innsertnamehere
Superstar
$3.05 billlion includes a 30% cost overrun fund, as do all project budgets.
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1overcosc
Active Member
Yes, there's problems with the math justifying a subway. Should we cancel it and change gears back to LRT? NO!
What's done is done, this city needs to stop with the endless flip-flopping, cancelling, and restarting, and get to just building already. The province should pass a law prohibiting the City of Toronto from making any changes to the currently approved plan. Heck, a constitutional amendment making it impossible for governments of any level to cancel contracts would get my full support.
Subway on McCowan for Scarborough, LRT for Sheppard East, LRT for Finch, underground LRT on central Eglinton, surface LRT on east Eglinton, gettir done already. No more changing minds.
What's done is done, this city needs to stop with the endless flip-flopping, cancelling, and restarting, and get to just building already. The province should pass a law prohibiting the City of Toronto from making any changes to the currently approved plan. Heck, a constitutional amendment making it impossible for governments of any level to cancel contracts would get my full support.
Subway on McCowan for Scarborough, LRT for Sheppard East, LRT for Finch, underground LRT on central Eglinton, surface LRT on east Eglinton, gettir done already. No more changing minds.
Voltz
Senior Member
If just getting to building it already is what you want, then the LRT can start to get built much sooner.
ehlow
Senior Member
Yes sticking to a plan for more than a few years is key to actually building something
. This applies to all projects. We have a rich history of flip-flopping back & forth and cancelling transit plans, wasting huge amounts of money and years of time.rbt
Senior Member
Yes sticking to a plan for more than a few years is key to actually building something
While normally true, in this case going with the LRT route would greatly speed up the project. LRT could be tendered to begin construction in fall 2015 (timeline depends on moneyflow and Pan Am Games; it's fully engineered), the subway option won't be ready to begin construction until closer to 2017 if it is still acceptable at that time (EA's have a bad habit of escalating the cost).
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Here's an interesting read, from this link:
New subway (metro) systems cost nearly 9 times as much as light rail
Buffalo’s 6.4-mile LRT system, with 5.2 miles (81%) in subway, has not been expanded since its opening in 1985. The high cost of subway construction is a likely factor. Photo: Buffalo Tourism.
♦
Before the surface electric urban railway (the technology of former streetcar and interurban systems) was reborn as light rail transit (LRT) in the mid-1970s, North American urban areas that wanted urban rail for their inner cities really didn’t think there was any choice other than a full subway-elevated system — rail rapid transit, aka a metro system.
But not only was the expense of such a system daunting, and way above the financial capability of most moderate-sized and smaller American cities, its tremendous capacity generally wasn’t needed for cities just trying to get their feet wet with better-quality public transit.
Then, LRT as an option began to emerge, unveiled with maximum force at the first National Light Rail Conference of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in 1975, and … ka-boom! Urban rail systems in the form of lower-cost LRT began to sprout up in city after city. And they’ve been widely hailed as a great success and model for good urban public transport.
But the “why not a subway?†issue keeps rearing its head — mainly reflecting the resistance of the motor-vehicle-focused mindset to having urban space, especially street space, shared or usurped by mass transit operations. Overwhelmingly, surface LRT in one type of alignment or another (from street reservations to the re-use of abandoned railway corridors) has triumphed … although there have been cases where pressure to “build it out of sight†has forced new LRT startups underground (or even canceled planned projects altogether).
The tremendous investment cost of digging a subway and installing underground stations is obviously a huge deterrent to the development of such systems — both in the initial financing, and in sopping up available resources that could otherwise be plowed into vigorous expansion of the system. Buffalo’s 6.4-mile LRT line, for example, was constructed almost entirely (81%) in subway … and hasn’t been expanded one foot since its original opening in 1985.
One should keep in mind that the cost of more modest local projects (such as wastewater tunnels or similar smaller tunnels) can be very deceptive. Rail transit subways involve far more complex features (after all, they must provide environments to enable large numbers of human beings to survive underground safely and comfortably). There must be ventilation and lighting, of course, and often air-conditioning. More significantly from a cost standpoint, underground stations are extremely expensive, including access (elevators and escalators designed to convey large volumes of passengers rapidly up and down). Access for trains to get from the surface into the subway can also be expensive, typically involving portals spanning up to two city blocks and lengthy underground approach ramps to and from the level main subway alignment.
Nevertheless, from one city to another, subway enthusiasts (or, often, anti-rail Road Warriors seeking to tie a subway albatross around the neck of local rail planning) continue to emerge from time to time claiming that subway construction would cost only “slightly more†(or sometimes, even, “no moreâ€) than installing a new urban rail line in public streets.
So a solid fact check is in order. After considerable investigation, the study summarized here has gathered a selected assortment of recent urban rail projects (all from the 2000s), either completed or well under construction and fully budgeted. A major and very helpful source has been Comparative Subway Construction Costs, Revised from the Pedestrian Observations blog, including data cited in comments. Additional data has come from Tramways & Urban Transit magazine (hardcopy only), September 2013 through February 2014 issues, data in Light Rail Now, Wikipedia, and the research study Comparative examination of New Start light rail transit, light railway, and bus rapid transit services opened from 2000, co-authored by Lyndon Henry and Dave Dobbs, and presented in November 2012 to the 12th National Light Rail Transit Conference in Salt Lake City, sponsored by the TRB and American Public Transportation Association (APTA).
