Toronto Leslie Barns | ?m | ?s | TTC | SAI

Ugh. Another buses vs. streetcar debate. What nonsense.

Hipster Duck, if the TTC bought hundreds of new buses(not replacement buses), the TTC would have to build new garages. That would be around $100million for each garage, based on the cost of the Mount Dennis garage. You're wrong that new buses will not need a new garage.

The new LRV facility is a one time cost. You speak as if the City will be building a new facility every time new streetcars are purchased. Roncy, Connaught, and Hillcrest have served the fleet for many decades, it's time to upgrade. Think of it as the guy who tried to play WoW on his Pentium 3 computer.

It's not a hidden cost, the current carhouses simply cannot maintain the new fleet.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Not to throw salt in an old wound, but this is an example of a "cost" of running streetcars that is not accounted for in the streetcar/bus debate.
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If we had simply replaced the existing fleet, then this new facility wouldn't be necessary (though some existing buildings would have had to have been modified to service these vehicles.

What's really driving this is that the new streetcars will effectively increase the size of the fleet by 50%. If you calculate the length of track you need to store the current fleet it's about 4,000 metres. It will be about 6,000 metres once we have finished receiving the new cars in 2018, and gotten rid of all the current ones.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Except that a new bus garage wouldn't cost $430 million - even for the equivalent bus:streetcar passenger service ratio.
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It will be more like $600m when all the unknows are dealt with as it is in the wrong place.

Bus garages cost $250 to $400 and that depends on the area they are built in.

Carhouse cost more as they have to be higher to gain access to the top of the new LRV.

Do the math as what it cost for a full enclose build per sq ft between the LRV and buses.

This project is 9 months behind schedule now.

Land plays a big roll in the cost of any carhouse/bus garage as well the year the tender was awarded.
 
The soil capping would not have to be done at Ashbridges if the space was remain greenspace as at present (part of the residents' objections). The Lever Brothers site would be merely remaining industrial in nature - some soil remediation would presumably still be required but hopefully not $50,000,000 worth.

Part of my concern with the Ashbridges site and to a lesser extent the Lever Brothers site is that it concentrates a huge number of the fleet in one corner of the city - a fire west of Leslie would be hugely disruptive in terms of getting cars in and out of service from both Ashbridges and Russell which would be relying on going the long way round via Kingston Road or Coxwell. I have the same thoughts when I hear people say that the answer to every subway expansion question is a bigger and bigger Wilson, rather than making a new yard an absolute requirement of a Richmond Hill Extension - especially when we hear the design of the Wilson changes to accommodate Spadina Extension may have some problems in terms of morning dispatching.

I doubt the Hillcrest option is feasible given what else goes on there and the unlikelihood of being able to migrate the bus and subway work elsewhere in the timeframe, but one of the reasons I'd like to see Hillcrest recreated as an operating division post-Flexity is not just reduction of deadheading (and supporting streetcar services between St. Clair and Bloor :cool: ) but also improving resilency of the network to fires and other closures.

As for Layton's letter, he contradicts himself in his last paragraph - "alternatives should be examined (future tense), but Staff have examined them (past tense), so shut up" - apart from the attempt to seem reasonable followed by a swift koolaid suck down, Staff's prior analysis of the Lever site assumed the land the lessee was on would not be available. Another unimpressive display from Mike "as my first act I will scold the press" Layton. If the TR project is anything to go by Bombardier will probably be late delivering anyway so can we really say another few months to take a second look is critical?
 
Drove by this location on the weekend and hoarding is up all around the entire site and large machinery is on-site digging away at the earth mound. Looks like this has started!
 
The pre-qualification was completed, and now they've issued the tender to actually build the facility:

http://www2.ttc.ca/docs/Advertisments TC/T14TD11625.html

The construction work for the Ashbridges Bay Maintenance and Storage Facility (MSF) shall include, but is not limited to: site preparation, construction of the MSF, construction of traction power substation, construction of site services, construction of storage yard, and construction waste management and disposal.
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Hopefully all this Ford talk of cancelling the new streetcars will end when this tender is awarded. Tender closed on October 19th.
 
Not quite so fast. Apparently Del Grande made some noise about targeting the new vehicles for cuts following the overnight Exec meeting, but I haven't seen any details of what he actually said. In any case the carhouse is mostly unfunded still.
 
allabootmatt said:
Not quite so fast. Apparently Del Grande made some noise about targeting the new vehicles for cuts following the overnight Exec meeting, but I haven't seen any details of what he actually said. In any case the carhouse is mostly unfunded still.
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I believe he said something along the lines of selling asset sales to the mushy middle as being something like "if you want new streetcars, you need to sell this". It sounded to me more like how he was going to pay for streetcars, than trying to stop them.

Now Doug Ford did make a comment on Matlow's radio show this weekend about getting rid of new streetcars and the yard ... but Doug Ford's off-the-cuff comments seem to not follow the rest of the EC. Doug was the one who wanted to close libraries in his ward ... and even Rob Ford is saying he doesn't support that.

There may be holes in the TTC capital budget, but the full amount for the LRT yard is in there in both 2011 and 2012. There's $437 million in the TTC budget for the new yard. The latest version shows that 2012 is fully funded. There will be $233 million to spend in 2013 and 2014. And there's $600+ shortfall for 2013 and 2014 ... that will be interesting ...
 
I've also been hearing rumors that Ford's now turning his eyes on the new streetcars.

"Del Grande indicates that they're going to be framing the next round as asset sales vs. new streetcars: which do you want?"
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But then again, rumors are rumors until they blow up in the news.
 
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jje1000 said:
I've also been hearing rumors that Ford's now turning his eyes on the new streetcars.
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Ford has become so impotent, that he couldn't even get cuts to street sweeping through. He's also failed miserably on Portlands.

Unless a new provincial government initiates something (and that might be complicated, given that Ontario funding the streetcars, was part of the federal deal for the infrastructure funding during 2009-2011), I can't imagine that much will touch the streetcars. I can't imagine that council would go for that.
 
nfitz said:
Ford has become so impotent, that he couldn't even get cuts to street sweeping through. He's also failed miserably on Portlands.

Unless a new provincial government initiates something (and that might be complicated, given that Ontario funding the streetcars, was part of the federal deal for the infrastructure funding during 2009-2011), I can't imagine that much will touch the streetcars. I can't imagine that council would go for that.
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Exactly. Even if he were to cut them, it wouldn't generate very much in terms of revenue anyway, because the majority of the funding for the streetcars wasn't from the City in the first place.

Then again, he did say no to free health nurses, so who knows...
 
gweed123 said:
.. the majority of the funding for the streetcars wasn't from the City in the first place.
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The majority of funding WAS from the city for the streetcars. Province paid 1/3. And city is paying 100% of the approximately $0.5-billion carhouse.
 
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