Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[rbt]

I think you've greatly overestimated the length of the LFLRV. The platform

That's a rather spacious stretch of Spadina.

Richmond to Queen is roughly a 70m gap (pedestrian crossing to pedestrian crossing). A single 2-car LFLRV train (roughly 61m) southbound would have it's nose at Richmond and tail fairly close to Queen. I think this is the tightest intersection so it should be doable as the loops generally have more space.

That is, the loops not at Union Station, but I assume we'll find the $300M to increase that space sooner or later.

 

[smallspy]

I'm not going go be surprised if the TTC wants a few 2 car LFLRVs during peak hour on Spadina in the next decade.

The new cars are not designed to operate in two car trains in revenue service. They have couplers, but only for emergency situations.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The new cars are not designed to operate in two car trains in revenue service. They have couplers, but only for emergency situations.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

They could add more articulated sections? Just like they could add a small articulated section to the Toronto Rocket subway trains, to make them longer, at a future date.

 

[rbt]

They could add more articulated sections?

That would probably be hardest. The design of the track layout, maintenance facilities, etc. assume the car is roughly 30M long.

TTC could create a small add-on order for 50 cars (25 trains) which are designed to be coupled for revenue service and decoupled in yards for maintenance. If Spadina ridership grows significantly between 2014 and 2018, they may do exactly that. 20 trains in revenue service would be plenty for Spadina. Nextbus shows 17 CLRVs today so 20 trains would be a little over 4x todays capacity.


Trains this long could not be used on routes other than Spadina and perhaps Queens Quay. On any other route it would result in blocking intersections. Spadina's ROW already blocks the intersections, so no new additions would be caused.

Just like they could add a small articulated section to the Toronto Rocket subway trains, to make them longer, at a future date.

A small Rocket extension might only require tens of millions in track modifications. Doubling their length (lets pretend stations already accommodate it) would required a billion dollars worth of storage yard modifications.

 

[drum118]

I see someone else thinks the subway plan is dumb

Calgary's mayor cannot understand why the Toronto City Council would support a heavy rail subway as a replacement for the Scarborough light metro. The original plan was a conventional light rail replacement but the subway would cost more and serve fewer people, The Globe and Mail reports:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...d-by-scarborough-subway-plan/article17170003/
"Calgary mayor baffled by Scarborough subway planDaskshana Bascaramurty
The Globe and MailPublishedFriday, Feb. 28 2014, 3:07 PM EST
Last updatedFriday, Feb. 28 2014, 9:39 PM EST

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi stuck his head in to one of the most heated municipal debates in Toronto, saying he is baffled by the decision to build a $3.5-billon subway in Scarborough championed by Mayor Rob Ford instead of a light-rail transit line.“I, for the life of me, cannot understand the decision on the Scarborough subway and maybe I’m missing something. I don’t understand why you’d not spend less to serve more people,†he said, speaking at a Toronto Region Board of Trade luncheon in a downtown hotel.
“Clearly I’m missing something, I’m not that bright,†he said, rolling his eyes.
The city’s original plan was to build a light-rail line with seven stops that would cost $1.48-billion. The province had agreed to foot the bill for it. But Mr. Ford, the city’s most vocal advocate of subways, was not pleased with the original Metrolinx agreement and council reopened the debate over which type of transit would replace the aging SRT, which currently connects to the Bloor-Danforth subway, this summer.
After a prolonged tug-of-war, council voted in October to build three more stops on the Bloor-Danforth subway line instead of the light-rail line, a major victory for Mr. Ford. The federal government has pledged $660-million and the provincial government pledged $1.48-billion to pay for it. The City of Toronto has to pick up the rest of the bill and council has approved a 1.6 per cent tax hike to make it happen.
Mr. Nenshi, who is in town for several speaking engagements to promote Calgary, also offered Toronto’s mayoral candidates candid campaign advice. He said the obsession over partisanship and splitting votes on the right and left is distracting from real issues.
“Here’s the thing: nobody cares about those old labels of left or right and liberal and conservative. Is removing the snow a right-wing or left-wing idea? Is fixing the potholes more New Democrat or Conservative? It’s ridiculous,†he said.
“If we went on to Bay Street today and asked 100 people, ‘Are you left-wing or right-wing?’ I guarantee you, 85 of them would have no idea what we were talking about and 11 of them would answer incorrectly. And the rest would be John Tory.’†he said, to wild laughter.
Mr. Tory – considered by some to be a “red tory†– was in the audience. He entered the mayoral race this week, the same day former TTC chair Karen Stintz also registered. They join a race Mr. Ford and former Toronto budget chief David Soknacki entered in January. NDP MP Olivia Chow is expected to declare her candidacy in the coming weeks.
Mr. Nenshi, who was re-elected as Calgary mayor last fall with 74 per cent of the vote, explained the techniques he used during his campaign would be worth adopting by Toronto’s mayoral hopefuls: telling residents why they love the city, what drives them to be mayor, and how they plan to make the city better.


