Debate on the merits of the Scarborough Subway Extension

[Hopkins123]

I don't think this point can be stressed enough.

I'd go as far and say that even a zero-stop Relief Line subway would be more needed than SSE, Yonge North, Spadina Extension and SmartTrack (GO-RER on Kitchener-Stoufville) combined. It needs to absolutely be our region's transit priority right now.

Only someone who doesn't commute in from the suburbs to the core on a daily basis could hold such a myopic view. All of the above projects you've mentioned will still be needed in tandem with the DRL. That's how dire the backlog in expanding rapid transit is in this region.

I don't the share the view that everything has to go into one single project be it in Scarborough or elsewhere. But evidence of the need for Bloor-Danforth expansion deeper into Scarborough is there. Can you deny that 36 million ridership per year would utilize it, many new riders? If there was no SRT right-of-way for us to fall back on, we'd have zero choice but to tunnel to reach Scarborough Town Centre, and with GO expansion in the Stoufville corridor it's increasingly looking like that ROW will no longer be at the City's disposal anyway. Building rapid transit under McCowan does offer us unique opportunities for high-density growth around new stations (potentially Brimley-Eglinton, McCowan-Lawrence, SCC) if we simply modify the plan and make it better (like figuring out how to engineer around McCowan and Lawrence so that a station can be built there). Hardlining us to only spend as minimal an amount in Scarborough as possible and then that's it for a generation is not tentative for anyone. We can press for ~$5 billion for Scarborough expansion, and also press for more funding for the other projects. Why there's this assumption that Toronto will never get transit funding again so we must pull the tri-government agreed upon earmarked funding from SSE is ridiculous.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Only someone who doesn't commute in from the suburbs to the core on a daily basis could hold such a myopic view. All of the above projects you've mentioned will still be needed in tandem with the DRL. That's how dire the backlog in expanding rapid transit is in this region.

What I understand is that the Yonge subway is the heart and blood of our city and that it is chronically overcongested. I can attest to this by the fact that most mornings I watch 2-3 subway cars pass me by at EGLINTON before I get on, let alone speaking of St. Clair or Bloor.

Our golden goose of a city relies on this critical piece of infrastructure which has been shown by all studies to be severely and chronically over-capacity, with projections that show it only getting much worse. The most severe congestion point is the section south of Bloor, where Scarborough residents will be transferring on to the subway. Without this functioning section of the subway, how do financial district workers get to their offices at Bay and Bloor? How does anyone living north and east of Yonge get downtown?

We are not a polycentric city. We have one main downtown and that is it. No other sub-centre is or will be anything of similar scale within our lifetimes. Not East Harbour (our best hope for one) and definitely not STC. The Yonge Subway is the access point to the country's largest CBD and we simply cannot afford to have the Yonge subway not function.

The Relief Line is our number 1 priority bar none, any other discussion is an absolute distraction to the issues this city's transportation context is facing. I for one, cannot understand why this needs to be contested given that the biggest benefactors to the Relief Line are the residents of Scarborough who take the subway. All this talk about eliminating a transfer is absolutely mind-boggling in the context of that other transfer Scarborough residents must make, at Bloor-Yonge. I bet the typical rush hour Scarborough subway rider spends a fraction of their time at Kennedy compared to Bloor-Yonge. (Especially since the SLRT was going to remove 3 flights of stairs from the Kennedy transfer.)

 

[Leo_Chan]

I guess my dream of a 7 stop Relief Line is completely ridiculous now: Fairview, Science Centre, Pape, Queen, Osgoode, Dundas West. This is much more appropriate for GO RER.

 

[OneCity]

What I understand is that the Yonge subway is the heart and blood of our city and that it is chronically overcongested. I can attest to this by the fact that most mornings I watch 2-3 subway cars pass me by at EGLINTON before I get on, let alone speaking of St. Clair or Bloor.

Our golden goose of a city relies on this critical piece of infrastructure which has been shown by all studies to be severely and chronically over-capacity, with projections that show it only getting much worse. The most severe congestion point is the section south of Bloor, where Scarborough residents will be transferring on to the subway. Without this functioning section of the subway, how do financial district workers get to their offices at Bay and Bloor? How does anyone living north and east of Yonge get downtown?

We are not a polycentric city. We have one main downtown and that is it. No other sub-centre is or will be anything of similar scale within our lifetimes. Not East Harbour (our best hope for one) and definitely not STC. The Yonge Subway is the access point to the country's largest CBD and we simply cannot afford to have the Yonge subway not function.

The Relief Line is our number 1 priority bar none, any other discussion is an absolute distraction to the issues this city's transportation context is facing. I for one, cannot understand why this needs to be contested given that the biggest benefactors to the Relief Line are the residents of Scarborough who take the subway. All this talk about eliminating a transfer is absolutely mind-boggling in the context of that other transfer Scarborough residents must make, at Bloor-Yonge. I bet the typical rush hour Scarborough subway rider spends a fraction of their time at Kennedy compared to Bloor-Yonge. (Especially since the SLRT was going to remove 3 flights of stairs from the Kennedy transfer.)

