Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[crs1026]

Ford would be wise to have a Value Engineering session where construction leaders, transportation engineers and the like are gathered for a week to find efficiencies while still meeting the goals of connecting STC to the downtown. At the end of the week, they could release the results giving alternatives along with pros and cons. Likely most of the public would accept some minor disadvantages to reduce costs, increase construction speed, and create a better transit line for the future. The political decision could then be made on which option to follow, and more detailed engineering could be done.
For Ford, it would also allow him to look like he cares about this file.

Good idea, but show me a file in the whole Ford government that is being managed based on analysis. Ford Nation hates eggheads. Anybody using brainpower is labelled an elitist (Yes, there are very analytical and technically competent Conservatives, and they get no input either).

The current government is based on declarative statements that may or may not be true but can be chanted repeatedly, triggering applause. If we can attach labels and adjectives with implied negative judgement to anyone that raises an objection, so much the better.

The subway extension is past the point of no return, and while all the technical and financial data-based arguments are vastly compelling I figure it’s time to suck it up and stop re-debating this thing. I agree there should be a challenge process to see how much we can drive down cost. Even partial cut and cover ought to save money, especially at the stations. No other part of the City had an inconvenience-free construction experience with its subways. Scarberians should not expect this to be painless. Growing up is painful, and if this line brings Scarborough to some felt state of “equality”, great.... but they gotta put in the same sweat as the rest of the city did.

- Paul

 

[OneCity]

Good idea, but show me a file in the whole Ford government that is being managed based on analysis. Ford Nation hates eggheads. Anybody using brainpower is labelled an elitist (Yes, there are very analytical and technically competent Conservatives, and they get no input either).

The current government is based on declarative statements that may or may not be true but can be chanted repeatedly, triggering applause. If we can attach labels and adjectives with implied negative judgement to anyone that raises an objection, so much the better.

The subway extension is past the point of no return, and while all the technical and financial data-based arguments are vastly compelling I figure it’s time to suck it up and stop re-debating this thing. I agree there should be a challenge process to see how much we can drive down cost. Even partial cut and cover ought to save money, especially at the stations. No other part of the City had an inconvenience-free construction experience with its subways. Scarberians should not expect this to be painless. Growing up is painful, and if this line brings Scarborough to some felt state of “equality”, great.... but they gotta put in the same sweat as the rest of the city did.

- Paul

This is really such an unnecessary condescending statement.

Scarborough residents like any other area will not have a say in construction methods chosen and any residents impacted by construction will complain the same as anywhere else in this world.

I'd argue most residents just want to see the eggheads brainpower being used to plan connected Central lines in a expedited manner unlike what was proposed with unfortunate transfer-filled, blanket LRT or the one stop subway nonsense those other Mayors and Premiers had the 'expert' brainpower working on.

I get Ford triggers some with the cheap political slogans but historically both Fords seem to be the only Leaders willing to listen to experts when it came down it, or even compromise and look for ways to efficiently build centrally connected, and grade separated transit. Whereas Miller muddied everything using the 'brainpower' to stretch as much union labour into transit at the expense of important design details. There was nothing more concerning then having union and associated special interest groups fighting talk over Scarborough voters to save Transit City plan for over a decade as an 'expert plan'. And Tory for all his good in City equity, muddied the waters further just trying to get elected and not standing up against the absurdity of a one stop subway.

Sorry I'm much less worried about Ford working unobstructed with experts to build this current line as effectively as possible

 

[mdu]

A Preliminary Snow Job on the Scarborough Subway Extension

The Government of Ontario has been responsible for a lot of hot air over the years, and that applies to all three political parties. But their agencies Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx have com…

stevemunro.ca

Steve's appraisal of the IBC.

TL;DR: the case looks to be rushed, politically motivated, and doesn't address the option for a new LRT or rehabilitation of the current SRT.

 

[Jonny5]

I’m absolutely stunned that the government didn’t suppress and/or falsify this report.