“Forget about all the shadow parties you hve in Toronto political life that I find very, very strange,†he said.

 

[BurlOak]

I see someone else thinks the subway plan is dumb

Too bad Calgary Mayor Nenshi does not know the details about the Scarborough LRT.

- In Calgary, all LRT's go through the centre of the City.
- In Scarborough, the LRT would have been a 10km long line that forced 6,000 to 8,000 riders per hour to make a transfer to the subway.

If the Scarborough LRT was continuous with Eglinton, it would have been a 30km long line (40km when extended to Pearson) that intersects all subway lines in Toronto (except Sheppard).
Ridership would have been higher and the Kennedy to Don Mills portion of Eglinton would have been too busy for in-street LRT, but a relatively cheap Vancouver style elevated SkyTrain would have solved the transfer and capacity issues at a reasonable cost.

 

[mrxbombastic]

- In Scarborough, the LRT would have been a 10km long line that forced 6,000 to 8,000 riders per hour to make a transfer to the subway.

Not to drudge up an old debate on this but i find it absolutely insane that people throw such a fuss about a transfer. People transfer all the time on transit routes. i sometimes have to make three transfers on my way home from/to downtown and that's coming in from central Etobicoke. I honestly don't mind. Transfers are reflective of a very important part of a transit system: A direct response of mode to demand.

If transfers were such really such a prohibitive part of transit, we would have the subways completely interlined from Kipling to Finch and Kennedy to Downsview, European Transit systems would serve nobody, and people would just walk.drive everywhere.
It would have been one flight of stairs/escalators/elevators. Get over it.

But alas we are where we are, until some other politicians decides we aren't.

Rant Over.

 

[WislaHD]

It must be cheaper to remodel Kennedy station to better the transfer than extending the subway, surely?

Still surprised that the interlining with Eglinton option was dismissed so hurriedly.

 

[mrxbombastic]

Rough $350Million to remodel versus an extra $1-1.5Billion but whats the difference anyways.

The saddest part of all of this debate has been the completely horrible messaging that Metrolinx did on the SRT. Little to no actual advocacy and nothing like their Crosstown public outreach campaign. Simple Diagrams, Crossections or something of the new station, posted for people using Kennedy Station to see would have gone such a long way imho

 

[drum118]

Too bad Calgary Mayor Nenshi does not know the details about the Scarborough LRT.

- In Calgary, all LRT's go through the centre of the City.
- In Scarborough, the LRT would have been a 10km long line that forced 6,000 to 8,000 riders per hour to make a transfer to the subway.

If the Scarborough LRT was continuous with Eglinton, it would have been a 30km long line (40km when extended to Pearson) that intersects all subway lines in Toronto (except Sheppard).
Ridership would have been higher and the Kennedy to Don Mills portion of Eglinton would have been too busy for in-street LRT, but a relatively cheap Vancouver style elevated SkyTrain would have solved the transfer and capacity issues at a reasonable cost.

{Rant}Whop De Do 6,000-8000 riders have to make a transfer at Kennedy considering they and 10,000's have to make a transfer at Bloor/Yonge station.

Calgary Mayor Nenshi does know a hell a lot about the SRT/subway more than you think so.

You and every whiner needs to be put on a plane and be taken to London and Paris with 2 large piece of luggage in tow and try doing transferring between tube lines there. You will be happy using Kennedy transfer.

Once again, a few people want to waste 100's of millions let alone Billion to save a few minutes transferring or a ride and tell the rest of the riders go to hell in not getting better service to help them in the first place.

Malvern has, is and will be poorly service by people like you.

The elevated SkyTrain has it place, but it has many great flaws like the current RT.

On street LRT dose more to areas along it than A subway will do depending on the line, mostly not with SkyTrain. Does the Danforth line help the area?? No, it almost destroy it after the streetcars were remove. Same goes for Bloor, but it fair better and only starting to developed after 50 years of service.

