From the Globe:
Competing plans for Toronto transit cause delays
Province's Metrolinx agency is clashing with the TTC over a plan that would rewrite the mayor's vision for a light-rail network
JEFF GRAY AND MATTHEW CAMPBELL
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
July 24, 2008 at 3:50 AM EDT
As it contemplates road tolls and up to $80-billion in new public transit construction across the Toronto area, the province's Metrolinx agency is clashing with the TTC over a scheme that would radically rewrite Mayor David Miller's Transit City plan for a light-rail network.
At issue is Metrolinx planners' desire to scrap the TTC's proposal for a $2.2-billion partly tunnelled light-rail line on Eglinton Avenue and instead build something the TTC warns would be two to three times as expensive, such as a subway or a tunnelled subway-like system with vehicles similar to the Scarborough RT or Vancouver's SkyTrain.
The dispute is partly to blame, insiders say, for the delayed release of a draft of Metrolinx's long-range regional transportation plan.
It was supposed to come out this week, but is now due Sept. 27.
Sources say the delay is also meant to allow Queen's Park time to mull Metrolinx's other controversial ideas, such as an extra $6-billion to $9-billion a year for public transit paid for by road tolls or parking taxes.
Metrolinx chairman Rob MacIsaac, the former mayor of Burlington, denies there is a "fight."
But he says something faster and with more carrying capacity than light-rail is needed on Eglinton - where subway construction was halted by premier Mike Harris in 1995 - especially if riders are to take it from Scarborough to Mississauga.
"If you're going to travel from one end of that line to the other, we think you'd probably better pack a picnic lunch," Mr. MacIsaac said.
"We would like to find a way to speed it up for people who are travelling longer distances."
And why, he asked, build something that could end up overcrowded?
"There's little point in spending a lot of money on an LRT line that will end up with passengers whose faces are pressed up against the windows."
Adam Giambrone, the Toronto city councillor who chairs the TTC and is one the city's four representatives on Metrolinx's 11-member board, argues that building either a subway or a Scarborough RT-style line on Eglinton would mean delays and a price tag of $6-billion to $8-billion, compared with the existing plan's $2.2-billion, potentially sucking money away from other projects.
"The TTC has said it doesn't make sense," Mr. Giambrone said.
He said the route's projected 9,000 riders in the peak hour of the morning rush in 2021 don't justify a subway. By comparison, the Bloor-Danforth line carries 27,000, while 35,000 now jam into the Yonge line in just one hour in the morning.
If the province wanted to build the light-rail tunnel wide enough to allow for future conversion to a subway, it would cost an extra $1-billion, he added.
The TTC has built several subways, with provincial funding provided, that have not reached ridership capacity, including Sheppard, and the original Spadina extension in the 1970s, and the transit agency has now clearly banked its future on light rail.
"Sometimes I would say there is a propensity to see that a solid commitment to public transit is a subway, and that that's a real sign of love," said TTC vice-chairman Joe Mihevc, a big booster of light-rail who spearheaded the controversial streetcar lanes on St. Clair Avenue.
"Of course we want subways. Everyone would. But the question is, what's the lost opportunity?"
Trying to rewrite the Transit City plan would put Metrolinx - and the province, if it approved the move - on a collision course with the mayor, who included the Transit City lines in his 2006 election platform. It would also appear to contradict the endorsement Premier Dalton McGuinty gave the scheme when he announced his $11.5-billion MoveOntario 2020 public-transit plan.
A senior TTC source suggested the province will veto any radical changes to the city's plans: "They're not prepared for a collision. They're not prepared to have a whole plan to go down in flames over a fight."
Transit activist Steve Munro, who fought to save the TTC's current streetcar system in the 1970s, says Metrolinx's "interfering" on Eglinton could slow down or scupper the rest of the TTC's plans, and that he believes the route is suited to streetcars.
But respected long-time transportation consultant Richard Soberman - an adviser to Metrolinx who has lately been critical of the TTC - said Eglinton needs more than light-rail and that extending the Scarborough RT along the busy route is under consideration.
This isn't the first time the city has been at odds with Metrolinx, which was created in the fall of 2006.
Some have called for the regional agency - which has yet to assume its responsibility for GO Transit - to take over part of all of the TTC, something Mr. Miller has vehemently opposed.
The left-leaning mayor has also raised concerns about Metrolinx's enthusiasm for new partnerships with the private sector.
Toronto has been down this track before.
In the 1970s, the TTC planned what is now the Scarborough RT as a high-speed streetcar, but was convinced by Queen's Park to change course and build the line as a demonstrator for a new transit vehicle developed by the then-government-owned Urban Transportation Development Corp., which was later bought by Bombardier.
Montreal-based Bombardier, which is already building Toronto's subway cars at its Thunder Bay plant, manufactures the next generation of Scarborough RT-style vehicles. It is also keen to move into public-private partnerships in which it maintains or even operates public-transit lines: It already has a contract with GO Transit to operate the bulk of its commuter rail lines, starting this year.
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The competing visions
TTC
The Transit City plan calls for light-rail vehicles in dedicated lanes, with a tunnelled section through the most congested stretch, possibly from Laird to Keele.
Light rail
Increasingly common across the U.S. and Europe, are light-rail vehicles, such as the Flexity streetcar. The TTC rejected its builder's bid last week.
METROLINX
A fully tunnelled subway across Eglinton, or a subway-like rail system using heavier vehicles such as Bombardier's Advanced Rapid Transit system.
Rapid transit
Similar to the Scarborough RT and Vancouver's SkyTrain, vehicles such as Bombardier's Advanced Rapid Transit Mark II can be automated and carry more people than conventional light-rail lines, but fewer than traditional subway trains.
SOURCE: TRORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080724.wmetrolinx24/BNStory/National/Ontario/
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