Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[urbanclient]

I’ve been saying this for years now: LRTs work great in mid-sized cities like Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Calgary, Edmonton, and soon Quebec City. In those cities, the scale, street layout, and density match what an LRT can realistically support. But Toronto is operating at a completely different scale, and that’s where the problem lies.
[...]
The thing is Line 5 was always an awkward compromise. Eglinton is one of the city’s major east–west corridors, and building a half-subway/half-surface LRT on it feels underbuilt for what that corridor actually needs. When you compare it to what Toronto has become (the fourth-largest metro in North America) it’s easy to see the mismatch.

And yet there are those that are innocently ill-informed or even willfully ignorant of how Toronto compares to other cities. You can lead a horse to ̶w̶a̶t̶e̶r̶ a transit forum, but you can't make it ̶d̶r̶i̶n̶k̶ do their own cursory research. I say this as an avid driver—there is clearly latent demand for public transit. Case in point, Toronto has higher subway ridership per km than most, if not all Chinese cities; this is despite lower car ownership in China. London UK should not be directly compared to Toronto as it is both denser and larger, and yet even it has less ridership per km than Toronto (even if Elizabeth and DLR is included).

The high ridership/km in Toronto is not unexpected. Within the Toronto proper there are 1.1 million actively registered passenger vehicles for a car ownership rate of 35%. Which is very comparable to more transit-oriented cities. But spend time looking at similar sized cities outside of North America (density, metro area, GDP etc.), and see how woefully inadequate Toronto's rapid transit is in comparison.

Moreover, the trend outside of CANUSA is to adopt ever larger capacity on new lines. Only in Toronto and New York do we see Eglinton, Ontario Line, IBX with smaller rolling stock and platforms than the existing network. I am not saying there was no future proofing done. I am saying there wasn't enough done. It's not a matter of if Eglinton will reach overcapacity, but when. We can only hope future governments are less cash-strapped to deal with future transit needs. If needs are not met, the consequence is less productivity, less economic growth. The past decade should be warning enough.

 

[urbanclient]

That's right. Merely keeping the project in the hands of TTC instead of Metrolinx would not improve the funding situation. But, perhaps the TTC would make fewer mistakes in the project management, and spend less time on RFPs etc. The project would be completed one or two years sooner. Hopefully, in 2023.

Getting it done by 2015? That would take full and unwavering funding commitment from the onset. Then, maybe.

If you look at the documents going back 15+ years, it is clear, in no uncertain terms, that TTC and the City of Toronto never had the money to fund construction of a single LRT line.

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/cc/bgrd/CC20_1_app3_3.pdf

 

[Rainforest]

There’s also still this lingering mentality (especially among certain political circles downtown) that Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke are somehow “less Toronto.” But history keeps proving that whenever you extend real rapid transit into any part of Toronto, density follows immediately.

Examples are everywhere:

• North York Centre: basically nothing until the Yonge Subway ran through it. Now it’s a full secondary downtown.
• Yonge–Eglinton: exploded along Line 1.
• St. Clair West: major mid-rise and retail revitalization after ROW upgrades.
• Davisville/Mt. Pleasant: steady intensification due to Line 1 access.
• Scarborough Town Centre: now booming with proposals since the subway extension became real.
• Finch West: already seeing development pressure even before the subway/LRT combo is fully stabilized.
• VMC (Vaughan Metropolitan Centre): an almost absurd example — a skyline built practically from scratch because Line 1 was extended there.
• Exhibition/Liberty Village: GO service + Ontario Line plans triggered a massive wave of proposals.

A correlation between good transit and growing density certainly exists. However, there is no 1:1 match. You can find examples of subway stations that existed for several decades, and did not prompt much density. Look at Dupont, Rosedale, or Summerhill. Maybe, zoning bylaws are the obstacle.

Conversely, there are growth zones with limited transit options. King West and to a lesser degree Queen West are building density, quite far from the Exhibition GO or any GO station, supported just by the streetcars. There are clusters of highrises at Steeles & Bathurst, and at Steeles & Weston, and along the north of Kipling, supported just by mixed-traffic buses (not even BRT).

I wouldn't venture to predict how fast Eglinton East gains density, based just on the ECLRT design. The truth is, we won't know until after the fact.

 

[Steve X]

Perhaps the TTC would handle it better, but riding starting ten years ago? not very likely. Only if the funding came ten years earlier.

This thing was all tied to funding, the TTC way of building things could mean a 6 year project but Queen's Park wanted to spread the money out to 11.

They could have build it using the TYSSE delivery method. This meant that every station would be delivered by a different consortium with various progressing speed and repeated errors. The ML approach did have it's advantage by having one design copied across the board although they did have some unique excavation methods used on some stations. If the TTC was procuring this project, they'll probably stick with the same signaling system as Line 1 and a yard designed based on Leslie Barns. ML chose to be different.

