The Future of Utility Coordination

This past July of 2020 the Ontario government passed the Building Transit Faster Act (“BTFA”) to streamline the delivery of provincial transit projects. In support of this legislation, Metrolinx, together with Infrastructure Ontario, the Ministry of Ontario and highly impacted Utility Companies, set up the Utility Coordination Program which oversaw the development of a new Utility Relocation Guideline and supporting processes to improve the location, treatment and relocation of utility infrastructure. This session will introduce the program, it’s progress to date and the exciting milestones yet to come.

Speakers

Paul Collins has over 20 years of experience with utility infrastructure. His early career focused on municipal, development and site servicing work in the private sector with Lathem Group, URS Cole Sherman and Delcan, with the latter company nominating him to coordinate utility work for the Toronto Transit Commission’s Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension.

This was the start of Paul’s focus on coordinating utilities in support of transit project delivery. For the next 11 years Paul worked on various aspects of utility coordination and transit implementation. He joined Metrolinx in 2016, ultimately becoming the Director of Utilities for the Capital Projects Group, the position he holds today. Paul has been instrumental in improving utility coordination specifically related to transit project delivery and is dedicated to connecting our communities.