Our Golden goose's relief is not yet design ready and if its not funded when it is then ill understand your cause. But under Miller we hacked in LRT plan, a subway to the empty lands of Vaughan Centre, and no DRL. He has set the City back years and billions trying to blanket and prevent subways. We seem to be moving forward together now to deal with various priorities. The SSE is only "mostly" funded because Transit City was overturned and it was in the limelight Politically otherwise its on a similar path as the DRL short which will be funded under Tory or Ford.

Miller set us back trying to get be clever against the original request by Scarborough council, and against what was built and being built in similar and lesser central nodes. And add the change of plans for the stubway creating a new unnecessary transfer for Scarborough residents. When the transfers were clearly called out for the people to have a choice in what was obvious and became a front and center part of a Mayoral campaign it was over and cost us big $$ in inflation alone. Also cost us a proper chanace to review options to remove the transfers or subway options. Whether you care or agree or not, the overwhelming majority in Scarborough do care. When you go against the people in democracy your playing with fire, this was the political gamble Miller took and was good until challenged again. Against some outside and minute critics and the Miller friendly media the LRT has been beyond dead for 7 years all the while cheaper solutions were being offered. More wasted time and $$.

https://transit.toronto.on.ca/subway/5107.shtml

"In 2003, the TTC unveiled its Ridership Growth Strategy, offering suggestions on how to improve public transit in Toronto in incremental steps......"

"Considering that the costs for maintaining the current system or upgrading it to handle Mark II ICTS equipment were so high, the TTC commissioned an engineering study in October 2005 to assess its full range of options. One possibility was to scrap the SCARBOROUGH RT altogether and replace it with an extension of the BLOOR-DANFORTH subway, a possibility that Scarborough politicians applauded. The following month, Scarborough politicians campaigned to have the proposal given priority ahead of the SPADINA subway extension to York University and Vaughan."

Scarborough is not stopping the DRL priority and never has. But the City did lose good $$ while money trying to save $$ at Scarboroughs expense. Amalgamation can work but when we fight against something that would have been built otherwise in a place with over 600k people "connected" to the City the Politics we have seen can and should happen.

 

[pstogios]

Our Golden goose's relief is not yet design ready and if its not funded when it is then ill understand your cause. But under Miller we hacked in LRT plan, a subway to the empty lands of Vaughan Centre, and no DRL. He has set the City back years and billions trying to blanket and prevent subways. We seem to be moving forward together. The SSE is only "mostly" funded because Transit City was overturned and it was in the limelight Politically otherwise its on a similar path as the DRL short which will be funded.

Miller set us back trying to get be clever against the original request by Scarborough council and when it was called out for the people to have a choice as a major part of a campaign it was over and set both upgrades back and has cost us big $$ in inflation alone and cost us a proper review to remove the transfers which are in a ridiculous location whether you care or agree or not, the overwhelming majority in Scarborough do.

David Miller was mayor 7, almost 8 years ago. Get over it.

If you think better decisions can’t be made in the intervening 7 years then you have no idea what you’re talking about. You should be blaming Ford, De Baermaker, Mitzie Hunter, and fellow Subway Champions for stoking the fire of the Subways Subways Subways delusion.

One more thing you don’t know what you’re talking about: thinking that elimination of one transfer point that was never nearly as congested as Yonge-Bloor is more important than fixing that major transfer point that is clearly choking on itself with congestion. That’s ridiculous. But I don’t expect anything better from you.

 

[Rainforest]

Wow that’s a totally inaccurate reflection of reality.

My description is accurate, despite you thinking otherwise.

First, the long term capital budget for the TTC is not the definition of “wealthy”. It is chronically underfunded.

https://torontoist.com/2017/09/ttc-budget-woes-deepen/
“Toronto ignores the growing backlog of transit repairs and renewal at its peril—not to mention the $2.8-billion hole in the plan”

I never said TTC is wealthy. I said the City is reach, and you can't deny that.

If the City starves its transit system of funding, that's a policy problem, not overall wealth problem.

That's why I was impressed when the City Council approved a dedicated tax to support SSE. We should be doing more of this, not less.

Secondly, the cost of the SSE is not “modest” compared to other proposed transit lines, save for the RL which everyone acknowledges is the most critically needed and transformative transit line for this city.

Nobody disputes the need for the Relief line. However, full RL will be massively more expensive than SSE, and RL will require a dedicated tax in some form.

If you cheap out on SSE, and undo the associated tax accord - good luck funding the Relief line.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/ne...9194407/?ref=https://www.theglobeandmail.com&
Go through each of those lines and tell me how $3B+ is “modest” compared to most of those proposals which are in the $hundreds of millions.

You go through that list, and tell me which of the projects within Toronto borders (or mostly within Toronto) will cost "$hundreds of millions". In other words, less than 1 billion.

There may be one such project; Waterfront East LRT (hopefully). Everything else will be well above that mark.

Then there is the value-for-money proposition: how a line with one stop provides high value, is on its face laughable.

If you prefer not to see value of SSE, that's your choice. Actual riders will see the value, and will laugh at your bias.

