Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[amnesiajune]

I don't see it as a failure? I see it as a growing Major node which is transitioning well.

I'm not sure why he uses "was" to refer to the Yonge Street project, which is still underway. In all honesty, it seems like another article from people who have no clue what this area is like, think it's just another suburban six-lane road, and don't realize that Yonge Street in North York is pretty much identical (as far as traffic, pedestrian & bike usage is concerned) to University Avenue.

 

[aquateam]

Here's the lineage of the string:

And here's the full lineage of the string, including you jumping in with a non-sequitar about the Sheppard subway.

What?! North York Centre has been in it's current state since the late-90s. It started being built immediately after the subway station opened.

The lion's share of the development between Finch and Sheppard dates from the late 90s at earliest [...] but it's important to mention that North York Centre station opened way back in 1987.

That's still the case today, but that's got nothing to do with the subway - North York Centre was intentionally designed to contain development within a block or two of Yonge Street.

Which only underlines how absurd it was to build a full subway along Sheppard. It should have been LRT.

North York Centre is nowhere near Sheppard and Leslie.....

Which is exactly the point.

I can't believe that I have to clarify this [...] I'm only talking about the area around the NYCC subway station.

Then I suggest you itemize exactly where density has increased along the Sheppard Subway such to justify building it. Ridership is still subsidized to the tune of $30 per rider each trip.

Amnesia's point is that the amount of development at NYCC, whose habitants would take the Yonge line south, has nothing to do with the ridership of the Sheppard line.

At which point we get to here, where you've managed to change the topic by ignoring the discussion and talking about the Sheppard subway at length enough.

Please, show cause for why the Sheppard subway was built, and subsequent evidence of it "spread(ing) the construction of offices and apartment buildings around the city".

It just hasn't happened. So using that line of argument for building subways with no immediate cause d'etre as being a case of "build it and they will come" just hasn't proved to be correct, not in the least in the case of the Sheppard Subway.

The writing is on the wall, when is the lesson ever learned?

http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2014/12/04/toronto-on-track-a-sheppard-subway-to-nowhere.html

So since you've picked up the baton, not knowing where it came from, perhaps you can point to why the subway was built, and the claim, as I quoted from Globe story, "The rationale for the project was that better transit would spread the construction of offices and apartment buildings around the city. Suburbanites along the line would get new development in their neighbourhoods; downtowners would get a break from the pressures of ever-increasing density.".

You've picked up a baton and decided to run a steeplechase with it...

 

[salsa]

Lol. No, that's hilariously wrong. The Sheppard subway costs about $40 million/year to run. It has about 16 million passengers per year. That works out to around $1.25/passenger in subsidies, not $30.

If you're gonna accuse others of being wrong, at least try maybe bring correct? Because the number I recall from various city documents and news articles is that the subsidy is around $8/rider.

 

[nfitz]

The lion's share of the development between Finch and Sheppard dates from the late 90s at earliest. Many of the condos appeared in the early 2000s, with things like Empress Walk appearing in 2000. Now that was a while ago, but it's important to mention that North York Centre station opened way back in 1987. Now there were a few office buildings around and some older condos in the area, but for a long time the only things next to North York Civic Centre were the adjoining office buildings, Novotel, library, and pool. A block east or west of Yonge and you still have nothing but single-family detached homes.

I lived on Willowdale near Church back in late 1990. Perhaps the bulk happened after that, but it was already very clear which way things were going, even as that recession deepened.

The statement made was "North York Centre is only starting to see an influx of significant development 30 years after it opened.". As it opened in 1987, the statement is saying that we are only starting to see the influx of significant development now. I think that's false, it was very clear to me, 27 years ago that we were seeing the start of an influx of significant development.

