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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
This is what is being proposed:
Kennedy Station's platforms are located just under the SRT station that is visible in this image. Council wants to examine running the Scarborough Subway on the surface on the SRT rail corridor, rather than underground along McCowan.
TTC says there are two ways to go about doing this:
1. We could rebuild kennedy and shift it west. This would be very expensive, and wouldn't save money
2. We could extend the subway east, and then loop back to meet the SRT rail corridor. This is what is pictured in the above image. The TTC argues that the savings from this would be minimal, because it would need a very large curve to allow our T1 and TR trainsets to fit in the curve. My argument is that if we went with cars that have shorter bodies, the curve radius could be much shorter. Shorter bodies are part of the reason why the SRT vehicles can make such tight turns. The image above shows a 100 metre curve radius, requiring about 400 metres of tunnelling, which is much less than what the TTC says would be needed (more than 1 km is what they said). This 100 metre radius is far larger than what other jurisdictions use for 17 metre cars, so I think that it could be technically possible. If so, that would make right-of-way allowances the only constraint for the plan to put the subway extension in the SRT corridor
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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
And because that proposal would use the SRT corridor, we'd be combining the cost savings and coverage benefits (including Malvern extension) of the Transit City plan, with the benefits of eliminating the Kennedy transfer that the original SSE proposal offered. If feasible, this would combine the best parts of the two plans.
GenerationW
Senior Member
And in the end, it'll be whatever Wynne and the Scarborough Liberal caucus want.
coffey1
Active Member
Really now. Something new. The only Politician to have lied Rob Ford? What Politician doesn't lie? LOL.
Does that narrative really only apply to your favorite Politician? Take Ford's personal issues out of the picture for a minute & just compare the Political Campaign promises of Tory's Platform vs. what Ford campaigned on. Who was lying more? Whether you agree with his politics or not I would say Ford stuck hard to his campaign and stayed true much greater than most Politician's. of course until his personal issues came out & he unraveled but by that time the tone had already changed. Guess what that's NO LIE.
I didn't vote for Ford at the time because I was fairly new to the City (3 years) & didn't understand the real issues with Toronto's suburban investment neglect at the time, Ford's personality kind of appalled me. Aside from his LGBT stance & some questionable quotes he wore directly on his sleeve for all to judge, his Politics are certainly much more inclusive for helping the undeserved areas with actual investment & not a bunch of "feel good" acknowledgments, community housing double downs, patch programs on neglected areas & photo-op's which do nothing to invest or change the actual landscape & underlying problems that drive investment long term.
But who is listening & actually helping the Suburbs? Oh ya your "honest" Politician who is all about funneling money in to the middle & uses the vast financial, media propaganda means to convince people with "facts" & "data". When the reality is they pick and choose the facts the work to fit their narrative & use repetitive slant to MISLEAD voters as you say.
For god sake build an inclusive City that doesn't segregate citizens on transit. Quit ignoring the FACTS of what technology has already been built in this City & is still being built in even less populated areas. Quit ignoring the facts that quality transit drives investment, & creates wealth.
A lying Politician. lol. Cmon man. Hopefully sooner or later someone with similar Politics and & much more controlled personal life comes along to stand up for the left behind with more "lies" as you call them
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cplchanb
Senior Member
Considering that tunnelling itself is many times more expensive than at grade I think regardless of what radius is required, it would be much cheaper than tunnelling. It also gives them an easier option to add more stations in the future since the site is already there from the SRT. As for STC, they could either tunnel down or they can go elevated simply by replacing the existing structures, though I'm not sure about the popularity of that and there will be a transit gap along that corridor as its getting rebuilt. However, the space is already there so it would make for a pretty attractive option financially versus digging.
justindw
New Member
Yes. Ford lied more about more things than the typical politician. A lot more. To be fair, in some cases he was simply unaware of (and indifferent to) whether what he has said was true our not. His reality was orthogonal to truth, so saying "he lied" was what I call a misnomer.
