Toronto gets boring (machines)
If you feel the earth move beneath you over the next few years, it’s (probably) not an earthquake so don’t prepare any T-shirts. Toronto is going to be buzzing with tunnel boring machines as they help extend the Spadina subway, build the Eglinton LRT and work on sewage-main projects. Adam Giambrone discussed the eight giant diggers last week, saying that they would turn the GTA into “one of the biggest production sites of tunnelling in the entire world.”
The Globe and Mail reports:
The Eglinton LRT excavators, which actually belong to Metrolinx, will be about 6.7 metres in diameter and capable of moving about 500 cubic metres of earth per day. Construction under Eglinton is expected to begin in the spring of 2012.
Wait—we’re using enormous drilling machines that are owned by Metrolinx, the same body that’s engaged in an epic slapfight with the city over transit funding? Let’s hope the borers don’t have some kind of secret programming that will make them head straight to city hall like slow-moving missiles.
Other than that, brace yourself for a few years of rumbling, especially if you live in the north end of the city. And just pray that these boring machines don’t discover anything underground that was supposed to stay there, like those monsters from Tremors or a Balrog of Morgoth.
Army of burrowing machines to be unleashed under GTA [Globe and Mail]