 

[44 North]

I never said TTC is wealthy. I said the City is reach, and you can't deny that.

If the City starves its transit system of funding, that's a policy problem, not overall wealth problem.

That's why I was impressed when the City Council approved a dedicated tax to support SSE. We should be doing more of this, not less.

Agreed, it is impressive and would like to see more of this. No more carrot-dangling from higher-level parties wanting to get elected. They could chip in, as they should. But if they're going to be weird about it well we can still go it alone on a more drawn-out or bare-bones level.

If you prefer not to see value of SSE, that's your choice. Actual riders will see the value, and will laugh at your bias.

Yeah but without a station at least at Lawrence I'm sure this laugh will be subdued somewhat. As it stands now it doesn't make sense to bypass such a corridor, and arguably Danforth Rd/Eglinton too. Inline stations are clearly needed. It's a subway not commuter rail, and the adjacent transit-using public has existed for decades. If the bureaucrats genuinely believe we should skip or can't afford adding stations then I think we should start over on the project planning.

 

[Rainforest]

Yeah but without a station at least at Lawrence I'm sure this laugh will be subdued somewhat. As it stands now it doesn't make sense to bypass such a corridor, and arguably Danforth Rd/Eglinton too. Inline stations are clearly needed. It's a subway not commuter rail, and the adjacent transit-using public has existed for decades. If the bureaucrats genuinely believe we should skip or can't afford adding stations then I think we should start over on the project planning.

I totally agree that the loss of Lawrence East station is unfortunate, and reduces the value of the whole project.

I am not sure about starting over though. That would divert attention from other projects, and may increase the cost even further due to the well-known construction cost inflation.

I would say that modifications should be considered, but only if they are nearly instant and do not cause significant delays.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I am not sure about starting over though. That would divert attention from other projects, and may increase the cost even further due to the well-known construction cost inflation.

If only interlining with the Crosstown were an option...

 

[syn]

Only someone who doesn't commute in from the suburbs to the core on a daily basis could hold such a myopic view. All of the above projects you've mentioned will still be needed in tandem with the DRL. That's how dire the backlog in expanding rapid transit is in this region.

I don't the share the view that everything has to go into one single project be it in Scarborough or elsewhere. But evidence of the need for Bloor-Danforth expansion deeper into Scarborough is there.

There is no evidence for it's need.

There are dubious 'justifications' based on identity politics.

All the ridership data, density/population information, future expansion possibilities and costs indicate it is not only not needed, it's a very bad idea.

 

[BurlOak]

Only someone who doesn't commute in from the suburbs to the core on a daily basis could hold such a myopic view. All of the above projects you've mentioned will still be needed in tandem with the DRL. That's how dire the backlog in expanding rapid transit is in this region.

I don't the share the view that everything has to go into one single project be it in Scarborough or elsewhere. But evidence of the need for Bloor-Danforth expansion deeper into Scarborough is there. Can you deny that 36 million ridership per year would utilize it, many new riders? If there was no SRT right-of-way for us to fall back on, we'd have zero choice but to tunnel to reach Scarborough Town Centre, and with GO expansion in the Stoufville corridor it's increasingly looking like that ROW will no longer be at the City's disposal anyway. Building rapid transit under McCowan does offer us unique opportunities for high-density growth around new stations (potentially Brimley-Eglinton, McCowan-Lawrence, SCC) if we simply modify the plan and make it better (like figuring out how to engineer around McCowan and Lawrence so that a station can be built there). Hardlining us to only spend as minimal an amount in Scarborough as possible and then that's it for a generation is not tentative for anyone. We can press for ~$5 billion for Scarborough expansion, and also press for more funding for the other projects. Why there's this assumption that Toronto will never get transit funding again so we must pull the tri-government agreed upon earmarked funding from SSE is ridiculous.

The evidence is that with a better connection of Scarborough to Yonge, then fully grade-separated transit is required due to high passenger volumes. The choice of whether to achieve this with an SRT connected to ECLRT, a B-D extension, a SmartSpur branch, or any other grade-separated, connected transit option that has been proposed here - is part of the political debate and the quest for compromise.

 

[sixrings]

Needs: water, food, shelter, clothes, SSE.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Needs: water, food, shelter, clothes, SSE.

My needs are: food, clothing, shelter and the Ontario NDP!

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

The evidence is that with a better connection of Scarborough to Yonge, then fully grade-separated transit is required due to high passenger volumes. The choice of whether to achieve this with an SRT connected to ECLRT, a B-D extension, a SmartSpur branch, or any other grade-separated, connected transit option that has been proposed here - is part of the political debate and the quest for compromise.

Precisely.

 

[pstogios]

There is no evidence for it's need.

There are dubious 'justifications' based on identity politics.

All the ridership data, density/population information, future expansion possibilities and costs indicate it is not only not needed, it's a very bad idea.

Don’t worry, Rainforest will make it all go away by declaring that what he says is reality. Wouldn’t it be nice if the world worked that way? Some joker on a messageboard that has been riled up by the Scarborough subway delusion says it’s true, and it’s true! Wonderful! Ignorance is bliss.