Even DoFo can see the recession on the horizon. I suspect he's going to outright cancel it, or move it off so far in the future it may as well be.
His next election will be won or lost by seats entirely out of Toronto anyway. Scarbourough mattered to him only to get that first election win. He's already written it off for the next one.
Sccarbourough may actually wind up with the base case bus network.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Only if the busses run in a transitway.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Even DoFo can see the recession on the horizon. I suspect he's going to outright cancel it, or move it off so far in the future it may as well be.
His next election will be won or lost by seats entirely out of Toronto anyway. Scarbourough mattered to him only to get that first election win. He's already written it off for the next one.
Sccarbourough may actually wind up with the base case bus network.

Yea I have a really hard time believing that a $6.5 Billion SSE and a $4.5 Billion EWLRT will ever materialize. Those costs are absurd.

If the Ford government wants to do something useful, they should sit down and analyze why these projects are getting as expensive as they are, and what, if anything, can be done to control the growth in infrastructure costs.


Also, given Metrolinx’s and IO’s inability to find private partners to build the Hamilton LRT or GO Electrification at a reasonable cost, don’t be surprised if actual SSE and EWLRT costs are significantly greater than what was predicted in these reports.

The whole transit development process in Ontario feels fundamentally broken, and until we fix it, we’re just gonna be spinning our tires in the mud for a very long time

 

[OneCity]

A Preliminary Snow Job on the Scarborough Subway Extension

The Government of Ontario has been responsible for a lot of hot air over the years, and that applies to all three political parties. But their agencies Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx have com…

stevemunro.ca

Steve's appraisal of the IBC.

TL;DR: the case looks to be rushed, politically motivated, and doesn't address the option for a new LRT or rehabilitation of the current SRT.

Ironic he wants to see other plans compared but fails to mention the Crosstown direct LRT connection to the Centre or a BDL extension on the old corridor. Handpicking the Transit City LRT to protect Miller and the NDP. Steve was once pretty reasonable before he began to devote so much time as an NDP shill years ago for whatever reason.

Also of note he was previously an underground Scarborough subway supporter,, now he is moreless unsing his platform to be part of the political hypocrisy on the file and worse another overly vocal, entitled outsider

 

[asher__jo]

Ironic he wants to see other plans compared but fails to mention the Crosstown direct LRT connection to the Centre or a BDL extension on the old corridor. Handpicking the Transit City LRT to protect Miller and the NDP. Steve was once pretty reasonable before he began to devote so much time as an NDP shill years ago for whatever reason.

Also of note he was previously an underground Scarborough subway supporter,, now he is moreless unsing his platform to be part of the political hypocrisy on the file and worse another overly vocal, entitled outsider

I enjoy reading his blogs, but objectiveness can sometimes be lacking. It gets ugly when a strong opponent of a certain plan begins critiquing the Ford governments severely partisan transit planning.

 

[Jonny5]

Ironic he wants to see other plans compared but fails to mention the Crosstown direct LRT connection to the Centre or a BDL extension on the old corridor. Handpicking the Transit City LRT to protect Miller and the NDP. Steve was once pretty reasonable before he began to devote so much time as an NDP shill years ago for whatever reason.

Also of note he was previously an underground Scarborough subway supporter,, now he is moreless unsing his platform to be part of the political hypocrisy on the file and worse another overly vocal, entitled outsider

You write this like he's critiquing his own business case. It's Metrolinx who didn't compare it to those alleged "alternatives" which weren't ever real porposals on the table like the Transit City LRT, an actual base case.

 

[BurlOak]

You write this like he's critiquing his own business case. It's Metrolinx who didn't compare it to those alleged "alternatives" which weren't ever real porposals on the table like the Transit City LRT, an actual base case.

I think there were only 2 fair comparisons made.

