Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[denfromoakvillemilton]

It appears this is the missing $400M. Eglinton was projected to cost $4.2B and the SRT $1.8B. When the SRT was cancelled, the Province stated that $400M (or was it $320M) from the SRT was part of the Kennedy LRT Station - so they essentially move the $400M over and effectively said that Eglinton is $4.6B and only $1.4B is available for the Scarborough Subway. The City and Federal Goverment are talking as if the full $1.8B is available for the Scarborough Subway.

Don't worry, I'm sure city council will keep dragging out the decision with the belief that funding will appear, meanwhile nothing will get built

The city is on the hook one way or another for about $85m over this mess. This was stated at Metrolinx BOD on Sept 10.

If the province allocated $1.8B for the SRT because of Kennedy Station, there is no reason why the province can't move $315m from the SRT plan to the subway other than screwing the city.

At the same time, the city will have to cover the cost of the reduction in the number of LRV to be built, but should be off set for new subway cars for the extension as the T1 are replace for the line.

If council can't live up to its comment to fund the extra cost to built this dumb extension, they should be voted out of office in Oct 2014 election.

What's the over/under on the time it'll take for a councillor to propose a tax increase to help pay for the subway, and the subsequent time it'll take for Rob or Doug to say no? My bet is an hour for the former, and about 20 mins for the latter.

Exactly. This still might not get built. Unbelievable.

Glen Murray seems angry enough right now to want to screw the city.

So it's all Scarborough's fault?

Yes. We can talk about Ford but it was the residents who wanted this.

 

[Tulse]

replacing Eglinton with a subway, replacing Sheppard with a subway

These are both extremely silly suggestions -- Eglinton LRT is already paid for by the province, and Sheppard doesn't have the ridership for a subway.

the light rail advocates are (mostly) winning

You can say this with a straight face when plans for the SLRT have literally just been replaced with a subway, and the Transit City plan is all but dead?

 

[freshcutgrass]

I would not link Scarborough subway to the Sheppard subway, now or in the near future.

Neither would I, as neither Scarb or Sheppard should be subway...they should be LRT (as designed and payed for). Scarb should simply be an extension of the new Eglinton LRT, not an extension of the BD subway line. Sheppard LRT should connect to STC.

If any money is spent in any kind of Subway-LRT switcheroo, it should be converting the current Sheppard heavy rail portion to Eglinton/Sheppard LRT. Eginton/Sheppard/BD subway can all feed the new DRL line.

The ridership north of STC will be too low to justify the capital and operating costs

Ridership on any proposed or u/c subways (or Sheppard line) in Toronto/905 don't justify the costs. They are political footballs...not savvy public transit concepts.

We don't even have the money to extend the BD line to STC. What makes you think there is money to build out the Sheppard line? A DRL line???? Is that a joke?

 

[superman]

These are both extremely silly suggestions -- Eglinton LRT is already paid for by the province, and Sheppard doesn't have the ridership for a subway.



You can say this with a straight face when plans for the SLRT have literally just been replaced with a subway, and the Transit City plan is all but dead?

The Eglinton line up to Don Mills is already a "subway". We just need to get some extra funding to make it a full rapid transit (elevated or tunneled) line up to Kennedy. If this was done in the first place (as per Ford/McGuinty's plan), we wouldn't have this back and forth now.

Wonder if the extra cash needed to cover the BD extension would cover elevating the "tram/streetcar" portion of the Eglinton line.

 

[M II A II R II K]

I was on a TR yesterday evening, and it was so packed throughout that everyone had their standing spot but couldn't move anywhere.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Wonder if the extra cash needed to cover the BD extension would cover elevating the "tram/streetcar" portion of the Eglinton line.

I hope you realize that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT uses the same Light Rail Vehicles from Mount Dennis to Kennedy.

Elevating the rest of the line should only cost another $700 Million. Putting it underground is too expensive to make any sense.

 

[picard102]

It's curious to see all the hand wringing about the DRL being a priority and somehow not being funded due to this extension, yet I didn't see anyone calling for the cancellation of Transit City in favour of a DRL. Surely, the DRL would be of higher priority than feeder streetcar lines adding to the problems at Yonge and Bloor?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It's curious to see all the hand wringing about the DRL being a priority and somehow not being funded due to this extension, yet I didn't see anyone calling for the cancellation of Transit City in favour of a DRL. Surely, the DRL would be of higher priority than feeder streetcar lines adding to the problems at Yonge and Bloor?

I don't think the Cherry Street line will be much of a problem for Bloor-Yonge.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

picard:

Conversely, are you saying that we should (even though it is really off our hands) cancel all those lines in favour of DRL? Sure, I can live with that - not sure if the mayor and others could though.

AoD

 

[TheTigerMaster]

picard:

Conversely, are you saying that we should (even though it is really off our hands) cancel all those lines in favour of DRL? Sure, I can live with that - not sure if the mayor and others could though.

AoD

Assuming he's talking about our LRT lines, cancelling them would be very short sighted. We need better transit outside of the core and TC was a huge step towards achieving that. It's unfortunate that the DRL wasn't in TC but we're working towards that right now. I think we can all agree that we're capable of building more than one thing at a time.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

TTM:

Well, the whole TC vs DRL argument sort of belongs to the school of thinking/fantasy that if the city drew a line somewhere, the province or the feds will fund it regardless of the political implications, and that they would have funded DRL instead if that was identified as the priority. While it is nice to imagine that the city has that much authority to dictate how money from senior levels of government is spent, the reality is quite the opposite.

AoD

 

[JayBeeGooner]

but obviously Toronto is growing upward at a rapid pace, just walk along Sheppard between Victoria Park and Yonge in rush hour and see the dozens of new condos and terrible traffic in that area.

I wasn't going to waste time responding to your rant, but I just had to respond to the fact you completely ignored the horrrible traffic on Sheppard between Bayview and Leslie.... where we have a subway.

 

[superman]

I hope you realize that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT uses the same Light Rail Vehicles from Mount Dennis to Kennedy.

Elevating the rest of the line should only cost another $700 Million. Putting it underground is too expensive to make any sense.

It's an underground train, what kind of vehicles used is kind of a moot point.

If it's only an additional $700 mil, I think we're better off using the federal cash to build Eglinton East elevated and have Eglinton connected to the SRT line as per the original Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown (the Ford-McGuinty Plan). More rapid transit for Toronto than the BD extension.

 

[picard102]

I think we can all agree that we're capable of building more than one thing at a time.

If that's the case then why are people acting like this funding for the SRT replacement subway is somehow taking funding away from a future DRL?

 

[Adjei]

The Pro-Subway councillors are already fretting over having to raise property taxes.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...funding-for-subway-extension/article14512506/

These people will be the same ones demanding nothing less than subways but when it comes time to actually pay for it, they will be running from the bill.