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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

The stupidity here is the insistence on grade separation after McCowan in the LRT design. Look at the Progress Bus today. It's not carrying enough to require grade separation when replaced. Even if traffic is diverted from STC on to the line at Malvern. Why not just save money and run it at-grade on Progress Avenue. They could use the money saved to finish running it into Malvern instead of terminating at Sheppard. They can use the grade separated portion from Kennedy to McCowan with higher frequencies to provide the coverage they want. Eventually they could split Eglinton at Kennedy in to 3 services. One on Eglinton East, the second to STC and the third to Malvern. This would offer double the frequency on Kennedy-STC portion.
 
They don't care about the ridership or what's best for taxpayers, they just want to pay less developer's fees which I really believe that they haven't paid enough of them to help build/maintain infrastructure.

It won't change anything
 
There's that old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I'm seldom on the side of developers, but the prospect of putting the key people on the stand and subjecting them to cross examination under oath about where these ridership projections came from does have appeal.

As to development charges, Wynne has been advancing legislation allowing (requiring?) use of development fees to finance transit. That's appropriate within reason, but in her usual way her government is assuming that this is a deep pool of money that can be milked mercilessly to support a long list extravagant projects. Developers do not pay development charges, they pass them on to buyers - but if these charges are too high the impact on pricetags will choke off demand. This challenge may be needed to keep things at a prudent level.

- Paul
 
Adjei said:
http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...lenge-scarborough-subway-with-omb-appeal.html
Click to expand...

So you have to wonder if this will delay implementation of the Scarborough subway. I'm not a fan of it but I think further delaying transit improvements and needing to keep the RT limping along is probably the worst aspect of this.

Transit City was first proposed eight years ago, along with replacing the RT with an LRT. There's still nothing to show for it, not even shovels in the ground for an LRT or a subway. Sad, just sad sad sad how politics has royally screwed Scarborough residents.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
Sad, just sad sad sad how politics has royally screwed Scarborough residents.
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If Scarborough residents had actually opposed Ford's grandstanding on this issue, we'd be proceeding on a fully-funded LRT line. It was Scarborough residents who opposed the LRT and argued that they "deserved" a subway, so this problem is ultimately of their own making.
 
Just another Politically motivated bi-weekly anti Scarborough subway article form the STAR.

@ Tulse : The MAJORITY of Scarborough residents wanted a better network over the transfer scraps proposed. Hence the divide and the war over 2 separate flawed plans that we are continue to argue about in circles. Most Scarborough residents would receive no benefit from the LRT except select areas (Progress/Ellesmere & Markham/Morningside & Sheppard)

The Sheppard LRT is a joke of all transit building plans in terms of fairness & integration, The Malvern LRT was never on the books to be built & the current RT route does not have a whole lot of fanfare out here to begin with. The subway plan is an upgrade over the SLRT

There is no respect for building a bright future in Scarborough whatsoever. Scarborough residents are not to blame the Political games are on both side. McGuinty is as much to blame as Ford. Although Ford (who im not a fan of) had no tangible plan or funding model he clearly acknowledged the lack of political respect in Scarborough which meant alot to the voters out here who are continually told what is good for them from outsiders. But the STAR will continue to feed you a different narrative.

Many are fed up with this nonsense LRT vs Subway debate. So if no one is willing to design & pay for an intelligent, fairly integrated LRT network than just build the subway instead patchwork isolated network.
 
coffey1 said:
The MAJORITY of Scarborough residents wanted a better network over the transfer scraps proposed. Hence the divide and the war over 2 separate flawed plans that we are continue to argue about in circles. Most Scarborough residents would receive no benefit from the LRT except select areas (Progress/Ellesmere & Markham/Morningside & Sheppard)
Click to expand...
The LRT as proposed would serve far more people than the three-stop subway. And again, the reason that there is still no transit being built in Scarborough is that the residents there torpedoed the funded, ready-to-go plans for a subway that would be less functional, all because of some notion that they "deserve" an unfunded subway. Instead of a practical system of appropriate capacity that could be built with committed funds, Scarborough residents instead demanded a hugely costly, hugely overcapacity solution that provided far less actual service to local residents. So yeah, I think Scarborough pretty much made its own bed, and if there's no progress that's been made, it's only because they unmade the progress that previously existed.
 
Tulse said:
The LRT as proposed would serve far more people than the three-stop subway. And again, the reason that there is still no transit being built in Scarborough is that the residents there torpedoed the funded, ready-to-go plans for a subway that would be less functional, all because of some notion that they "deserve" an unfunded subway. Instead of a practical system of appropriate capacity that could be built with committed funds, Scarborough residents instead demanded a hugely costly, hugely overcapacity solution that provided far less actual service to local residents. So yeah, I think Scarborough pretty much made its own bed, and if there's no progress that's been made, it's only because they unmade the progress that previously existed.
Click to expand...

