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

narduch said:
Rob Ford didn't even know what he was talking about. Period.

He just wanted to avoid spending money.

Rob Ford was a nasty human being. Not me.

Its a joke to me that anyone can claim to be interested in urban issues and the betterment of the City yet hold up Rob Ford as an example of a good politician.

Rob Ford was the beginning of the demise of this city. John Tory helped continue the process. And now his brother is running the province into the ground while he stuffs his pockets.
Click to expand...
Over a decade of underinvestment and later mismanagement has brought the TTC to where it is today. Those two mayors were absolutely awful for transit in this city.
 
mikey7767 said:
Such a disingenuous comment. He cancelled surface LRTs because he didn't believe they were worth the money. But you know this already. And he did it to grade separate Eglinton as well.
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Who’s being disingenuous here, exactly?

It has nothing to do with their worth. It was entirely because he felt they interfered with cars. Literally on his first day in office:

“Ladies and gentlemen, the war on the car stops today . . . Transit City is over,” Ford told reporters Wednesday. “We will not build any more rail tracks down the middle of our streets.”
www.thestar.com

‘War on the car is over’: Ford moves transit underground

On his first day in office, Mayor Rob Ford met with the TTC boss to stress that he wants subways, not light rail. The $8 billion Transit City light rail plan, already under construction, will have to stop.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

The only way to pay to bury the entirety of Eglinton was to cancel everything else.

For a man so concerned about value, why was he so willing to have taxpayers foot the bill for $1.3B in contract cancellation penalties?
 
mikey7767 said:
You are just nasty. Rob Ford didn't want surface glorified trams. Neither does most of this city. Don't see how defending a politician that has a huge backing means trolling, but if you truly believe that defending a view with a huge backing in this city is trolling, then you and those agree with you are nothing more than delusional.
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The population of the cities most times votes for everyone who promises no tax increases to me that means they don't really care about improving transit. since we refuse to spend the money when it's time to pay up. An expanded light rail network maynot be what most people want but they won't want to pay for improve transit either so officials have to plan with this two oppoosing forces in mind and the outcome is more LRTs
 
robmausser said:
Not defending Rob btw, I think burying the LRT east of Laird was a diabolically bad idea. Especially when you get into the details that we never did: the two ravines the LRT crosses from Laird to Bermondsey are super deep. It would have been an engineering feat and we'd have stations that would make the Ontario Line depths look laughable in comparison.
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That's why his Memorandum of Understanding had the line buried to Kennedy - with the possible exception of the portions through the Don Valley.
In fact, in the time between the MOU signing (March 31, 2011) and the end of December, I thought TTC and Metrolinx were planning some type of elevated option through here. I was hoping for elevated all the way to Kennedy. Instead, they were planning the overthrow of Ford - putting politics above transit is what I called it.
 
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Westey said:
This is the biggest part. Ford would have saved money.
Now everyone is crapping on the FWLRT and saying how good the Eglinton line is (except for the on-street portions).
Ford was a visionary 15 years ahead of his time.
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Please explain to us how this would have saved money? Burying the eastern side of the Crosstown and combining it with the SRT would have added an additional $4 Billion to the projects price tag bringing it to $8.1 Billion to build. That's before we factor in all of the delays at Eglinton and Avenue Road which would have still occurred, that's before we factor in the pandemic delays which would have still occurred, that's before we factor in any new delays that would have occurred on the tunnelled section east of Leslie and the SRT, and that's before we factor in the increased 30 year maintenance cost that would now include even more tunnels and the entire SRT plus its extension to Malvern.

If you want to argue that combining the EC and SRT would have been cheaper then a Line 2 extension that's fine and I can buy it, HOWEVER it misses the political reality at the time. Scarborough was promised a subway and told LRT's were second class, a Subway was all they were going to expect. AS WELL when City Council voted to override the Mayor's plan in 2012 and bring the EC back to the surface IT WAS STILL COMBINED WITH THE SRT which would have saved even more money. It was Scarborough politicians in 2013 that put forward the motion to split the EC and SRT apart and build the Line 2 extension instead.