Remember the 5 in 10 plan? https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/cc/bgrd/CC20_1_app3_3.pdf
The 2018 completion date was what ML originally was working with till they shifted to a downsized project.

 

[Rainforest]

If you look at the documents going back 15+ years, it is clear in no uncertain terms that TTC and the City of Toronto never had the money to fund construction of a single LRT line.

True. It was always meant to be funded but the provincial government, or the province + the Feds. Failing that, the project would not even begin.

Funding is one thing, project management is another. It could be funded by the province, and the construction still managed by the TTC. My guess it would be completed somewhat sooner than in the hands of Metrolinx, but not dramatically sooner.

 

[Steve X]

I also wanted to note that the 5 in 10 plan is becoming 3 (projects) in 16 (years). What a joke.

 

[nfitz]

If you look at the documents going back 15+ years, it is clear, in no uncertain terms, that TTC and the City of Toronto never had the money to fund construction of a single LRT line.

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/cc/bgrd/CC20_1_app3_3.pdf

View attachment 694736

If you look at the documents going back 17 years, you'll see that TTC's Eglinton Crosstown was fully funded from Pearson to Kennedy station.

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca

 

[urbanclient]

If you look at the documents going back 17 years, you'll see that TTC's Eglinton Crosstown was fully funded from Pearson to Kennedy station.

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca

The link you cited says no such thing:
"Cost

• The estimated cost is 4.6 billion. All construction and completion dates are subject to receiving environmental and other approvals. Final costs will be determined in the coming months by Metrolinx and the City of Toronto"

I wonder why Metrolinx is mentioned...

 

[Obsidian]

I’ve been saying this for years now: LRTs work great in mid-sized cities like Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Calgary, Edmonton, and soon Quebec City. In those cities, the scale, street layout, and density match what an LRT can realistically support. But Toronto is operating at a completely different scale, and that’s where the problem lies.

If people thought Line 5 problems will end when it opens, they’re in for a big surprise. I predict overcrowding issues within a year of opening.

The thing is Line 5 was always an awkward compromise. Eglinton is one of the city’s major east–west corridors, and building a half-subway/half-surface LRT on it feels underbuilt for what that corridor actually needs. When you compare it to what Toronto has become (the fourth-largest metro in North America) it’s easy to see the mismatch.

There’s also still this lingering mentality (especially among certain political circles downtown) that Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke are somehow “less Toronto.” But history keeps proving that whenever you extend real rapid transit into any part of Toronto, density follows immediately.

Examples are everywhere:

• North York Centre: basically nothing until the Yonge Subway ran through it. Now it’s a full secondary downtown.
• Yonge–Eglinton: exploded along Line 1.
• St. Clair West: major mid-rise and retail revitalization after ROW upgrades.
• Davisville/Mt. Pleasant: steady intensification due to Line 1 access.
• Scarborough Town Centre: now booming with proposals since the subway extension became real.
• Finch West: already seeing development pressure even before the subway/LRT combo is fully stabilized.
• VMC (Vaughan Metropolitan Centre): an almost absurd example — a skyline built practically from scratch because Line 1 was extended there.
• Exhibition/Liberty Village: GO service + Ontario Line plans triggered a massive wave of proposals.

Toronto grows wherever you give it high-capacity rapid transit. That’s why Line 4 (Sheppard) is one of the most misunderstood examples in the city. For years people mocked it as a “stubway to nowhere” because it ends at Don Mills, but the reality is Sheppard East has densified heavily in the last two decades with continuous condo development from Bayview to Don Mills. And more proposals still coming despite the line being short and incomplete and with planning for the extension to STC.

If four stations can reshape an entire corridor, imagine what the full Sheppard East subway would’ve done if it were built out originally?

This is why I was never a fan of Transit City. It wasn’t a bad plan for a smaller, slower-growing city,,,,but Toronto already wasn’t that city by the 2000s. It was driven by a political generation at City Hall and Queen’s Park whose view of Toronto was still rooted in the 1960s–70s: low density, car-first, and spread out. Toronto isn’t that anymore.

And Line 5 (like Line 4 before it) shows exactly what happens when we keep building transit that’s too small for the city we actually live in.

I would not be remotely surprised in my lifetime (possibly when I’m watching re-runs of The Expanse in retirement) that they rebuild Line 5 into a subway.

Transit didn't cause the density you speak of, it was rezoning that caused the density. just look at Bloor street to see that transit alone doesn't cause density as it's illegal to built denser on Bloor. Anywhere in the city that is zoned for density will get it. it has nothing to do with transit.

 

[urbanclient]

A correlation between good transit and growing density certainly exists. However, there is no 1:1 match. You can find examples of subway stations that existed for several decades, and did not prompt much density. Look at Dupont, Rosedale, or Summerhill. Maybe, zoning bylaws are the obstacle.