All the people who want this subway to save a transfer should pay the full cost of doing that transit, not the system riders until the full cost is paid of for building it. That transfer fee will cost you and riders 4+ time the current transit fee to ride the system every time it is used. Then there is the operation cost and it most likely be less than the $17/rider that use the Sheppard Line today.

The Eglinton line needs to go to the airport and that is the plan, but the funds are not there at this time.

The plan SRT-LRT plan is the right plan and will service 10' of thousand more riders as well help to get cars off the road that this suuuubway.

I use this lines a fair amount yearly and never had an issue with it. Even using the buses from this station has never been an issue.

The plan transfer from the LRT to subway would have been one level less of transferring.

There is so much pent up demand for the lack of transit with the SRT it not funny, but the SRT can't move them yesterday.

An elevated SkyTrain will cost close to 2/3 less than a subway as well save years of construction, but no one wants one because of the view which I disagree with in the first place.{/Rant}

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Rough $350Million to remodel versus an extra $1-1.5Billion but whats the difference anyways.

The saddest part of all of this debate has been the completely horrible messaging that Metrolinx did on the SRT. Little to no actual advocacy and nothing like their Crosstown public outreach campaign. Simple Diagrams, Crossections or something of the new station, posted for people using Kennedy Station to see would have gone such a long way imho

Low key the advertising for the LRT side has been awful since 2008.

 

[BurlOak]

Not to drudge up an old debate on this but i find it absolutely insane that people throw such a fuss about a transfer.

{Rant}Whop De Do 6,000-8000 riders have to make a transfer at Kennedy considering they and 10,000's have to make a transfer at Bloor/Yonge station.

{mini-rant} It is the attitude that the people should shut up and accept the transfer that led to the B-D Extension. If planned properly from the start, the transfer could have been eliminated for a few hundred million (maybe less). Instead, the inevitable storm erupted and we are now spending an extra $1.5B.

According to the DRTES, the transfers at Y-B from the East in 2001 were 6,300 (per hour), and projected to be 9,100 in 2031. This number is completely unacceptable for passengers switching to a transit line that runs perpendicular to the direction they are going, but is perfectly fine for passengers continuing along roughly the same route??

Calgary Mayor Nenshi does know a hell a lot about the SRT/subway more than you think so.

If the Calgary blue line and the red line would both end outside the downtown zone, and there would be a transfer to a separate (orange) line that only runs through the downtown - THEN Mayor Nenshi could lecture us about how insignificant the transfer would be. I believe that truth is that he does not know enough about the Scarborough line and that Calgary would not propose a linear transfer for a route extension.

Malvern has, is and will be poorly service by people like you.

See above, the LRT and "suck it up and accept the transfer people" are to blame for this too.

There is so much pent up demand for the lack of transit with the SRT it not funny, but the SRT can't move them yesterday.

All the more reason to eliminate the transfer. My 6 to 8k estimate may be low.

An elevated SkyTrain will cost close to 2/3 less than a subway as well save years of construction, but no one wants one because of the view which I disagree with in the first place.{/Rant}

I do not agree that no one wants one. It has never been proposed. People were given a choice between subway and on-street LRT and they chose subway. How can the public be expected to know if elevated is less expensive than subway. The fault is with our transit planners and leaders for not proposing an elevated line, not the public's'.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Also the station at Eglinton Brimley will have to be built, which will put this project at almost 4.5 bllion. The SRT would have been open in 20 months from now, without a transfer. What a disgrace.

 

[mrxbombastic]

The issue with YB I'd that the yonge trains are already full by the time they get to bloor so any more people transferring to Yonge from bloor is an issue indeed. People coming from SLRT to Kennedy subway would be getting on an empty train.

These issues are night and day and your are portraying them disingenuously.

Also the LRT would have been extended to Malvern edge and in future to the mall!

If you can't support your case without falsehoods then you have no case to make.

The lrt was and always will be the better choice now.

 

[mrxbombastic]

also with those billion dollars or so extra, the line could have actually been extended through Malvern, or the Sheppard LRT extended to UTSC and down morning side, a Kingston Road BRT would have been built, a WELRT could have been built, the TCHC backlog could have been taken care of, more subway trains could have been purchase, signal upgrades could have proceeded on the BD line. The list goes on of what we could have done with those billion dollars.

Some say building the suburbs as inefficiently as we did was the biggest misallocation of resources as a society, I say that this subway extension is the biggest misallocation of resources for our city in this generation.

Its not the immediate cost of the subway extension that infuriates me most, its the opportunity cost of everything else that blows my mind and makes this such a terrible decision.