Toronto Kipling Station Transit Hub | ?m | 2s | Metrolinx | SAI

I've looked at the site in person. I'm aware that it could involve eliminating a small portion of one level of that condo's underground garage. So what? Eliminate it. Replace the twenty spaces or whatever on another part of the site. Problem solved, and for less than $10 million rather than the hundreds of millions required for tunnelling.

I cannot possibly see how you can think that a garage extension on which nothing is built would have anything to do with the structural integrity of a condo built on another part of the site. Buildings are supported through pilings going straight down, not horizontally.

Like I said, even if the building is somehow (and completely inexplicably) cantilevered over that section of the parking garage, even buying and demolishing the entire building (which, to reiterate, is almost certainly not necessary) would cost a tiny fraction of the cost of tunnelling the entire route. You guys are so desperate to find reasons that things can't be done that you completely miss the big picture: it's preposterous to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a massive tunnel in order to avoid one building.
 
I cannot possibly see how you can think that a garage extension on which nothing is built would have anything to do with the structural integrity of a condo built on another part of the site. Buildings are supported through pilings going straight down, not horizontally.
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The underground garage walls support the entire building. According to an engineer at Jablonsky, Ast & Partners, it is quite common for the support to be shifted from the columns to the garage walls in order to use smaller columns (for a large useable space in the garage). She also questioned the legality of altering the foundation walls.

In her professional opinion, it would be cheaper to go around.

We are getting LRT on Dundas, and we are likely getting REX on the Milton line, at least to Mississauga City Centre. I believe this is the best idea for serving the redevelopment potential along the corridor and for bringing rapid transit into Mississaga. I don't see a benefit to extending the subway in an environment with these two projects just over the horizon.
 
So run the subway over that bit of the garage. It'd still be hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than a tunnel. When reasonable extensions can be built for such little money, we shouldn't squander the opportunity.
 
RedRocket191 said:
The underground garage walls support the entire building. According to an engineer at Jablonsky, Ast & Partners, it is quite common for the support to be shifted from the columns to the garage walls in order to use smaller columns (for a large useable space in the garage). She also questioned the legality of altering the foundation walls.

In her professional opinion, it would be cheaper to go around.

We are getting LRT on Dundas, and we are likely getting REX on the Milton line, at least to Mississauga City Centre. I believe this is the best idea for serving the redevelopment potential along the corridor and for bringing rapid transit into Mississaga. I don't see a benefit to extending the subway in an environment with these two projects just over the horizon.
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Exactly, a subway is not the only option, nor it is always the best one. I also think that a combonation of LRT and REX service is a better idea.

I work in the condo buisness, you cant just go knocking down part of the foundation of such a large tower. Even if the part being removed does not support the load of the tower itself, it is also used to keep the rest of the foundation stable.

The underground levels are not all parking either, vital mechanical components and safety equipment are located in parts of the underground levels.
 
You're all missing the point...it'd probably be cheaper to buy and demolish the entire condo, running the train at the surface, than to tunnel the entire extension, which was deemed "the only option."
 
scarberiankhatru said:
You're all missing the point...it'd probably be cheaper to buy and demolish the entire condo, running the train at the surface, than to tunnel the entire extension, which was deemed "the only option."
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Seems rather hypocritical to demolish a condo tower in order to build a transit line, the very thing transit is meant to encourage.

A subway line is not the only option for this area either.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
You're all missing the point...it'd probably be cheaper to buy and demolish the entire condo, running the train at the surface, than to tunnel the entire extension, which was deemed "the only option."
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You have got to be kidding me!

The building, 101 Subway Crescent (The Residences at Kings Gate) has a footprint of 60 x 20 metres, so that's 1200 square metres. It's 26 floors, so 31,200 square metres of total floor space. Backhand calculations gives you 325 units at 96 square metres per unit (an estimate used by professional planners). A bachelor unit in the building is going for $162,000. If the building is all bachelor (for the sake of argument), then we're looking at an order of magnitude cost of $52.7 million just to purchase the building.

Since it's an attractive area, market rates would probably push that higher. Then you have to add demolition costs and legal cost. You couldn't even begin to calculate those, as no one has ever tried to expropriate that many units in modern Toronto history.

And why would you ever demolish a high-density building within walking distance of the subway? Isn't that what we want to encourage?

Here are my sources to cost and floors. Footprint was measured on Google Earth.

