News   Mar 28, 2024
 984     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 554     2 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 846     0 

Don Mills, Scarborough East, Jane LRT/Subway.

Why are you asking for more information when he gave you the full status of the project? In November, Ford stopped all work on Transit City, but has yet to take any transit approval to council (such as the Eglinton MOU). Work that was done before the election will live on in archives, but no money will be spend before 2014. Everyone is ratcheting down on tucking project work into larger budgets.

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/jane_lrt/index.htm
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/11/30/mayor-ford%E2%80%99s-first-stop-hit-brakes-on-transit-city/
 
Why are you asking for more information when he gave you the full status of the project? In November, Ford stopped all work on Transit City, but has yet to take any transit approval to council (such as the Eglinton MOU). Work that was done before the election will live on in archives, but no money will be spend before 2014. Everyone is ratcheting down on tucking project work into larger budgets.

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/jane_lrt/index.htm
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/11/30/mayor-ford%E2%80%99s-first-stop-hit-brakes-on-transit-city/

Just want to know why. I thought phase two could still be a go even if Finch West was canceled.
 
Why because we currently have a $12.9 billion subway scheme that has $8.2 billion in funding. Jane, Don Mills, and Malvern LRTs are all good line concepts, but like how the Network 2011 plan got chopped down to the Sheppard Stub Subway, the TransitCity plan will be chopped down to the Eglinton LRT Subway. Finch West wasn't cancelled so much as defunded. They still realise something has to be done to improve service in the area, they're just going with the cheapest version possible because there isn't money left nor political appitite for LRT.

The lines have dropped off future system concept drawings, so there isn't a chance of them being designed and built before 2020. We'll probably have to wait until 2015 until we have any new project spending. Until then we'll build a couple of the things we've been looking at for the last decade or two.
 
Why because we currently have a $12.9 billion subway scheme that has $8.2 billion in funding. Jane, Don Mills, and Malvern LRTs are all good line concepts, but like how the Network 2011 plan got chopped down to the Sheppard Stub Subway, the TransitCity plan will be chopped down to the Eglinton LRT Subway. Finch West wasn't cancelled so much as defunded. They still realise something has to be done to improve service in the area, they're just going with the cheapest version possible because there isn't money left nor political appitite for LRT.

The lines have dropped off future system concept drawings, so there isn't a chance of them being designed and built before 2020. We'll probably have to wait until 2015 until we have any new project spending. Until then we'll build a couple of the things we've been looking at for the last decade or two.

Ok. So in theory If Adam Vaughan gets elected in 2014 we could have all these lines completed by 2030?
 
Ok. So in theory If Adam Vaughan gets elected in 2014 we could have all these lines completed by 2030?

I wish we had rational people plan these things and not the likes of Miller and Ford.

A proper plan would have seen the Sheppard subway finished, an Eglinton subway or LRT started, replaced the SRT with a Danforth line extension, built a DRL, a Finch East and West LRT, as well as the Jane and Don Mills LRT you mention. I'm not too familiar with a Malvern LRT though.
 
A proper plan would have seen the Sheppard subway finished...

Sheppard will never need that kind of capacity. A 5.5km section of the Yonge-University line, marginally longer than the existing Sheppard line, serves the city core which has thin streets and only a 6 lane freeway to get to it. The Sheppard line sits right next to a 16 lane freeway, has no parking issues, has wide streets, and comparatively low density in terms of employment + residents. An LRT would be entirely capable of handling the demand on Sheppard. To think that Sheppard would need transit infrastructure built to the same level as downtown makes little sense and would not be a "proper plan".
 
Sheppard will never need that kind of capacity.
Never? That's what some people said about extending Yonge to Finch in the 70s. Turns out Steeles would have been an even better idea.

Anyway, if Ford ever gets a Sheppard extension, he'll need a second term and public money.
 
Never? That's what some people said about extending Yonge to Finch in the 70s.

The subway line between Sheppard and Finch is at a capacity that requires a subway only because it goes downtown and that is where the bulk of the ridership on the route is headed. If the plan was to build a Finch to Eglinton line without there being a Yonge line south of Eglinton would that line make sense as a subway? No. It would hardly be used. The only reason a subway at Finch makes sense is that it is an extension of a route which requires the capacity of a subway. North York Centre and Scarborough Centre will never have the draw of downtown. At Yonge most people from the Sheppard line transfer south at Sheppard... they didn't even want to go to the North York Centre area but had to because it was the only option. At no point on that line will the line reach a capacity that could not have been handled with LRT. A DRL on Don Mills to Fairview Mall would reach subway capacities, and further decimate ridership on the Sheppard line to LRT levels. In New York City there is a whopping two crosstown routes that don't go to Manhattan, one which operates well below capacity at 10 minute intervals, and one which at peak has 7 minute service between the south part of downtown Brooklin to the downtown Queens. Toronto isn't going to catch up to New York City.
 
Last edited:
North York Centre and Scarborough Centre will never have the draw of downtown.
Not with that lack of ambition!

No doubt we'd be better off today if Eglinton had won out over Sheppard 15 years ago, but what's done is done. The bottom line is that any merits of your arguments pale in comparison to the political appeal of a Sheppard subway. Miller tried for an extension in his first term and Ford is having a go now. And if he fails, I predict no future Mayor will risk all those Scarborough and North York votes with another LRT proposal. It's either subway or nothing.
 
No doubt we'd be better off today if Eglinton had won out over Sheppard 15 years ago, but what's done is done.

The Eglinton line would be better as a subway than Sheppard but still the DRL makes more sense.

The bottom line is that any merits of your arguments pale in comparison to the political appeal of a Sheppard subway. Miller tried for an extension in his first term and Ford is having a go now. And if he fails, I predict no future Mayor will risk all those Scarborough and North York votes with another LRT proposal. It's either subway or nothing.

Then building nothing makes more sense because there are transit projects that will serve more passengers for the same dollars spent. Ford didn't win on a Sheppard subway, and Miller didn't loose on a Sheppard subway. Still, even if a Sheppard subway is destined to be due to politics overruling intelligent thought, it still doesn't change the fact that Lastman was an idiot for starting it and any politician that would spend a cent on it isn't a sound fiscal manager of the public purse.
 
The Eglinton line would be better as a subway than Sheppard but still the DRL makes more sense.



Then building nothing makes more sense because there are transit projects that will serve more passengers for the same dollars spent. Ford didn't win on a Sheppard subway, and Miller didn't loose on a Sheppard subway. Still, even if a Sheppard subway is destined to be due to politics overruling intelligent thought, it still doesn't change the fact that Lastman was an idiot for starting it and any politician that would spend a cent on it isn't a sound fiscal manager of the public purse.

I agree that an Eglinton subway would have been better than the Sheppard subway. But we can't turn back time.

The only thing we can do is make the Sheppard subway useful by extending it to proper terminii, Downsview aka Sheppard West and Scarborough Centre. As long as it's unfinished, it won't realize it's full potential.
 
The only thing we can do is make the Sheppard subway useful by extending it to proper terminii, Downsview aka Sheppard West and Scarborough Centre. As long as it's unfinished, it won't realize it's full potential.

The only thing we can do is make the Sheppard subway useful by CONVERTING IT TO LRT AND extending it to proper terminii, Downsview aka Sheppard West and Scarborough Centre. As long as it's unfinished, it won't realize it's full potential.
 

Back
Top