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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

BurlOak said:
OneCity is 100% right... Now that the power balanced has shifted to a more intelligent view - it is too late since the bad decisions have progressed to a point of no return.
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the more intelligent and less educated view brought to you by the people that ran their dad's business into the ground and became addicts while at it. Surely they will get this right.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
Option 2 is fine and would save a ton of money. Again, something has to give here. The current plan is ridiculous, considering not even Ford supports it.
And what will he tell people in Sudbury and London? It's subway or nothing and right now we are leaning closer to nothing because of cost. There is nothing wrong with elevated subways. Sheppard can come out at Vic Park and Bloor at Midland or McCowan? That or nothing (and LRT in 2040) should be the options.
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Whether Ford likes the chosen alignment or not, he's been clear about ending the nonsense that led us here from Transit City to the Liberal-City Council one stop subway joke and has been vocally on the side of the residents in Scarborough to find a way to build a seamless line with stops and further build a full Sheppard subway as priorities. He'll have to make the decision if their is significant savings to find another route to fulfill his mandate from the current line. My guess is the other realistic options have their own obstacles, and wont achieve great saving and more important too much time has passed. We'll see, but hes not going to be changing to a plan the short changes Central Scarborough as you may hope.

Further we are never building a Sheppard subway that stops at Victoria Park and/or a BDL at Midland. These are your own fantasies that no one would in Scarborough would support. Did you miss the fallout of the last short cut plan in Scarborough? Do you realize the democratic support in Scarborough for full subway lines? Do you realize who is Mayor and Premier and what they support for transit in this City? And after all this you still seriously think transfer LRT is an legitimate option? There is a fantasy thread which may be more appropriate for these types of preferences
 
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OneCity said:
Whether he likes it or not, he's been clear about ending the nonsense that led us here from Transit City to the Liberal-City Council one stop subway joke and has been vocally on the side of the residents in Scarborough to find a way to build a seamless line with stops and further build a full Sheppard subway as priorities. He'll have to make the decision if their is significant savings to find another route to fulfill his mandate from the current line. My guess is the other realistic options have their own obstacles, and wont achieve great saving and more important too much time has passed. We'll see.

Further we are never building a Sheppard subway that stops at Victoria Park and/or a BDL at Midland. These are your own fantasies that no one would in Scarborough would support. Did you miss the fallout of the last short cut plan in Scarborough? Do you realize the democratic support in Scarborough for full subway lines? Do you realize who is Mayor and Premier and what they support for transit in this City? And after all this you still seriously think transfer LRT is an legitimate option? There is a fantasy thread which may be more appropriate for these types of preferences.
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  • He could point to Montreal and Vancouver. Both are suppurating Toronto in terms of Rapid Transit system, and both are doing it with fully grade-separated LRT.
  • He can point out that his brother supported LRT - as long as it provides a rapid, seamless connection of Scarborough to the rest of the City.
  • At this point, the best I would hope for is option 1 above - by using cut-and-cover, he could add in the intermediate stop at Lawrence, and reduce the construction duration at STC, for the same amount of money. (I somehow don't think Ford is that interested in extending the line to Sheppard - that was the Stintz plan, and the extra 1.5km would cost maybe $500M).
 
BurlOak said:
  • He could point to Montreal and Vancouver. Both are suppurating Toronto in terms of Rapid Transit system, and both are doing it with fully grade-separated LRT.
  • He can point out that his brother supported LRT - as long as it provides a rapid, seamless connection of Scarborough to the rest of the City.
  • At this point, the best I would hope for is option 1 above - by using cut-and-cover, he could add in the intermediate stop at Lawrence, and reduce the construction duration at STC, for the same amount of money. (I somehow don't think Ford is that interested in extending the line to Sheppard - that was the Stintz plan, and the extra 1.5km would cost maybe $500M).
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Agreed. The Sheppard line is likely go into conceptual-preliminary design over his term while the SSE might scrape scrapes a few construction efficiencies and then proceed. He can claim another promise kept by delivering a multi stop SSE construction start and starting the standard process for Sheppard that will likely be kicked around for another couple election cycles before construction start
 
