Actually. I disagree with you all. The plan is not terrible except that Line 2 should go up to Sheppard, no 90 degree bend. Something else can continue eastward, northward on Sheppard.
As I read here, I wonder whether the principle or the cost is the issue.
Downtown, we buggered it up. we built Liberty Village with no transit, and we will do the same on Queen's Quay East in the short run. Big development. No transit. People everywhere. No way to get anywhere.
In Scarborough - **wrings hands** - God forbid anything be built. There just isn't the ridership potential. No people anywhere. No way to get anywhere if you do live there.
So pretend for the moment that cost is not an issue and then in Scarborough build the lines and let the infill begin. Nothing will be running before 2030 and I'd bet anyone here that the population can double in that time. In this case, the transit infrastructure precedes the development. This is normally the case. Roads and highways get built before other development. God forbid that should be the case in Scarborough for public transit seems to be the argument here.
Go back 15 years to 2000 and look at the pictures of South Core and Liberty Village. Look at the number of residents in one of the downtown wards that went from 4000 fifteen years ago to around 80,000 today. It is not inconceivable that Scarborough could experience the same path since the development potential in Etobicoke and downtown is less - at a certain cost - than it used to be.
When you build a highway, you can build it incrementally. You can build a certain length 2 lanes. Then you add another lane each direction. Then you add another. Etc. Your initial investment is reasonable and you can augment it over time.
It's not the case in rail. You don't normally build a streetcar in traffic. (modest cost). Then dig it up ten years later and build a ROW ten years later as traffic increases. Then ten years later dig that up and put in a heavy rail line. You choose a mode and it has to be good for all time. Unless you really do want a ton of disruption and more investment.
Everyone is having a conniption over the initial capital cost for a solution that ultimately likely makes sense.
This is not to say that cost per km ought not be studied carefully, and managed well, and that planner-ticians ought not be removed entirely from the process. But the proposal - for any number of reasons - is far from outlandish.
Toronto is supposed to be a city on a path of global giants like NYC, London, Paris...we all know the list. The rules are probably a little bit different for the global top 20 or 30. Why is everyone so happy with the rules that apply to Atlanta, Fresno, Manchester, and other interesting, but unspectacular middling cities?
