Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[amnesiajune]

The main advantage of the McCowan alignment was the station at Lawrence serving the hospital. But since the TTC decided that such station would have to be deep and too expensive to build, the McCowan alignment is no longer the best option.

The station can be added in the future though. No different than other parts of the system where the TTC left room for a future station to be built. North York Centre was one of those - built in two years around a working subway line at a cost of $47 million in 2016 dollars. IIRC, there's similar room left to build future stations between Lawrence and Eglinton, between York Mills and Lawrence, and between Bayview and Yonge on the Sheppard subway.

 

[gweed123]

Express to Kennedy, followed up all the stop to Bloor-Yonge. Has a certain nice ring to it, don't you think?

AoD

"This is your 12:01 Lakeshore West train from Aldershot, express to Burlington, then local to Toronto's Union Station."

 

[Hopkins123]

Why the heck would we care about sustaining the SRT "in spirit"? If it's not going on the surface in the SRT corridor, just put it on the cheapest possible alignment, which seems to be McCowan (unless there's newer information saying otherwise).

Also, Midland will require a curve, which means slower speeds, higher travel times and greater maintenance costs.

I'm not getting any of your criticisms. All the alignments involve curves!

How is McCowan the cheapest option when it's the longest and most complicated of the three options (a station at Lawrence East and McCowan for instance is being ruled out because it would actually have to be built about 30 metres below the surface – roughly equivalent to the height of a 10-storey building)? And speaking of curves, are we already forgetting the massive curve north of Ellesmere they're proposing to swing the line back to the existing Scarborough Centre terminal site?

Midland is the shortest path to STC - shorter than the SRT, Brimley or McCowan at only 6.1 kilometres. And it could be built at least in part using the cheaper cut-and-cover method as Midland is only a secondary corridor. To dismiss it outright is shortsighted.

I hope they re-examine the Midland and Brimley alignments. The Midland option may have a challenging geometry, but might allow the reuse of a portion of the existing SRT alignment.

The Brimley option might be easiest / cheapest to built. The terminus would replace the parking lot located on the side of Brimley just north of Progress. The same parking lot can be used as the TBM launch site.

The main advantage of the McCowan alignment was the station at Lawrence serving the hospital. But since the TTC decided that such station would have to be deep and too expensive to build, the McCowan alignment is no longer the best option. Hopefully, a slightly shorter Brimley or Midland route will save some funds and those can be used to get a Lawrence East station build. That station would no longer be at the hospital doorsteps, but it would at least connect to Lawrence East bus.

As of the subway link from STC to Sheppard, sadly it seems to be out of the picture. Perhaps it will happen in the distant future, but not during this round of transit expansion.

This is the point that I was trying to make. I wouldn't even say that Midland is "challenging" because 75% of the route could be constructed through the industrial lands saving billion$ from not having to tunnel bore. It's the path of least resistance to Scarborough Centre so to speak.

Furthermore, this could be the beginning towards a longer term vision for Scarborough where the path of the former SRT is recycled and re-purposed all the way to Morningside Heights.

 

[Hopkins123]

The station can be added in the future though. No different than other parts of the system where the TTC left room for a future station to be built. North York Centre was one of those - built in two years around a working subway line at a cost of $47 million in 2016 dollars. IIRC, there's similar room left to build future stations between Lawrence and Eglinton, between York Mills and Lawrence, and between Bayview and Yonge on the Sheppard subway.

It's baffling why they won't infill Willowdale and Senlac Stations on the Sheppard Line (remember the tail tracks already extend 800 metres west of Yonge). It wouldn't require as extensive an EA process as building an entire extension or new line and could probably be done conservatively for around $100 million. It'd be a great way to expand the system and make Sheppard more useful.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It's baffling why they won't infill Willowdale and Senlac Stations on the Sheppard Line (remember the tail tracks already extend 800 metres west of Yonge). It wouldn't require as extensive an EA process as building an entire extension or new line and could probably be done conservatively for around $100 million. It'd be a great way to expand the system and make Sheppard more useful.

Of all the transportation priorities in the city...

 

[ssiguy2]

What's REALLY baffling is the TTC not simply upgrading the stations and trcks and running the new MK111 SkyTrain cars and taking that saved 2.5 billion and making all of Eglinton completed grade separated from STC all the way to Renforth via Eglinton. Considering they are spending $3.2 billion on the STC expansion {with prices rising fast} they could create a true Metro line with much higher frequencies, far faster travel times, far less construction disruption and years faster, a much higher capacity system, and cheaper to run to boot, you would think they could spare $3000 bucks to have someone fly to Vancouver and try out the new MK111 trains.

 

[cplchanb]

What's REALLY baffling is the TTC not simply upgrading the stations and trcks and running the new MK111 SkyTrain cars and taking that saved 2.5 billion and making all of Eglinton completed grade separated from STC all the way to Renforth via Eglinton. Considering they are spending $3.2 billion on the STC expansion {with prices rising fast} they could create a true Metro line with much higher frequencies, far faster travel times, far less construction disruption and years faster, a much higher capacity system, and cheaper to run to boot, you would think they could spare $3000 bucks to have someone fly to Vancouver and try out the new MK111 trains.

