Who's done better on transit? Vancouver or Toronto

[rbt]

$1.43 Billion for 11 km of elevated/underground rail. How? In Toronto, we'd hardly be able to build surface LRT with those funds.

It's not repeatable for Vancouver either. SNC-Lavalin underbid; they didn't do well on the project; some quarters their shortfall was in the tens of millions of dollars (peaked at ~$40M for a single quarter loss IIRC). That would add a couple hundred million to the pricetag if they got to redo the bid.

Being an extension they didn't need to build any new maintenance facilities or yard space. 28 LRVs are included in that price tag. IIRC Finch West yard/facilities are about 10% of the price ($120M) so there's another $160M saved on Evergreen.

28 LRVs in a controlled environment (grade separated) is quite a bit cheaper than 23 LRVs in a mixed environment (Finch). These 2 projects are interesting because they're about the same length. LIM yards are relatively expensive but this project didn't need any yard changes.

Building identical stations helps with design costs. Tunnels are actually cheap (Eglinton LRT was around $60M/km including TBMs); it's the stations and emergency exits are make them expensive. IIRC, the Evergreen tunnel is short enough it doesn't have any emergency escapes; so the 2.2km tunnel would be a ~$140M bore here. Eglinton looked at single-bore, as used on Evergreen line, but the soil wasn't stable enough to support that so a double-bore was used. Evergreen also didn't go very deep with extraction shafts either as the line was coming up to run at ground level.

Evergreen stops are about every 2km with the biggest gap being the tunnelled section (2.4km between stops there?). No buses are expected to be removed from service; 22 routes got modified. Finch, with 3x the number of stops, is expecting to take 35 buses out of service. I suspect operations costs will be roughly the same between Finch and Evergreen (Evergreen has much more maintenance requirements/elevators/etc. but Finch has drivers). Evergreen will definitely carry more people but that's demographics rather than a capacity constraint on Finch.

That's all I've got from the top of my head. A full breakdown by Metrolinx of Finch versus Evergreen would be interesting to see.

 

[maestro]

Who's done better on transit? Vancouver or Toronto

The question here is, which system is closer to being built out to completion? The Skytrain largely takes you everywhere you'd want to go in the Vancouver metro area. Coverage in neighboring suburbs (Richmond, Burnaby, New Westminister, Surrey, Port Moody, Coquitlam) is actually very good. Apart from a Broadway subway from VCC Clark to UBC, the Vancouver Skytrain network is largely complete now.

Toronto is still two and a half lines. Network only now entering outlying suburbs. The Crosstown will soon change this, but still much to be desired.

Coverage to Scarborough Centre, North York Centre, Islington, etc. isn't too bad either. It's a pointless comparsion really. The two cities are structured differently with dissimilar populations. The subway doesn't have to be the only rapid transit mode in Toronto either. The GO in Toronto is completely underutilized as short trips are far too expensive. It costs twice the TTC fare to go one stop.

 

[snowystar]

Being an extension they didn't need to build any new maintenance facilities or yard space. 28 LRVs are included in that price tag. IIRC Finch West yard/facilities are about 10% of the price ($120M) so there's another $160M saved on Evergreen.

28 LRVs in a controlled environment (grade separated) is quite a bit cheaper than 23 LRVs in a mixed environment (Finch). These 2 projects are interesting because they're about the same length. LIM yards are relatively expensive but this project didn't need any yard changes.

There is a small yard for storage and light maintenance and cleaning of vehicle used on the line:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2765966,-122.8165988,297m/data=!3m1!1e3

This is necessary as the original yard is already over capacity (trains are parked on running rail overnight) and is quite far away for early morning start from Coquitlam. This yard can be expanded to at least double the capacity so it can be used to store trains for future Broadway extension.

Evergreen stops are about every 2km with the biggest gap being the tunnelled section (2.4km between stops there?). No buses are expected to be removed from service; 22 routes got modified. Finch, with 3x the number of stops, is expecting to take 35 buses out of service. I suspect operations costs will be roughly the same between Finch and Evergreen (Evergreen has much more maintenance requirements/elevators/etc. but Finch has drivers). Evergreen will definitely carry more people but that's demographics rather than a capacity constraint on Finch.

That segment is actually about 4km, with a future stop planned at around the quarter mark.

The Evergreen extension did not take buses out of service, similar to any SkyTrain lines or extension opened in the past. Regional bus service connecting the region are canceled or reduced, local service along the corridor also reduced as buses are reroute to terminate at the closest stop. The removed bus service in turn fund the improvement of other routes within the area and elsewhere. For example, a new B-Line between downtown and SFU, local buses to the Evergreen Line now runs every 15-20min from what used to be hourly, extend service to almost 3am on routes that stopped running at 9pm before, new service to area that did not have any transit service, etc.