Funnily enough, I hadn't walked down Yonge north of Sheppard (anywhere north of the Sheppard Centre at least) since 1990. But last week, I had to go to the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts - which they appear to have renamed again. As it happened, the subway stopped at Sheppard, because some dingbat was being chased through the tunnels by the police. So I had a chance for a good walk, and after I walked up and down a bit. Some is unrecognizable, some is surprisingly unchanged. It's a bizarre foreign world though in some ways compared to Toronto. I don't understand why the east-west roads crossing Yonge are so utterly wide. They take forever to cross, and you fear you are going to get plowed down by a car. At one point, I was waiting to cross - as were many people (there's certainly a lot more street life than there was), and there was no pedestrian walk signal. Apparently there's a button you have to press to get this - at a major intersection with people everywhere! With far more people than cars, and 3 subway stations, I can't comprehend why the district has been designed so pedestrian unfriendly. At one point I was walking along a laneway to get to the Centre, so I got on the sidewalk ... that deviated a bit form the windy laneway - and then stopped dead, about 10 feet from another pathway directly to the Centre. And there was about a 4-foot drop I had to jump down to get to the other sidewalk. I think it's all private property, but ... good grief ... who designs this stuff? And why are they allowed to?

Lot more food choices I noticed - all I remember from 30 years ago, is I think there was a Pizza Nova ... and then not much until Sheppard.

 

[Rainforest]

If you're gonna accuse others of being wrong, at least try maybe bring correct? Because the number I recall from various city documents and news articles is that the subsidy is around $8/rider.

Although "$8/rider" is not as hilariously wrong as "$30 per rider" thrown in by another poster, it is still a franken-number, designed to mislead using creative accounting:

1) First, it is "per rider". Public transit subsidies are normally reported "per ride". Since a typical rider makes two rides per day, switching from "per ride" to "per rider" multiplies the subsidy by 2 and makes it look bigger.

2) Secondly, they added the capital repair costs and the public debt service charges. Again, public transit subsidies are typically reported based on the revenues and operating expenses only. When the TTC boasts about its 70% cost recovery ratio, it certainly does not include the capital repair costs and the public debt service charges on the expense side.

The harm in circulating such numbers is that it prompts unsuspecting people to propose ridiculous solutions to TTC budget crises, like "let's close the Sheppard subway to save on the operating costs".

 

[Rainforest]

Byford said that with ATC, they will run the line as they do the rest of the network. Short-turning wouldn't be necessary assuming Bloor-Danforth is ATC ready when the extension opens

If they operate Line 1 with short-turns during the morning rush, they can do the same on Line 2 once SSE is up and running.

During mid-day, evening rush, and late evening, all trains would run Kipling to STC.

During the morning rush, 1/2 or 1/3 of the eastbound trains would short-turn at Vic Park or at Warden (that's even better than Kennedy, allowing to save more mileage). Since the majority of riders will travel west from STC and Kennedy in the morning, they won't have to change the trains or guess which train takes them to their destination.

 

[JGHali]

I'm not sure why he uses "was" to refer to the Yonge Street project, which is still underway. In all honesty, it seems like another article from people who have no clue what this area is like, think it's just another suburban six-lane road, and don't realize that Yonge Street in North York is pretty much identical (as far as traffic, pedestrian & bike usage is concerned) to University Avenue.

It's a horribly wide street that cars speed down constantly. Outside rush hour it's not usually that bad, though. Apart from the immediate area around Mel Lastman Square, there's been little done to improve the streetscape.

I'd also say that University with its proximity to Queen's Park, UofT, four hospitals, City Hall, and myriad offices is rather a different thing than NYCC.

I lived on Willowdale near Church back in late 1990. Perhaps the bulk happened after that, but it was already very clear which way things were going, even as that recession deepened.

The statement made was "North York Centre is only starting to see an influx of significant development 30 years after it opened.". As it opened in 1987, the statement is saying that we are only starting to see the influx of significant development now. I think that's false, it was very clear to me, 27 years ago that we were seeing the start of an influx of significant development.

Not much happened during the 90s. Once Empress Walk opened there was really a major influx of new condo tours and, to a certain extent, townhouse developments nearby. Yonge and Finch has had (nearly) all-night sushi and Korean restaurants since around the same time. What hasn't developed is any semblance of a wider neighbourhood, particularly in the existing post-war housing 1-2 blocks east or west of Yonge. That's the major distinction with downtown (or even Yonge/Eglinton/St Clair), since development has been almost exclusively in high-rise form. That's not bad, exactly, but arguably one of the real estate problems in the city is that intensification has occurred mainly with high rises along arterials, leaving existing detached housing more or less intact.