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BurlOak said:
OneCity is 100% right.
The time to come up with a better solution was 2012 to 2014.
  1. Council defeated the Ford comprimise plan in the spring of 2012.
  2. In the summer, Stintz presents the OneCity transit plan which is quickly defeated.
  3. In the fall, the Transit City deal is signed to go forward with the transfer SLRT.
  4. In the winter 2013, Murray is appointed MTO minister and immediately begins to sabotage the agreement.
  5. In spring 2013, Murray public mentions he is open to cancelling the TC deal.
  6. In the summer of 2013, the Liberals run as "subway champions". After spending $1B to buy 4 seats in Oakville and Burlington, they are now planning on spending a similar amount on a single Scarborough seat.
  7. The Liberals win that by-election, and the subsequent provincial election in 2014. Essentially, the people of Toronto rewarded the Liberals for all their games and basically agreed to give a blank check for a transit line that is designed based 100% on politics.
This all started with Council ignoring transit needs and doing everything possible to defeat Ford. It ended with the Liberals doing everything possible to gain political advantage with the subway. John Tory was someone who came in after it was almost too late. The Liberals had just retrieved a majority so he had no political power to correct the errors that were handed to him. Now that the power balanced has shifted to a more intelligent view - it is too late since the bad decisions have progressed to a point of no return.
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The Scarborough Subway has nothing to do with transit 'needs'. It's a want.

Council acted in the best interest of transit need by not approving a politically driven Ford 'plan' that would've consumed more than the available budget at the time for all transit projects.

There was a great solution in place in the LRT and Ford decided to play politics. The current, ridiculous fiasco can be placed at the feet of the Fords and Tory.
 
OneCity said:
Whether Ford likes the chosen alignment or not, he's been clear about ending the nonsense that led us here from Transit City to the Liberal-City Council one stop subway joke and has been vocally on the side of the residents in Scarborough to find a way to build a seamless line with stops and further build a full Sheppard subway as priorities. He'll have to make the decision if their is significant savings to find another route to fulfill his mandate from the current line. My guess is the other realistic options have their own obstacles, and wont achieve great saving and more important too much time has passed. We'll see, but hes not going to be changing to a plan the short changes Central Scarborough as you may hope.

Further we are never building a Sheppard subway that stops at Victoria Park and/or a BDL at Midland. These are your own fantasies that no one would in Scarborough would support. Did you miss the fallout of the last short cut plan in Scarborough? Do you realize the democratic support in Scarborough for full subway lines? Do you realize who is Mayor and Premier and what they support for transit in this City? And after all this you still seriously think transfer LRT is an legitimate option? There is a fantasy thread which may be more appropriate for these types of preferences
Click to expand...
I did not say stop the subway at victoria park. I said the subway should come above ground at victoria park and continue to STC. I also said the design of the subway needs to change or Ford should not built it. He can't justtify this bill to the rest of Ontario. There is no reason to spend 5 billion on a one stop subway undergound. It should be 3 stops above ground starting at at Midland, the RT alignment or McCowan. Doenst matter which one, but it should not be underground. The LRT will creep back if there is not a concrete plan, not from me but from others. And I'm going to call you out again for only posting in the Scarborough Subway threads and not the GO transit or Skycraper forums.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
I did not say stop the subway at victoria park. I said the subway should come above ground at victoria park and continue to STC. I also said the design of the subway needs to change or Ford should not built it. He can't justtify this bill to the rest of Ontario. There is no reason to spend 5 billion on a one stop subway undergound. It should be 3 stops above ground starting at at Midland, the RT alignment or McCowan. Doenst matter which one, but it should not be underground. The LRT will creep back if there is not a concrete plan, not from me but from others. And I'm going to call you out again for only posting in the Scarborough Subway threads and not the GO transit or Skycraper forums.
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The RT corridor was a good compromise but its not likely available with GO RER/Smarttrack which I see great benefits for even with the subway stop further east on Lawrence. This recent council blew that corridor opportunity twice with both LRT and Murrays subway. Elevated above ground might not achieve the savings to start over and then fight over the impacts to the current neighbourhood landscape in the area you suggest. More importantly its not worth the fight to open up a new debate either for the SSE at this stage something that will cause other delays for many projects and can easily increase costs. For Sheppard absolutely lets explore all options seamless to SCC and make a far more rationale decision.

As for your "call-out". If you have an issue with me or are so concerned with my posting activity that you need to discuss further please PM to discuss instead of cluttering a thread. This forum is not my life and to say I have never posted in other threads is complete BS. Again feel free to PM as I see no need to discuss your concern with me here. Thanks.
 
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OneCity said:
The RT corridor was a good compromise but its not likely available with GO RER/Smarttrack which I see great benefits for even with the subway stop further east on Lawrence. This recent council blew that corridor opportunity twice with both LRT and Murrays subway. Elevated above ground might not achieve the savings to start over and then fight over the impacts to the current neighbourhood landscape in the area you suggest. More importantly its not worth the fight to open up a new debate either for the SSE at this stage. That will cause other delays for many projects and increase costs. For Sheppard absolutely lets explore all options seamless to SCC and make a far more rationale decision.

