2018 Provincial Election Transit Promises

[Hopkins123]

If you put that empty subway underneath King St it'll be packed--and not just during rush hour. And ridership will likely increase every year with so many developments coming on stream. As a side note I can't understand why King W is not part of the DRL proposal

It's very likely that the DRL could be diverted south through Liberty Village and south Parkdale once it gets out to Strachan and Queen.

 

[syn]

Rubbish! At the time of the Sheppard Subway's construction it was replacing the busiest surface route in the city which had an average daily ridership of 38,000. At 50,000 alightings, the subway increased ridership in the corridor by over 20%.

It is a success! The transformative change in density along the corridor never would have occurred without the subway this past decade and a half. And more's to come.

Focusing myopically on today's conditions and not planning ahead is precisely what got us in this mess to begin with.

I'd love to see a source for this. I find it incredibly hard to believe that relatively short stretch was carrying 38,000 riders per day on the bus.

There hasn't been transformative changes in density along Sheppard - that's the problem. Not only has there not been 'transformative change', many of the new residents in the area aren't even using transit.

Waiting till a million people reside within 2 kilometres of the Sheppard corridor to expand the pre-existing metro is not the way to go about building a city.

Building a subway when there isn't anywhere near enough density to support it isn't the way to go about building a city either. An LRT on that corridor would've been perfect. Building transit appropriate to the area would've prevented all the problems we have. Instead of trying to scrape by with streetcar pilot projects downtown, we'd have subway lines where they're actually needed right now. Instead of building subways in the suburbs that won't justify their existence until long after we're dead, we'd have a system that actually works.

 

[ssiguy2]

Another problem Ford has is that the province just signed it's infrastructure agreement with Ottawa and that means Queen's Park has to spend billions in order to get all that juicy federal money. Ford has also painted himself into a corner with the voters he is depending on...suburban 416 & 905. If he has to withdraw transit funding it will have to come from the big ticket item of RER.Whether he cuts back on RER, delays it, or reduces GO subsidies resulting in even higher fares or a back tracking on fare integration, the reality is that it will effect suburbanites the most. He could cancel the DRL but by doing so automatically stops construction of Yonge North into all those nice York Region votes. If he delays more GO service to KW or Hamilton then he risks those voters and cancelling HSR to Windsor & London would infuriate them. In those 4 urban cores the Conservatives currently only hold one loan seat so he needs their votes.

By cancelling cap & trade, the carbon tax, and stating he will cut personal taxes he has dug himself a huge whole as the biggest items on the provincial tab are healthcare, education, and interest on the debt and cutting the first 2 is political suicide, interest is non-negotiable, so he will have to cut back infrastructure spending and risk pissing off the voters he is counting on.

 

[BurlOak]

Do you anticipate that the transit funding announced last week wont result in any real benefit?

That budget essentially said that transit would be pushed down the road. This $75B of debt (from Trudeau's first term) has been spend on other things. He promised that the next $75B will go towards transit.

 

[hw621]

Another problem Ford has is that the province just signed it's infrastructure agreement with Ottawa and that means Queen's Park has to spend billions in order to get all that juicy federal money. Ford has also painted himself into a corner with the voters he is depending on...suburban 416 & 905. If he has to withdraw transit funding it will have to come from the big ticket item of RER.Whether he cuts back on RER, delays it, or reduces GO subsidies resulting in even higher fares or a back tracking on fare integration, the reality is that it will effect suburbanites the most. He could cancel the DRL but by doing so automatically stops construction of Yonge North into all those nice York Region votes. If he delays more GO service to KW or Hamilton then he risks those voters and cancelling HSR to Windsor & London would infuriate them. In those 4 urban cores the Conservatives currently only hold one loan seat so he needs their votes.

By cancelling cap & trade, the carbon tax, and stating he will cut personal taxes he has dug himself a huge whole as the biggest items on the provincial tab are healthcare, education, and interest on the debt and cutting the first 2 is political suicide, interest is non-negotiable, so he will have to cut back infrastructure spending and risk pissing off the voters he is counting on.

But Ford does not need to say it out loud now. After he wins a majority government he can do what he wants and then send transit down the whirlpool and set it back a generation. This happened before (Mike Harris, Rob....)

 

[crs1026]

But Ford does not need to say it out loud now. After he wins a majority government he can do what he wants and then send transit down the whirlpool and set it back a generation. This happened before (Mike Harris, Rob....)

I am somewhat hopeful that he will refrain from undoing this one deal. He only has so much leverage in his relationship with Ottawa. However, his ability to bluster and bully is such that he may suggest some substitutions. I doubt that in the end he would turn back the money altogether.

The infrastructure deal, however, is only a small number of projects. It's what happens to the rest that we should be afraid of. Anything that has discretion at the provincial level may be gone. I'm predicting, for instance, that all provincial support for cyclists is cut altogether. He will probably demand zero tolerance enforcement of the HTA with respect to cyclists. Forget the Idaho formula.

There are so many places where his "four cents on the dollar" approach is not workable - try getting a 4% cut in diesel fuel, or transit wages, for instance - that he will have to cut programs and projects altogether to reach his goal.

But frankly, we've been living in a fools' paradise where we have been telling ourselves that all these projects were affordable in the first place. Our deficits can't continue. Ford will impose a needed reality check. Unfortunately, being so uninformed and partisan towards the car, his choices may not be the right ones. That poor decisionmaking includes refusing to increase taxation.

- Paul

 

[syn]

The PC's complete silence on transit so far isn't encouraging.

