Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[Voltz]

This is ridiculous, I have most always lived in Scarborough, if anything feels like a conspiracy it's the vote pandering politicians and subway fanatics who have blocked and cancelled transit plans that would have covered much of Scarborough to have plans for a few subway stops instead.

Malvern would have rapid transit now as well as the Sheppard LRT if not for the subway being pushed,

If not for the political interference in building the SRT it would have been a real LRT line and the beginning of a real LRT network in Scarborough.

 

[syn]

It's not a conspiracy, but it sure feels like one for the people who live there.
View attachment 234105
Once you factor in the Eglinton Crosstown and remove the RT, you see that Scarborough is just a transit desert, and it's been this way forever.

How can it even feel like a conspiracy? Scarborough was it's own city until 1998. That was just 22 years ago.

As it's own city, Scarborough chose a suburban development model, one that did not make transit any sort of real priority. Just like Mississauga.

When Hazel McCallion retired, her biggest regret was the fact that the city was so poorly designed for transit, and that they were struggling to correct that error.

Scarborough is essentially in the same boat, and it's not something that can be fixed overnight. Scarborough is responsible for the transit predicament that Scarborough is in.

Sadly, as @Voltz has pointed out, Scarborough routinely supports politicians who don't have it's best interests at heart (or mind), and it's impacting real progress across the entire city.

 

[44 North]

I really dont have time or moreso dont care to delve deep into this guys archives for all his exact quotes more then i have. But a quick search in the period prior to him becoming a poltical head gave enough to do the math.

https://stevemunro.ca/2012/06/26/one-city-to-serve-them-all/#comments

"There is an argument to be made for the BD extension, but especially in a form where it does not end at Scarborough Town Centre, and where it does not pre-empt building a network of other services, notably the Sheppard and Scarborough-Malvern LRT lines."

https://stevemunro.ca/2010/06/08/furious-george-has-a-plan-part-i-transit/#comments

"..... If the BD line goes to STC, it will not follow the RT alignment, ... "


As for the rest of the plan outside of the completely absurd non central transfer placements on the RT and on Sheppard, I also agree with Steve here:
https://stevemunro.ca/2010/04/11/saving-transit-city/#comments
" I happen to agree with you that Miller is overselling the “rapid” part"


Like most posters in this thread very few saw a transfer LRT plan as the choice for the upgrade initially. It never made sense to anyone and even less on Sheppard. Then it became a 'thing' for 'expert reasons' being promoted heavily thru the media like nothing before. Then that 'thing' was held as the holy grail of transit planning for the outside Scarborough (mostly left wing) Politicians to protect as an 'expert plan' to fight Ford with when it was called out. The transfer LRT lines were mainly fueled and promoted from the start and still to this day by the union and NDP tied transit activist groups which consistently talked over residents at the meetings and pretended to be the voice. It was unfortunate to see Steve begin to slide further towards these political groups that had no real interest in finding solutions to a heavily flawed plan or working with our actual residents from the start.

Keep in mind 99% NDP, Liberals, and Conservative Politicians within Scarborough all agreed with Ford the plan was not good. This was very hard to tell if you only read the local and Toronto media. Yet in 2020, Steve expected the Province to show a comparison of the transfer LRT line in a report trying to fix a City butchered one stop subway? Dear lord it's very much clear a few outside Scarborough residents, moreso their politicians in this City are so politically polarized here they would rather see the City implode then give the Conservative credit for fixing real mistakes. It sucks the Liberals did nothing to help either the LRT or subway plans, and I have little doubt aside from a slower timeline these Conservative will agree to lines that can never be overturned by people who live here and will actually use the transit.

Really dude. You got called out for spouting bs. Spent likely many hours scouring 8yo comments within articles on an old timey blog in order to find a shred that suits your weird narrative. Then actually claim it doesn't deserve your time. This after writing many pages specific to the matter and trying to tie it into your conspiracy theories about secret LRT societies. Doesn't deserve your time lol. Oh brother.