As for your "call-out". If you have an issue with me or are so concerned with my posting activity that you need to discuss further please PM to discuss instead of cluttering a thread. This forum is not my life and to say I have never posted in other threads is complete BS. Again feel free to PM as I see no need to discuss you problems with me here. Thanks.
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The underground subway is almost dead in the water Ford likes it or not. As for the neighbourhood, there is nothing wrong with the subway above ground and its time they sucked it up. There is no reason to spend 5 billion on a one stop subway. Check your PMs.
 
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denfromoakvillemilton said:
The underground subway is almost dead weather Ford likes it or not. As for the neighbourhood, there is nothing wrong with the subway above ground and its time they sucked it up. There is no reason to spend 5 billion on a one stop subway. Check your PMs.
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I'm a supporter of elevated or open-air subways where feasible. But I think anything of the sort along Brimley, Midland, or McCowan is a non-starter for fairly good reason. They're not optimal for it. Along Eglinton E or through SC district, yes. And bridges crossing valleys. However along or above quieter roads fronted by virtually all single family homes not so much. It'd be a nimby firestorm, would look out of place, and we haven't done anything of the sort in decades. TYSSE has sections in Vaughan of all places, 2km from the nearest nimby, and that's all deep bore. With gilded stations to boot.

What I think could be dead is the current proposal for single very deep bore. But that we'll likely switch to a different solution, while still keeping mostly underground. Either that or simply upgrade/extend Line 3, perhaps with Sheppard extension promise.
 
What it does prove is that the City has chosen the wrong alignment for the line, hell we've messed literally everything up. This should be no surprise though as the planning for this shitshow has been nothing but fishy and a mess. Even Steve Munroe basically implied that the "fix was in" as far as the McCowan alignment was concerned. This whole project has come so far off the rails that we have not only ended up with an inferior proposal, but also a ludicrously expensive one. The obvious thing to do at this juncture would be to throw it all out and start again because everything is broken beyond repair; but even if there was the appetite to do that, this is Toronto so will screw it up the second time as well. There are to many cooks in the kitchen and even people who shouldn't be there. This will continue as long as Toronto allows politicians to be part of the process, instead of being like many other jurisdictions where politicians at most give feedback and vote; the actual proposals and planning coming strictly from planners. A change like this can only come from the provincial level since City Council would never vote in favour of a change that gives them less control.
 
syn said:
Really? When in 2010 did Wynne and Duguid cancel the LRT plan?
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First of all Ford and Tory are in completely different categories.

Ford promised to cancel the on-street LRT and did. He did it very promptly to minimize any wasting of money. He agreed to work with the Provincial Liberals and found a compromise solution, which they found within a year (which would also later be found to be the best).

Tory promised to stick with the planned subway, which both the City and Province, supported. He argued that the cost of switch back and forth was wasteful.

So both of these men actually kept their promises from the mandates they were given.

The Gas Plant type scandal was from the Liberals.
  1. After the Ford-McGuinty agreement to build the combined ECLRT/SRT, Metrolinx studied the proposal in detail.
  2. In June 2012, Metrolinx concluded that this was the best option.
  3. The Liberals would not release this to the public - meaning that City Council had to vote (in fall of 2012) on which transit proposal to proceed with, without this vital piece of information.
  4. In winter 2013, Wynne's Liberals already started to sabotage the 3 month old agreement, and not with the solution that was analyzed to be the best, but with their own political plan.
  5. The Liberals ran the summer by-election as the subway champions - again publicly going against the agreement they just signed and against the solution that Metrolinx had found to be best.
  6. In fall of 2013, after all the dust had settled, they quietly released the June 2012 Metrolinx report after an FOI request. However, not after they had shifted the transit debate to a plan that would cost Billions more.
Anyone who hasn't read the in depth review by John Lorinc is not seeing the whole picture.
"But Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government, and transportation minister Glen Murray in particular, were hardly passive spectators in the fraught process of re-litigating an $8.4 billion contract, signed in November, 2012, by Metrolinx, the City of Toronto, and the TTC. Following his February, 2013, appointment as transportation minister in Wynne’s new cabinet, Murray quietly orchestrated a stunning and costly policy reversal, with the full support of the premier.
Between February and August 2013, in fact, Wynne’s Liberal government meticulously worked to effectively gut that contract with an eye to gaining political advantage in a summer by-election campaign in a Scarborough riding. Ironically, she authorized this shift while condemning her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, for cancelling a pair of gas plants, at great public cost, to protect four Liberal seats."
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sixrings said:
Can we mention the air bus scandal, the filling in of eglinton west tunnel or the 407 sale forever if we have to keep hearing about a gas plant everyone was going to cancel for votes.
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Don't forget the Walkerton Water crisis. I'd toss in the rotating ~2000 through 2003 brownouts and blackout too (caused by persistent severe under-funding of the electrical generation/grid).
 
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