The operating cost for Evergreen is projected to be $18M a year. From the original plan (2014 opening), the line is expected to break even in 2018.

http://www.geoffmeggs.ca/wp-content...ink-Materials-for-Oct-7-Municipal-Update1.pdf (page 13 of the pdf)

 

[nfitz]

$1.43 Billion for 11 km of elevated/underground rail. How? In Toronto, we'd hardly be able to build surface LRT with those funds.

It's the stations and escape exits underground that kill you. As far as I know all 6 stations are above ground (ground surface or elevated)- similar in design to the SRT Midland and McCowan stations.

The tunnelled section is only 2 km. If there's no emergency exits in there, then that would only be about $100 million of the project, based on the costs of the Eglinton Line tunelling contract, which I believe came in at less than $50 million per kilometre (not including tunnels, track, signals, stations, etc.).

(edit rbt says $60 million per km - perhaps I'm thinking the narrow diameter TYSSE - still, not a huge amount of the cost)

 

[rbt]

(edit rbt says $60 million per km - perhaps I'm thinking the narrow diameter TYSSE - still, not a huge amount of the cost)

I added a bit extra for TBM shafts (at least some were separate from the tunnel contract) and the TBMs.

 

[nfitz]

I added a bit extra for extraction shafts which are part of the stations (so not really in the tunneling contract) and the TBMs which were tendered separately..

Fair enough.

Of course, the diameter is probably smaller than the Spadina subway extension, because the vehicles are narrow. Which is already narrow than Eglinton, which needs extra diameter because of the overhead catenary.

 

[snowystar]

It's the stations and escape exits underground that kill you. As far as I know all 6 stations are above ground (ground surface or elevated)- similar in design to the SRT Midland and McCowan stations.

I wouldn't call Inlet Centre as an "above ground station"... It is certainly underground for most of its length in the centre, but at-grade on both ends.

Of course, the diameter is probably smaller than the Spadina subway extension, because the vehicles are narrow.

9.84m diameter for the TBM.

 

[nfitz]

I wouldn't call Inlet Centre as an "above ground station"... It is certainly underground for most of its length in the centre, but at-grade on both ends.

I've only seen pictures, and you could see daylight. Okay ... though if it's that shallow, it wouldn't be as expensive to dig. Kind of similar, almost, to Leslie station, which is not far at all below ground surface by the time you get to the eastern edge of the station box. (just east of the station, the subway crossed the Don River on a bridge).

9.84m diameter for the TBM.

Oh! That is big. That means they are only doing one tunnel, not twin tunnels. The Eglinton TBMs are 6.5 metres - but there are two of them, not one ( think the finished tunnel is 5.75 metres).

That's the advantage of narrow trains, like in Vancouver and Montreal. It's easier to use one tunnel. Compare to the Scarborough Subway Extension, where they are thinking of using a 10.7 metre TBM. Oh, here's a link that discusses all 5 projects (Sheppard, Spadina, Eglinton, Evergreen, and Scarborough - http://www.scarboroughsubwayextension.ca/construction.html)

 

[ssiguy2]

Obviously Vancouver has done a vastly superior job in expanding transit in the last 30 years. Vancouver has built a new commuter rail line as well as a brand new grade separated 80km SkyTrain system while Toronto has built 6 km of a stubway.

The LRT expansion in Surrey is sort of up in the air. Although it would be true RAPID transit LRT unlike TC, people are complaining that it won't be fast or reliable enough and are demanding a SkyTrain extension.

 

[nfitz]

Obviously Vancouver has done a vastly superior job in expanding transit in the last 30 years. Vancouver has built a new commuter rail line as well as a brand new grade separated 80km SkyTrain system while Toronto has built 6 km of a stubway.

You are cherry picking, by choosing a period convenient to your comparison. Also, you are including the 1985 Expo line opening in your calculation, but choose to leave out the 1986 Spadina line extension in Toronto. Vancouver has indeed opened 8 commuter rail stations in the last 30 years. How many train stations has GO added? I haven't done the math, but I bet it's more than 10. They've certainly added more km of service than Vancouver, which only added 69 km. Shame it only runs 5 times a day, with the last departure for downtown at 7:25 AM!

No doubt Vancouver has done very well in that time period. In the previous 20 years, Toronto did far better. So what about the next 5 years. Toronto is on track to open 39 km. Vancouver ... might add a 5.5 km extension to Arbutus ... though I'll be surprised.

The LRT expansion in Surrey is sort of up in the air. Although it would be true RAPID transit LRT unlike TC, people are complaining that it won't be fast or reliable enough and are demanding a SkyTrain extension.

Surely, if you include Surrey, you also need to include Mississauga, Brampton, Richmond Hill, etc. Parts of Surrey are close to the US border than they are to Vancouver!

The bottom line, is that these comparisons are silly.

 

[44 North]

The bottom line, is that these comparisons are silly.

