Debate on the merits of the Scarborough Subway Extension

[ssiguy2]

I still don't understand why the subway could not just replace the current RT route. The Lawrence station is already there and would just need a platform extension and rail alignment with the platform both of which would also be needed for an LRT. LRT is no cheaper than third rail where the cost saving come from is being able to run along roadways but nothing more.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

It won't be the City's responsibility if there's cost overruns regardless if Patrick Brown becomes the next Premier. We could just as well double the pricetag and get the line all the way to Morningside Heights via Centennial and Malvern TC if we're not footing the bill. Byford's opinion is irrelevant.

That's the height of irresponsibility. There is only one taxpayer at the end of the day, and multiple higher priorities are waiting for funding.

AoD

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Honestly, a three stop elevated line would probably be a good compromise: lower costs (maybe not absolute number, but cost-benefit ratio), higher ridership than one stop and no transfer.

No politician is going to propose elevated transit running beside people's bedrooms.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Totally crazy idea that certainly will never happen, but is still probably better than a one-stop subway extension. Everything other than the Midland section is above or at grade

The line southwest of Ellesmere and Brimley runs adjacent to a river, which might be problematic.

 

[lenaitch]

I still don't understand why the subway could not just replace the current RT route. The Lawrence station is already there and would just need a platform extension and rail alignment with the platform both of which would also be needed for an LRT. LRT is no cheaper than third rail where the cost saving come from is being able to run along roadways but nothing more.

I don't know all of the specs but I would imagine the entire SRT infrastructure is incompatible with subway; weight, track geometry, clearances, gauge (SRT is standard gauge) and likely power systems. From the beginning the SRT was an orphaned line.

 

[Streety McCarface]

As a new person here, I will come out in support of a Scarborough subway but not the current proposal. If I were to support a plan for subway transit in Scarborough, it would be one of the following:

1. An above ground or cut/cover extension of Line 2 to Sheppard East with 4 stops: Danforth-McCowan, Lawrence East, Scarborough Centre and Sheppard East. This is proposed because it can relieve potential overcrowding in between transfers at Kennedy for the EELRT, make transfers accessible (no need to transfer if coming south from SC), and gives McCowan a corridor.

2. A Sheppard extension east (Above ground, at grade or cut and cover, depending on road conditions) to Scarborough Centre. This would increase the number of rapid transit stops in Scarborough while spreading downtown commuters out, and eliminating the need for a Sheppard East LRT. People from the STC will take this Sheppard extension to either Don Mills (to transfer to the future relief line), Sheppard Yonge, or Sheppard West, depending on their final destination. The subway will have fewer stops than the Bloor-Danforth line, so it will, in turn, save commuters time (particularly if they use the DRL to get downtown) as opposed to making extra stops on Line 2. It will also utilize the underutilized Sheppard line and be a worthy competitor with the 401. (Heck, you could even run the subway through the median if you really hated cars).

Reasons for supporting the subway over Light Rail:
1. There are existing corridors with subways running on them: Sheppard and Bloor-Danforth. It makes no sense to force people to transfer (especially people that are already transferring to a hypothetical LRT stop) once more

2. Promotes surface transit terminals. The rest of the TTC's subways run extremely well as a result of there being excellent transfer points between surface transit and rapid transit. This will also include the underground Crosstown. Suburban stations, Light rail or subway, will only be extremely well utilized IF there are adequate surface connections. Grade separated transportation promotes this. You will not see barrier-free bus terminals or even bus terminals at any at-grade in road LRT lines. There's no way to connect them. The majority of Scarborough residents have to take a bus to get to either an LRT station or a subway station, as do all other suburban Torontonians that use the subway. The suburbs aren't walkable, people have to take buses to get to where they want to go efficiently. If people have to take a bus to get to an LRT station, then what's the purpose of all the LRT stops?

3. Fewer stops: this may seem counterintuitive, but when you have fewer stops, you have better transfer points along your rapid transit corridors, and you decrease station dwell time, decreasing commute times. As per my previous point, subways in suburbs only work IF there are surface connections. Even with an LRT network of 30 stops, the only people that really benefit are people that live near the stations. If we look at the existing RT corridor, no one lives around it. No one is going to use an LRT if it has more stops, requires a bus to get there, and requires a transfer at the subway to go anywhere else. This situation might make some sense if Eglinton crosstown trains interline, but we already know that this will not be possible.

4. Plans for the future: The subways may not be utilized the day they are opened. They may not even be fully utilized 20 years after they're opened. But they're not supposed to. They're supposed to be built with future ridership in mind. The LRT meets the expectation for the projected 20 year horizon, not beyond that. What happens then? The case of not planning for the future is what has prevented the city from a DRL and other important transit projects throughout the city.

