Debate on the merits of the Scarborough Subway Extension

[syn]

I think you're also missing the umpteen stops related to each intersection that the at-grade portion would have to stop at.

Exactly.

His plan would've doubled the cost and removed 18 stops (sorry, was one off). It wasn't even remotely sensible.

People keep saying council 'had their chance to work with Ford' when there was no way they were going to support an absolutely insane plan. He might as well have proposed a network of flying trains.

 

[OneCity]

Exactly.

His plan would've doubled the cost and removed 18 stops (sorry, was one off). It wasn't even remotely sensible.

People keep saying council 'had their chance to work with Ford' when there was no way they were going to support an absolutely insane plan. He might as well have proposed a network of flying trains.

I wouldn't say his plan was insane whatsoever but I wouldn't argue that statement for parts of the Tory plan. Although it's good to see Eglinton East LRT is part of the 4.8B from the Feds

 

[Rainforest]

Realistically if Tory is Mayor there is no other plan, only modifications to the existing. He will certainly run on the "subway" and unfortunately his Smarttrack will keep anything from happening on the RT corridor. So "If" he is Mayor again Council should add the stop a Lawrence and request the Province to consider a provisional for a Smarttrack station at Ellesmere in the future.

Any further review or study would cause utter chaos in this City. Any Mayor who decides to going back to something similar to Ford/McGuinty, come up with some new idea, or attempt to revert back to a previous plan will see a major negative reaction. Not saying it cant happen here, it certainly could but I certainty dont want to see it play out nor do I care to see the delays and nonsense that would follow. Also I dont want to see a candidate touch Eglinton LRT design at this point either which might come from a Ford type. Just add a stop and move on is likely the best outcome here for everyone given the point were at.

Agreed 100%; it is too late to change the course now.

A different plan could be perfectly viable, if started 8 or 10 years ago. Now, we should just build SSE, which may not be perfect but is pretty reasonable, and move on to other corridors.

 

[Rainforest]

It would aggravate Yonge line capacity issues between Eglinton and Bloor but it would improve the Bloor-Yonge situation. I don't see how it would have worse capacity problems on Eglinton though: it's grade separated so train frequencies aren't limited by the at-grade sections. Vancouver's Canada line has tiny platforms, smaller than Eglinton would have, but still has a design capacity of 15 000 pphpd.

The proposed configuration would prompt a lot of riders from Scarborough to stay on the Eglinton line instead of switching to BD line at Kennedy, resulting in the total peak demand of 13,000 pphpd approaching Yonge. Perhaps this is is not over-capacity yet, but pretty close to capacity with no room for any further growth.

Anyway the point is mute, we are not going back to that plan.

 

[BurlOak]

The proposed configuration would prompt a lot of riders from Scarborough to stay on the Eglinton line instead of switching to BD line at Kennedy, resulting in the total peak demand of 13,000 pphpd approaching Yonge. Perhaps this is is not over-capacity yet, but pretty close to capacity with no room for any further growth.

Anyway the point is mute, we are not going back to that plan.

I would think a fully grade-separated transit line with 100m long platforms would have a capacity of over 20k.

 

[Rainforest]

Right, but the real objective of this subway is to re-elect shitty Scarborough councillors / Liberal MPs at any cost. So on that count it's actually very much "on track".

Surely the voters are wrong, and vote against their own interests.

A few unelected, self-proclamed gurus would do a much better job on transit planning, if those pesky democratic principles were not standing in their way.

 

[Rainforest]

I would think a fully grade-separated transit line with 100m long platforms would have a capacity of over 20k.

Maybe; with Automated Train Operation which was not accounted for in the Ford - McGuinty plan.

100m long platforms can handle 3-car trains (each car is 30m long), 175 riders per car, 525 per train. Thus, 20,000 / 525 = 38 trains per hour per direction would be needed at peak. Required frequency: 3,600 / 38 = 95s between trains; doable with ATO but not with human drivers.

And even if ATO was added shortly after the Eglinton line opens, that would not help with Yonge overcrowding. There is a nontrivial amount of riders who are on the Yonge line north of Bloor, and transfer to Bloor line at the Y-B intersection. Thus, they do not overlap with riders transferring to southbound Yonge at Y-B. But if a substantial number of downtown-bound riders shifted from Y-B to Y-E, Yonge line between Eglinton and Bloor would be at risk.

 

[rbt]

Surely the voters are wrong, and vote against their own interests.

Voters, make choices based on ridiculously simplified information sources in an emotionally charged setting while being bombarded with half-truths from all sides. Almost nobody makes good long-term decisions in that type of setting.

That said, the best decision actually doesn't matter. A ship of 1,000 rowers will reach the destination just as well as a sailboat. The journey is a little different but with very large organizations (private or public) efficiency is less important than continuity; plan changes kill the project faster than the cost.

A strong benefit strong top-down planning (I.e. China or Russia) is that plans get implemented quickly; even really bad plans.

I actually like the Madrid model where they effectively voted for a Transit Tsar (the mayor). Very little public input was wanted or accepted on those projects outside of the election period. Of course, they also built some really whacky lines and have a bit of an operations budget crises trying to maintain it all now. Also somewhat unique, the mayor that followed had very little input in projects that were already underway.

 

[44 North]

Maybe; with Automated Train Operation which was not accounted for in the Ford - McGuinty plan.

100m long platforms can handle 3-car trains (each car is 30m long), 175 riders per car, 525 per train. Thus, 20,000 / 525 = 38 trains per hour per direction would be needed at peak. Required frequency: 3,600 / 38 = 95s between trains; doable with ATO but not with human drivers.

