Eglinton-Crosstown Corridor Debate

[GraphicMatt]

I read somewhere (Metronauts?) that Sheppard loses the TTC 10 million dollars every year. I think a lot of the trepidation we see when it comes to building new subways comes from that experience - we truly can't afford more gigantic hits to the operating budget like that.

What sucks is that the DRL would likely be profitable from Day 1 and it's barely been considered.

 

[cacruden]

Based on operations, or based on capital investment amortization?

How much is the system as a whole subsidized by?

When you build a line (and not a central line) that is only 5 stops - your sort of asking for it.

 

[LowerBay]

Bloor-Danforth lost money for years. It actually put the TTC in the red for the first time in its history in 1966.

Ridership was about 120k per day in its first year. Divide that by 2 to get the length of Sheppard, and you get about 60k per day. Sheppard is not that far off from this number.

Bloor ridership only increased when it was extended to Islington and Warden. Besides, the TTC admitted that shutting the Sheppard subway down would not save them any money, so the argument that it's an operational sink-hole doesn't wash.

The idea for a Spadina subway south of Bloor isn't new -- actually, it was to be under Grace St. ... down to Queen.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Based on operations, or based on capital investment amortization?

How much is the system as a whole subsidized by?

When you build a line (and not a central line) that is only 5 stops - your sort of asking for it.

I have no idea, re: the first two questions. I'm just recklessly repeating second-hand information! Info is from this thread:http://metronauts.ca/2009/03/06/pulse-of-the-community-discuss-with-examples/#more-1529

Fact: The Sheppard Subway currently loses 10 million dollars a year because it has poor ridership.
Fact: Based on the projected ridership figures, an extended Sheppard Subway would lose more money than it already does today, which means more money would become needed for operations expenses, which leaves less money every year for other more important transit services. Cost per rider (and the subsidy per rider) goes up as a result of extending the Sheppard Subway.

When you think about Transit City and our current transit projects, it becomes clear just how poorly-planned Sheppard was. An expensive vanity project by Lastman that we're still paying for.

 

[Voltz]

Ridership was about 120k per day in its first year. Divide that by 2 to get the length of Sheppard, and you get about 60k per day. Sheppard is not that far off from this number.

Bloor ridership only increased when it was extended to Islington and Warden. Besides, the TTC admitted that shutting the Sheppard subway down would not save them any money, so the argument that it's an operational sink-hole doesn't wash.

Ridership per KM is not the best measure of performance, most riders who get on at a terminal station would just get on sooner if the line gets extended, I would say that the increase in DB ridership came more from population growth than extensions.

The sheppard subway does not have the same ridership potential as the BD subway because it does not have the massive downtown employment district.

The TTC's plan to shut down the sheppard line that did not save any money was not a full shutdown plan, just sundays, nights and midday, (or somthing similar)

 

[GTS]

Coruscanti Cognoscente I agree with your post in which you state the Yonge line should only be extended to Steeles. Their is enough ridership on the TTC's buses alone that would warrant an extension to Steeles, then the Brampton and York region buses could use this new Steeles station instead of clogging up the densifying Finch station along Yonge. I think the reason that they are saying extending the Yonge line up to Richmond Hill Ciy Center near highway 7 is because the Feds are more likely to fund transit projects that extend past regional boundaries. The funding is in place for the YUS lines extension past the needed stop at York U and into Vaughn which isn't so densely populated. I think York U got it's needed subway because the plans included the Vaughn extension. Montreal just finished, with provincial and federal funding the extension of 3 stations of the Orange line into Laval which is a different region. Vancouver has the federal and provincial funding for the Canada Line that extends, finally, rapid transit to Richmond and the airport. Vancouver it is not divided by region, but by Zones, and this Canada Line crosses zones. I think they are the TTC is hedging its bets by including the RHC in its Yonge line extension plan; they are more likely to get the funding from the province and the feds if it does cross one of these boundaries. How can we appease the most voters?

 

[officedweller]

Comments:

If ICTS is still on the table, it must be all be exclusive ROW (whether below, at or above grade) because of the automation. LRT can also be automated if it is exclusive ROW (elevated section look uglier due to the overhead caternary wires).

For full fledged subway, the wye at Eglinton West sounds great - too bad it was dumped. A wye at Eglinton (on the Yonge line) would not work, because it would reduce capacity on the Yonge Line north of Eglinton by diverting trains away. The lower volumes on the Spadina Line can accommodate diverting trains away.

WRT snowy conditions - don't TTC subway track switches freeze up in winter - why haven't they fixed that in 50 years?