There's no doubt that the current subway plans are completely outrageous, but the city can do better. If the city and province instead invest money in a Sheppard east subway or McCowan elevated, money allocated for the Sheppard East LRT and Scarborough subway can pay for it, with all other provincial commitments going to an EELRT or even better, a DRL.

 

[Rainforest]

^ It would be nice to modify the Line 2 extension to have more stops and to build it cheaper. However, I don't think fully elevated along McCowan will be accepted by the residents.

I would consider one of the following:
a) Cut and cover along McCowan.
b) Shallow tunnel along McCowan, accending to the surface and bridging over Highland Creek.
c) Glen Murray's route, in the Uxbridge sub corridor and mostly at grade or elevated. That route was ruled not cost-effective based on the original cost estimates of the tunneled subway. But the cost of tunnel went up quite a bit since then, and the Uxbridge sub route may be competitive now.

 

[Rainforest]

Totally crazy idea that certainly will never happen, but is still probably better than a one-stop subway extension. Everything other than the Midland section is above or at grade

The line southwest of Ellesmere and Brimley runs adjacent to a river, which might be problematic.

I like the southern section, Kennedy to Lawrence, that should enable a Lawrence East station on surface, or very shallow.

The curve between Lawrence and Ellesmere is likely not feasible for a subway, and is not needed either. I would just go underground after Lawrence East station, get to STC, and either terminate the subway there or go to Sheppard & McCowan.

The line to Centennial Progress campus and to Malvern is a lot easier to implement with light rail.

 

[Streety McCarface]

^ It would be nice to modify the Line 2 extension to have more stops and to build it cheaper. However, I don't think fully elevated along McCowan will be accepted by the residents.

I would consider one of the following:
a) Cut and cover along McCowan.
b) Shallow tunnel along McCowan, accending to the surface and bridging over Highland Creek.
c) Glen Murray's route, in the Uxbridge sub corridor and mostly at grade or elevated. That route was ruled not cost-effective based on the original cost estimates of the tunneled subway. But the cost of tunnel went up quite a bit since then, and the Uxbridge sub route may be competitive now.

There's no doubt that residents will oppose above ground heavy rail transit, but we have to give Scarborough an ultimatum if they want a route in that part of the city. I would argue it should make homeowners happy because their homes won't necessarily be expropriated, but because of the proximity to rapid transit, their property values will likely skyrocket within a few years after completion. Also, if you're going to build a subway anywhere, even in the suburbs, you have to zone the areas around stations for redevelopment in order to maximize efficiency for future generations. Bus routes are the key component, but people won't be living in single homes there forever. The biggest problem with Sheppard is that they rezoned the areas around stations (Especially Bessarion station) extremely poorly, so redevelopment took forever to come to fruition.

 

[Rainforest]

The need for an underground route is politically motivated.

This project should be entirely above ground; there's no need to incur the (enormous) cost of digging.

If this does happen, one has to ask - is such a line better than what they have now? You lose a transfer, but you also lose all the stops the RT provides. A pretty lousy trade-off for billions of dollars.

This is probably the best plan, something they can attempt to loop in the future (if they don't have the budget to do it now):

This plan is not bad. If it was proposed 10 years earlier, perhaps it would be accepted and already built.

I think it would need some modifications. The demand between Kennedy and STC is far greater than the demand west of Kennedy. So, you would need three branches:
- Yonge to Kennedy to STC to Sheppard
- Yonge to Kennedy to UofT Scarborough
- A very frequent branch that runs just between Kennedy and STC

However, TTC was reluctant to interline the Kennedy-STC service with ECLRT. Before the SSE plan came to life, TTC intended to build the new Kennedy LRT hub in a few that allows interlining, but to actually operate SLRT and ECLRT as two separate lines. Connection to Eglinton East (former Malvern LRT) was to be deferred altogether. So, TTC is in part responsible for pushing the Scarborough residents and their councilors towards the subway.

Anyway, in the today's situation I consider the subway extension to be the best way. Light rail lines can be added later, connecting to both the Kennedy and the STC subway stations.

 

[Rainforest]

There's no doubt that residents will oppose above ground heavy rail transit, but we have to give Scarborough an ultimatum if they want a route in that part of the city. I would argue it should make homeowners happy because their homes won't necessarily be expropriated, but because of the proximity to rapid transit, their property values will likely skyrocket within a few years after completion. Also, if you're going to build a subway anywhere, even in the suburbs, you have to zone the areas around stations for redevelopment in order to maximize efficiency for future generations. Bus routes are the key component, but people won't be living in single homes there forever. The biggest problem with Sheppard is that they rezoned the areas around stations (Especially Bessarion station) extremely poorly, so redevelopment took forever to come to fruition.

