Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[Hopkins123]

Yes and Mississauga has outstripped all of them with no subway in sight.

Are you going to tell us that Mississauga is a transit paradise compared to Scarborough?

Most certainly not. Mississauga is still very car-centric and only a handful of routes seem to run very late or early (Dundas, Hurontario and Burnhamthrope). But it'd be far easier to build transit oriented density along the corridor used for the subway to Square One though (Dundas) compared even to the SSE. It kind looks like a missed opportunity.

 

[syn]

The SSE may be perceived as prioritized because it arguably addresses state of good repair for the existing system.

$5 billion on a single stop is a 'state of good repair' expenditure?!

"I don't want to transfer at Kennedy" doesn't qualify as a state of disrepair.

Downtown is seeing plenty of other improvements in the meantime (new signaling, new trains, enhanced GO service to everywhere, safer platforms at Union Station, PATH improvements, streetcar improvements (KSP, Cherry Streetcar, New Streetcars, better corridors (even though a lot are botched), better streetscape, etc)) while the existing system gets its shit together with accessibility requirements, state of good repair.

?

I didn't know that downtown was clamoring for go trains to everywhere. Glad they can check that off their bucket list. Oh and streetcars, streetcars, streetcars. That's great. I love how PATH extension is acceptable as a transit alternative to downtown while the thought of bike lanes are laughable to the suburbs.

It's unbelievable that minor upgrades downtown are being seen as 'improvements' when they don't remotely keep up with the pace of growth. They're band-aids, at best.

It's also kind of silly to cite GO Transit and PATH upgrades are being cited as 'transit' upgrades. STC has a lovely new food court, I wonder if that counts as enhanced transit?

And yes @steveintoronto, that question mark is appropriate. The TYSSE is not located in Etobicoke.

 

[syn]

Most certainly not. Mississauga is still very car-centric and only a handful of routes seem to run very late or early (Dundas, Hurontario and Burnhamthrope). But it'd be far easier to build transit oriented density along the corridor used for the subway to Square One though (Dundas) compared even to the SSE. It kind looks like a missed opportunity.

And yet Mississauga has outgrown every other GTA municipality in terms of attracting employment and core growth.

Why didn't anyone tell them 2nd class citizens can't do that?

 

[kEiThZ]

Interesting to see how Mississauga forged ahead and grew, despite no subway connection nor rapid transit connection to the TTC.

It's almost as though a 'city centre' can grow without a subway connection downtown.

Fascinating.

Yes and Mississauga has outstripped all of them with no subway in sight.

Are you going to tell us that Mississauga is a transit paradise compared to Scarborough?

I respect your opinions, even if I disagree with some of them. Usually. But this is some rather simplistics analysis. Mississauga gets to set its own tax policies. That's a huge part of why and how they've been able to grow.

And they are a sprawling suburban mess that is now increasingly paying for those decisions with skyrocketing residential property taxes as they run out of development fees to keep subsidizing their sprawl habit. Are you suggesting that this would have been a sustainable path for Scarborough?

 

[JSF-1]

That is the exact path Scarborough took. Scarborough is also a sprawling suburban mess and the only thing that stopped it from completely falling off a cliff was amalgamation. Without amalgamation Scarborough would also find itself in a situation of increasing property tax rates, and falling development fees because there is not many places left to develop here. Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke were all ticking time bombs because of their car-centric urban planning. However North York was the only City that got the memo about this type of planning being unsustainable and made efforts to change that. Neither Scarborough or Etobicoke did on the other hand.

 

[hw621]

Interesting to see how Mississauga forged ahead and grew, despite no subway connection nor rapid transit connection to the TTC.

It's almost as though a 'city centre' can grow without a subway connection downtown.

Fascinating.

Mississauga is Canada's sixth largest city on its own. And yet maybe with a subway connection downtown it could have grown even better than today who knows...

 

[sixrings]

Requirements to build subways...who knows

 

[micheal_can]

That is the exact path Scarborough took. Scarborough is also a sprawling suburban mess and the only thing that stopped it from completely falling off a cliff was amalgamation. Without amalgamation Scarborough would also find itself in a situation of increasing property tax rates, and falling development fees because there is not many places left to develop here. Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke were all ticking time bombs because of their car-centric urban planning. However North York was the only City that got the memo about this type of planning being unsustainable and made efforts to change that. Neither Scarborough or Etobicoke did on the other hand.

