Utility locates and relocation work have historically been the cause of construction delays on public construction projects, particularly in urban areas with dense population and the commensurate underground utility and telecom infrastructure. In recent bills the Ontario Legislature has addressed this problem of underground utility locates and relocations by escalated enforcement options when the work is not completed accurately and in a timely manner.
Forcing faster utility relocations in Greater Toronto transit projects
In July 2020, Bill 171 Building Transit Faster Act went into force. The objective of the bill was to remove impediments that historically have slowed down transit projects by designating a transit corridor within which special regulations apply. For example, once lands have been included in a transit corridor, if a property owner plans to carry out construction activities on these lands, they need to apply to obtain a permit before the work can begin. Bill 171 specifically identified four provincial transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area to which the new regulations apply; the Ontario Line, the Scarborough Subway Extension, the Yonge Subway Extension and the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension.
Among the new regulations were measures allowing transit builders to relocate utilities more quickly in preparation for projects. Specifically the bill provided a mechanism by which utility companies may be required to move utility infrastructure for the transit. It also provided for escalated enforcement. The bill enabled the Ministry of Transportation to delegate some of its powers to Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto and Hamilton transit authority, including enforcement tools such as stop-work orders, inspections, and administrative penalties.
Forcing more timely utility relocations on provincial transit and highway projects
Five months later in December 2020, Bill 222 Ontario Rebuilding and Recovery Act, went into force. It extended the special regulations applicable to designated transit corridors in the GTA to other provincial “priority transit projects”. It also provided measures to enforce compliance on highway projects by amending the Public Service Works on Highways Act to allow a judge of the Ontario Superior Court to order a utility company to comply with an order to relocate utility infrastructure. In the case of noncompliance with the court order the judge was empowered to authorize a road authority such as the Ministry of Transportation to carry out the utility relocation work itself.
Metrolinx/Infrastructure Ontario approach to underground utilities
Underground utilities represent one of the top transit project delivery risks identified by Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario (IO). Mitigating utility risk for transit projects is a continuous process involving many stakeholders. They key elements in Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario (IO) approach to utility risk mitigation are early collaboration,subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys prior to engineering design, options to avoid, protect or relocate utilities, and making underground utility location data available to engineering firms and contractor bid teams.
Involving utility companies in the project as early as possible is crucial. Building collaborative relationship among project stakeholders and utility companies has been found in a number of jurisdictions to be key to avoiding major utility problems during construction. To enable the open sharing of information confidentiality agreements between Metrolinx/IO and utility companies are essential.
On all transit projects Metrolinx/IO conducts subsurface utility engineering (SUE) surveys in accordance with ASCE 38-02 along the entire transit alignment. The level of SUE required is typically a minimum QLC/QLB with QLA at locations of interest including stations and transmission utilities. Combining the results of the SUE survey with proposed alignments results in a conflict matrix identifying the locations of utility conflicts.
For each conflict, several options are available; the project scope can be adjusted to avoid the conflict, the conflicting utility can be left in place and protected if necessary, or the utility can be relocated. With this approach based on a SUE survey, the risk of unexpected utility problems occurring during construction can be reduced and unnecessary and expensive utility relocations avoided.
Enabling bid teams to have access to the available data on the location of underground utilities can improve the quality of bids and reduce risk and uncertainty that can inflate estimates. Metrolinx/IO makes the available utility location information to all the bid teams. In addition topic meetings allow for direct interaction between bid teams and utility companies with Metrolinx/IO present.
One of the major issues recognized by Metrolinx/IO is incomplete, inaccurate and out of data records of the location of underground utilities. To address this issue, Metrolinx/IO reports that asset management systems are being developed that will improve data tracking including the location of underground utilities.
Forcing timely underground utility locates for provincial broadband projects
Ontario one call legislation gives infrastructure owners five days to produce locate information, but the deadline is often ignored. Late locates can lead to long delays and extra costs for contractors, excavators, locators, utility owners and other stakeholders.The recently passed Bill 257 Building Broadband Faster Act, 2021 which is intended to expedite the delivery of broadband to under served areas of Ontario, revises the 2012 Ontario One Call Act by requiring network owners to accurately locate their equipment within 10 business days after notification by Ontario One Call or face penalties and other actions that are available to the Minister of Infrastructure. It enables the broadband project owner to claim financial compensation if the utility or telecom either failed to accurately mark the ground and provide a written document showing the location of its underground infrastructure or incorrectly stated that none of its underground infrastructure would be affected by the excavation. The act enables the Ministry to authorize excavation or digging to proceed when locates are not performed within 10 days.
Conclusion
With these bills, the measures relating to locating and relocating underground utilities initially applied to GTA transit projects have been extended to province-wide transit, highway and broadband projects. Together they cover most of the infrastructure in the provincial public right of way.
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