First off the 3-stop is more of a Political narrative being used on both sides of the debate. On the PRO-subway side its being used to keep the project moving as simple is better when dealing with the Polically iron wall in the heart of the City. On the ANTI-subway debate its being used as a simpleton approach to say "look 3 stop vs. 7 is a no brainier. Right?"

Not right at all actually.
-It will be at least 4 stops (+1 on Eglinton & possibly 5) once complete. Either way that doesn't matter too much at the moment.
-2 out of the 7 SLRT stop are in an industrial no mans land which will actually now be served somewhat by this Smarttrack thingy anyhow
-The route of the subway serves the feeder bus routes much more efficiently from East & South east Scarborough
-No transfer & the subway puts the heart of Scarborough on Toronto's main transit artery

-The only good thing about the SLRT is the Progress Ellesmere & Sheppard stops. As i personally prefer the Markham area over McCowan (which isn't bad by no means) & the Centennial college stop on progress was useful as well.

Otherwise you cant even compare.
 
cplchanb said:
sigh...here we go again...why cant they just move on and build the damn thing whatever it is..... :mad:
Click to expand...

A year ago, I agreed with this sentiment, particularly as Tory kept repeating it during his campaign.

But it's become increasingly clear that the underlying presumptions are on shaky ground indeed, and that's without getting into how it's affected by Smart Track. I'd like to see something built already, because this is embarrassing, but more than anything I want someone other than Toronto (which, I guess means Metrolinx) to take over the whole damned thing and build the RIGHT thing. Toronto has shown itself to be incapable of moving the ball forward one way or another.


crs1026 said:
There's that old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I'm seldom on the side of developers, but the prospect of putting the key people on the stand and subjecting them to cross examination under oath about where these ridership projections came from does have appeal.

As to development charges, Wynne has been advancing legislation allowing (requiring?) use of development fees to finance transit. That's appropriate within reason, but in her usual way her government is assuming that this is a deep pool of money that can be milked mercilessly to support a long list extravagant projects. Developers do not pay development charges, they pass them on to buyers - but if these charges are too high the impact on pricetags will choke off demand. This challenge may be needed to keep things at a prudent level.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. I'm wary of developers getting to have a say in where and when transit projects are built but if they're being asked to pay for a project, the logic of which is that they'll be able to build lots of stuff because of it, and they think they're getting ripped off and won't be able to build much because the numbers are fudged, good for them. I have no idea if the OMB can really allow them to just pull out of funding it etc. but it will be a heck of a show.

And transit is already accounted for in DCs; what they're changing is how they're calculated. I believe that now, for example, you get funding based on your average ridership numbers over the past 5 years. That's fine in Toronto, where the numbers are relatively stable, but it hurts suburban municipalities that have seen big increases in recent years, but are still getting funding based on 2011 etc.

The new legislation will allow municipalities to calculated based on FUTURE ridership, which makes sense when you're talking about DCs for a new subway etc.
 
@coffey1 Excellent post. All those people deriding the "subway lovers" don't really get how people commute/travel in the area.

From Malvern, the subway at McCowan/Sheppard, means a longer bus ride, but one less transfer, and a much faster, one-change ride to the core. And from McCowan North (one of the busiest bus routes out of SC), the subway would actually have an impact on their commute, as opposed to no gain at all with the LRT.

The LRT had some merits when they were going to take it right to the heart of Malvern. But Progress/Sheppard? That effectively means a few less minutes on the bus and still one more transfer, because we all know that it'll be better to transfer at Kennedy than risk trying to transfer at Eglinton station during peak.

If they want to do the LRT, they should do it right, straight to the Malvern. It might still need transfer at Kennedy, but at least that would effectively reduce half of Malvern's bus rides to less than 5 minutes. And ditto for the rest of northeast Scarborough with the SELRT. Short bus ride to connect to LRT. This is why I don't get the blind insistence on grade separation after McCowan. Just run the thing down Progress. It won't interfere with much traffic at all. Not too many lights. Use the savings to extend. I don't get how they can see value on running the SELRT at grade and then decide that the SLRT past McCowan requires hundreds of millions in grade separation, only to have it terminate at Sheppard/Progress.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
I want someone other than Toronto (which, I guess means Metrolinx) to take over the whole damned thing and build the RIGHT thing. Toronto has shown itself to be incapable of moving the ball forward one way or another.
Click to expand...

Metrolinx helped allow this shit to happen by asking council to "reaffirm their commitment" to the LRT, after they voted for a subway during a council debate that was supposed to be about discussing revenue tools for transit. That vote should have been ignored.
 
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