First off, Malvern should have already had a subway stop if the City wasn't monkeying around trying to spread watered down butter across the toast with the transfer plan, Secondly now that we have long moved on, Malvern is on the books to receive an EELRT stop, and the City has no reason not to deliver with the SSE levy available , Thirdly, The Sheppard subway is supported by all Provincial parties so a connected line will now be on the book to follow the Line 2 extension and it will certainly go to Malvern. While some outsiders love to use Malvern as their goto to justify a watered down the plan, oddly enough Malvern voters are some of the largest subway and line 2 supporters. The previous NDP councilor Shan was constantly having to clap back at the entitled Downtown transit rich Councillor who wanted to dictate and talk over people far outside the wealthy little ward he was elected to. The highest level prejudice and entitlement we've seen. It was almost as bad as the self interested union and activist groups talking over residents at meetings to claim Transit City as 'evidence-based' and force feeding the plan. What a charade.

I get it sounds great to say lets 'add 50 stops' of LRT but the reality is its not what has been needed moreso when most was not even going to be grade separated. For the most part the bus east of McCowan moves well outside of the unreliable frequency and that can easily be addressed with dedicated bus lanes where necessary if we need a fix. There we go, that easy, 100's of stops and express routes. already built if we need too.

What was actually required in a plan was better connectivity to North, and Central Scarborough to the main transit arteries in the City since most resident dont even bother with public transit here unless they have to, as the its only reliable for mostly local commutes, that is not the issue that needed addressed. Non-grade separated LRT on Shepaprd and SMLRT would only really help current commuters with no improvement to attract car riders outside of slightly more reliable frequency. And the insane part is we'd remove car lanes in some area while adding very little upgraded benefit in the network. Atleast now we have gone back to grade seperate key areas of EELRT and it will be feeding into a Centrally connected rapid artery and It will now be a nice piece as part of the network. Adding the Sheppard transfer was cutting off the Centre further from what is now, hindering attractiveness for economic growth and make public transit less likely to be used based for the inconvenience and extra point of failure alone. This shouldnt even have been a question.

I get the desire to be cost effective, but only for ways that ensure we build with detail that enhances not only current commutes but attracts new riders, and connects main areas best. The uncompromising desire to low ball the importance of connectivity, and grade separated transit was completely over the top. We missed decades of opportunities to find other solutions and have a proper discussion of the details that truly mattered in growing a network.

Atleast the Province with any party at he helm has transit in a a more holistic lens, which aligns with the voters here in Scarborough with no interference to cut corners in the name of 'Malvern'.

What is this? Sheppard isn't "certainly going to Malvern". You're taking this thread off the rails.

 

[Leo_Chan]

Just a thing I noticed with the map of Toronto. If Scarborough wasn't cut off by Lake Ontario, would its downtown have been more south? Like is the whole transit drought in Scarborough just the fact that its geography makes it less feasible for exapansion?

 

[JSF-1]

Just a thing I noticed with the map of Toronto. If Scarborough wasn't cut off by Lake Ontario, would its downtown have been more south? Like is the whole transit drought in Scarborough just the fact that its geography makes it less feasible for exapansion?
View attachment 234138

Probably not since one of the main drivers for Scarborough's downtown was highway access. Downtown Scarborough was always going to be somewhere along the 401 without the Scarborough Expressway being built. Remember we are dealing with suburban planning here so Highway access is just how things go. Had the Scarborough Expressway been built then I believe downtown Scarborough would have been further south, likely near or around Eglinton as this is where Scarborough's old City Hall was. Remember the streetcar used to go as far as what is today Morningside and Lawrence and nothing ever really came of it, so I doubt the lakeshore being further south would have made a difference.

 

[Steve X]

Probably not since one of the main drivers for Scarborough's downtown was highway access. Downtown Scarborough was always going to be somewhere along the 401 without the Scarborough Expressway being built. Remember we are dealing with suburban planning here so Highway access is just how things go. Had the Scarborough Expressway been built then I believe downtown Scarborough would have been further south, likely near or around Eglinton as this is where Scarborough's old City Hall was. Remember the streetcar used to go as far as what is today Morningside and Lawrence and nothing ever really came of it, so I doubt the lakeshore being further south would have made a difference.