I don't necessarily oppose that, just saying it will be a hard sell. If we want to do elevated, it may be easier (and not more expensive) to reuse the Uxbridge sub route.

 

[Rainforest]

@OneCity @Rainforest do you guys have any thoughts on Brown's proposal for the Province taking over the municipality's share of the Scarborough subway costs with the city put in charge of funding and planning Crosstown East?

IMO, that would be positive for SSE. The provincial government has deeper pockets than the city, so if it takes over SSE, it will complete it more reliably and might add the Lawrence East station.

The concern of voting for PC, is that they will be very tempted to defer DRL in order to prioritize other suburban subways (most likely, Yonge North).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I like the southern section, Kennedy to Lawrence, that should enable a Lawrence East station on surface, or very shallow.

The curve between Lawrence and Ellesmere is likely not feasible for a subway, and is not needed either. I would just go underground after Lawrence East station, get to STC, and either terminate the subway there or go to Sheppard & McCowan.

The line to Centennial Progress campus and to Malvern is a lot easier to implement with light rail.

The lines on the image I posted were hastily drawn. I've drawn it more carefully in Google Earth, and you can see the curves are actually very wide. Probably amongst the widest in the city in fact.

The downside of this alignment is that it would require the expropriation of around 80 homes and a few industrial properties. Fortunately, the properties on the east side of Midland appear to be publicly owned.

This would be a lot cheaper than tunnelling 2 km under Midland, and would allow for more subway stops. And even if it didn't end up being cheaper, at least we'd end up with a stop at Lawrence, with the potential for relatively inexpensive extension northeast to Sheppard/Malvern

 

[Streety McCarface]

IMO, that would be positive for SSE. The provincial government has deeper pockets than the city, so if it takes over SSE, it will complete it more reliably and might add the Lawrence East station.

The concern of voting for PC, is that they will be very tempted to defer DRL in order to prioritize other suburban subways (most likely, Yonge North).

While the PCs may prioritize Yonge North, as long as both are being built at the same time, the system won't collapse even if the DRL is opened 2-3 years after YN. There are capacity constraints, yes, but many people will choose not to take the TTC if it's severely overcrowded during that transition period. Others might shift over to St. George for that transition period. There's even a chance they'll add platform screen doors at that one station so there's little to no risk of pushing. Don't get me wrong, I want the DRL built to sheppard first, but considering the politics, it wouldn't be horrible if it was built but 2 years after YN. At least we'd get something.

 

[44 North]

The lines on the image I posted were hastily drawn. I've drawn it more carefully in Google Earth, and you can see the curves are actually very wide. Probably amongst the widest in the city in fact.

The downside of this alignment is that it would require the expropriation of around 80 homes and a few industrial properties. Fortunately, the properties on the east side of Midland appear to be publicly owned.

This would be a lot cheaper than tunnelling 2 km under Midland, and would allow for more subway stops. And even if it didn't end up being cheaper, at least we'd end up with a stop at Lawrence, with the potential for relatively inexpensive extension northeast to Sheppard/Malvern

Am a huge advocate of affordable subway-building, but with the exception of Line 3 ROW/Uxbridge sub I personally can't see any realistic way of using open-air subways to get from Kennedy to SC. Midland, Brimley, McCowan are all fairly sleepy and not the kind of wide, honking suburbany arterial that'd be good for elevated. And trying to zigzag a way around this doesn't seem too logical. Considering we just built TYSSE into Texas-like industrial Vaughan I think it's okay to keep things subgrade, all things considered. Danforth Rd/McCowan alignment is good, maybe using the old Canadian Northern ROW. The latter is more direct but no doubt demands TBMs and subsurface property ownership from many homes.

Best step forward I think is keeping current alignment but bringing the craziness down many notches. No need for this ridiculous 100ft deep stuff. The topography, hydrology, geography, geology seem no different than elsewhere in the city. Don't care what City reps might say. Would require two tiny valley crossings which seem no big deal.

Just cuz I wanted to add these on when I brought this up before, here's how West Don was crossed when we extended to York Mills. The river was put into a box flume, then tunneled under with part of the station box underneath too. Take note of the pickup and cement mixer for scale. Waay larger than tiny a branch of Highland Ck.

And here's Old Mill when fresh. Same thing exists today, but good for showing an even more affordable means of valley crossing (with a station).

Then Leslie bridge on Sheppard


https://www.canadianconsultingengineer.com/features/civil-sheppard-subway-don-river-bridge/