2006, they compared upgrading the SRT to Mark III modern trains, with replacing the SRT with an LRT, with extending the B-D subway.
1st choice was SRT upgrade
2nd choice was LRT replacing SRT.
3rd choice was B-D extension.

Then in 2012, they compared Eglinton LRT connected with the SRT, to replacing the SRT with an LRT.
1st choice was connected Eglinton with SRT.
2nd choice was LRT replacing SRT.

Based on this, the transfer LRT has lost twice. The B-D extension also lost.

The obvious thing left unstudied was comparing a connected Eglinton / SRT with Mark III to a connected Eglinton / SRT with LRT. This was never done.
Now it's too late, but we can still utilize the above results. The solutions that now need to be looked at are:

1. Upgrading SRT to Mark III (or similar).
2. Connecting SRT to the spine of Toronto.

With #1, it means considering possible future extensions (including up to Malvern, and maybe a branch across Sheppard to a converted Line "S" (4?).
With #2, it means finding a potential route that would work (i.e. going roughly parallel to Ellesmere to Vic Park, down Vic Park to Gatineau Hydro corridor, across to Flemingdon/Throncliffe, and down the Don Valley).

 

[OneCity]

You write this like he's critiquing his own business case. It's Metrolinx who didn't compare it to those alleged "alternatives" which weren't ever real porposals on the table like the Transit City LRT, an actual base case.

Its the same angled crap every time, retaining consultants to justify preferred political outcomes as we've seen in any reports supporting all the previous gawd awful plans. As we see this current report was angled to justify future cost cutting optimizations by the Conservatives. The Transit City planning failed to account for various important criteria that were never properly weighted. Sure cutting the corners made it cheaper but it has cost the City dearly in cost escalation in the aftermath and worse the cost of the political polarization it created. Maybe the business case should take a closer consideration at the major risks which can occur when pushing forward with lower cost poorly designed plans.

Just like the political hypocrisy and territorial bias I was talking about in the article, Steve has no interest in challenging the missing criteria for Transit City but is always up for beating the dead horse to protect his alliance. We already have reports that show transfer LRT was inferior to a plan removing the transfer and yet the outside, entitled promoters never seem to part with a decade later. To be fair to Metrolinx and the Conservatives its past time to move on from this never ending Transit City protectionist crap within the City, so whatever it takes to optimize the current butchered line to and finally move forward. The time to be concerned about for a deeper comparative analysis was during the Miller era and lastly the RoFo days once the glaring flaws were called out. Really, not so much now.

 

[44 North]

I think there were only 2 fair comparisons made.

2006, they compared upgrading the SRT to Mark III modern trains, with replacing the SRT with an LRT, with extending the B-D subway.
1st choice was SRT upgrade
2nd choice was LRT replacing SRT.
3rd choice was B-D extension.

Then in 2012, they compared Eglinton LRT connected with the SRT, to replacing the SRT with an LRT.
1st choice was connected Eglinton with SRT.
2nd choice was LRT replacing SRT.

Based on this, the transfer LRT has lost twice. The B-D extension also lost.

The obvious thing left unstudied was comparing a connected Eglinton / SRT with Mark III to a connected Eglinton / SRT with LRT. This was never done.
Now it's too late, but we can still utilize the above results. The solutions that now need to be looked at are:

1. Upgrading SRT to Mark III (or similar).
2. Connecting SRT to the spine of Toronto.

With #1, it means considering possible future extensions (including up to Malvern, and maybe a branch across Sheppard to a converted Line "S" (4?).
With #2, it means finding a potential route that would work (i.e. going roughly parallel to Ellesmere to Vic Park, down Vic Park to Gatineau Hydro corridor, across to Flemingdon/Throncliffe, and down the Don Valley).

Don't forget Schabas was on Metrolinx's payroll in 2013 when he critiqued the Big Move, so you could also include his "Scarborough Wye" proposal as #3 in your list of comparisons (SRT conversion to MkIII or similar interlined with Sheppard built as Mk III or similar). I guess it'd be a semi-official report so to be taken with a grain of salt. Either way he gave it a benefit:cost of 2.9.