Everything would shift south. Highway 2A in the 1940s (which was merged into the 401) would be built a lot more south in parallel to Kingston Rd (which would be closer to the lake) to serve the communities along the lake in Durham. The Toronto Bypass build in the 50s (which is now the 401 between 427 and 2A) would be built around the city and likely curve south to meet 2A. This bypass is built just north of development at the time. Like Etobicoke, Scarborough is mainly a coastal village before the 60s.

Lakeshore East Line would shift south too. Streetcars still run along southern Etobicoke and nothing came of it either.

With Scarborough being 50% bigger, it would likely Scarborough be divided into 2 cities. Maybe Scarborough and then Guildwood. Without the Scarborough bluffs, Scarborough wouldn't even be called Scarborough!

I envision something like this with the 401 dipping south

 

[crs1026]

^I kinda wonder what people on Albion Road think about the allegation that there has been more transit building out their way than in the eastend.

There was a commercial district on Bloor West before the subway arrived, and that critical mass plus recent development may put more people on Etobicoke’s subway today, but there sure isn’t much more attention paid to subways in Etobicoke than in Scarborough. Why is there so little development along the portion of Line 2 that did reach Scarborough....in 1968? Seems to me they made their own bed out there.

Maybe the fact that Etobicoke always had the Lakeshore streetcar (which is a little different than a downtown streetcar) made people more willing to buy in when Finch and Eglinton were proposed as LRT. Give it two or three more years and Etobicoke will have actual working higher order transit built or under way in north, south, and middle. While the Scarborough will likely still be in debate mode.

The fair haired exception is North York, which has benefitted from being between the downtown and Vaughan - But more from the shameless self promotion by Mel Lastman, a Conservative and not a downtowner, who convinced Conservative premiers to build a useless subway where it wasn’t needed, mostly to set Mel up as the leading candidate for the mayoralty of the amalgamated Toronto. If anybody deserves to be villified in the city’s transit history, it’s Lastman. He waylaid transit planning for his own ends, at a time when money was even tighter than today.

Also note that the main driver behind giving Scarborough that awful SRT was then-Metro Chairman Paul Godfrey, a pretty right wing guy and declared Conservative.

The reason Steve Munro gets labelled is because he and the NDP were both arguing against the bad decisions in transit planning that were made throughout the seventies and eighties (and nineties, and after the millenium....). That’s not a political alliance or a conspiracy, it’s just a meeting of certain minds.

Bill Davis got it, as did Gus Harris........but those who came later didn’t.

- Paul

 

[11th]

^I kinda wonder what people on Albion Road think about the allegation that there has been more transit building out their way than in the eastend.

There was a commercial district on Bloor West before the subway arrived, and that critical mass plus recent development may put more people on Etobicoke’s subway today, but there sure isn’t much more attention paid to subways in Etobicoke than in Scarborough. Why is there so little development along the portion of Line 2 that did reach Scarborough....in 1968? Seems to me they made their own bed out there.

Maybe the fact that Etobicoke always had the Lakeshore streetcar (which is a little different than a downtown streetcar) made people more willing to buy in when Finch and Eglinton were proposed as LRT. Give it two or three more years and Etobicoke will have actual working higher order transit built or under way in north, south, and middle. While the Scarborough will likely still be in debate mode.

The fair haired exception is North York, which has benefitted from being between the downtown and Vaughan - But more from the shameless self promotion by Mel Lastman, a Conservative and not a downtowner, who convinced Conservative premiers to build a useless subway where it wasn’t needed, mostly to set Mel up as the leading candidate for the mayoralty of the amalgamated Toronto. If anybody deserves to be villified in the city’s transit history, it’s Lastman. He waylaid transit planning for his own ends, at a time when money was even tighter than today.

Also note that the main driver behind giving Scarborough that awful SRT was then-Metro Chairman Paul Godfrey, a pretty right wing guy and declared Conservative.

