Transit City Comeback?

[Cobra]

Bottom line...

When the province told the city they had money to spend on transit, Miller and Giambrone preferred to push Transit City ahead of a DRL line (most likely for electoral purposes).

All this debate about Suburb vs Downtown and where money should be spent proportionally is time wasting and irrelevant. The source of it all is the initiate choice of picking Transit City over DRL.

The DRL could have been under construction right now using McGuinty funding while the Wynne and Trudeau funding would be funding Eglinton, Scarborough subway, Finch and Sheppard and possibly get more LRT lines built due to their lower costs.

The whole thing was done backward...All this current drama is a symptom of that decision.

 

[44 North]

The DRL could have been under construction right now using McGuinty funding while the Wynne and Trudeau funding would be funding Eglinton, Scarborough subway, Finch and Sheppard and possibly get more LRT lines built due to their lower costs.

Not saying you're wrong, and I'm not saying I'm right. But I have a strong inclination to believe that the ~$8bn Prov funding wasn't so much free money for Toronto to do what it wanted. Rather it was contingent on it being spent on projects that serve the outer 416 (and thus bring in more votes to the Prov). Obviously we don't know what was said behind closed doors, but I have trouble believing that such a tidy sum would be handed over for it mostly to go to a project south of Bloor/Danforth.

 

[cbrown2009]

I keep saying this but I'll say it again. Transit in Toronto isn't supposed to be a this or that scenario. Transit City was a bold vision to include many of the most transit-starved areas of the city and tie this fragmented, segmented metropolitan area together, at least in terms of transit. The Sheppard subway had just opened & work was just beginning on the York subway extension. Transit City was a logical next step that was supposed to get a fair amount of transit built & up & running relatively quickly & cheaply while the next link in the chain should have been the DRL. If the province hadn't cut it back in 2008 & allowed Rob Ford to cancel/delay it further in 2010, the Sheppard East would already be done, Finch well on its way to completion and Scarborough RT shut down and being replaced even as we speak (type). And the way would be paved right now to be getting the DRL started.
Frankly, whoever won the Mayor's seat in 2010 should have left alone what was already on the books (and literally funded and shovel-ready) and should have been pushing hard for the DRL to start sooner rather than later. And the current Mayor & council-and QueensPark-should have had the DRL front and centre on the radar for completion by 2025-2030 at the latest. But they are focused on other things that frankly are wasting time & money and diverting resources from what should now have been Toronto's #1 priority-the DRL, at least from somewhere downtown to Eglinton & Don Mills.

 

[cbrown2009]

I mean, are you kidding me?? A 5 km subway tunnel with NO stops??!!

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

I mean, are you kidding me?? A 5 km subway tunnel with NO stops??!!

Believe it or not, given how stupid the twists and turns had been to this point, this is actually about the best, and most creative, plan that could get Scarborough transit planning back to the realms of normalcy. It's a strange way to get there, but that's mostly due to the starting point and constraints.

And here's the thing. Given projected ridership, there's no place where you should put another stop. (Of course, that's because you shouldn't build it in the first place, right?) So, if your twin constraints are (a) we must build a subway extension to Scarborough Town Centre and (b) we should put interim stops only where they are justified by subway-level projected ridership, your Managerial Science network-solving matrix spits out IS = 0.

 

[cbrown2009]

Of course, that's because you shouldn't build it in the first place, right?.

Which is my point exactly.

 

[GenerationW]

Not saying you're wrong, and I'm not saying I'm right. But I have a strong inclination to believe that the ~$8bn Prov funding wasn't so much free money for Toronto to do what it wanted. Rather it was contingent on it being spent on projects that serve the outer 416 (and thus bring in more votes to the Prov). Obviously we don't know what was said behind closed doors, but I have trouble believing that such a tidy sum would be handed over for it mostly to go to a project south of Bloor/Danforth.

There's no evidence to support that. McGuinty had 18 of 22 Toronto seats when Transit City funding was announced, and the others were NDP seats in the old city of Toronto. If the Liberals wanted to be that particular, they would have been more keen on something like the DRL than LRTs on Sheppard and Finch.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Meanwhile, see link...

Trudeau announces $1.28 billion toward major Montreal rail project

The transit project will connect Montreal to its suburbs and to its international airport. Once completed, the automated light rail network will include 27 stations and operate 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

(Note, it's light rail, not subway, subway, subway.)

 

[kEiThZ]

Is it actually LRT or just electrified heavy rail?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Is it actually LRT or just electrified heavy rail?

Electrified rail. It's smarttrack.

 

[IRT_BMT_IND]

Electrified rail. It's smarttrack. GO-ALRT

fixed that for you

 

[OneCity]

Meanwhile, see link...

Trudeau announces $1.28 billion toward major Montreal rail project

The transit project will connect Montreal to its suburbs and to its international airport. Once completed, the automated light rail network will include 27 stations and operate 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

(Note, it's light rail, not subway, subway, subway.)

Reminds me of the Eglinton crosstown LRT or GO RER no so much the SSE or Sheppard subway

A true Troll post?

 

[nfitz]

My gosh, that's 3 sides of a square to get from Centrale to Trudeau. The 747 bus only takes about 18 minutes from Lionel-Groulx. A bit slower in rush hour, but not horrific.

Meanwhile the current AMT train takes 16 minutes to go 5 stations from Centrale to Bois-Franc (where they've been promising they should extend the Orange Line too for 35 years). But now there will be 8 stations (with the 3 new ones), to Bois-Franc. And then 3 more to Trudeau. And good grief, why not take it 800 metres more, to Dorval circle, to intersect with the Dorion line, VIA Rail, and all the STM service at that major transit hub.

Meanwhile the Repentigny train is turned into a connecting service? Absurd. If they were to do this, they should also run the Repentigny and Blainville trains though this - rather than the absurd service now, where they travel from Metro Parc to Lucien-L'Allier via Montreal-West and Vendôme!

I suppose on the bright side, they are finally going to build the connecting platforms at Metro Vincent-D'Indy that were supposed to be finished, what, over 30 years ago, but were cancelled because of the high cost.

It's looking a bit more likely, but I'm still cynical it will actually be built, certainly in the form shown.

 

[Hopkins123]

Meanwhile, see link...

Trudeau announces $1.28 billion toward major Montreal rail project

The transit project will connect Montreal to its suburbs and to its international airport. Once completed, the automated light rail network will include 27 stations and operate 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

(Note, it's light rail, not subway, subway, subway.)

Of course what isn't talked about is how other priority neighborhoods in the Montreal region got the shaft courtesy of this out-of-nowhere REM scheme (St Leonard, Anjou, Montreal Nord, Longueuil and Laval). Also gone is the likelihood the Blue Line will ever one day extend westward into Hampstead, NDG, Cote St Luc, Loyola campus, Montreal Ouest, Ville St Pierre and Lachine.

 

[nfitz]

Also gone is the likelihood the Blue Line will ever one day extend westward into Hampstead, NDG, Cote St Luc, Loyola campus, Montreal Ouest, Ville St Pierre and Lachine.

I think that's been all but dead for 35 years now. Though as the terminus was called Lafleur, it was in Lasalle. There were to be 4 stations. Cote-St-Luc (near Fielding and CSL), Cavendish (at Somerled), Montreal-Ouest (near the train station in Montreal West), and Lafleur. So not really into CSL at all.