That makes sense pre 1990s. What is the excuse since then?

 

[Streety McCarface]

?

Allows for the construction of the FWLRT and decreases (significantly) commute times from Etobicoke to Downtown by terminating buses closer to Etobicoke.

$5 billion on a single stop is a 'state of good repair' expenditure?!

"I don't want to transfer at Kennedy" doesn't qualify as a state of disrepair.

It's unbelievable that minor upgrades downtown are being seen as 'improvements' when they don't remotely keep up with the pace of growth. They're band-aids, at best.

It's also kind of silly to cite GO Transit and PATH upgrades are being cited as 'transit' upgrades. STC has a lovely new food court, I wonder if that counts as enhanced transit?

And yes @steveintoronto, that question mark is appropriate. The TYSSE is not located in Etobicoke.

A project does not have to be located within an area to be seen as a benefit, and RER is one of them as it will reduce people using the subway, path will take people off the streets paving way for better streetcar speeds, etc. Every cause has an effect.

Also, who's to say no one downtown will use RER? I'd see it as a huge plus living so close to the terminal railway station, where its means I can get pretty much anywhere with ease. GO has plenty of new stations located in or near downtown that will be a huge benefit to all those living in the area. The presence of these lines also means quick trips to other cities (and most importantly, the airport) are possible without the need of a car.

Also, the transfer isn't the only benefit of a subway deeper into Scarborough, it's just the one that benefits commuters the most. I've already discussed most of these benefits in great detail (simplified operations being the biggest one). The state of good repair is in reference to any Scarborough transit project, the RT is old and outdated. It either needs to be renewed or replaced. Doing nothing is negligence, the thing I and pretty much every person on here argues against. There is also negligence with not addressing the crowding issues on the Yonge line, yes, but solutions are underway in numerous forms to mitigate issues (the biggest ones being the relief line and the discussion on Platform Edge Doors).

I rest my case...the discussion here is about the Scarborough subway extension and should not be a downtown vs suburbs debate or a priority in projects debate. If you want to do that, transfer it over to the Debate the Merits of the Scarborough Subway Extension Thread, because this is going nowhere.

 

[syn]

I respect your opinions, even if I disagree with some of them. Usually. But this is some rather simplistics analysis. Mississauga gets to set its own tax policies. That's a huge part of why and how they've been able to grow.

And they are a sprawling suburban mess that is now increasingly paying for those decisions with skyrocketing residential property taxes as they run out of development fees to keep subsidizing their sprawl habit. Are you suggesting that this would have been a sustainable path for Scarborough?

@JSF-1 covered this well, but I'd add that there was a clear difference between Mississauga and Scarborough in the mid-late 90s even before amalgamation. Scarborough had three subway stations and the RT in the mid 80s yet did very little to take advantage of this infrastructure in terms of intensification. They continued on the same path Mississauga was on, the difference is that now the rest of the city is also responsible for it. Mississauga has to deal with their own issues.

 

[syn]

Allows for the construction of the FWLRT and decreases (significantly) commute times from Etobicoke to Downtown by terminating buses closer to Etobicoke.

The closest TYSSE station is about 5.5km from Etobicoke.

This is rather strange logic, since Scarborough already has three stations in it's borders. Based on this reasoning, it would make sense to build an LRT from Kennedy to the mall.

Too bad they didn't think of this earlier...

A project does not have to be located within an area to be seen as a benefit, and RER is one of them as it will reduce people using the subway, path will take people off the streets paving way for better streetcar speeds, etc. Every cause has an effect.

Also, who's to say no one downtown will use RER? I'd see it as a huge plus living so close to the terminal railway station, where its means I can get pretty much anywhere with ease. GO has plenty of new stations located in or near downtown that will be a huge benefit to all those living in the area. The presence of these lines also means quick trips to other cities (and most importantly, the airport) are possible without the need of a car.

Also, the transfer isn't the only benefit of a subway deeper into Scarborough, it's just the one that benefits commuters the most. I've already discussed most of these benefits in great detail (simplified operations being the biggest one). The state of good repair is in reference to any Scarborough transit project, the RT is old and outdated. It either needs to be renewed or replaced. Doing nothing is negligence, the thing I and pretty much every person on here argues against. There is also negligence with not addressing the crowding issues on the Yonge line, yes, but solutions are underway in numerous forms to mitigate issues (the biggest ones being the relief line and the discussion on Platform Edge Doors).