The reason Steve Munro gets labelled is because he and the NDP were both arguing against the bad decisions in transit planning that were made throughout the seventies and eighties (and nineties, and after the millenium....). That’s not a political alliance or a conspiracy, it’s just a meeting of certain minds.

Bill Davis got it, as did Gus Harris........but those who came later didn’t.

- Paul

Lastman was mayor of North York when the line was proposed, planned and construction began. The people he had to answer to was the North York constituency, and North York had since benefited from line 4. Seems logical.

 

[Streety McCarface]

How can it even feel like a conspiracy? Scarborough was it's own city until 1998. That was just 22 years ago.

As it's own city, Scarborough chose a suburban development model, one that did not make transit any sort of real priority. Just like Mississauga.

When Hazel McCallion retired, her biggest regret was the fact that the city was so poorly designed for transit, and that they were struggling to correct that error.

Scarborough is essentially in the same boat, and it's not something that can be fixed overnight. Scarborough is responsible for the transit predicament that Scarborough is in.

Sadly, as @Voltz has pointed out, Scarborough routinely supports politicians who don't have it's best interests at heart (or mind), and it's impacting real progress across the entire city.

Again, "feels like" and being a conspiracy are two vastly different things.

Scarborough has only been incorporated for under 25 years, which completely explains the lack of rapid transit. However, the pet project RT and lack of expansion into (while North York and Vaughan of all places get expansion) definitely gives a feeling of neglect. You have to look at the situation through the lens of a resident there that has been treated with a huge lack of promises until Miller.

The fair haired exception is North York, which has benefitted from being between the downtown and Vaughan - But more from the shameless self promotion by Mel Lastman, a Conservative and not a downtowner, who convinced Conservative premiers to build a useless subway where it wasn’t needed, mostly to set Mel up as the leading candidate for the mayoralty of the amalgamated Toronto. If anybody deserves to be villified in the city’s transit history, it’s Lastman. He waylaid transit planning for his own ends, at a time when money was even tighter than today.

The Sheppard subway isn't the only line that runs through North York — the Spadina subway and the Yonge subway both also run through North York, with the latter being the cause for the crowding down the line. North York Centre is the biggest employment center outside of downtown Toronto in the province, perhaps even in the country.

Remember that Network 2011 also proposed an Eglinton Subway and an incomplete Sheppard Subway under Bob Rae. They got rid of the DRL because they didn't care for further densifying downtown at the time. Blaming Lastman for at least getting something done (which is used by at least 25K people today, likely will increase to 35K in the short to medium term) when Harris put everything on the chopping block is an unfair judgment. Sheppard gets more ridership than most other lines in North America on a per-capita basis.

 

[AlbertHWagstaff]

The Sheppard Subway as originally proposed (all the way to Scarborough Town Centre) was part of that Metro scheme to connect North York and Scarborough city centres by rapid transit and spread out commercial development away from the downtown. Jack Layton was one of the more ardent opponents of the relief line, following the Metro planning that commercial development should be pushed to the suburban city centres. Of course that didn't really work out anyway, with development going out to the further nodes of the 404 & 7 area, the airport corporate centre and the Erin Mills area of Mississauga. When Mike Harris originally sought to kill the whole Sheppard line, Lastman kicked up enough fuss to get Harris to relent on the useless half-line on Sheppard to shut him up. Harris sure wasn't going to give any money for any downtown transit, he and his cabal already thought "the people of Toronto are too reliant on public transit" (Tony Clement), "they're running a Cadillac service" (Al Leach) and cutting funding to transit would result in "better service" (Al Palladini). We were lucky to even get that half-subway given the hostility to Toronto from the Harris government. Lastman was a self-promoter for sure, but the city was at Harris's mercy. Eglinton would have been a better choice if we had to pick one of the two, but obviously Lastman was going for his first choice in North York.

As for development along the subway in Scarborough, it's taken decades for any real intensification around Warden Station, with the demolition of the mall and then the parking lots. A subdivision did go in on the south side of St. Clair west of Warden, and on Warden north of St. Clair on the west side but that's about it. I don't know how much potential there is for redevelopment on Warden north and south of the station given that Warden was mostly an industrial street.

