Debate on the merits of the Scarborough Subway Extension

[Leo_Chan]

How would the SLRT in the SRT corridor have interfaced at Kennedy Station with the Eglinton LRT (including EELRT so no ESLRT) and Line 2? Would it do something like going under the existing Kennedy GO Station platforms, with direct 1-2 level transfer access to all 4 subway, LRT, GO platforms?

 

[Hopkins123]

That moment you speak of (and it's associated data), was nearly three weeks ago. In those three weeks the PCs, in the 905 region, have gone from a 21 point lead over the NDP (19 point over the Libs), to a 1 point deficit (vs. the NDP). As they say, a week in politics is a lifetime.

Well you're right about that... if the dynamics you speak of are PCPO's support slowly eroding while the NDP continues to surge.

My point is that the Progressive Conservatives lead amongst men, first and second generation newcomers, visible minorities, and constituents over age 35. And they're statistically tied with the NDP for women. Most of rural and suburban is still skewing their way too. Demographically the PCs have the advantage.

 

[Voltz]

How would the SLRT in the SRT corridor have interfaced at Kennedy Station with the Eglinton LRT (including EELRT so no ESLRT) and Line 2? Would it do something like going under the existing Kennedy GO Station platforms, with direct 1-2 level transfer access to all 4 subway, LRT, GO platforms?

It was planned to be right at the Mezzanine level, so one level above the subway platform, very similar to transferring at St George Station.

Which according to some here would have been a immeasurable insult against the great people of Scarborough that requires billions be spent to correct, while not actually make transit better for the vast majority of riders.

 

[Leo_Chan]

It was planned to be right at the Mezzanine level, so one level above the subway platform, very similar to transferring at St George Station.

Which according to some here would have been a immeasurable insult against the great people of Scarborough that requires billions be spent to correct, while not actually make transit better for the vast majority of riders.

Oh, so having the platform be below the subway and Eglinton LRT platform, requiring to go up to the mezzanine level then back down to the SLRT platform would be a complete non-starter.

 

[Cobra]

Geographically the NDP cannot win.

Bob Rae didn't happen?

 

[Cobra]

People do not understand the full issues. This is likely their thought process:

• Subway = rapid, continuous (based on existing subway network).
• LRT = slower, transfers (based on existing SRT & Spadina, St. Clair, Harbourfront LRT).

They really don't care about the technology, but you have to clearly show how an LRT would not fit the stereotype. Remember, nobody had a problem with the Ford LRT compromise plan of connecting the SRT to Eglinton LRT.

Building an LRT that's both rapid and continuous and you just killed most of the criticism.

 

[Hopkins123]

Bob Rae didn't happen?

You're supposing the entirety of the Liberal supporters are left wing and would mass exodus solely to the NDP's camp per their collapse. Blue Liberals exist too and we're moving towards Doug.

 

[Streety McCarface]

It's annoying to have to get off at Spadina to take a streetcar, but what can you do - that's how transit works.

An Eglinton LRT will give riders direct, transfer free access to the Yonge Line.

1. The Spadina transfer is extremely easy, and there's literally a subway line 2 blocks over. If you have nothing in Scarborough, where's the comparison?
2. What the hell does that have to do with this? Most people don't transfer to the Spadina streetcar, they either stay on the subway heading south towards Queens Park or transfer at st George. Even with all that, how does this affect the SRT?
3. If you're referencing the Eglinton East LRT, no one is against that. It serves a different purpose to the SRT replacement.
4. If you're referring to the SRT replacement interline with the Eglinton crosstown, I've already gone over how that would not be feasible (since existing demands exceed 7K PPHPD on the SRT, and an interline at Kennedy would split service capacity in half).
5. The Eglinton crosstown transfer at Yonge st is going to be a horrible transfer as it's currently being planned.
6. On the subject of transfers, we all know they're necessary for transit to exist. However, it's extremely illogical to increase the number of required transfers on a continuous journey. A location like Bloor-Yonge does have a transfer, but since the majority of transit users on the yonge line heading to downtown are coming from North York, the fewest people are inconvenienced by the nature of the transfer. Likewise, the Yonge North, Yonge South, Bloor, and Danforth lines don't all just terminate at Bloor Yonge, that would make everyone's lives extremely inconvenient.

 

[syn]

1. The Spadina transfer is extremely easy, and there's literally a subway line 2 blocks over. If you have nothing in Scarborough, where's the comparison?

The Spadina transfer from the Spadina line is worse than the RT.

If I get off at Spadina there's a long walkway until I reach the streetcar.