WRT Federal funding, the Canada Line connects two areas of Federal jurisdiction - the Port of Vancouver and YVR - the Feds kicked in $450M, and YVR kicked in $300M. Is Pearson Airport helping to pay for the Eglinton-Crosstown Line or Blue 22?
The Evergreen Line, for which the Feds just announced $350M in funding last month (on top of an already announced $66.7M), doesn't connect to any Federal or Provincial nodes, but is an integral part of the regional transportation plan that has been repreatedly delayed.

 

[nfitz]

WRT snowy conditions - don't TTC subway track switches freeze up in winter - why haven't they fixed that in 50 years?

I didn't notice much in the way of winter-related service suspensions on the Yonge line through Davisville/Rosemount this last winter. Yet every time it snowed the SRT was closed.

 

[kEiThZ]

What sucks is that the DRL would likely be profitable from Day 1 and it's barely been considered.

I doubt it. The DRL would have high ridership, but it would not increase total system ridership as much as the Transit City lines will. The DRL will merely shift riders from the east who want to avoid Yonge-Bloor to a different interchange. It's really an addition of capacity to address a specific constraint: the limits of Yonge-Bloor. It's quite likely that if upgrading Yonge-Bloor wasn't a half billion dollar engineering nightmare, the DRL would be even more of a fantasy than it is today.

The reason the TTC's transit strategy falls apart entirely is due to projects like the Sheppard Subway, the Spadina-York extension, and now the Yonge extension. None of those projects needed to be subway. The extension to York U maybe, and Yonge maybe up to Steeles. But by and large the subways that the TTC wants are actually not where they are needed, so when we see LRT proposed for routes that should be subway, it gets very frustrating.

That said, we've already got Sheppard now, and ridership is up. The only way to ensure that it's not a continual drain on the system is to make it a true Crosstown route and to extend it west to Downsview and east to STC.

A lot of people are still sore that Sheppard got built instead of Eglinton. I really wish we had gotten both as they were both originally envisioned. Then we would just need to make extensions to both, and could build an all-new DRL and then we'd be good for a while.

Once again CC, spot on. The problem with Transit City is not the fact that it uses LRT but where it uses it. At-grade LRT is really a capacity increase over a bus, not an increase in speed. So it's inadequate for Sheppard East when what Scarborough residents want is speed. Likewise, for the current SRT corridor where we need both increased capacity and speed (in part by reducing transfers and stops).

For Eglinton though, it should be noted that the tunneled portion of the line is for all intents and purposes a subway. It covers a significant portion of the old Eglinton west subway and it extends that to the east. There are challenges to be addressed for sure. However, we should understand what's being built on Eglinton. Just because its not HRT does not mean its not a subway. The LRVs will be longer than our subway cars. They will be the same width as Montreal's subway cars. The vehicles will be in a tunnel and with stop spacing (850m) approaching that of the Bloor-Danforth line. The LRVs will also be nearly as fast as our subway cars. How is that not a 'subway'? People should be reasonable in their critiques.

Criticisms should be directed where pertinent. Here's mine: The concern I have is over how the TTC will manage this line. What we have here are essentially three lines on one corridor. There is the tunelled portion which is a subway....heck, the vehicles are good enough to be Montreal subway cars. The east and western ends of the 'subway' have local LRT with stop spacing that is nearly half of what it is in the tunnel. I am worried over how the TTC will manage the line to avoid bunching, problems with blockages, etc. Problems on the local lines will impact the 'subway'. That's the problem.

 

[Dan416]

Criticisms should be directed where pertinent. Here's mine: The concern I have is over how the TTC will manage this line. What we have here are essentially three lines on one corridor. There is the tunelled portion which is a subway....heck, the vehicles are good enough to be Montreal subway cars. The east and western ends of the 'subway' have local LRT with stop spacing that is nearly half of what it is in the tunnel. I am worried over how the TTC will manage the line to avoid bunching, problems with blockages, etc. Problems on the local lines will impact the 'subway'. That's the problem.

This is exactly what I'm afraid of keithz. From the experience we have with the Queen and King streetcars and bunching, how can we trust the TTC with an LRT line stretching from the airport to Scarborough?

I feel that the burden of proof is on the TTC to show that they can make it work, before we sink billions of dollars into an LRT that might be a disaster from opening day, when it would have made more sense to just do the tunneled portion as subway, and leave the fringes as express buses or something.

 

[Second_in_pie]

I doubt it. The DRL would have high ridership, but it would not increase total system ridership as much as the Transit City lines will. The DRL will merely shift riders from the east who want to avoid Yonge-Bloor to a different interchange. It's really an addition of capacity to address a specific constraint: the limits of Yonge-Bloor. It's quite likely that if upgrading Yonge-Bloor wasn't a half billion dollar engineering nightmare, the DRL would be even more of a fantasy than it is today.



