Ottawa Airport expands

WORKS

New access roads are already under construction and architects are drawing up the designs for a new terminal building to the west of the existing 40-year old terminal at Ottawa Airport. The Airport Authority has embarked on the first phase of a major expansion costing $400 million, funded by user fees. The new facilities will help meet growing demand in the region where the population grew six per cent last year.

So far, Canadian consultants to the project include Maxgroup (master plan), Napa, Hanscomb, Acres and Stantec (program definition), MRM/ Marshall Macklin Monaghan/ J.L. Richards (project management), and Yow/Brisbin Brook Benyon/Architectura (architecture and engineering).

The new terminal will be on three levels, with the second level as a climate-controlled walkway from a covered parking structure. Laurent Benoit of the Airport Authority says the walkway will be a key benefit for this airport serving the nation’s capital, since most (70%) of the users are business people making one-day return trips who want quick and easy access to the departure gates. The terminal will be completed by 2004, along with 15 new gates, access roads and aprons, and a new de-icing pad.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Where’s the bus?

Toronto’s public transportation woes were high on the agenda at the Urban Summit sessions at Construct Canada in Toronto, November 29.

Panelists were considering a proposed new official plan that sees the city gaining one million more residents in the next 30 years. Ed Levy, P.Eng. of BA Consulting Group pointed out that the city is already growing at the second fastest rate in North America (by 100,000 people every year), but that the transportation infrastructure has not kept pace. The city’s greatness, he said, was thanks to the planning of infrastructure in the past, and particularly the subway system. He argued for Union Station to be expanded, and said we urgently need subway line extensions. He held up maps of the intricate subway networks of cities such as Barcelona, Sydney, Vienna and Montreal, and suggested the sparse, two-directional Toronto system was absurd in comparison. Nor did he think the new Sheppard line under construction was much help in connecting the network.

Rick Ducharme, head of the Toronto Transit Commission, however, said bluntly that he didn’t want the federal government coming in with “grandiose schemes” to build new subway lines. Rather he wants them to “come in and make work what we have today.” He and Gary McNeil, head of the Go Transit system that serves Toronto’s outlying areas, agreed that what they immediately need more than new lines is rolling stock, surface buses, trains and equipment. McNeil said that Go Transit is operating beyond capacity, and that every train and track is being used. “We have run out of trains,” he said.

Everyone from local politician Kyle Rae to Lee Sims, P.Eng. of the IBI Group felt that the problem stemmed from government neglect of Toronto. Rae complained that the city is always looked on as a “cash cow,” “as if Toronto were only Bay Street.” Sims said that Toronto cannot financially support its transit system on its own tax base. No other city does that, he said. Chris Burke of the Greater Toronto Services Board suggested underfunding of public transit is a Canadian-wide problem, and that cities like Montreal, Calgary and Toronto should together tackle the federal government for more support.

QUOTE

The Way We Are?

25 years ago: “Simple greed has taken over a lot of people, and they’re no longer willing to give even time away … I can remember the day when it was easy to round up volunteers for almost any purpose, but now most people want to get paid for whatever they’re asked to do.”– From “Associations, Are they Social Gatherings or Legitimate Business Meetings for Professionals?” by Russ Cornell, Canadian Consulting Engineer, September 1976.

WORKS

Engineers commissioned for Quebec library

Consulting engineers have been appointed for the Grande bibliothque du Qubec, a large new central library that the province has been planning for many years to be built in Montreal. Consulting engineers Nicolet Chartrand Knoll and Gniplus of Montreal have won the contract for structural engineering, and Bouthillette, Parizeau, and HBA Group will do the mechanical and electrical engineering.

The $90.6 million library is to be built over the next three years on the site of the Palais du Commerce (which will be demolished) at the corner of de Maisonneuve Boulevard and Berri Street near the Berri-UQAM metro. Last year a small firm from Vancouver, Patkau Architects, in association with Quebec firms Croft-Pelletier and Gilles Guit won an international competition to do the architectural design. The library is to contain four million documents, including one million books.

PROFESSIONAL

Manitoba imposes Certificates of Authorization

Two years after Manitoba’s Engineering and Geoscientific Professions Act stipulated that incorporated engineering entities must have a Certificate of Authorization to perform services, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Manitoba is accepting applications.

Implementing the program has been a long and trying issue for the Manitoba association, and its members still have to ratify a bylaw change. The difficulty partly arises because the program requires that certificate holders have liability insurance. Manitoba is the last province apart from Quebec to impose the C of A requirement.

Professional Engineers of Ontario is reviewing what is the purpose of its Certificate of Authorization program, and the Association of Professional Engineers in Alberta (APEGGA) has finished reviewing its corporate practitioners’ permit system and as a result has reduced the fees paid by most single practitioners in comparison to large firms.

STRUCTURES

Roof collapses in Sarnia

In December, part of the roof covering a large shopping mall in Sarnia, Ontario collapsed under the weight of heavy snow. The Ontario Ministry of Labour is investigating what caused the structure to fail. It was built in the late 1960s. One person, an employee at one of the stores, was killed and another injured during the event, which occurred at the Lambton Mall in the early morning when it was largely deserted.

ENERGY

Government goes green

In its Climate Change Action Plan 2000, the Canadian government has committed to buying 20 per cent of the electricity it uses in its facilities from renewable and low emission energy sources. It has also committed to promoting green power in Saskatchewan by purchasing at least 25 MW — half its own needs — of wind-generated electricity from SaskPower. Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada facilities in Alberta are already buying all their power as wind energy supplied by Enmax, the city of Calgary’s system.

ADDENDUM

Atacama Pipeline

In the “Up Front” section of the October-November issue (p. 6), Hydroconsult of Calgary was described as responsible for the Atacama pipeline project in Argentina. Hydroconsult is consultant on the river crossings and instream sections. Fluor Daniel Williams Brothers was responsible for the overall design and project management of the project.