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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

salsa said:
The Scarborough subway had everything to do with pandering to Scarborough voters, and you know it. This was not about avoiding spending money on that tunnel. And besides, the scuttled LRT plan never required any changes to the tunnel to begin with.
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Name one plan or subway line that wasn't BS politics pandering? They all were.

If the LRT extension came off Eglinton, & the Sheppard Stubway was converted then the LRT plan might have had some legs. Instead one political group tried to force a poorly designed, cheap patchy LRT plan upon Scarborough.

Some may call that vote pandering as well just to a different base.
 
Maybe someone can help me jog my memory. In the original Transit City plan before the kinks were worked out, wasn't the Crosstown and S(L)RT supposed to be interlined?

As well, one thing people might be forgetting in this debate is the length of time the SRT was to be closed. Three years, which would probably become four or five. Delays or hoarding is one thing, but to completely lose a transit line (to a centre no less) for such an amount of time is pretty substantial. Even if Ford wasn't elected and had no bearing on any decisions, I do not think that would've went over well once shovels hit the ground. So yes the SSE was pandering, but canceling the S(L)RT also seemed like a preventative measure to reduce strife or a way for politicians to hedge their bets.
 
44 North said:
Maybe someone can help me jog my memory. In the original Transit City plan before the kinks were worked out, wasn't the Crosstown and S(L)RT supposed to be interlined?
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I believe that to be the case.

44 North said:
As well, one thing people might be forgetting in this debate is the length of time the SRT was to be closed. Three years, which would probably become four or five. Delays or hoarding is one thing, but to completely lose a transit line (to a centre no less) for such an amount of time is pretty substantial. Even if Ford wasn't elected and had no bearing on any decisions, I do not think that would've went over well once shovels hit the ground. So yes the SSE was pandering, but canceling the S(L)RT also seemed like a preventative measure to reduce strife or a way for politicians to hedge their bets.
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It would be an inconvenience, but not horribly so. The primary reason Scarborough Centre Station has such high ridership is because the TTC has jerryrigged bus routes to terminate there. But if you look at the origins and destination of trips in Scarborough, you'll see that 30% of trips originating in Central Scarborough stay in Scarborough Centre, and only 15% of trips starting in North Scarborough end in Central Scarborough. Note that Central Scarborough includes, but is not the same as Scarborough Centre; Central Scarborough is a much larger geographic area (roughly between Kennedy and Markham, 401 and Kingston Road). This means that the trips to/within Scarborough Centre are actually less than 30% and 15% respectively.

In the case of the SRT shutdown, I'd expect the TTC to:
1. Route busses terminating at Scarborough Centre Station to instead terminate at Kennedy, Warden or Don Mills Stations. This would dramatically reduce the the ridership demand for trips from Kennedy Station to Scarborough Centre Station.

2. Run express bus service between Kennedy Station and Scarborough Centre Station in a protected lane for trips that still terminate in the Scarborough Centre area.

The reason I say it wouldn't be a horrible inconvenience is because in most cases, it's already faster to take a bus straight to Line 2 or Line 4 than it is to take a bus to Scarborough Centre Station and then the RT to Kennedy Station.
 
44 North said:
Maybe someone can help me jog my memory. In the original Transit City plan before the kinks were worked out, wasn't the Crosstown and S(L)RT supposed to be interlined?
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Pretty sure it was not, plans for the SRT started before Transit City was announced, and the plans were separate for quite a while, and they did not decide to switch to LRT technology until sometime after. It was not until Fords all underground Eglinton plan that it became interlined,

But when detailed plans for Kennedy station were shown, it did allow for interlining,
 
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ssiguy2 said:
Drum118.........

Earlier I stated why not just improve the SRT to handle MK111 cars and save tons of money and your answer was "The Ellesmere Tunnel"

So Toronto's answer to not spending a $200 million on a tunnel is to spend $3 billion on another tunnel that runs parallel to it.............gotcha ya. Toronto transit planning at it's stellar best.
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This.
 
nfitz said:
Which politicians? I don't recall this as any serious proposal. Pasternak proposed extending the Sheppard line west of Yonge on an annual basis, but that doesn't mean it's noteworthy.

Though now I look at it ... there was some meeting at early in Transit City where Scarborough councillors were talking about subways, and Miller/Giambrone talked them off the ledge - but that was in 2007 or 2008 ... not 2005. I can quickly delete that Wikipedia text - that article has major issues, and this isn't referenced.
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A quick google search finds the following 2005 quotes:

"In October 2005, a number of Toronto politicians began a campaign to expand the line northeastward as an alternative for theScarborough RT,"

"One possibility was to scrap the SCARBOROUGH RT altogether and replace it with an extension of the BLOOR-DANFORTH subway, a possibility that Scarborough politicians applauded. "

""I tend to favour extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway out to the Scarborough Town Centre," Moscoe said. "Scarborough really has gotten the raw end of the stick when it comes to public transit. Ridership is huge and service is probably the weakest anywhere.""
 
innsertnamehere said:
As Nfitz said.. a politician saying they want something doesn't mean there is any real serious thought spent on the subject.
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Moscoe was the TTC chair. That doesn't count as political pressure.

Why did we get the Scarborough Subway now - political pressure. Just admit that I was right.
 
LNahid2000 said:
The original Yonge subway.
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Not a chance...This was a massive Political fight between Metro and the outside areas. Basically the same arguments that it was going to be an expensive waste. Look what its done for building Toronto. It's all Politics and always has been

Im not saying Scarborough should get a subway extension. But when I see the offers that have been provided thus far. There's really no serious option for Scarborough commuters on the table.

Aside from the Sheppard stubway Its seem everyone just forgets the politics & believes these line were always suppose to be there once they are built. Even the Sheppard stubway seem to be accepted by a certain group who refuse to integrate into the technology they are forcing upon other Toronto citizens. Absurd
 
I get the need by some to prioritize other lines such as the DRL over Scarborough, but remember the $1 billion saved by going the LRT route could scarcely build even 2 kms of new subway elsewhere. Sometimes it's easier to just commit to building the subway than to futilely try to reinvent the wheel every new election cycle.
 
"fair" - LOL! This is starting to sound like the theme park forums where people are like "My home park deserves a coaster since we haven't gotten one in 5 years but park X gets one every 2 years." Yeah, because park X pulls twice the annual attendance...
 
Hopefully this drift into arguments about "fairness" is happening because all the more substantive arguments about return (ridership) vs cost are slowly but surely pulling the planks out from under the pro-subway argument. Nothing new is getting said about that.

I'm still wondering why the political arguments focus on the technology and not the envelope. If the subway option will cost $xB, then have the pols make the commitment to spend $xB in Scarboro. That removes the argument that we are going cheap on Scarboro.

Then the question becomes - how to spend it. I'm confident that one could propose an LRT-centric system that would have demonstrable improvements for current SRT riders, bring better transit to people who don't have it today, and create better development opportunities. While politics is driven by what people want this minute, transit needs to be also planned on behalf of future riders who aren't here to cast a vote today.

- Paul
 
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