At Kennedy if I want to transfer from the RT to the subway, I just go down a few levels. Whoop. De. Doo.

3. If you're referencing the Eglinton East LRT, no one is against that. It serves a different purpose to the SRT replacement.

It helps people get to the Yonge Line. Between the RER going to Union and Eglinton going to Yonge/Eglinton, Scarborough riders have two direct connections to the city.

6. On the subject of transfers, we all know they're necessary for transit to exist. However, it's extremely illogical to increase the number of required transfers on a continuous journey. A location like Bloor-Yonge does have a transfer, but since the majority of transit users on the yonge line heading to downtown are coming from North York, the fewest people are inconvenienced by the nature of the transfer. Likewise, the Yonge North, Yonge South, Bloor, and Danforth lines don't all just terminate at Bloor Yonge, that would make everyone's lives extremely inconvenient.

It is extremely illogical to cripple rapid transit access in an area starving for it, all to the tune of about $5 billion when two other projects (RER and Eglinton Crosstown) address the needs of riders heading west.

 

[Streety McCarface]

The Spadina transfer from the Spadina line is worse than the RT.
If I get off at Spadina there's a long walkway until I reach the streetcar.

Why would you do that to yourself? It's faster to walk from say St Patrick to Spadina/Dundas than use the walkway. It's a bad transfer, we shouldn't be encouraging any more bad transfers

At Kennedy if I want to transfer from the RT to the subway, I just go down a few levels. Whoop. De. Doo.

The annoying part is that it's in the middle of about 40K people's commutes, it's not like they're all going in different directions, they're all going to the same place.

It is extremely illogical to cripple rapid transit access in an area starving for it, all to the tune of about $5 billion when two other projects (RER and Eglinton Crosstown) address the needs of riders heading west.

RER and the crosstown are provincial projects, Eglinton east arguably has funding and if not, can very easily get funding since it serves so much of the city. What we really have to prevent is the cancellation of existing projects based on the whims of politicians. It happened with the original eglinton and sheppard subways, and will continue to happen with lines like Finch West if measures aren't put in place to prevent this type of reckless action.

 

[syn]

Why would you do that to yourself? It's faster to walk from say St Patrick to Spadina/Dundas than use the walkway. It's a bad transfer, we shouldn't be encouraging any more bad transfers

So you're complaining about people have to get off the RT to hop on the subway, but your solution for Spadina Streetcar riders is to take the streetcar at all and add a 10 minute walk to their commute.

Interesting.

The annoying part is that it's in the middle of about 40K people's commutes, it's not like they're all going in different directions, they're all going to the same place.

They are?

Then they can all take the RER or the Eglinton Crosstown.

RER and the crosstown are provincial projects, Eglinton east arguably has funding and if not, can very easily get funding since it serves so much of the city. What we really have to prevent is the cancellation of existing projects based on the whims of politicians. It happened with the original eglinton and sheppard subways, and will continue to happen with lines like Finch West if measures aren't put in place to prevent this type of reckless action.

What we have to prevent is projects that are entirely based on the whims of politicians, with no sensible planning rationale.

 

[Streety McCarface]

So you're complaining about people have to get off the RT to hop on the subway, but your solution for Spadina Streetcar riders is to no take the streetcar at all and add a 1o minute walk to their commute.

They are? Then they can all take the RER or the Eglinton Crosstown.

What we have to prevent is projects that are entirely based on the whims of politicians, with no sensible planning rationale.

It's nowhere near 10 minutes, and considering that the subway is faster than the streetcar twofold, any difference in taking the subway is made up. Honestly, I'd love to see a spadina subway, but I feel like that's too close to University Avenue for the time being. Build Relief Line West then study that.

RER/Eglinton Crosstown do not take you to the STC. People originating at the STC aren't necessarily going downtown. Those going to Midtown would take the crosstown, those going to Old Toronto or Etobicoke would take the Bloor Subway. Those going to summerhill or the annex would take the bloor subway. Those going to north toronto would take the Sheppard RT (LRT/Subway, unsure at this point if something ever gets built there). Those going to downtown north of King would still take the subway. Those going to the financial district or Front Street would take RER. Those going to the Airport would take RER. Those going to other locations in scarborough would either use the EELRT or the Scarborough subway to get to their final destination. You need a network. 1 LRT line and one RER line shut you out from so much.