Funnily enough, I hadn't walked down Yonge north of Sheppard (anywhere north of the Sheppard Centre at least) since 1990. But last week, I had to go to the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts - which they appear to have renamed again. As it happened, the subway stopped at Sheppard, because some dingbat was being chased through the tunnels by the police. So I had a chance for a good walk, and after I walked up and down a bit. Some is unrecognizable, some is surprisingly unchanged. It's a bizarre foreign world though in some ways compared to Toronto. I don't understand why the east-west roads crossing Yonge are so utterly wide. They take forever to cross, and you fear you are going to get plowed down by a car. At one point, I was waiting to cross - as were many people (there's certainly a lot more street life than there was), and there was no pedestrian walk signal. Apparently there's a button you have to press to get this - at a major intersection with people everywhere! With far more people than cars, and 3 subway stations, I can't comprehend why the district has been designed so pedestrian unfriendly. At one point I was walking along a laneway to get to the Centre, so I got on the sidewalk ... that deviated a bit form the windy laneway - and then stopped dead, about 10 feet from another pathway directly to the Centre. And there was about a 4-foot drop I had to jump down to get to the other sidewalk. I think it's all private property, but ... good grief ... who designs this stuff? And why are they allowed to?

Lot more food choices I noticed - all I remember from 30 years ago, is I think there was a Pizza Nova ... and then not much until Sheppard.

It tends to be a much nicer walk along Doris to the east or Beecroft to the west.

I didn't mean to sound overly critical of the area - I've spent a lot of time there - but it has its issues, and I'm not sure it's developed in an especially well-planned fashion.

I also want to state that the obsession with development (usually in the form of high rise condos) as a rationale for subway construction needs to end. We should not build subways to serve developer interests, nor should they be exercises in creating "nodes" for intensification. NIMBYism may not hold much sway in brown fields or mall parking lots, but it's a powerful force that likely has distorted "density" into nothing but arterial high rises, to the detriment of mid-rise and other smaller scale intensification. The key is that the single family detached house remains the ultimate prize, while high rises are far from ideal as the principal way to build denser neighbourhoods.

 

[steveintoronto]

You've picked up a baton and decided to run a steeplechase with it...

And you still haven't acknowledged the point. Using the Sheppard Subway as justification for repeating the same claims for SSE is a non-sequitur.

And it just got more abject:

Cancelling a scheduled press conference and instead issuing only a terse statement, Toronto Mayor John Tory made his disappointment clear in an Ontario budget that failed to deliver any new funding for public transit or to fix his city’s dilapidated public housing buildings.

“The provincial government appears to have missed an opportunity to partner in the historic investments made by the federal government in much needed future transit expansion and repairs to our vital social housing,” Mr. Tory said in a statement e-mailed to media on Thursday, as reporters and TV camera crews idled outside his office doors.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...g-left-out-of-ontario-budget/article34840368/

Perhaps the City could turn to private finance for the SSE? If they can find anyone gullible enough to fund it with no business case...

 

[steveintoronto]

Although "$8/rider" is not as hilariously wrong as "$30 per rider" thrown in by another poster, it is still a franken-number, designed to mislead using creative accounting:

1) First, it is "per rider". Public transit subsidies are normally reported "per ride". Since a typical rider makes two rides per day, switching from "per ride" to "per rider" multiplies the subsidy by 2 and makes it look bigger.

2) Secondly, they added the capital repair costs and the public debt service charges. Again, public transit subsidies are typically reported based on the revenues and operating expenses only. When the TTC boasts about its 70% cost recovery ratio, it certainly does not include the capital repair costs and the public debt service charges on the expense side.

The harm in circulating such numbers is that it prompts unsuspecting people to propose ridiculous solutions to TTC budget crises, like "let's close the Sheppard subway to save on the operating costs".

Well....no matter how you calculate it, ridership numbers on Sheppard are pathetic compared to any other line, including the present SRT, which actually has a record of being successful in many ways, contrary to being an orphan.

The argument alone on "farebox return" is contentious in itself. So why not compare the capital costs of the Sheppard subway as well as operating and compare it per-capita to the TTC subway norm?

[...]
Be very skeptical of those who quote you the numbers of condos or residential units or people in a particular corridor and use that as justification for a subway. Exhibit A is the Sheppard Subway. More than 20 condo towers are going up around the Bessarion station, between Bayview and Leslie. But don’t expect ridership numbers there to skyrocket past what are the absolute lowest ridership numbers on the entire subway system: 2,380 a day. (The next lowest is Summerhill, at 5,770 users, based on 2014 TTC statistics). [...]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...-have-are-doomed-by-built-in-flaws-james.html

1) First, it is "per rider". Public transit subsidies are normally reported "per ride". Since a typical rider makes two rides per day, switching from "per ride" to "per rider" multiplies the subsidy by 2 and makes it look bigger.