In this cost comparison, only full subway projects (entirely or nearly totally underground) are included. These also include LRT subways (e.g., San Francisco’s Central Subway, and underground LRT projects in Seattle). LRT projects are exclusively (or nearly so) in street alignments (e.g., San Francisco’s T-Line, Salt Lake City’s University line), and involve full-capability, high-performance LRT rather than streetcar technology. In some cases (e.g., Houston, Phoenix, Minneapolis), construction may include short segments on bridges or an exclusive alignment, but most construction is in-street. (LRT development is being aggressively pursued worldwide, and there are many more LRT projects recently constructed or now under way than are included here — but keep in mind that this study focuses only on projects with exclusive or nearly exclusive in-street construction (to compare the most difficult, highest-cost type of surface construction with subway construction). For most LRT projects, in-street construction may only represent a portion of the total alignment.)
All projects include costs of vehicles and facilities, as applicable. One should also note that the unit cost of an extension project is typically less than that of a new-start project, since basic storage-maintenance facilities and a vehicle fleet are often already in place, with perhaps only incremental additions required.
Per-mile unit costs (millions of U.S. dollars per route mile) have been calculated from total project costs and project lengths, and escalated to 2014 dollars. The results are presented in the following bar charts.
U.S. projects
Basic cost-per-mile data is present in this section for U.S. projects only ($ millions per mile).
Projects in other world cities
The cost-per-mile data in this section is derived from various projects outside the USA around the world (U.S. $ millions per mile).
Conclusion — Subways cost many times more
This final graph compares median cost per mile between subway and in-street LRT projects for both the USA and for all projects (including U.S.) worldwide (U.S. $ millions per mile).
From this data visualization, it can be seen that, for recent U.S. projects, subway construction has a median cost nearly seven times that of in-street LRT construction. Worldwide, the differential is nearly 9:1. And thats only comparing in-street LRT construction, not accounting for the possibility of, say, transitioning into an available railway alignment outside the city center, with far lower installation cost.
What this means is that, even if your community can somehow afford the initial financial commitment (even with federal assistance), expansion of your system will be severely attenuated. Basically, for a given amount of available funding, you can construct 7 to 9 times as much surface LRT as subway. Put another way: For available resources, you can have a far more comprehensive rail system with surface LRT, many times the size of a system relying on subway construction.
That doesn’t mean there’s never an appropriate role for subway alignments. Both Portland and Dallas, for example, are now evaluating subway options through their CBDs to keep pace with ridership growth and the need for fast, more frequent service going beyond in-street capacity.
But both cities relied primarily on surface construction to start and develop their initial systems (although, because of special conditions, Dallas’s initial system did include a short stretch of tunnel under the North Central Expressway). In any case, any community considering a new urban rail system should pause and take a deep breath, with an eye on the longer-term implications, before committing to a subway option. And certainly, from the data above, such a commitment should not be made on the supposition that a subwa would cost “just a little bit more†than constructing LRT in the street.
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Then extend it off the road at grade in some corridor then.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
In other news, a new study out of Berlin has found that water is wet.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Posted this a few hours ago but accidentally deleted:
The 50% isn't partof that.
The problem is that we really don't know how much this thing will cost. Last summer we were so early in the planning stages that all we could get was a very rough estimate of the cost. Metrolinx has warned that there is potential for cost overruns of 50% ($1.5B 2011), as the engineering work progresses.
Naturally, the politicians took the smallest (most convinient) number and ran with that. We already know that we won't be within the $3 Billion already budgeted (including the 30% overrun fund you mentioned earlier).
It's anyone's guess what the final price estimate will be. It could be up to $4.5 Billion (including aforementioned 30%) according to Metrolinx.
Any extra costs will be charged to the taxpayers of CoT. If this thing does end up costing $4.5B, CoT taxpayers will be on the hook for $2.1 B ($0.6 B + $1.5B overrun). This will wreck havoc on our budgets for decades to come (I'm not exaggerating). Toronto's current contribution of $0.6B will already take 30 years to pay off and I don't know if we have any provisions at all for ANY cost overrun, let alone an overrun of $1.5B (250% of CoT's original budget for the project!!!!). This is quite possibly the most wreckless fiscal decision Council has made in decades.
I hope our Council has the sense to kill this project with fire (yes, I said fire). It won't be moving very many people and it won't be anywhere near within the budgeted amount. It's a disaster waiting to happen.
The 50% isn't partof that.
The problem is that we really don't know how much this thing will cost. Last summer we were so early in the planning stages that all we could get was a very rough estimate of the cost. Metrolinx has warned that there is potential for cost overruns of 50% ($1.5B 2011), as the engineering work progresses.
Naturally, the politicians took the smallest (most convinient) number and ran with that. We already know that we won't be within the $3 Billion already budgeted (including the 30% overrun fund you mentioned earlier).
