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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

howl said:
One thing that I haven't seen a lot of discussion about is how long it's going to take to plan, design, approve and build a subway extension to Scarborough. Looking at the Spadina extension to Vaughan as an example the planning was started sometime before 2002 when the TTC first put it forward for funding. The first riders will be using the extension in 2016 if everything goes to the current schedule. That is 14 years. The Crosstown was first put forward in or around 2004 and it will hopefully be carrying its first customers in 2018 - again 14 years.
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2006 was when funding for Spadina was first announced, and I think the feds (or the province?) then delayed its portion for some reason which added another year or two. In addition, the 2011 accident at York University caused a one-year delay.

Eglinton was officially proposed in 2007, funding announced in 2009, funding reduced in 2010, project cancelled by Ford in 2011, and then reinstated by Council in 2012. Last I heard, they're targeting it to open in 2020.

If there's a B-D extension, the early estimate is a 2022 opening.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Imagine, that $85 million would have completely replaced the MK1 with the new MK111 trains and Toronto wouldn't even be having this conversation.
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It would certainly be cheaper than a subway line. However Vancouver recently ordered 28 new ART 300 cars for $91 million. As far as I recall, the proposed order in the 2006? report for TTC would have been 44 new cars. So the new cars alone would be $143 million.

The "Mark III" cars are $3.5 million a piece for only a 17-metre vehicle. Compare to about only $4.2 million that Metrolinx is paying for the 30-metre long Flexity Freedoms. A fleet of these with the same capacity (length) would be only $105 million compared to $143 million.
 
M II A II R II K said:
Can't you attach more ICTS cars to each train though....
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Not without triggering expansions of each of the stations.

And that $143 million only gets you the trains, you still have to do something about the tunnel between Ellesmere and Midland. Though why TTC can't simply issue a tender that requires Bombardier to figure out how to engineer the train to handle the tunnel I don't know ...
 
And the saga continues:

A plan to expand the subway into Scarborough is in limbo as Ontario Transportation Minister Glen Murray says he's not confident the federal government will cover a portion of the cost.

“When you put a 416 area code in front of a transit project ... the cheques disappear,” Murray told CBC News.
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But at the same time:

Murray [...] seemingly undercut his push for help by expressing hope the project can be completed within $1.4 billion in funding allocated by the province.
That money “may get us pretty far to our goal without anyone else. We’ll wait and see.”
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What can be built for $1.4 billion? A one-stop subway? Maybe that could pay for digging the tunnels, and we could just let cars drive through them...
 
What can be built for $1.4 billion? A one-stop subway? Maybe that could pay for digging the tunnels, and we could just let cars drive through them...
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Probably more if they just cut-and-cover the whole thing.
 
Tulse said:
What can be built for $1.4 billion? A one-stop subway? Maybe that could pay for digging the tunnels, and we could just let cars drive through them...
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The high level estimate was $2.3 billion in 2010$ ± 30%. So that's $1.6 to $3.0 billion and included new storage facilities, trains, property acquisition, etc.

The high level estimate for the tunnels was $914 million, and the stations was $570 million. So you could probably build most of it for $1.4 billion, if you could think up other ways to get/store vehicles, obtain property, signals. The city also agreed to $292 million in 2010$ of taxation. That would for the new trains, and about half the storage. So if you can think up of a cheaper storage solution (in-tunnel storage?), and the province is willing to hide the signals cost into the BD upgrade to save face, your pretty much there.

The easy way to bring it on budget is to simply cancel the final station at Sheppard. Though in my mind, eliminating the current bottleneck over the 401 is a huge gain.
 
nfitz said:
The high level estimate was $2.3 billion in 2010$ ± 30%. So that's $1.6 to $3.0 billion and included new storage facilities, trains, property acquisition, etc.

...

The easy way to bring it on budget is to simply cancel the final station at Sheppard.
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I wonder if they are considering moving Kennedy station to reduce acquisition prices.

Kennedy still has around $300M assigned to it in addition to the $1.4B which ought to be enough to fully rebuild it in a new location including some track adjustments between Warden and Kennedy.

This might allow for surface running trains in the old SRT row and reduced costs for Lawrence station at surface level station; perhaps $500M in savings?

Could they hijack Hydro corridor space west of the tracks south of Jenkenson Way for storage of 6 to 10 trains? Hydro One wouldn't be pleased but there is a gap there that doesn't seem to have any wires over it.


Skip the SCC and go straight north to Sheppard for another $500M in efficiencies (Ford's word; useful is more important to me).
 
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rbt said:
I wonder if they are considering moving Kennedy station to reduce acquisition prices.

Kennedy still has around $300M assigned to it in addition to the $1.4B which ought to be enough to fully rebuild it in a new location including some track adjustments between Warden and Kennedy.
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This would mean that Kennedy Station and the SRT would both have to be shut down for an extended period of time and the shuttle busses would have to run from STC to Warden. How long would it take to completely rebuilt Kennedy Station (I do not think they can just pick it up and rotate it 45 degrees)? I imagine the down-time would be similar for this option as for the LRT option - and that was one of the main selling points of the subway option. Now the shutdown would be equally as long but require an even farther shuttle ride to Warden.

rbt said:
Could they hijack Hydro corridor space west of the tracks south of Jenkenson Way for storage of 6 to 10 trains? Hydro One wouldn't be pleased but there is a gap there that doesn't seem to have any wires over it.
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When I imagined the SRT being connected to the ECLRT, I saw significant savings in cancelling the Conlins yard and using this area for train storage - the main Maintenance facility would be at Kodak in the West end. Hydro One is not a private company so it should also work towards the greater public good.

rbt said:
Skip the SCC and go straight north to Sheppard for another $500M in efficiencies (Ford's word; useful is more important to me).
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STC is the main destination - I doubt it would be seriously considered to eliminate the highest density station – and really the whole reason the subway was proposed in the first place. Again, if the ECLRT is elevated through Scarborough to handle addition capacity, there may be some merit in having one branch of the SRT go straight north to Sheppard and the other branch to follow the planned route through STC to Malvern. Both of these routes, along with the entire length of Eglinton would be grade-separated so consideration could be given to using SkyTrain to reduce the shutdown time from 3 to 1 year.

If you really wanted to get fancy, there would also be an interlined service from Agincourt (at the end of the Sheppard subway) south to the SRT corridor, east through STC to Centennial and then new elevated track for 4km to U of T Scarborough.

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BurlOak said:
If you really wanted to get fancy, there would also be an interlined service from Agincourt (at the end of the Sheppard subway) south to the SRT corridor, east through STC to Centennial and then new elevated track for 4km to U of T Scarborough.
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Now that's what REAL "network planning" looks like!
 
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