And even if ATO was added shortly after the Eglinton line opens, that would not help with Yonge overcrowding. There is a nontrivial amount of riders who are on the Yonge line north of Bloor, and transfer to Bloor line at the Y-B intersection. Thus, they do not overlap with riders transferring to southbound Yonge at Y-B. But if a substantial number of downtown-bound riders shifted from Y-B to Y-E, Yonge line between Eglinton and Bloor would be at risk.

I'm not sure about that 175 per car. Maybe if using a Flexity LFLRV. But if the line is fully grade-separate end-to-end as per the MOU surely they'd eventually opt to use an actual high-floor subway/metro vehicle. The original Montreal Metro cars are 15cm narrower than a Flexity Freedom, but in a 6-car (100m long train) could hold something like 950. With newer train and seating designs that'd be even higher (apparently +8% with the Azur). Just using their trains as an example. Regardless tho, I thought automating the grade-separate portion of the Crosstown predates Ford or any MOU.

 

[Rainforest]

Voters, make choices based on ridiculously simplified information sources in an emotionally charged setting while being bombarded with half-truths from all sides. Almost nobody makes good long-term decisions in that type of setting.

That said, the best decision actually doesn't matter. A ship of 1,000 rowers will reach the destination just as well as a sailboat. The journey is a little different but with very large organizations (private or public) efficiency is less important than continuity; plan changes kill the project faster than the cost.

A strong benefit strong top-down planning (I.e. China or Russia) is that plans get implemented quickly; even really bad plans.

I actually like the Madrid model where they effectively voted for a Transit Tsar (the mayor). Very little public input was wanted or accepted on those projects outside of the election period. Of course, they also built some really whacky lines and have a bit of an operations budget crises trying to maintain it all now. Also somewhat unique, the mayor that followed had very little input in projects that were already underway.

I see the point; however I believe that once a particular project gains high profile and all major viewpoints are presented to the public, the final decision should be trusted to the voters.

Democratic methods lead to better decisions on average, although the outcomes may be skewed in particular cases.

 

[Rainforest]

I'm not sure about that 175 per car. Maybe if using a Flexity LFLRV. But if the line is fully grade-separate end-to-end as per the MOU surely they'd eventually opt to use an actual high-floor subway/metro vehicle. The original Montreal Metro cars are 15cm narrower than a Flexity Freedom, but in a 6-car (100m long train) could hold something like 950. With newer train and seating designs that'd be even higher (apparently +8% with the Azur). Just using their trains as an example. Regardless tho, I thought automating the grade-separate portion of the Crosstown predates Ford or any MOU.

The Montreal Metro cars are still wider than Flexities, aren't they? Which makes perfect sense for on-street operations (of LRT). 175 per car is the design capacity of Flexities ordered by Metrolinx.

Obviously the Eglinton line could be done differently if designed as fully grade-separate from the beginning; wider cars / longer platforms / ATO etc. I just don't think any of those changes were part of MOU. MOU was a compromise that looked good on the map and fitted the funding envelope, but did not take much look into the technical issues arising from the route change.

 

[44 North]

The Montreal Metro cars are still wider than Flexities, aren't they? Which makes perfect sense for on-street operations (of LRT). 175 per car is the design capacity of Flexities ordered by Metrolinx.

Obviously the Eglinton line could be done differently if designed as fully grade-separate from the beginning; wider cars / longer platforms / ATO etc. I just don't think any of those changes were part of MOU. MOU was a compromise that looked good on the map and fitted the funding envelope, but did not take much look into the technical issues arising from the route change.

I believe Montreal's are 2.51m, and Freedom is 2.65. Both fairly narrow and generally in the same 'thin-train' ballpark. Where the Flexity or any LFLRV loses in the capacity dept is the horrid seating arrangements brought about by low floor designs, I thnk. Width seems to be a bit overrated when it comes to capacity. This is why I believe any future new subway line in TO like RL could get away with using a much narrower train design than our existing subways. We could maybe lose 20% in width, but only really lose 5% in capacity (just a guess).

And yeah I more or less agree with the ramifications of the MOU. I'm supportive of what @BurlOak talks about by (affordably) grade-separating the Eglinton-Scarboro Lines 3/5. But it was obviously gone about the wrong way. Should've always been a phased approach with the Don Mills-Kennedy portion being a phase II coinciding with a RL Med. Not to mention done democratically.

 

[syn]

I wouldn't say his plan was insane whatsoever but I wouldn't argue that statement for parts of the Tory plan. Although it's good to see Eglinton East LRT is part of the 4.8B from the Feds

Virtually everyone else disagreed, including transit experts.

It's hard to consider doubling the cost and making it less effective anything but insane.

 

[BurlOak]

Virtually everyone else disagreed, including transit experts.

It's hard to consider doubling the cost and making it less effective anything but insane.

What plan are you referring too?

The Ford connected SRT/ECLRT that Metrolinx did a business case for and found it was best.
And that was before value engineering looked at the plan to improve the basic idea.

 

[Hopkins123]

Virtually everyone else disagreed, including transit experts.

It's hard to consider doubling the cost and making it less effective anything but insane.

How would grade-separating Eglinton East and getting rid of stops maybe 100 people tops will use per day like Ferrand, Lebovic and Ionview make the line less effective? If we had stuck with the MOU and things played out the same way, today the Wynne Liberals likely would have offered to foot the bill for the higher cost.

What we're instead getting is a 22 km/h surface segment through western Scarborough attached to the rapid 35-40 km/h underground tunnel through Midtown that'll slow down the works for all commuters involved trying to use the Crosstown as an alternative to Bloor-Danforth; all because someone with mayoral ambitions whose not even in politics anyone just had to stick it to the acting Mayor.