This was discussed many pages back but basically the reason is a political one. They had dropped that proposal years ago since they were dead set in removing that "eyesore"....
Man...every time a politician or a lobbyist uses that term in their public rant on tv or print I just want to gouge out their eyes....maybe that will alleviate their eyesores.....

 

[smallspy]

What's REALLY baffling is the TTC not simply upgrading the stations and trcks and running the new MK111 SkyTrain cars and taking that saved 2.5 billion and making all of Eglinton completed grade separated from STC all the way to Renforth via Eglinton. Considering they are spending $3.2 billion on the STC expansion {with prices rising fast} they could create a true Metro line with much higher frequencies, far faster travel times, far less construction disruption and years faster, a much higher capacity system, and cheaper to run to boot, you would think they could spare $3000 bucks to have someone fly to Vancouver and try out the new MK111 trains.

What's REALLY baffling is that after more than 10 years of this discussion that you still don't understand any of it.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Euphoria]

I never understood why the SRT fell so far out of favour. It's a unique Canadian technology. The problems on the line related to speed and weather never seemed insurmountable. New trains and light enclosures would've solved the problems far more cheaply than the world's priciest one-stop subway extension.

It reminds me of the massive security taxes brought in after 911 to rebuild perfectly fine border crossings. The Gardiner Hybrid is another overpriced solution that won't solve the biggest problem with the Gardiner: lack of connection of the city to the lake. And we're going to pay tolls for these mistakes!?

 

[cplchanb]

What's REALLY baffling is that after more than 10 years of this discussion that you still don't understand any of it.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

Dan I respect the fact that you have much insight on this subject and contribute greatly to this forum, but sometimes you gotta stop being a dick with those condescending comments when you dont agree with input from other contributers.
It can get quite toxic

 

[BurlOak]

What's REALLY baffling is that after more than 10 years of this discussion that you still don't understand any of it.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

It is nice to be periodically reminded how stupid Toronto was to abandon the SRT. First planned in 2006 by TTC - then cancelled by David Miller. Then almost revived by Ford, but cancelled by Council. We have had several opportunities to revert to the right choice, but we always avoided it.
It helps explain why we are stuck in our current endless debates.

 

[APTA-2048]

It is nice to be periodically reminded how stupid Toronto was to abandon the SRT. First planned in 2006 by TTC - then cancelled by David Miller. Then almost revived by Ford, but cancelled by Council. We have had several opportunities to revert to the right choice, but we always avoided it.
It helps explain why we are stuck in our current endless debates.

At least get your facts right (but I'm honestly not surprised here). Both Miller's and Ford's plans would have replaced the SRT with LRT.

 

[ssiguy2]

This is all Miller's doing. His truly childish notion of "LRT or nothing" is what has brought this all about. Miller's Transit City was written on a napkin except it had prettier colours.

There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all when it comes to transit but this was beyond Miller. Yes sometimes LRT makes sense, sometimes subway or SkyTrain, regular bus, streetcars, York-style BRT, Miss Transitway, express buses, RER, commuter rail, monorail, people movers.......there are all kinds of option because there are all kinds of riders, demographics, employment centres, densities, topography, geography, schools, hospitals and everything in between. Sometimes at-grade is best, other times, tunnelled, trenched, elevated, or any number of combinations. Miller's myopic view of just put in an LRT no matter what the above variables are was indicative of his lack of understanding of transit. He talked up a storm but his action prove that he knew little.

LRT is a poor choice for the SRT as much as a subway is. The best choice was always the first.......SkyTrain. Costs a fraction of either one of the others, will take one-tenth the amount of time to rebuild, the maintenance & garage facilities are already there but would just need to be expanded, it is fast, safe, reliable { SRT's reliability problems have nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with complete TTC incompetence}, comfortable, quiet, smooth, and very cost-effective...........Vancouver MAKES money on the SkyTrain system.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I hope they re-examine the Midland and Brimley alignments. The Midland option may have a challenging geometry, but might allow the reuse of a portion of the existing SRT alignment.

The Brimley option might be easiest / cheapest to built. The terminus would replace the parking lot located on the side of Brimley just north of Progress. The same parking lot can be used as the TBM launch site.

The main advantage of the McCowan alignment was the station at Lawrence serving the hospital. But since the TTC decided that such station would have to be deep and too expensive to build, the McCowan alignment is no longer the best option. Hopefully, a slightly shorter Brimley or Midland route will save some funds and those can be used to get a Lawrence East station build. That station would no longer be at the hospital doorsteps, but it would at least connect to Lawrence East bus.

As of the subway link from STC to Sheppard, sadly it seems to be out of the picture. Perhaps it will happen in the distant future, but not during this round of transit expansion.

Sheppard East will get built. That's why Glenn De Baremaker wants the big bend. This 3.5 billion will become 7 fast when they build that Progress station in the middle of nowhere and people complain about the subway ending in a industrial park.

~~~~~~
Either do Brimley or just use the SRT and keep all of the stations!

 

[SJD_Toronto]

Sheppard East will get built.

I suspect that if Patrick Brown and the Ontario Tories win in 2018 with a majority government and Doug Ford gets elected mayor, Sheppard Subway East extension will happen sooner rather than later.