I actually hope he's still pushing it. Not that I'm vehemently opposed to SSE. Rather the Scarb Wye does the great trick of i) keeping existing rt infrastructure ii) solving Sheppard question. And ultimately giving us a lot of subway at lower cost.

Its the same angled crap every time, using consultants to justify preferred political outcomes as we've seen in any past reports supporting all the previous gawd awful plans. As we see this current report was angled to justify future cost cutting optimizations by the Conservatives. The Transit City planning failed to account for various important criteria that were never properly weighted. Sure cutting the corners made it cheaper but it has cost the City dearly in cost escalation in the aftermath and worse the cost of the political polarization it created. Maybe the business case should take a closer consideration at the major risks which can occur when pushing forward with lower cost poorly designed plans.

Just like the political hypocrisy and territorial bias I was talking about in the article, Steve has no interest in challenging the missing criteria for Transit City but is always up for beating the dead horse to protect his alliance. We already have reports that show transfer LRT was inferior to a plan removing the transfer and yet the outside, entitled promoters never seem to part with a decade later. To be fair to Metrolinx and the Conservatives its past time to move on from this never ending Transit City protectionist crap within the City, so whatever it takes to optimize the current butchered line to and finally move forward. The time to be concerned about for a deeper comparative analysis was during the Miller era and lastly the RoFo days once the glaring flaws were called out. Really, not so much now.

give it a rest man. so annoying

 

[crs1026]

Its the same angled crap every time, retaining consultants to justify preferred political outcomes as we've seen in any reports supporting all the previous gawd awful plans. As we see this current report was angled to justify future cost cutting optimizations by the Conservatives..

Sorry, when your argument is, these guys are only matching other peoples’ slease, it’s not much of a point. If Ford was truly trying to turn the page from past low points in transit planning (as he claims) he would have the courage to work from unfudged analyses. The only way we break the cycle is when this number fudging stops. If ML thought the other options were inappropriate, the BCA would include them and show their math on why those options aren’t as good. Just omitting them isn’t proving that, it’s a cop out. The Eglinton West BCA used the same options as previous TTC analyses, why didn’t this one ?

Just like the political hypocrisy and territorial bias I was talking about in the article, Steve has no interest in challenging the missing criteria for Transit City but is always up for beating the dead horse to protect his alliance. We already have reports that show transfer LRT was inferior to a plan removing the transfer and yet the outside, entitled promoters never seem to part with a decade later. To be fair to Metrolinx and the Conservatives its past time to move on from this never ending Transit City protectionist crap within the City, so whatever it takes to optimize the current butchered line to and finally move forward. The time to be concerned about for a deeper comparative analysis was during the Miller era and lastly the RoFo days once the glaring flaws were called out. Really, not so much now.

Transit City is dead, we get it. Personally I never liked it. But that doesn’t mean Lighter RT is politically tainted and therefore now off limits. LRT is a useful mode of higher order transit. It’s built in many jurisdictions by Conservatives because it works well and costs less than heavier RT. . Now, please explain why it doesn’t fit this application.

- Paul

 

[sixrings]

I think we should think about spending that 6 billion to extend Sheppard to STC. Then we have a northern crosstown line and it fixes the stump.

 

[Steve X]

Let's just remember that ML would not want any options along the SRT alignment as they plan to take over the corridor for expanding the Stouffville Line.

However the reports are politically written by purposely omitting the history of the LRT planning and by mentioning how the "ML has identified 4 options" for the Eglinton West LRT which they now given the name Eglinton Crosstown West Extension to hide the fact it's a LRT and is a new project with no connection to the previous city plans. So I agree Steve Munro is right to criticize ML and how they written the report to hide what they don't like. Although we know about the history and flip flops, the next generation reading this report in 2050 from archives would not know ML is bias and nontransparent.