Conversely, there are growth zones with limited transit options. King West and to a lesser degree Queen West are building density, quite far from the Exhibition GO or any GO station, supported just by the streetcars. There are clusters of highrises at Steeles & Bathurst, and at Steeles & Weston, and along the north of Kipling, supported just by mixed-traffic buses (not even BRT).

I wouldn't venture to predict how fast Eglinton East gains density, based just on the ECLRT design. The truth is, we won't know until after the fact.

@6ixGod made a good point though. I'm sure they know it's not a 1:1 directly proportional thing. Transit can be both a cause and effect of densification.

Also, given that Queen was the East-West to Yonge's North-South 70 years ago, it's obvious Queen should have gotten the subway, and not Bloor. You could argue Queen and King are less dense than they should be, precisely because the Queen subway was never built.

The growth zones you cited at Steeles are a drop in the bucket compared to the secondary CBDs that Line 1 extensions led to.
North York Centre was specifically rezoned by Mel Lastman and Metro Toronto encouraged development in response to the extension up to Finch. Thus, it can almost be argued that politicians in car-brained Toronto pre-almagamtion would only upzone streets that had subways running underneath i.e. transit development led to rezoning which led to density.

https://neptis.org/publications/cha...tified two new,in the Metro Toronto document.

 

[nfitz]

The link you cited says no such thing:

This is literally from the April 1, 2009 funding announcement. I'd suggest you read back this thread to April 2009, if you can't remember the context.

If you recall, TTC themselves endered the tunnelling contract in 2010, and this was always intended to be City-led until the Province's change in direction.

Can I suggest you read the thread about 28,500 posts before you start telling us things that contradict the previous discussion.

Here's confirmation that the funding announcement was in April 2009.

Ontario Funds Three Transit City Routes

Today, Queen’s Park announced that it would fund three of the Transit City projects — Eglinton, Finch and the Scarborough RT rehab/extension — as well as upgrading of York VIVA BR…

stevemunro.ca

 

[Obsidian]

@6ixGod made a good point though. I'm sure they know it's not a 1:1 directly proportional thing. Transit can be both a cause and effect of densification.

Also, given that Queen was the East-West to Yonge's North-South 70 years ago, it's obvious Queen should have gotten the subway, and not Bloor.

The growth zones you cited at Steeles are a drop in the bucket compared to the secondary CBDs that Line 1 extensions led to.

Zoning is what determines density in Toronto not Transit.

 

[urbanclient]

Zoning is what determines density in Toronto not Transit.

Considering the timeline of Line 1 Finch 1974, Lastman/Metro Toronto 1980-2000s densification plans for NY Centre, it would appear transit development came first. Whether you believe the existence of the subway had any influence on their decision to make NY Centre a secondary CBD is up to you. I will admit though, low density zoning around Line 1 stations between Bloor and Eglinton definitely had an effect on curtailing density.

 

[Steve X]

If you look at the documents going back 17 years, you'll see that TTC's Eglinton Crosstown was fully funded from Pearson to Kennedy station.

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca

The phase "fully funded" was also falsely used.

The initial estimated was 2.2B when Miller revealed the Transit City plan. By 2009 as the EA progressed, it was revised to 4.6B. Then they realized that 4.6B can only cover Weston to Kennedy. By that time, Queen's Park decided they need to take over the project to control cost and convert the spending into an investment in the books to balance the budget. By the time ML was ready to tender the project, it was expected to cost 5.5B. They tendered it with the 30 year maintenance attached at 9.1B. At that time, ML thought they got a deal as it was expecting 11B. Fast forward to 2018, it was at 11.8B. In 2022, the cost is revised to 12.8B and we still don't know how much they spent.

I think if Queen's Park was to remake that decision, they would just handed TTC the money and tell them to cover any overspending. The 12.8B figure includes maintenance cost which is billed to the City of Toronto to recoup the money. So the city doesn't actual save on money nor do they have a choice on how decisions are made.

 

[urbanclient]

Ontario Funds Three Transit City Routes

Today, Queen’s Park announced that it would fund three of the Transit City projects — Eglinton, Finch and the Scarborough RT rehab/extension — as well as upgrading of York VIVA BR…

stevemunro.ca

You've missed my point entirely from earlier. I claimed the project was realistically always going to be majority, if not fully funded by upper levels of government, not the city (barring politically untenable municipal tax increases). You linking a post from April 2009 "Ontario Funds Three Transit City Routes" is not incompatible with what I said earlier. Your earlier link had nothing to do with what you claimed: that the project was funded and planned for Pearson to Kennedy (a claim that still doesn't appear to be mutually exclusive to what I said). Before replying it'd be better to actually read carefully, figure out what posts actually mean.