Castanet

If you know nothing about paving, don't make assumptions.

GoStumpy wrote:If you know nothing about paving, don't make assumptions.

I think it is the contractor that knows nothing about paving.

GoStumpy wrote:If you know nothing about paving, don't make assumptions.

Exactly this

It's very usual for people to express concern and forward drive by complaints about a subject they don't quite understand. I find it interesting the points of view of the eleven people on here that seem rather concerned about something that for the most part is common place as far as sequencing . Understandably the scope has changed due to materials failure but its still no titanic. This too shall pass when the average joe enjoys his trip to kelowna at last with no reason to fear a life threatening collision at the once treacherous Westside Road intersection. RIP.

Geeze, it would seem like those complaining have never had the privilege of getting a brand new road. This isn't "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" .... things take time.

kumazatheef wrote:Geeze, it would seem like those complaining have never had the privilege of getting a brand new road. This isn't "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" .... things take time.

Exactly! You are absolutely right, things take time! I couldn't agree with you more.

To put the 2 small overpasses and a couple hundred meters of paving work of the Westside Rd and Nancee Way interchange project in prospective consider the following:

Construction of the Øresund Bridge, a nearly 8 km combination twin track railway and dual highway bridge-tunnel across open ocean linking Denmark and Sweden began in 1995 and was completed 4 years later on 14 August, 1999.

The Golden Gate Bridge project broke ground January 5, 1933 and was open for traffic in April, 1937.

A little closer to home, construction on the Lions Gate Bridge began on March 31, 1937 and was open for traffic on November 14, 1938!! A little over a year and a half to build a bridge almost 2 km long 200 feet above Burrard Inlet....in the 1930's!

So, yes, you are right, things take time. If the WFN and Ledcor had been responsible for building the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China they'd only be half done by now!

It doesn't take an expert to drive by a construction site day after day and see no one working. A good team would have had that job done in 6 months.

dogspoiler wrote:It doesn't take an expert to drive by a construction site day after day and see no one working. A good team would have had that job done in 6 months.

Exactly my point. I am not an expert but things have been taking way way longer than they should with little or no information coming out to the general public who travel the route daily so we make assumptions based on what we see happening or in this case NOT happening.
There has been more progress now and looks like its getting nearer to completion but taken much longer and assuming it cost so much more than originally thought and we still have Boucherie lights to hold us all up a few hundred yard away!

dodgerdodge wrote:

dogspoiler wrote:It doesn't take an expert to drive by a construction site day after day and see no one working. A good team would have had that job done in 6 months.

Exactly my point. I am not an expert but things have been taking way way longer than they should with little or no information coming out to the general public who travel the route daily so we make assumptions based on what we see happening or in this case NOT happening.
There has been more progress now and looks like its getting nearer to completion but taken much longer and assuming it cost so much more than originally thought and we still have Boucherie lights to hold us all up a few hundred yard away!

What are you talking about? There's been news articles saying the underpass would be completed near end of November, and the entire project finished by end of year - weather permitting. Every day I've driven that route I see some sort of activity, even on weekends. If it really bothered you that much you'd read their webpage: http://www.westsideroadinterchange.ca/page2.html On that page you'll find their initial schedule for completion - however, this was altered with the collapse of the retaining walls a year ago, which set the project off by a few months. Just because you don't see anything, doesn't mean something isn't going on, waaay back a couple years ago before construction got to the highway, soil compaction started off Westside Rd. And recently, unless you're one of the rubber-neckers going 30km/hr through the zone, there's an underpass that required grading, utilities, and paving. Geeze, seriously. Armchair engineers the lot of you.

Are you people extremely impatient or just completely unrealistic? Pick one.

Try building a schedule that has this project completed in 6 months. It's not remotely possible . Before they started the project was figured to take two years. They always take longer when you have 50,000 cars a day driving through the middle of the job site .

kay-c wrote:Try building a schedule that has this project completed in 6 months. It's not remotely possible . Before they started the project was figured to take two years. They always take longer when you have 50,000 cars a day driving through the middle of the job site .

It would have been entirely possible to complete a project that small in 6 months or less if the need was there. I don't beleive that there was a need to have it done in that short of a timeframe however because I am sure that costs would have been much higher, but it most definetly would have been possible. However....forget the 6 months, the original schedule had this project taking 21 months from start to finish (which is ludicrous in itself) but by the time it is actually completed it will likely have been closer to 30 months (or more)! That's just a few months shy of how long it took to complete the entire William R. Bennett Bridge project!

As mentioned above, a nearly 2 km bridge was built more than 200 feet above the ocean in roughly a year and a half....and that was more than 70 years ago!!

No way should it take a full year longer to build 2 (very small) overpasses, a traffic circle and a couple hundred meters of paving than it took to build the Lions Gate Bridge; especially after more than 70 years of technological advancements!