It's anyone's guess what the final price estimate will be. It could be up to $4.5 Billion (including aforementioned 30%) according to Metrolinx.
Any extra costs will be charged to the taxpayers of CoT. If this thing does end up costing $4.5B, CoT taxpayers will be on the hook for $2.1 B ($0.6 B + $1.5B overrun). This will wreck havoc on our budgets for decades to come (I'm not exaggerating). Toronto's current contribution of $0.6B will already take 30 years to pay off and I don't know if we have any provisions at all for ANY cost overrun, let alone an overrun of $1.5B (250% of CoT's original budget for the project!!!!). This is quite possibly the most wreckless fiscal decision Council has made in decades.
I hope our Council has the sense to kill this project with fire (yes, I said fire). It won't be moving very many people and it won't be anywhere near within the budgeted amount. It's a disaster waiting to happen.
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ehlow
Senior Member
People who push full grade separation (whether underground or overground) seem to constantly claim that it's not much more expensive (only 10%!!), the same price, or even cheaper, using very creative accounting (for example counting the money saved from switching to LRT from subway in Scarborough against the cost of grade-separating Eglinton, therefore grade-separating Eglinton is "cheaper", even though they are two independent projects).
BurlOak
Senior Member
A few interesting things here:
- For Metro, it seems no Canadian Cities were considered. Montreal and Vancouver have recently built Metro for $150M/km, while even Toronto at $350M/km is less than the averages given. This makes it hard to apply any of these results to Canada.
- The Cost of the Finch and Sheppard LRT are about $70M/km ($110M/mile), which is double the world-wide LRT average. It seems to show that there is a problem with how these LRT's were implemented.
- The Cost of the Eglinton LRT is about $220M/km ($350M/mile), which is almost 7 times the LRT average. It is painfully obvious that something went terribly wrong in the design of this LRT line.
BurlOak
Senior Member
LRT is generally less expensive than other types of Metro.
The key here is that the SRT must be replaced and that Scarborough (STC plus Centennial and Malvern or McCowan/Sheppard) needs to be connected to the Toronto subway system.
This can be done by one project - a continuous line from Malvern to Mount Dennis. This seems to cost about $7B ($2B for SRT refurbishment and extension, $4.5B for ECLRT from Kennedy to Mount Dennis, and an extra $500M for elevation).
The other option of accomplishing the same thing is to build separate, independent ECLRT and B-D subway extension. This seems to cost about $8B ($4.5B for ECLRT from Kennedy to Mount Dennis, $3.5B for the B-D extension).
We cannot conclude that on-street LRT is always more expensive than grade-separated LRT. But for solving the problem at hand, the on-street LRT will be $1B more expensive than the grade-separated solution.
nfitz
Superstar
You can't look at these numbers in such a simplistic way. TTC's subway costs are for everything. Land acquisition, vehicles, power supply, signalling, new garages, etc. If you look at Montreal's costs, this was simply the construction cost. It didn't include new vehicles or garages for example.
Your numbers for the Sheppard and Finch LRTs include vehicles. Based on the recent contract extension to add 14 more vehicles for Waterloo for $92.4 million, these vehicles cost $6.6 million each. With 35 of these included in the cost, that's over $230 million or almost $20M/km right there. This lowers the actual LRT construction cost to about $50M/km. Then you toss in the almost 1 km of tunnel that is necessary to get from Don Mills Station to the portal just west of Consumers Road, and that's surely another $100 million (or more!) Suddenly the cost for the surface LRT section without the tunnel or the vehicles is about $40M/km. Assuming the basic cost of the vehicle garage (not including extra tracks for storage) is another $100 million or so, and then the cost of just the LRT itself is about $30M/km.
You can come around these numbers another way. Metrolinx estimated the 2 km extension of the Sheppard East LRT from Morninside to Meadowvale was about $100 million or $50M/km. If the extra vehicles are about $20M/km, then the track and road improvements themselves are $30M/km.
And suddenly there is no problem with how these LRT's were implemented. The problem is with back-seat drivers pulling numbers out of their imagination and trying to compare apples to oranges.
The only thing that is painfully obvious is that you don't seem to be aware that most of the cost for Eglinton isn't from the surface LRT that you are comparing this to!
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rbt
Senior Member
Right. The real lesson here is that the rolling stock and electrical pickup type have a minimal impact to cost.
A shared surface corridor is relatively cheap. A surface exclusive corridor (where GO is heading) is moderately priced. An underground high capacity exclusive corridor is really expensive.
This applies whether running Toronto Rockets, LRT, or swan boats.
The expensive bits of Sheppard and Finch are the underground passenger connections to the subway. Take those out and both lines drop in price by about 50%.
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MrsNesbitt
Active Member
We're not very well going to drop the underground connectors to the subway though are we? Lose those and turn the LRT into an on-street connection to the subway and we'll have people howling about the inconvenience, calling LRT streetcars, and tarnishing its already frail reputation in this city.
Also 50% seems a bit steep to me.
Also 50% seems a bit steep to me.