I've recently ridden the SRT*. It seems to be made entirely out of depression, and I strongly suspect it is powered by dead puppies and the tears of orphans. Riding it would depress God. It isn't about the crappy transfer at Kennedy (I can see why Miller thought that getting rid of that would have made it tolerable, but I think he over looked the depressing part). It isn't even about the trapped-in-the-70s-but-envisioning-the-future style cars (I don't know when the SRT was built, but it feels like whoever designed the rolling stock binge watched Logan's Run over and over). It isn't that they are too narrow and too cramped for such a long haul. There is something just terribly soul sucking about them, in a way that even, for instance, the deader-than-dead Sheppard subway isn't.
Other than reminding riders to each chocolate at each station, I don't see a way to convince a relatively small, but important, portion of the electorate to, well, settle for anything other than an extension of line 2. We can argue numbers and efficiency all day long, but I think it utterly missing the point. The current thing sucks. As in, the soul from ones body, the spring from ones step, and the joy from ones life. When confronting something like that, the side arguing "but it costs too much!!!" are sadly, missing the point. One cannot argue against that soul-crushing monstrosity with arguments about money. It's really that bad.
That group isn't going to be swayed by promises of an LRT (I can't help but think they think "OH! This new untested technology will TOTALLY be different", and I can't blame them). It's going to have to be a subway. While I dispute that Scarborough doesn't get its share of funding, this is truly a matter of paying for the sins of the morons who built that rumbling carriage ride through Hell** in the first place.
That said, it is unlikely that this is going to revitalize Scarborough and make it a huge successful new downtown, which sucks, because that's the best way to recoup the spending.
Given that, the second best is to try desperately to make (I assume) STC a transit hub cum quasi-downtown. The density will probably be there in 50 years or so. It might be able to catch up to Yorkdale's current status its 20 or so.
My question, as someone who doesn't have to ride that every day, is, isn't it a long trek from STC to downtown even without the SRT and the transfer? If so, it seems like something like a smart track that worked and could be built would be needed (which is fine - we'd have contra-flow traffic to STC from anyone the west of it). The problem I see there is that all the tracks will be used to transport people from further out into downtown (giving those in Scarborough the chance to simultaneously not be able to get on a train while also being referred to as "transit haves"), and Metrolinx will almost certainly charge, well, a lot.
Also, while I believe at this point we don't have a choice but to extend line 2 out to STC, regardless of the cost, it will suck out most of the money for other extensions, and it will mean the DRL is needed soonest (not for relief of us happy Transit Haves, but so that the folks from Scarborough don't skip the soul crushing SRT only to wind up at a body-crushing Yonge/Bloor). Also, we'll have to move a lot of people to STC and the other stops to get them onto the subway. That's going to be tough (I think Scarborough has the same problem with over crowded buses that, say, Dufferin, Don Mills and Eglinton have).
Rambling aside, my questions are, assuming that the extension is non-negotiable: how can STC be maximized as a city centre; how can people be moved more efficiently (from their point of view, I mean); and how can STC be maximized as a Union Station East?
Because we can debate numbers up and down, but if it's not about numbers, there is a good percentage of the city (a few percent, anyway) for whom this is not negotiable.
* I'm one of those "transit haves", squeezing oneself onto a subway after all those transit "have nots" have filled it up.
** That's not to say Scarborough is Hell. Just the bit immediately around the SRT. Like, 3 metres around it.
coffey1
Active Member
I agree if it's possible it may be cheaper & if the savings are high enough we could then build the extension across to Markham/Sheppard or up to Malvern Town center.
As for extra stations.. aside from adding around STC im not sure it's required as GO RER/Smarttrack will be running right beside it & the media already made it clear to us that it's insanity that Scarborough might subway get a station 3km apart from Smarttrack with the original plan. Building underground would make for a very useful stop around McCowan/Lawrence but I can certainly see the case for above ground on the RT corridor if its possible & if the savings go toward extending deeper into the areas of the City which have been neglected from transit.
Otherwise take the savings & stop reductions, go back to the 3-stop plan & look at ways to improve bus service until (if) a day comes when a useful local network can be properly funded to build something fair & useful to feed into the City's main transit backbone.
coffey1
Active Member
Sorry Ford has lied to you as I just wouldn't put him above any other Politician in the lying category by no means whatsoever. The TRUTH is he was elected because there's a MAJOR problem in this City with equality. Until we connect our suburbs to the same level of transit we can never expect the citizens to have the same thoughts on transit issues.