 

[syn]

Again, "feels like" and being a conspiracy are two vastly different things.

I understand, but it's not even remotely based in reality. It's based in political rhetoric.

Scarborough has only been incorporated for under 25 years, which completely explains the lack of rapid transit. However, the pet project RT and lack of expansion into (while North York and Vaughan of all places get expansion) definitely gives a feeling of neglect. You have to look at the situation through the lens of a resident there that has been treated with a huge lack of promises until Miller.

Scarborough was incorporated as borough in 1967, and changed in status to city in 1983.

The 'pet project' RT is exactly what Scarborough politicians approved.

Residents, unfortunately, seem to buy into the nonsense the Fords have sold them. Their lack of transit doesn't have anything to do with 'downtown elites'. It has to do with poor planning and poor vision, resulting in a suburban environment not suited to higher order transit. The 'downtown elites' haven't seen any new subway expansion for over half a century. It's all been in the suburbs.

If Scarborough were it's own city responsible for it's own finances, I'm quite sure they would've been thrilled with new LRT lines.

Residents of Scarborough are getting exactly what they voted for.

 

[sixrings]

I was in Scarborough today around Midland and Sheppard and midland and finch. My old area where I was brought up. Both places I thought it is a shame there Is no lrt here but I have a bias as a current midtown late sipping bike rider who loathes the burbs. My motivation is pure evil and spiteful.

 

[JSF-1]

Eglinton would have been a better choice if we had to pick one of the two, but obviously Lastman was going for his first choice in North York.

Eglinton really wasn't a better choice. Both the Sheppard Line and the Eglinton Line had been truncated before Harris was in power. Even during the Bob Rae days Metro had to decide what to do since we were in a recession at the time and Bob Rae while being more open to transit than Harris, he wasn't about to make it rain either. With this in mind Metro thought about cancelling the Eglinton Subway to focus all funding on Sheppard, however this drew the ire of York since they would loose there Subway and thus there planned Downtown York. As a compromise Metro decided to truncate both lines; the Sheppard Line to Don Mills, and the Eglinton Line to Mount Dennis (then York Centre). The problem with the Eglinton Line was that it went nowhere and even if it went to Pearson, the line didn't go to Yonge Street thus rendering it completely useless to half the City. Sure we build the Eglinton Line to York Centre, than let say we extend it to Pearson as a phase 2, what year would this have been? Then we have to wait for a phase 3 to get the line to Yonge Street where the real ridership potential is? The fact is the Eglinton subway was an ill conceived plan for the simple fact it didn't connect to line 1 at Yonge Street thus rendering it a Subway either to nowhere or from nowhere. Had it been built we would be in no better a position we are today with the Sheppard Line, perhaps an even a worse one due to the Eglinton line being a line that comes from nowhere and goes nowhere.

 

[urbanyimby]

Meeting materials for today's open house:

https://www.metrolinxengage.com/sites/default/files/dsg-2020-03-02-sse-boards-master-60611173_sfs-jh.pdf

 

[OneCity]

I understand, but it's not even remotely based in reality. It's based in political rhetoric.



Scarborough was incorporated as borough in 1967, and changed in status to city in 1983.

The 'pet project' RT is exactly what Scarborough politicians approved.

Residents, unfortunately, seem to buy into the nonsense the Fords have sold them. Their lack of transit doesn't have anything to do with 'downtown elites'. It has to do with poor planning and poor vision, resulting in a suburban environment not suited to higher order transit. The 'downtown elites' haven't seen any new subway expansion for over half a century. It's all been in the suburbs.

If Scarborough were it's own city responsible for it's own finances, I'm quite sure they would've been thrilled with new LRT lines.

Residents of Scarborough are getting exactly what they voted for.

This type of truly unfortunate rhettoric above is getting exactly what was asked for both financially and politically

Scarborough is finally good now the outside entitlement politics has been fully removed