Exactly! Plus, don't forget the overpass span was prefabbed offsite and craned in. 3 years to construct this project is laughable....even without considering the incompetence that lead to a section of it collapsing!

It almost seems like it was designed to take longer than it should have...perhaps to provide 3 steady years of revenue from taxpayers?

Ari Gold wrote:Exactly! Plus, don't forget the overpass span was prefabbed offsite and craned in. 3 years to construct this project is laughable....even without considering the incompetence that lead to a section of it collapsing!

It almost seems like it was designed to take longer than it should have...perhaps to provide 3 steady years of revenue from taxpayers?

That is no doubt closer to the truth than anything.

DashFiveGuy wrote:As mentioned above, a nearly 2 km bridge was built more than 200 feet above the ocean in roughly a year and a half....and that was more than 70 years ago!!

Lions Gate Bridge ..
And were there cars driving on the bridge at the time it was being constructed? And how bad were the winters that had to be contended with? Not to mention it cost almost $6 million dollars, which would no doubt be considered a fortune back then as WW2 was imminent, and they tolled it. Oh, and let's also throw in the fact it was a 2 lane bridge, not a 4 lane highway where motorists are dyslexic and think the construction zone is 90km/hr.

Apples and oranges my friend.

I drive this road twice a day, has it been a frustrating? Sometimes, but come the new year, it'll be completed and give it a few months and everyone will forget about it and start complaining about another intersection and scream until they're red in the face and construction will begin on that intersection, and then they'll complain again how it's taking so long ...

Until that time comes, I'd encourage everyone that thinks they can do better to get their ducks in a row (ex: make/buy a company) so they can bid on building it so you can prove everyone wrong. Good luck, I wish you well.

In the mean time, enjoy the fact you have fresh pavement beneath your tires and such gorgeous scenery as you round bridge hill ... or at least spike your egg nog and enjoy the holidays.

kumazatheef wrote:Lions Gate Bridge ..
And were there cars driving on the bridge at the time it was being constructed? And how bad were the winters that had to be contended with? Not to mention it cost almost $6 million dollars, which would no doubt be considered a fortune back then as WW2 was imminent, and they tolled it. Oh, and let's also throw in the fact it was a 2 lane bridge, not a 4 lane highway where motorists are dyslexic and think the construction zone is 90km/hr.

Apples and oranges my friend.

I drive this road twice a day, has it been a frustrating? Sometimes, but come the new year, it'll be completed and give it a few months and everyone will forget about it and start complaining about another intersection and scream until they're red in the face and construction will begin on that intersection, and then they'll complain again how it's taking so long ...

Until that time comes, I'd encourage everyone that thinks they can do better to get their ducks in a row (ex: make/buy a company) so they can bid on building it so you can prove everyone wrong. Good luck, I wish you well.

In the mean time, enjoy the fact you have fresh pavement beneath your tires and such gorgeous scenery as you round bridge hill ... or at least spike your egg nog and enjoy the holidays.

Ok, it's obvious by your response that you are just being argumentative because no one in their right mind could possibly be serious in suggesting that the Westside Rd interchange project is somehow more complex then building the Lions Gate Bridge was.

Winters? Really? This is the Okanagan, not Yellowknife! Two lane bridge vs 4 lane highway?? Yes, I guess if hwy 97 was only 2 lanes the project would have been finished in half the time! And what exactly does the fact that it was initially a toll bridge have to do with how long it took to complete?

The only points you made that even have a shred of validity to them are the cost and the fact that traffic had to keep flowing throguh the site. I already stated in my previous post that the schedule could easily have been done in 6 months or less but I'll assume a cost/benefit analysis would have shown the additional cost to accelerate the schedule would have outweighed any benefits gained but even then there is no reason this small project should have stretched on for much more than a year tops. The fact that traffic had to be kept moving through the zone certainly added to the overall timeframe but nowhere near enough to account for how long this took (even if you ignore the delays caused by the collapse).

If you want to compare apples to apples fine, then how about the project to replace the floating bridge. Same weather conditions, same traffic to contend with, no pesky tolls to slow down the schedule(??), same number of lanes (although the interchange project drops from 5 lanes down to 4 before the second overpass) and yet the entire bridge replacement project took just a few months more than what this fiasco has taken and the floating bridge was actually built more or less on site, not prefabbed and craned into position in a day or two.

Oh, and no need to wait a few months after this project is complete to start complaining about the next intersection, the time for that was as soon as they released the plans for this project. That they did not extend the third southbound lane a couple hundred extra meters to the next intersection is absolutely assinine. The Westside Rd interchange project had far less to do with improving safety or traffic flow than it did in providing access to a new shopping center.