network 2011 plan of 1985 to Let's Move in 1990, the Rapid Transit Expansion Program of 1993, and Transit City in 2007, proposals for new infrastructure have come and gone with successive administrations, and while a few projects have come to fruition, shifting political tides and conflicting views on how funds should be spent have kept many schemes firmly on the drawing board. Furthermore, public transport in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) is under the jurisdiction of no less than nine separate transit agencies and one regional provider. Historically this has often resulted in poor integration, even though one in four journeys in the GTHA crosses a regional boundary. In 2006 the Ontario government authorised the creation of Metrolinx, a transit authority for the GTHA, with the aim of overcoming many of the long-standing integration issues. (FULL STORY)

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