There are tens of thousands who have to take grueling bus commute just to get to the crappy SRT, and are inconvenienced more once they get near to downtown with then problem areas. Why would people refuse to take transit out here to the core? The DRL is only one part of the equation & not our priority.
There are thousands that are lucky enough to drive and avoid this neglect & since Scarborough has become an area which is so poorly connected to it's own City's infrastructure middle-class people with downtown jobs just move to the 905 as there are also more local growth locally, better focus on at the Municipal level, and the same level of access to the main Provincial job center on GO. Or in certain low populated 905 suburbs subways are on the way.
We have starved the suburbs in the City to the breaking point & using a segregated form of transit to the core is should not be accepted. Yes we need to build the DRL, yes growth creates more growth. That doesn't mean we fix those issues at the expense of the most neglected areas of the City. It's a separate issue and should not be used an either or narrative. Or "priority". These are all priorities.
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justindw
New Member
Okay, I'd like you to take a second and read the post I made so you'll see I agree with you.
justindw
New Member
First: if Scarborough has been neglected, post the numbers. Show budget numbers that contrast investment per capita in the four wards. (Hint - Scarborough gets its share of the city budget. It costs a lot to maintain those long roads, and those long sewer pipes and to send people out on patrols).
Second, when you say "Your DRL is only one part of the equation & not our priority." You're 1. wrong about whose DRL it is, wrong about who I am (I live west of University. I just don't take jobs on the Yonge line. It isn't "my" DRL). Those folks at Yonge and Bloor hoping to get on a train? They've been accumulating since STC. They mostly come from far out east. It is *your* DRL, too. If you want to do other than move the suckage from Kennedy to Yonge, it's yours, too.
My first question is, does that chip on your shoulder make you incapable of seeing that?
Third, my point was not, actually, to you. You have, in spite of your self, managed to convince me there's something at stake other than common sense and wise allocation of money (which advocate for the LRT network). It isn't even your blathering anger and unsupported assertions that Scarborough doesn't get its share of the city budget. It's that the damn SRT SUCKS. Which means that even if the cost is a billion, two billion more to serve fewer people, we're going to have to build it. Any discussion one the SRT is going to have to accept that, and make the best we can starting, not with a blank slate, but with the idea that there is going to be an extension of line 2. Oddly, your anger has gotten to be so bad that you can't even see when people agree with you.
Now, you want to go for the "Well, sure Ford smoked cracked, screwed scarborough over, but we'd vote for him even though he's dead because all politicians lie", which is called a "false equivalence". Look into it.
Second, when you say "Your DRL is only one part of the equation & not our priority." You're 1. wrong about whose DRL it is, wrong about who I am (I live west of University. I just don't take jobs on the Yonge line. It isn't "my" DRL). Those folks at Yonge and Bloor hoping to get on a train? They've been accumulating since STC. They mostly come from far out east. It is *your* DRL, too. If you want to do other than move the suckage from Kennedy to Yonge, it's yours, too.
My first question is, does that chip on your shoulder make you incapable of seeing that?
Third, my point was not, actually, to you. You have, in spite of your self, managed to convince me there's something at stake other than common sense and wise allocation of money (which advocate for the LRT network). It isn't even your blathering anger and unsupported assertions that Scarborough doesn't get its share of the city budget. It's that the damn SRT SUCKS. Which means that even if the cost is a billion, two billion more to serve fewer people, we're going to have to build it. Any discussion one the SRT is going to have to accept that, and make the best we can starting, not with a blank slate, but with the idea that there is going to be an extension of line 2. Oddly, your anger has gotten to be so bad that you can't even see when people agree with you.
Now, you want to go for the "Well, sure Ford smoked cracked, screwed scarborough over, but we'd vote for him even though he's dead because all politicians lie", which is called a "false equivalence". Look into it.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Who are you replying to?
justindw
New Member
Sorry, meant to go back and add that. Specifically to Coffey1
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Ahh, he's on my ignore list so it looked like you were talking to a brick wall 
salsa
Senior Member
Fixed that for you. Cut this nonsense already.
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