There are a number of instances of Josh Colle stating the figure "per ride", here's one:

[...]
Councillor Josh Colle, who chairs the TTC, understands the political desire along Sheppard for such a "tantalizating completion to a map-drawing exercise." But with so many transit plans on the books for Scarborough — SmartTrack, GO regional express rail, a Bloor-Danforth subway extension — there's little appetite to add another Sheppard study to the list.

Extending the Sheppard line east to the Scarborough Town Centre or drawing it west to close the subway loop at Downsview appear to make sense. But given the existing Sheppard subway's performance, Colle says he can't rationalize pouring more money into a tunnel.

The existing four stops are already underperforming. While the rest of the TTC is bursting at the seams, Sheppard's ridership remains flat.

In its first decade — from its opening in late 2002 to 2011 — it showed gains, from about 10.7 million riders annually to a peak of 15.9 million. Since then, the counts show a slight drop — to 15.1 million last year.

The TTC doesn't consider that a statistically significant decline. Still, says Colle, you could put those riders in taxis for about the same cost as the $10-plus per ride subsidy he figures Sheppard requires.

The TTC doesn't plan service based on profitability, although some lines, the King streetcar for example, are clearly more than pulling their weight.

"But when you're so massively subsidizing an existing subway line — higher order transit that's supposed to bring all those riders — it does make it more difficult to envision seeing a day when you would be investing more above and beyond that," he said. [...]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tr...-lrt-reshape-the-sheppard-transit-debate.html

Feel free to correct him and others at Hillcrest who confirm the figure.

Btw: You have your math backwards:

1) First, it is "per rider". Public transit subsidies are normally reported "per ride". Since a typical rider makes two rides per day, switching from "per ride" to "per rider" multiplies the subsidy by 2 and makes it look bigger.

Mmmm....in the context you're attempting to express, it halves it. As a stat, it is as the terms of the ratio state: "per ride" which remains constant no matter how many rides are taken. The total number of "riders" stated:
"it showed gains, from about 10.7 million riders annually to a peak of 15.9 million" is the misnomer. That stat is *rides* per annum, not riders, and thus the 'subsidy' (no matter how it's weighted) is per unit, in this case, per ride.

 

[amnesiajune]

Because the number I recall from various city documents and news articles is that the subsidy is around $8/rider.

Just do some basic math. 16 million riders. $8 subsidy plus $1.25 FBR = $9.25/trip, or $148 million. That would work out to about $27 million per kilometer.

The TTC has 62 km of subway currently operating. Let's assume, to make the math easy, that the whole system has the same cost as Sheppard (in reality, the rest of the system costs more because of longer & more frequent trains). $27 million/km means the whole subway would cost more than $1.6 billion/year to operate. That leaves around $100 million in the TTC's operating budget for the entire bus & streetcar network, Wheel-Trans and overhead costs.

After doing that math, do you still think your figures make sense?

Well....no matter how you calculate it, ridership numbers on Sheppard are pathetic compared to any other line, including the present SRT, which actually has a record of being successful in many ways, contrary to being an orphan.

Another blatant lie. The SRT's ridership is 20% lower than Sheppard's. On a per-kilometer basis, its ridership is 30% lower than Sheppard's.

 

[amnesiajune]

It's a horribly wide street that cars speed down constantly. Outside rush hour it's not usually that bad, though. Apart from the immediate area around Mel Lastman Square, there's been little done to improve the streetscape.

I'd also say that University with its proximity to Queen's Park, UofT, four hospitals, City Hall, and myriad offices is rather a different thing than NYCC.

When you look at the usage of the street itself, Yonge Street in North York and University Avenue are pretty much identical. Roughly 50,000 cars and 20,000 pedestrians on a typical weekday.

 

[syn]

I lived on Willowdale near Church back in late 1990. Perhaps the bulk happened after that, but it was already very clear which way things were going, even as that recession deepened.

