News   Mar 28, 2024
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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

Ugh. I am currently compelled to write a letter to Adam Giambrone wondering what the hell, but at the same time I know that I'll just get blown off no matter what I write. I hate politics.
 
Definitely write. If enough people do, it might make a difference. Unfortunately, the thousands of people who signed petitions and went to meetings in favour of a Scarborough Subway were sold out in five minutes by their elected representatives and completely ignored.

I wrote three letters to my councillor, Adam Vaughan, about a development, and I haven't received a single reply.
 
$1.28 Billion!!!

Your taxpayer's money at work! That's what you get when you hire the guy to fix the problematic line he helped to install in the first place, though.

It really should have been a subway.

For the record, this person was very vocal that it should be replaced with a subway extension.
 
What person do you speak of? Richard Soberman?

That was the person I was referring to. I believe he would have preferred a LRT network instead. If done right, LRT would probably have been preferable to SRT retention/expansion if, for example, there's trunking of several routes that would have extended out beyond the SRT line and at least full private ROWs on the core portion (ie the current SRT route) to avoid 'LRT' like on Spadina.

Malvern would be well served by a frequent 18 hour/day Rocket route to STC Subway Station along with the current mess of routes (39, 85, 116, 131, 132, 133, 134). Plus Sheppard East Transit City.
 
Let's compare apples to apples. The earlier cost estimate for the subway was from Kennedy to STC. Surely much of the cost of the SRT rebuild/extension is the extension to Sheppard.

How much will just the rebuild of the existing cost versus subway. And how much will subway to Sheppard/Markham cost compared to the SRT.

(and in terms of why go to Sheppard/Markham - surely to spur on development! We've seen this occurring at Don Mills Station and Bessarion already).
 
Let's compare apples to apples. The earlier cost estimate for the subway was from Kennedy to STC. Surely much of the cost of the SRT rebuild/extension is the extension to Sheppard.

How much will just the rebuild of the existing cost versus subway. And how much will subway to Sheppard/Markham cost compared to the SRT.

(and in terms of why go to Sheppard/Markham - surely to spur on development! We've seen this occurring at Don Mills Station and Bessarion already).

A subway extension to STC and an RT extension to Markham & Sheppard are both apples - a main feature of the plan to save the RT has always been to extend it to "Malvern." Think of it as...compensation...for not getting a subway extension. The city would pump an equivalent amount of infrastructure spending into an underprivileged "priority neighbourhood," giving them "access to rapid transit," etc.

The RT reno alone would ~$500 million.

Unless the city plans on permitting many tens of thousands of condo units in Malvern, running a line there for the sake of redevelopment would be an obscene waste of money...the Sheppard line replaced a busy bus route, and had it not been aborted in the Don Mills trimester, it would have run through an already substantially developed neighbourhood.
 
We are comparing apples to apples! It's just that we're comparing based on quality of service to actual riders, rather than abstract mileage and number of lines on a map. Replacing the RT with a subway would benefit hundreds of thousands more people than would benefit from the RT extension, and even the people who do benefit from an RT extension would benefit more from the subway.

Subway -- any rapid transit -- to Markham and Sheppard is absurd. There's nothing there. It's a completely arbitrary point that happened to have a major development planned 20 years ago which fell through 19 years ago. The land was developed with a gas station, a few townhouses, and a Chinese community centre. It's even more absurd when it means keeping the RT instead of replacing it with a subway that would last forever and make riding the TTC so much easier for hundreds of thousands of Scarberians. A subway would spur development at Scarborough Centre, a designated centre in the Official Plan where development is supposed to be going. Markham and Sheppard isn't even on anybody's radar.
 
I sincerely hope that the GTTA steps in on this issue and ends the nonsense, though I somehow doubt it.
 
Is there an online petition to have the SRT replaced with a subway to Scarborough Town Centre? If there is, we should all sign it. If there's not, we should make it, and have everyone we know sign it. I know an online petition isn't worth as much as a paper one, but still....now that we know how much this is going to COST, it's absolutely ridiculous to go through with the SRT replacement/extension.
 
Is there an online petition to have the SRT replaced with a subway to Scarborough Town Centre? If there is, we should all sign it. If there's not, we should make it, and have everyone we know sign it. I know an online petition isn't worth as much as a paper one, but still....now that we know how much this is going to COST, it's absolutely ridiculous to go through with the SRT replacement/extension.

Now, now lets not be too rash. The MoveOntario plan will only upgrade the current system. There is no concrete proof they'll go ahead with the extension, and certainly not before they start building Transit City.

