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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

I see this annoying trend of downtown people trying to take the Scarborough funds to use on their DRL. And then trying really hard to try to justify it.

But I guess it's only natural that people have different agendas.

I wish this topic could actually be about how to best use the Scarborough transit funds IN SCARBOROUGH, but it instead turned into a 'use the Scarborough funds for downtown relief line'. Really annoying since they already have their own DRL topic.
 
Sakraycore said:
I see this annoying trend of downtown people trying to take the Scarborough funds to use on their DRL. And then trying really hard to try to justify it.

But I guess it's only natural that people have different agendas.

I wish this topic could actually be about how to best use the Scarborough transit funds IN SCARBOROUGH, but it instead turned into a 'use the Scarborough funds for downtown relief line'. Really annoying since they already have their own DRL topic.
Click to expand...

Vast majority posters here are not from Scarborough and whiles some of DRL comments that seep into this thread can be extreme, out of place and also frustrate me I can understand where the impatience stems from with the lack of current funding and lack of an overall plan. The Province really needs to step up for everyone in this City.
 
OneCity said:
The Province really needs to step up for everyone in this City.
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Fully agreed on this! But I take it one step further: Those who pay the piper choose the tune.

Enough of funding little subways to the ends of the earth. Fund *meaningful regional networks* in the interest of the entire GTHA, not entitled communities. You want to build a subway? You raise the capital, or find an investment vehicle that will.

For everyone else working with provincial taxpayers' money: LRTs, full RER, or nothing, other than regional buses and busways. And the LRTs must also be inter-regional. If they then run-on into or onto the municipality's roads for local service, then that section is funded at least in part by that municipality.

And then there's the nascent Infrastructure Bank! You have a subway scheme that has a good business case? Then let The Bank have a look at it. If it makes business sense, it will get funded. What's not to like about that?
 
steveintoronto said:
Fully agreed on this! But I take it one step further: Those who pay the piper choose the tune.

Enough of funding little subways to the ends of the earth. Fund *meaningful regional networks* in the interest of the entire GTHA, not entitled communities. You want to build a subway? You raise the capital, or find an investment vehicle that will.

For everyone else working with provincial taxpayers' money: LRTs, full RER, or nothing, other than regional buses and busways. And the LRTs must also be inter-regional. If they then run-on into or onto the municipality's roads for local service, then that section is funded at least in part by that municipality.

And then there's the nascent Infrastructure Bank! You have a subway scheme that has a good business case? Then let The Bank have a look at it. If it makes business sense, it will get funded. What's not to like about that?
Click to expand...

Yes, what's stopping the Feds from setting up an untouchable, regardless of which party gets elected, Infrastructure Bank with about $100 billion that cities could pull from to fund expanding their transit networks? The $11 billion over 10 years proposed by the Trudeau gov't is just scratching the surface.
 
Hopkins123 said:
Yes, what's stopping the Feds from setting up an untouchable, regardless of which party gets elected, Infrastructure Bank with about $100 billion that cities could pull from to fund expanding their transit networks? The $11 billion over 10 years proposed by the Trudeau gov't is just scratching the surface.
Click to expand...
IIRC, it's $35B as 'seed' money, albeit that's a misnomer. It's a purse to leverage, as a working figure (and this has been established as viable in other nations' InfraBanks) 4 or 5 :1, the 1 being government money. This allows the full legal hand of the government in enacting legislation (Like the Railway Act or related, for instance) , garner the most favourable borrowing rate if needed and if underwriting a project (since governments in theory can't fail, they get extremely favourable rates, Greece notwithstanding) the government brings far more than just cash into the investment. They bring legislative power.

The trick is not to make it *absolutely* hands-off, that would be problematic too when assuming full risk, but each investment will be on a 'case-by-case basis'....but in *all cases* the project must be based on the business/economic viability.

I'm a Centrist, but I can hear the looney left already screaming about this, (as in fact they are) all the time forgetting why we have mortgages instead of paying cash for our houses, or we buy vehicles on time, rather than cash. Invested wisely, the costs are vastly outweighed by the benefits, and since political meddling throws money around anyway, best it be overseen by dispassionate, beady-eyed and cold hearted accountants and financial planners. If there is a case where the Gov't needs to intercede in the cause of humanity, then so be it, fund it directly from taxpayer coffers, otherwise, the taxpayer becomes a shareholder in a corporation that builds needed projects, and does it on-time and on-budget. And done right, we all win.

It's worked *with caveats!* very well in other nations. It's got to start working here. Canadian Investment Funds are amongst the largest in the world, and our money is going overseas. We can get it working here, much of it belonging to pensioners, so we benefit multiple times.
 