The statement made was "North York Centre is only starting to see an influx of significant development 30 years after it opened.". As it opened in 1987, the statement is saying that we are only starting to see the influx of significant development now. I think that's false, it was very clear to me, 27 years ago that we were seeing the start of an influx of significant development.

Funnily enough, I hadn't walked down Yonge north of Sheppard (anywhere north of the Sheppard Centre at least) since 1990. But last week, I had to go to the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts - which they appear to have renamed again. As it happened, the subway stopped at Sheppard, because some dingbat was being chased through the tunnels by the police. So I had a chance for a good walk, and after I walked up and down a bit. Some is unrecognizable, some is surprisingly unchanged. It's a bizarre foreign world though in some ways compared to Toronto. I don't understand why the east-west roads crossing Yonge are so utterly wide. They take forever to cross, and you fear you are going to get plowed down by a car. At one point, I was waiting to cross - as were many people (there's certainly a lot more street life than there was), and there was no pedestrian walk signal. Apparently there's a button you have to press to get this - at a major intersection with people everywhere! With far more people than cars, and 3 subway stations, I can't comprehend why the district has been designed so pedestrian unfriendly. At one point I was walking along a laneway to get to the Centre, so I got on the sidewalk ... that deviated a bit form the windy laneway - and then stopped dead, about 10 feet from another pathway directly to the Centre. And there was about a 4-foot drop I had to jump down to get to the other sidewalk. I think it's all private property, but ... good grief ... who designs this stuff? And why are they allowed to?

Lot more food choices I noticed - all I remember from 30 years ago, is I think there was a Pizza Nova ... and then not much until Sheppard.

I should clarify - by 'significant' I meant the proposals and recent projects that will add major density to the area (Hullmark Centre, Emerald City, etc). Obviously there were significant development earlier, but it's taken three decades just to get to the point the area's at now - and the subway ran through the area for decades before that.

It seems quite naive to think that Scarborough is going to become a dense urban area in even a relatively short period of time just because of an ill-advised subway stop.

The RT is a benefit plenty of other suburbs didn't have, yet there are clear examples of growth outpacing Scarborough's.

 

[nfitz]

Well....no matter how you calculate it, ridership numbers on Sheppard are pathetic compared to any other line, including the present SRT, which actually has a record of being successful in many ways, contrary to being an orphan.

How do you figure? SRT ridership is about 38,500 a year and falling, compared to Sheppard which is about 49,000 a year and climbing or stable. They are the same length. SRT has one more station. Train frequencies per train. Meanwhile the SRT opened in the 1980s, and Sheppard in the 2000s, so SRT has had much more time to attract ridership.

So ways to calculate it:
- riders per route - SRT loses
- riders per station - SRT loses
- riders per km - SRT loses
- riders per train - SRT loses
- long-term growth - SRT loses

In what way would you calculate it where Sheppard ridership is pathetic compared to the SRT?

The only possible one I can think of is riders per square foot of vehicle - where the SRT does better, simply because they run more appropriately-sized vehicles. Though Sheppard could fix this by running 2-car trains ...

 

[44 North]

How do you figure? SRT ridership is about 38,500 a year and falling, compared to Sheppard which is about 49,000 a year and climbing or stable. They are the same length. SRT has one more station. Train frequencies per train. Meanwhile the SRT opened in the 1980s, and Sheppard in the 2000s, so SRT has had much more time to attract ridership.

So ways to calculate it:
- riders per route - SRT loses
- riders per station - SRT loses
- riders per km - SRT loses
- riders per train - SRT loses
- long-term growth - SRT loses

In what way would you calculate it where Sheppard ridership is pathetic compared to the SRT?

The only possible one I can think of is riders per square foot of vehicle - where the SRT does better, simply because they run more appropriately-sized vehicles. Though Sheppard could fix this by running 2-car trains ...

I don't think it's fair to compare current Line 3 ridership to anything. It has a vehicle shortage and has effectively seen capacity issues since day one. By default it can't attract anyone. With that alone addressed wouldn't it nudge past Line 4 usage virtually overnight?

 

[steveintoronto]

In what way would you calculate it where Sheppard ridership is pathetic compared to the SRT?

In total ridership figures I had handy last night. So by your claim, there's two pathetic ridership lines. The point stands as per Sheppard. It's a disaster and anyone using it to justify the SSE makes a point they don't intend.

I'll dig out the figures later when I get a chance. And where exactly do you get yours?