Let's also talk about the fact that Metrolinx offered to put forward $2 Billion for an eastern extension of the Sheppard Subway if Ford backed off of the EC, which he did not do. So not only did his meddiling put the city on the hook for the canecellation penalty for the Sheppard LRT, but he also gave up money for an extension of Line 4 because this was never about making the EC faster or saving money. and then he promised Scarborough a subway but was willing the stab them in the back with the combined EC SRT. This was never about making the line faster or saving money, it was always about one thing and one thing only, protecting car owners. Ford didn't want the LRT off of the street because he cared about its speed, he wanted it off of the street because he only cared about cars and his imagined war on cars. Need I remind all of you how in debates he would always talk about how the SLRT would interfere with traffic eventhough the SLRT would have run along the preexisting SRT corridor? He hated the LRT as much as he hated the streetcars because they got in the way of cars; he never gave a rats ass about the people who actually ride them. If he did he wouldn't have accused the SLRT of slowing down traffic when the route would have never intereacted with traffic in the first place, this was never about speed or good rapid transit, it was all just car-centric hate for LRT and streetcars. You can try all you want to twist reality to fit your little Rob Ford saviour complex, but I was there as were many others on this site when this was all going down and the facts and reality of what actually happened between 2011 and 2014 do not fit whatever little fantasy you have concocted in your mind.
 
hw621 said:
Anyone tried riding Stouffville GO, Line 5 and then UPX to the airport? Would it be faster than going to Union and then UPX?
Click to expand...
I’m by Birchmount Station. I checked both ways. It’s actually slower for me to take Line 5. I’m better off taking the GO Train/UPX.

If Line 5 gets quicker, It’ll actually be viable for me to use that over the GO Train.
 
JSF-1 said:
Please explain to us how this would have saved money? Burying the eastern side of the Crosstown and combining it with the SRT would have added an additional $4 Billion to the projects price tag bringing it to $8.1 Billion to build. That's before we factor in all of the delays at Eglinton and Avenue Road which would have still occurred, that's before we factor in the pandemic delays which would have still occurred, that's before we factor in any new delays that would have occurred on the tunnelled section east of Leslie and the SRT, and that's before we factor in the increased 30 year maintenance cost that would now include even more tunnels and the entire SRT plus its extension to Malvern.

If you want to argue that combining the EC and SRT would have been cheaper then a Line 2 extension that's fine and I can buy it, HOWEVER it misses the political reality at the time. Scarborough was promised a subway and told LRT's were second class, a Subway was all they were going to expect. AS WELL when City Council voted to override the Mayor's plan in 2012 and bring the EC back to the surface IT WAS STILL COMBINED WITH THE SRT which would have saved even more money. It was Scarborough politicians in 2013 that put forward the motion to split the EC and SRT apart and build the Line 2 extension instead.

Let's also talk about the fact that Metrolinx offered to put forward $2 Billion for an eastern extension of the Sheppard Subway if Ford backed off of the EC, which he did not do. So not only did his meddiling put the city on the hook for the canecellation penalty for the Sheppard LRT, but he also gave up money for an extension of Line 4 because this was never about making the EC faster or saving money. and then he promised Scarborough a subway but was willing the stab them in the back with the combined EC SRT. This was never about making the line faster or saving money, it was always about one thing and one thing only, protecting car owners. Ford didn't want the LRT off of the street because he cared about its speed, he wanted it off of the street because he only cared about cars and his imagined war on cars. Need I remind all of you how in debates he would always talk about how the SLRT would interfere with traffic eventhough the SLRT would have run along the preexisting SRT corridor? He hated the LRT as much as he hated the streetcars because they got in the way of cars; he never gave a rats ass about the people who actually ride them. If he did he wouldn't have accused the SLRT of slowing down traffic when the route would have never intereacted with traffic in the first place, this was never about speed or good rapid transit, it was all just car-centric hate for LRT and streetcars. You can try all you want to twist reality to fit your little Rob Ford saviour complex, but I was there as were many others on this site when this was all going down and the facts and reality of what actually happened between 2011 and 2014 do not fit whatever little fantasy you have concocted in your mind.
Click to expand...
Sounds like it's safer not to talk about these things.
 
H4F33Z said:
I’m by Birchmount Station. I checked both ways. It’s actually slower for me to take Line 5. I’m better off taking the GO Train/UPX.

If Line 5 gets quicker, It’ll actually be viable for me to use that over the GO Train.
Click to expand...

I can see that, with higher track speeds and a lot fewer stations. Even if Line 5 was a full subway, going through Union would be faster.

The only downsides is the hourly off peak ST service, no counter peak service and the painful transfer between GO and UPX, with no fare integration between the two Metrolinx trains.
 
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