We're finally building transit and need to maintain that momentum.

 

[narduch]

The PC's complete silence on transit so far isn't encouraging.

We're finally building transit and need to maintain that momentum.

Did the Liberals even mention transit in yesterday's throne speech?

The shift to spending on social programs should worry transit boosters who also support the Liberals. Do you really think they can fund both increased social spending and transit?

 

[MisterF]

Of course the Yonge and Bloor subways were full, they serve corridors 4* as long as Sheppard's. I'd say 50K for a 5 km stub is fair. It's better than many European, almost all US and some Asian systems. No one here believes that relief shouldn't come to those corridors. I'd even argue the Bloor subway isn't getting enough for relief. We're hear arguing merits of any extension. We just recieved 9 billion dollars from upper governments, and with 11.7 billion dollars available for the Relief line south, Waterfront Transit, the Scarborough subway, and crosstown east, we can now start looking at building even more for the future. Yonge north isn't a priority of toronto, and neither is Bloor West (Metrolinx should study that to take the place of milton corridor improvements). What's left? Relief line Long and U can't be started until the DRL and Scarborough subway are complete, which will likely take a good 10 years. After that, what's next? What if the relief line fails? What else will be built with relief line Long? What makes fiscal and political sense for the government to fund?

Again, the Yonge and Bloor lines don't get higher ridership than Sheppard simply because of their length. They may be 4 times longer than Sheppard but they get a lot more than 4 times the ridership. Sheppard will never get as many riders per kilometre than any downtown line no matter how long it is. I'm not saying that Sheppard is a major failure, but it's definitely a case of misplaced priorities.

What do you mean by the DRL failing? Do you mean that it will eventually be overloaded? Because the opposite is frankly not possible.

 

[sixrings]

If you are NYC or Chicago with dozens of lines you can handle one with less than steller ridership. In toronto with so few lines we have to be extra careful with which lines we build. Personally I don't even think the drl long is long enough. It should be going to the very least Dundas west. I'd like to see Sheppard connected to Sheppard west and I don't mind going east to Victoria Park because even a lrt to vic park needs to be tunneled. But it shouldn't be built before drl long.

 

[Cobra]

The point is that the Sheppard Line has always been underused.

Compared to line 1 and 2? yes

Compared to some NYC and Chicago Lines? No

During rush hours? No

 

[Streety McCarface]

Compared to line 1 and 2? yes

Compared to some NYC and Chicago Lines? No

During rush hours? No

I don't think that is actually the case with NYC and much of Chicago. Chicago trains are smaller and therefore are more crowded.

 

[Streety McCarface]

Again, the Yonge and Bloor lines don't get higher ridership than Sheppard simply because of their length. They may be 4 times longer than Sheppard but they get a lot more than 4 times the ridership. Sheppard will never get as many riders per kilometre than any downtown line no matter how long it is. I'm not saying that Sheppard is a major failure, but it's definitely a case of misplaced priorities.

What do you mean by the DRL failing? Do you mean that it will eventually be overloaded? Because the opposite is frankly not possible.

The question is whether people will be willing to shift their commutes to use the DRL over the Yonge line is what might lead the DRL to fail. It will most certainly gain high ridership, however, it may not fully clear up space at bloor yonge and the yonge line. The TTC has to plan to include better surface connections at all stations on the DRL or it will fail to shift people from the yonge line to the DRL.

 

[Streety McCarface]

I'd love to see a source for this. I find it incredibly hard to believe that relatively short stretch was carrying 38,000 riders per day on the bus.

There hasn't been transformative changes in density along Sheppard - that's the problem. Not only has there not been 'transformative change', many of the new residents in the area aren't even using transit.



Building a subway when there isn't anywhere near enough density to support it isn't the way to go about building a city either. An LRT on that corridor would've been perfect. Building transit appropriate to the area would've prevented all the problems we have. Instead of trying to scrape by with streetcar pilot projects downtown, we'd have subway lines where they're actually needed right now. Instead of building subways in the suburbs that won't justify their existence until long after we're dead, we'd have a system that actually works.

There's nothing wrong with that, but the idea of building transit that will be full from day one is a backwards ideology because it will become inadequate within short time periods. There's no doubt that the DRL should have been built before the Sheppard Subway because capacity requirements were needed even back then. Should the Sheppard corridor be built with a subway after the DRL? I would argue so. This is because the corridor has a fairly high ridership and is speculated to have much-anticipated growth, and connects to many busy surface routes. The surround areas of Sheppard are already built up, and with densification coming to the city, it only makes sense to plan for the future. Eglinton is another corridor that satisfies this need for higher order transit in the long term. We have a bunch of corridors that serve 20-30K+ people per day or more and will see little to no projected growth; corridors like Finch, Steeles, Jane, Lansdowne, Kipling, Wilson/York Mills, Eglinton east, etc. These are corridors where LRT should be built because the buses that currently serve them are completely inadequate now, and with any small fluctuation in transit usage, will continue to be inadequate for years to come.

 

[wopchop]

Did the Liberals even mention transit in yesterday's throne speech?

The shift to spending on social programs should worry transit boosters who also support the Liberals. Do you really think they can fund both increased social spending and transit?

Exactly this. Transit expansion IMO is essentially dead now. I don't have much faith that anything will survive the election. Hell, most of it was unaffordable anyway, but I think that we sort of deluded ourselves into believing that we could continue to spend billions upon billions with our current deficit and as our credit rating is continuing to be downgraded. Makes me really sad that all of this great stuff likely will not come to fruition.