It's just that we're comparing based on quality of service to actual riders, rather than abstract mileage and number of lines on a map. Replacing the RT with a subway would benefit hundreds of thousands more people than would benefit from the RT extension, and even the people who do benefit from an RT extension would benefit more from the subway.

Even if they extend the subway they'd still need to upgrade the current system first as it goes obscelete by 2015. Meanwhile a BD extension could route via Eglinton-Danforth-McCowan from the southeast. If the goal is to long term phase out the SRT the TTC could pave over the current route and run BRT in it's place. Mezzanine reconstruction at Kennedy could accomodate new platform structures in effect minimizing the distance commuters have to interchange. When the subway extension is completed the space set aside for SRT BRT could then house the Eglinton Crosstown and Scarborough-Malvern TC lines in its tunnel. Malvern still deserves better than a phlethora of meandering bus routes. BRT could continue east of STC via the current McCowan station and a private ROW towards the northeast thereafter. I know you said trains couldn't route directly onto Progress Campus but buses definitely could. I'm envisioning a BRT similar to the elevated bus routes and stations through parts of downtown Ottawa.
 
Maybe a map showing the area on a map where people will see an improvement in transit service for the two options would drive the idea home. A huge swath of northern Scarborough sees faster service with less transfers with a subway including those in Malvern, whereas only locations in walking distance from one of the SRT extension stations would see improvement in service but no improvement in number of transfers.

The reason only those in walking distance see a benefit to the SRT extension is that there is not much service level difference in taking a short bus route which will have less ridership due to the extension and thus less frequency and the added time of transferring to the SRT at Sheppard and Markham Rd, and simply taking a more frequent bus and transferring at SCC.

A subway extension from Kennedy to the SCC would make SCC the natural transit hub that Sheppard and Markham Rd can't and should never be. It would reduce the time to downtown for far more people and get rid of the inconvenient transfer. Even comparing the trip time for someone in walking distance to Sheppard and Markham Rd between the SRT extension to Sheppard and the subway extension to SCC options the person would have an identical number of transfers with the two options and while the Sheppard and Markham Rd to SCC trip would be faster with the SRT extension the SCC to Kennedy trip would be slower.

So where is the benefit to the SRT extension as compared to the subway extension? I don't see it. When the same amount of money would be spent on each... why not improve service for the greater number of people?
 
Even if they extend the subway they'd still need to upgrade the current system first as it goes obscelete by 2015.

There are plenty of options here. Since the bulk of people on the route are going directly from Kennedy to SCC a non-stop shuttle service with a fleet of buses could fill in while the extension gets built. The SRT isn't really that fast and a bus shouldn't be too much slower than the SRT between Kennedy and SCC when the bus doesn't have any bus stops and stoplights along the route have at least a 45% chance of being green. The city could implement no parking/stopping and diamond lanes temporarily on the curb lanes of Midland and Progess. Very affordable.
 
Exactly, Enviro. I'll point out that it's not just north Scarborough (the Milliken/Denison area, STC/Ellesmere, and Malvern, of course) that will benefit from a subway, but everyone along Lawrence, too. Removing that transfer (to go 2km) plus adding rocket bus service (or even LRT) to Lawrence would really boost ridership at a Lawrence East station.

If they started the subway now, there could be a year or two of no or highly spotty RT service, but promised GO improvements, rocket bus service, etc., could make it bearable for most people. Both Midland and Brimley never have traffic between Ellesmere and Eglinton and would be very quick routes for express buses. People would bear with these temporary measures if they knew the subway was on the way.

Malvern still deserves better than a phlethora of meandering bus routes.

Yes, Malvern deserves bus routes that don't meander. That's all, though.
 
Interestingly, during this morning's freezing rain, the TTC ran shuttle buses that stopped at all RT stations (I presume in addition to the 131 express buses), even though I didn't notice any trouble with the SRT.

I guess the TTC was thinking that the SRT was going to break down sometime that morning, and so they put out the shuttle buses just in case. Probably another sign that the SRT is coming to the end of its useful life.
 
A subway extension to STC and an RT extension to Markham & Sheppard are both apples.
No they are not. A subway extension to STC and conversion of the existing system are apples to apples.

The RT reno alone would ~$500 million.
No it isn't. According to the documents the GTTA released last week, the renovation is $236 million. The extension to Sheppard and Markham is $680 million. Now what was that subway extension cost? It's about 6 km - so based on the current Spadina extension costs, you must be looking at at least $1.5 billion just to get to STC, not including vehicles. $1.5 billion or $236 million?

The recent GTTA documents don't seem to be mentioning extending to Malvern - so perhaps that is off the table.
 

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