Pretty much. I like being able to compare examples of types of infrastructure, cost-savings, etc. But to argue that 'Vancouver does it better' or is superior is pretty useless and silly.

 

[officedweller]

It's not repeatable for Vancouver either. SNC-Lavalin underbid; they didn't do well on the project; some quarters their shortfall was in the tens of millions of dollars (peaked at ~$40M for a single quarter loss IIRC). That would add a couple hundred million to the pricetag if they got to redo the bid.

Being an extension they didn't need to build any new maintenance facilities or yard space. 28 LRVs are included in that price tag. IIRC Finch West yard/facilities are about 10% of the price ($120M) so there's another $160M saved on Evergreen.

... LIM yards are relatively expensive but this project didn't need any yard changes.

Building identical stations helps with design costs. Tunnels are actually cheap (Eglinton LRT was around $60M/km including TBMs); it's the stations and emergency exits are make them expensive. IIRC, the Evergreen tunnel is short enough it doesn't have any emergency escapes; so the 2.2km tunnel would be a ~$140M bore here. Eglinton looked at single-bore, as used on Evergreen line, but the soil wasn't stable enough to support that so a double-bore was used. Evergreen also didn't go very deep with extraction shafts either as the line was coming up to run at ground level.

There is a new storage yard on Evergreen - near Falcon Station. It's just additional tracks, no operations facility or train wash, so its fairly small.

You can see it at 1:15 of this video:

Westbound to Lougheed Town Centre:

Eastbound to LaFarge Lake Douglas:

The reason SNC-Lavalin didn't do well on the project is because as part of the PPP, they accepted the tunnelling risk - and there ended up being delays and sinkhole problems with the tunnel bore. So, yeah, they probably would bid differently the next time, but each project is specific to the soil conditions, of the sites.

 

[officedweller]

I wouldn't call Inlet Centre as an "above ground station"... It is certainly underground for most of its length in the centre, but at-grade on both ends.

The Inlet Centre Station was built as a concrete "box" adjacent to its final location, and pushed into place in one weekend.
The arterial road ("Barnet Highway") that runs over the station was excavated during that long Remembrance Day weekend, the box pushed into place and the road reinstated.

The same could be done for an SRT tunnel to replace the sharp curve.

Here's the video of it:

 

[MisterF]

You are cherry picking, by choosing a period convenient to your comparison. Also, you are including the 1985 Expo line opening in your calculation, but choose to leave out the 1986 Spadina line extension in Toronto. Vancouver has indeed opened 8 commuter rail stations in the last 30 years. How many train stations has GO added? I haven't done the math, but I bet it's more than 10. They've certainly added more km of service than Vancouver, which only added 69 km. Shame it only runs 5 times a day, with the last departure for downtown at 7:25 AM!

No doubt Vancouver has done very well in that time period. In the previous 20 years, Toronto did far better. So what about the next 5 years. Toronto is on track to open 39 km. Vancouver ... might add a 5.5 km extension to Arbutus ... though I'll be surprised.

Surely, if you include Surrey, you also need to include Mississauga, Brampton, Richmond Hill, etc. Parts of Surrey are close to the US border than they are to Vancouver!

The bottom line, is that these comparisons are silly.

And yet he's correct that Vancouver has added much more rapid transit than Toronto has in that time frame. That comparison illustrates that one city started building when the other city essentially stopped. To go one step further, Vancouver has built more rapid transit in the last 30 years than Toronto has ever and now has a larger system. GO doesn't count as rapid transit, at least not in its current form (RER will be, for all intents and purposes, rapid transit). And LRTs that have to stop at red lights aren't really rapid transit either. The standard response is that Toronto's subways are much bigger, mostly underground, carry more people, etc. But there's no reason that Toronto couldn't have built cheaper intermediate capacity rapid transit lines just like Vancouver in areas that don't need a full subway. Vancouver simply has a more extensive system, especially considering the fact that their CMA is less than half the size of Toronto's. That's not just a meaningless stat either, it has real life consequences. Toronto has far more parts of the city without any rapid transit, where the only option is to sit in traffic. Vancouver residents tend to have easier access to it than Toronto residents and their system is less overcrowded.

 

[nfitz]

Vancouver residents tend to have easier access to it than Toronto residents and their system is less overcrowded.

The grass is always greener, isn't it.

I'm not sure if Vancouver IS well-served really. Burnaby might be well served, but not so much Vancouver. There isn't any service anywhere near UBC - perhaps one of the more important nodes in the city.

Less overcrowded? Perhaps if they'd built 200-metre long stations and used wide trains like in Toronto. But the 40-metre long Canada line stations and narrow trains:

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-...crowded-buses-trains-and-more-time-in-traffic
http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-line-seating-configuration
http://www.cknw.com/2014/09/12/canada-line-stations-overcrowded/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/translink-ceo-six-months-1.3803113
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2014/08/...-skytrain-canada-line-built-nearing-capacity/