Once again CC, spot on. The problem with Transit City is not the fact that it uses LRT but where it uses it. At-grade LRT is really a capacity increase over a bus, not an increase in speed. So it's inadequate for Sheppard East when what Scarborough residents want is speed. Likewise, for the current SRT corridor where we need both increased capacity and speed (in part by reducing transfers and stops).

For Eglinton though, it should be noted that the tunneled portion of the line is for all intents and purposes a subway. It covers a significant portion of the old Eglinton west subway and it extends that to the east. There are challenges to be addressed for sure. However, we should understand what's being built on Eglinton. Just because its not HRT does not mean its not a subway. The LRVs will be longer than our subway cars. They will be the same width as Montreal's subway cars. The vehicles will be in a tunnel and with stop spacing (850m) approaching that of the Bloor-Danforth line. The LRVs will also be nearly as fast as our subway cars. How is that not a 'subway'? People should be reasonable in their critiques.

Criticisms should be directed where pertinent. Here's mine: The concern I have is over how the TTC will manage this line. What we have here are essentially three lines on one corridor. There is the tunelled portion which is a subway....heck, the vehicles are good enough to be Montreal subway cars. The east and western ends of the 'subway' have local LRT with stop spacing that is nearly half of what it is in the tunnel. I am worried over how the TTC will manage the line to avoid bunching, problems with blockages, etc. Problems on the local lines will impact the 'subway'. That's the problem.

The only problem is that an Eglinton Subway would easily alleviate over, half of the B/D line at rush hour at least. If the middle of Eglinton is a subway, but the outer parts are LRT, fat chance that people are going to use it to get Downtown if they don't live on Eglinton.

With that comment on making the middle a subway and the rest express bus or something or something, why don't we just build the Kennedy-Yonge portion subway first and after that works, finish it with subway. If it doesn't work (as if) then we could do the rest as a LRT as for the original plan.

We could do it so the part 1 subway is finished by 2014-2015 ish, and the rest of the route is finished around 2020, weather it's LRT or not.

 

[doady]

Ridership per KM is not the best measure of performance, most riders who get on at a terminal station would just get on sooner if the line gets extended, I would say that the increase in DB ridership came more from population growth than extensions.

The sheppard subway does not have the same ridership potential as the BD subway because it does not have the massive downtown employment district.

The TTC's plan to shut down the sheppard line that did not save any money was not a full shutdown plan, just sundays, nights and midday, (or somthing similar)

If shutting down during the least busy times would not save money, they why would full shutdown save money?

 

[kEiThZ]

The only problem is that an Eglinton Subway would easily alleviate over, half of the B/D line at rush hour at least. If the middle of Eglinton is a subway, but the outer parts are LRT, fat chance that people are going to use it to get Downtown if they don't live on Eglinton.

With that comment on making the middle a subway and the rest express bus or something or something, why don't we just build the Kennedy-Yonge portion subway first and after that works, finish it with subway. If it doesn't work (as if) then we could do the rest as a LRT as for the original plan.

We could do it so the part 1 subway is finished by 2014-2015 ish, and the rest of the route is finished around 2020, weather it's LRT or not.

It's Eglinton West that's the priority here. Kennedy-Yonge is a relatively recent development. The TTC is pursuing it because it sees an opportunity to graft a crosstown route along an old subway corridor. And it's not going to be as slow as some people think. It's 30 km. At the projected speed, it's going to be an hour and change to ride from Kennedy to the airport. That's not all that different from riding the BD and taking the bus from Kipling. Likewise for it being a link between Kennedy and the Yonge line. Anybody who has to travel north of Davisville will probably use Eglinton. As will anybody whose bus route intercepts Eglinton. That would not change even if Eglinton was HRT.

 

[LowerBay]

You would need some fancy dancy signal priority to make it from Kennedy to Pearson in 60 minutes on an Eglinton LRT. A subway with that stop spacing would just barely make it in maybe 50-55 mins. In other words, every traffic light would have to be green.

 

[kEiThZ]

You would need some fancy dancy signal priority to make it from Kennedy to Pearson in 60 minutes on an Eglinton LRT. A subway with that stop spacing would just barely make it in maybe 50-55 mins. In other words, every traffic light would have to be green.

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/data/200808090430.shtml

According to that for 30 km:

Bloor-Danforth: 56 mins
Eglinton LRT: 82 mins

Difference: 26 mins

However, keep in mind that the LRT removes the need to transfer to the bus at Kipling and provides a direct ride to the airport. It's questionable if the alternative (bus + Eglinton West subway) would have been faster. If we need to make the route faster...we can just add more tunneling. Increasing the tunneled portion will increase speed.