A Scarborough subway: Do the numbers add up?
Read More: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/14000/article19473790/?page=all
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An old ridership projection pegged peak one-direction usage at 9,500 passengers per hour, barely enough to justify a subway extension. The new one – which appeared as the transit debates rose to their crescendo – boosted peak ridership to 14,000, almost beyond the capacity of light rail. In a stroke, the case for a subway was much stronger.
- The problems on Sheppard – where ridership is about one-third the original projection, forcing heavy subsidies – speak to the dilemma with forecasting. Planners looking to the future have to make assumptions that could, with the benefit of hindsight, prove unwise. --- In the case of the Scarborough extension, the bulk of the nearly 50-per-cent increase in projected ridership is based on two decisions that raise questions. Planners assumed a train frequency that does not appear budgeted for and they assumed that transit projects that today are unfunded lines on the map will be completed.
- Although pro-subway politicians like to declare the project irrevocable, the planners who produced the Scarborough projection are the first to stress that their work is preliminary. Even though all three levels of government have committed big dollars to the project, much more analysis needs to be done and a more accurate ridership figure has yet to be determined. Councillor Josh Matlow, who continues to advocate for a light-rail line in Scarborough, views the latest number with skepticism, He still recalls how frustrated he was at council trying to determine the basis and validity for the increased ridership figure that emerged at such a pivotal moment.
- “Right now it’s still clear that there’s different numbers that are competing with each other,” he said recently. “It’s not like we just didn’t happen to have the information. I clearly asked for the information… that information never came to the floor of council… and council decided nonetheless just to move forward, regardless.” --- With the debate about Scarborough continuing to reverberate through the mayoral election – as recently as late June, Premier Kathleen Wynne had a chance in a press conference to state definitively that the province’s funding for transit in that part of Toronto would be for a subway only and chose not to do so – The Globe took a close look at the math.
- Although planners stress that early projections are works-in-progress, politicians have a tendency to run with the number if they like what they hear. This happened after Toronto Transit Commission CEO Andy Byford repeatedly described the projection during last year’s debates as being “on the cusp,” justifying either type of transit. With a projection that offered some solace to both subway and LRT camps, more subjective factors – among them value for money, impact on motorists, city-building and Scarborough alienation – became the dominant narratives in the debate at city hall.
- “All Toronto residents should have access to a good healthy vibrant transit system,” said Councillor Glenn de Baeremaeker, a subway booster through whose ward the extension would run. “If it went as low as 9,000 people per peak hour, I would still say you build the system, just like you did when you built it up to North York [in the 1960s].” --- And fellow councillor Karen Stintz, who helped orchestrate the move away from light rail, said the numbers were just one component of an important city-building project that cannot be derailed.
- The 14,000-passenger figure for a Scarborough subway extension will be further refined through an environmental assessment. If the data being used in the model change, so will the result. For staff at the TTC and the city, the projection is considered a good first stab. “What is actually going to be happening by 2031? I don’t know. I think then it would probably fall somewhere within here,” said Bernard Farrol, senior planner with the TTC, gesturing to the projections for 9,500 and 14,000 riders.
- Later in the interview he elaborated, speaking about the larger of the two figures. “We would be in the ballpark,” he said. “How big is that ballpark? I’m not going to say that. But, would it be double that? I doubt. Would it be half that? I doubt.”
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