OneCity said:
Ridership has nothing to do with the transfer placement. If anything ridership is going to be higher than both Kipling and Islington. Pretty impressive. This is Scarborough's main core area, and having a transfer one stop before is absolutely poorly detailed planning. There were other "value" options to eliminate the transfer from what we have now and the subway could have gone on the RT corridor and given everyone better "value" and provided Scarborough Centre far better integration for improved future growth. But we've wasted enough time on other plans and now have Smarttrack in the way to prevent "value" as an option for either technology.
Click to expand...

Ridership has everything to do with why this extension is such a terrible idea.

Is ridership going to be higher than Kipling and Islington? I'm not sure about that, but it really should be - it's a 6km extension - higher ridership should be a given, but it isn't.

What would Kipling's ridership be if the next station was Runnymede (a 6km gap)? 100,000?

That's the standard you should be looking at.
 
Sakraycore said:
I see this annoying trend of downtown people trying to take the Scarborough funds to use on their DRL. And then trying really hard to try to justify it.

But I guess it's only natural that people have different agendas.

I wish this topic could actually be about how to best use the Scarborough transit funds IN SCARBOROUGH, but it instead turned into a 'use the Scarborough funds for downtown relief line'. Really annoying since they already have their own DRL topic.
Click to expand...

You should probably read through the thread more carefully then.

I have no problem with $5 billion being spent on Scarborough transit if it's being spent sensibly.

In the absence of a sensible plan, the funds should spent where they're most desperately needed.

There was a fully funded LRT plan already in place years ago for Scarborough - so in a sense this less comprehensive bloated subway extension is actually diverting money away from more pressing needs like the DRL.
 
syn said:
Ridership has everything to do with why this extension is such a terrible idea.

Is ridership going to be higher than Kipling and Islington? I'm not sure about that, but it really should be - it's a 6km extension - higher ridership should be a given, but it isn't.

What would Kipling's ridership be if the next station was Runnymede (a 6km gap)? 100,000?

That's the standard you should be looking at.
Click to expand...

Its a 6KM, 1 stop extension because Toronto voted in Tory with his Smarttrack. You need to acknowledge impact of Smarttrack had on the subway ridership Tory's plan isn't my preference but time is ticking, other options were offered, and this City is too divided not to support action instead of decades more of debate.

Its all been rehashed here. We dont agree about the importance of the transfer locations and the impact on SCC's longer term future. And we never will.
 
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OneCity said:
Its a 6KM, 1 stop extension because Toronto voted in Tory with his Smarttrack.
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But Toronto never voted for a one stop subway. That was not what Tory campaigned on. In fact he also repeatedly attacked cost overruns on big projects, said he'll put a stop to it with his "business experience".
 
salsa said:
But Toronto never voted for a one stop subway. That was not what Tory campaigned on. In fact he also repeatedly attacked cost overruns on big projects, said he'll put a stop to it with his "business experience".
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Toronto voted for a transfer free connection between Scarborough and Toronto in the past 2 municipal elections and the last provincial election.

Unfortunately, several variations were tried but the transfer LRT supporters shot down every one except for this 1 stop subway. By default, this is what we get.
 
salsa said:
But Toronto never voted for a one stop subway. That was not what Tory campaigned on. In fact he also repeatedly attacked cost overruns on big projects, said he'll put a stop to it with his "business experience".
Click to expand...

Certainly. My point was that the Smarttrack dream that came along with Tory (ST is also no longer in the form it was voted on) is at the root on the subway being one stop.

This will be attacked from both sides come election time, and Torys support on transit likely comes down to whether the Province is working with him behind the scenes to fund the other priority projects. Otherwise it's going to be one ugly election. And the Provincial opposition has already chimed in with their stance on the neutered subway.
 
OneCity said:
Its a 6KM, 1 stop extension because Toronto voted in Tory with his Smarttrack. You need to acknowledge impact of Smarttrack had on the subway ridership Tory's plan isn't my preference but time is ticking, other options were offered, and this City is too divided not to support action instead of decades more of debate.

Its all been rehashed here. We dont agree about the importance of the transfer locations and the impact on SCC's longer term future. And we never will.
Click to expand...

I posted that in response to the idea that STC would have ridership numbers comparable to Kipling or Islington. I'm sure you can see why that line of thinking makes no sense?

The SSE numbers didn't justify a subway extension before Smart Track.

As Salsa ably pointed out, Tory was elected on the promise of a 3 stop extension - not a $5 billion, 6km vanity line.
 
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