$52.7 million only for property acquisitions is unacceptable, irresponsible, and any city council who took that road when there are better alternatives should be serving time.
 
Yes sir I have, and the discussion for the last few days has been about how to deal with the building at 101 subway crescent.

I recognize that you have said that it does not need to be demolished, but you have also said that it would be cheaper to demolish the building and run the trains on the surface.

Yes, it is cheaper than tunneling, but that doesn't make it an acceptable idea. Hundreds of buses would be cheaper than a subway extension, but that doesn't make it an acceptable idea.

As you have said before in other threads, foolish ideas shouldn't be considered. I'll let your words speak for themselves.
 
My words say that the condo doesn't need to be demolished, so why waste your time/effort trying to bash unimaginative's idea that is very clearly just the extreme opposite of drum's "a $700M tunnel is the only option" idea?

I was responding to the foolish idea that a tunnelled subway extension is the only option...the same idea that has completely prevented all future subway expansion because only gold-plated, fully-tunnelled lines are considered.

For the record, razing that condo could be a fine idea if it was replaced with a taller building...a private gazebo on a short parking garage may not be the best use of land next to a subway station. If homes/backyards in Malvern and Etobicoke are going to be razed and replaced by Queen Street cafes, there's an equally valid argument that says there's nothing wrong with tearing down a few homes to help build transit lines the whole city will find useful.
 
By your own numbers, $52 million is a hell of a lot less than the hundreds of millions that the TTC claimed would be needed for tunnelling. If a building is in the way (and it most assuredly is not in this case), the TTC should absolutely expropriate if it's cheaper than tunnelling.

Even if those walls are load bearing, so what? Fill the whole damned area under the tracks with concrete. I guarantee that would support the building quite effectively! Of course, none of that would be necessary. A few million dollars, and some extra reinforcement for Red Rocket, and as I've said a hundred times in this thread, we could have a subway station at East Mall serving a major development area and providing a quick connection to the 427.

This is a sensible extension, with free land available for a station, and it would provide a much better connection with the highway. All this for a pittance, since a surface route in the rail corridor is available. I've been suggesting for years that we should adopt an S-Bahn style system on the Milton GO line, re-routed past Square One. That's by far the best solution for serving Mississauga and beyond. An extension to East Mall, however, can be entirely on the surface and would provide a much better connection with the 427 and onward bus routes than Kipling does presently. It also doesn't preclude any LRT on Dundas.
 
@ Unimaginative2 & Scarberiankhatru

After 24 hours of sober second thought, I can meet you two on the benefits of extending the subway to East Mall. It is a good idea, but neither tunneling nor going through 101 Subway Crescent is a good idea. Every option hasn't been looked at thoroughly, and that should be where we begin.

It will be a tough sell in an environment with REX and LRT, but even with those lines built a subway extension could bring on some beautiful redevelopment.
 
Sure. Ideally we can just build it through that garage. I passed by the building today, and decided to take a walk around. It shouldn't be an engineering challenge (I mean, we put a man on the moon!) but if it somehow manages to be an insurmountable challenge, I suppose we could realign the Galt Sub slightly to make room.

Read Caro -- the chapter on the Cross Bronx. It's absolutely fascinating to hear the engineering solutions they used for building through a densely populated urban area.

I'm fixated on this particular project because it's a symbol of the TTC vastly inflating the cost of subway projects by claiming that tunnelling is required everywhere. There's absolutely no reason why we should be tunnelling when there's a perfectly good rail corridor, even if it requires a bit of modification to a garage.
 
It's pretty much a given that a 427/East Mall station is a better place to terminate the line than Kipling.

Also, it's endlessly amusing that Transit City can actively support razing and rebuilding properties fronting 100km of arterial roads just so more people can enjoy streetcar access, but if one solitary building needs to be touched by a subway line - even if the line is lauded for redevelopment potential - the subway project is deemed bad and/or impossible.
 
Also, it's endlessly amusing that Transit City can actively support razing and rebuilding properties fronting 100km of arterial roads just so more people can enjoy streetcar access, but if one solitary building needs to be touched by a subway line - even if the line is lauded for redevelopment potential - the subway project is deemed bad and/or impossible.
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That's misleading. I don't think TC is proposing properties along arterial roads to be expropriated for engineering or densification purposes. What you have suggested is using eminent domain powers to acquire a property for such ends. This argument has nothing to do with the desirability of an extension to East Mall (which I support).

AoD
 
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