I rest my case...the discussion here is about the Scarborough subway extension and should not be a downtown vs suburbs debate or a priority in projects debate. If you want to do that, transfer it over to the Debate the Merits of the Scarborough Subway Extension Thread, because this is going nowhere.

The solutions you speak of are nothing more than band-aids. Signal upgrades do not mitigate the issue at all.

The DRL is critically needed and has been for decades - replacing the RT with a subway is not. This is where your reasoning falls apart. You are equating the two as equal when that isn't remotely the case. The benefits of trashing the RT and replacing it with one stop also comes with plenty of negatives - longer bus rides, a longer station transfer, and worse inter-Scarborough travel. All of this in an area that doesn't have the density to justify a subway.

The DRL has none of these issues.

Based on your reasoning, we should be investing billions to replace the King and Queen streetcars with subways as 'state of good repair' investments.

If you want to go with the 'any transit helps everywhere' argument, then we should be making decisions based on facts, not political maneouvering. We should be building a lot more subways downtown where they're actually needed, and maximizing transit investments in places like Scarborough instead of blowing everything on one stop.

As more information comes out on the design of the STC stop, it becomes more and more clear that this is an absurd idea.

 

[kEiThZ]

That is the exact path Scarborough took. Scarborough is also a sprawling suburban mess and the only thing that stopped it from completely falling off a cliff was amalgamation. Without amalgamation Scarborough would also find itself in a situation of increasing property tax rates, and falling development fees because there is not many places left to develop here. Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke were all ticking time bombs because of their car-centric urban planning. However North York was the only City that got the memo about this type of planning being unsustainable and made efforts to change that. Neither Scarborough or Etobicoke did on the other hand.

@JSF-1 covered this well, but I'd add that there was a clear difference between Mississauga and Scarborough in the mid-late 90s even before amalgamation. Scarborough had three subway stations and the RT in the mid 80s yet did very little to take advantage of this infrastructure in terms of intensification. They continued on the same path Mississauga was on, the difference is that now the rest of the city is also responsible for it. Mississauga has to deal with their own issues.

On the whole, Scarborough is still denser than Mississauga. A simple glance at wiki for the last census would tell you that Scarborough has 36% higher density than Mississauga. It's not some trivial difference. Scarborough has its suburban stretches. But it also has corridors that are reasonably dense and getting denser.

And can either of you tell us what North York did to densify beyond extending the Yonge line and building Sheppard? Specific policy examples that North York apparently implemented that had an impact on densification independent of their subway developments. Let's hear them.

If North York is going to be your example, the case for building more suburban subways starts looking markedly better.

 

[Rainforest]

OK. But *built by whom*? And on the basis of what business model and funding?

Funding:
1. The bulk will come from the province, likely from borrowing.
2. $660 million Federal contribution.
3. The province is likely to demand the city to contribute funds already collected using the property surtax. Although Brown, when he was the PC leader, made some noises about letting the city off the hook on SSE and letting it build Eglinton East instead, now Doug Ford calls the shots and he might not be that generous.

 

[Rainforest]

Finch West LRT will be a feeder line, not a trunk. Most of its riders will live / work / study within a walking distance from a Finch LRT stop. Very few will take a bus to transfer to LRT and then transfer to the subway.

Therefore, light rail is a good choice for Finch West. Upgrading it to subway would bring very limited benefits compared to the cost.

In contrast, SSE will be a trunk route, with multiple feeder lines connecting to it and bringing the riders from multiple directions. We don't want to force them to transfer first to LRT, and then again to the subway.

It is amazing that such a basic concept has to be reprinted so many times, and some people still fail to get it.

 

[Rainforest]

15 audits would take you to a new premier. I wouldn't be so sure whoever comes next is going to support this money pit.

Doug Ford might be sent packing in 4 years, or in 8 years. Does it change much for SSE? All three major parties are on board. NDP may be reluctant but is still on board.

I know people from Scarborough think there votes matter exponentially more than others and with the current set up it might. However the more people which move to yonge, and or downtown the shift in voting power changes as well. New people will need to be appeased and Scarborough could be left with scraps.

Demographic changes you are hoping for, will take 2 or 3 decades to affect the balance of voting powers. SSE will be long built and in service by then.