 

[Rainforest]

Multi-step point/question:
- the main argument for the subway extension over LRT is that people shouldn't be forced to make a long, multi-level transfer from LRT to the subway at Kennedy
- the reason people would want to make that transfer is that people are trying to get downtown
- by far the fastest route downtown from Kennedy would be taking the GO Train (19 minutes) rather than subway (38 minutes), but it doesn't come frequently enough
- but it will come every 6-10 minutes based on Smart Track
- ok, but GO costs more than TTC
- but the Liberal platform calls for all GO trips within the 416 to match TTC fares, and the PCs aren't talking about scrapping that

So by the time the Scarborough subway extension is set to open, you would already have a faster (by double) way to get downtown on an electrified GO RER train that costs the same fare as sitting on the TTC. And if you want to go to mid-downtown, you can transfer onto the Relief Line at East Harbour.

So why would you care if you were able to get to Kennedy slightly faster, if you're already going to transfer off the subway anyway?

1. The main problem here is the great uncertainty of the Smart Track frequency. They'd like it to be every 6-10 minutes. But the underlying investment in the capacity of the Union Rail Corridor, the Union Station itself, and the approaching Lakeshore East tracks hasn't been made on the full scale, and isn't even in the works.

Without that, Smart Track will have to compete for track time with:
- Long-haul trains to Montreal and Ottawa
- Lakeshore East commuter service
- Markham - Lincolnville commuter service
- Occasional freight trains

As a result, we don't know if 6-10 min is actually feasible for SmartTrack. And that means, not only longer wait times, but capacity limitations as well. We might end up in a situation where the majority of riders transferring at Kennedy still have to transfer to the subway, rather than Smart Track, because the latter has no room for them.

The cost of truly upgrading the rail corridor and the Union station to sustain the service level seen in the most advanced East Asian or European cities, is far greater than the difference in cost between the Scarborough Subway and the Scarborough LRT.

2. The subway connects to more destinations than Smart Track. Not just downtown, but areas around Bloor and around the Spadina branch of Line 1.

Btw, the subway travel time to downtown will be less than 38 min once the Relief Line is build; more like 30-32 min. And, the Smart Track travel time will increase somewhat with more stations added, and will be like 25 min instead of 19. So, Smart Track still would be good if it was frequent enough, but won't be dramatically faster than the subway option.

 

[Voltz]

Oh, so having the platform be below the subway and Eglinton LRT platform, requiring to go up to the mezzanine level then back down to the SLRT platform would be a complete non-starter.

No the SLRT platform would have been directly above the Eglinton platform (both parallel to the subway platform), same level as the Subway fare concourse, which would have been extended north a bit to meet the platform. Only one up/down to go from Subway to SLRT.

 

[syn]

It's nowhere near 10 minutes, and considering that the subway is faster than the streetcar twofold, any difference in taking the subway is made up.

Yes it is.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/St+Patrick,+Toronto,+ON/Spadina+Ave+&+Dundas+St+W,+Toronto,+ON/@43.6541562,-79.3955055,17z/am=t/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x882b34c92d07922f:0x38482963d7234394!2m2!1d-79.3883485!2d43.6548307!1m5!1m1!1s0x882b34c377beff31:0xb089e02bc62db158!2m2!1d-79.3979318!2d43.6529555!3e2

Honestly, I'd love to see a spadina subway, but I feel like that's too close to University Avenue for the time being. Build Relief Line West then study that.

It makes a lot more sense than a subway on Sheppard with Eglinton LRT just below it, or two separate subway connections to the STC + RER.

You feel Spadina is too close to the University Line, yet the Spadina Streetcar is consistently crowded and has greater ridership than the RT. According to 2014 stats, the RT carries about 20% fewer riders per day.

The Spadina Streetcar is actually close to the Sheppard Line in terms of ridership.

On top of that, there is a massive amount of development happening along that corridor. There's a far better business case for a subway on Spadina than there is for the SSE or a Sheppard extension.

RER/Eglinton Crosstown do not take you to the STC. People originating at the STC aren't necessarily going downtown. Those going to Midtown would take the crosstown, those going to Old Toronto or Etobicoke would take the Bloor Subway. Those going to summerhill or the annex would take the bloor subway. Those going to north toronto would take the Sheppard RT (LRT/Subway, unsure at this point if something ever gets built there). Those going to downtown north of King would still take the subway. Those going to the financial district or Front Street would take RER. Those going to the Airport would take RER. Those going to other locations in scarborough would either use the EELRT or the Scarborough subway to get to their final destination. You need a network. 1 LRT line and one RER line shut you out from so much.

So basically they have a direct connection to Union, and a direct connection to Yonge/Eglinton and a direct connection to the airport. There's a transfer at Bloor. So what?

It's not a big deal.

Certainly not worth $5 billion and worse inter-Scarborough transit.