Eglinton-Crosstown Corridor Debate

[EnviroTO]

I would pick anything Metrolinx comes up with over Transit City. Metrolinx is figuring out how to move people across the GTA efficiently. Transit City seems like a scheme that puts visible transit infrastructure in every city ward for optics. Does the TTC care how people get from the Airport to Union quickly, Airport to Y&E, Square One to Y&E, Y&E to SCC? Doesn't seem like it. The TTC seems focused on the distance from voters front doors to transit stops, how many voters see visible construction, etc. Trip time is only on the radar with the TTC when their goal is to reduce vehicles on routes. In all the TTC plans I don't see much emphasis on speed at all. The Metrolinx plan is about building major nodes and connecting them quickly, nodes that are laid out in the Places to Grow plan for the whole GTA. Transit City can't even connect major nodes which are relatively close together. SCC doesn't connect to a single other node without transfers with Transit City.

 

[Dan416]

7.5B for subway versus 3.5B for LRT is not a 3 times difference, but it is still quite a bit.

Building the Eglinton subway in phases only makes sense if the funding for the whole thing is guaranteed from the onset. Otherwise, we will end up with one more stubway. How many transfers will it take to get, for example, from STC to Eglinton / Kipling, if the subway stretches from Jane to Don Mills only?

Now you're suddenly concerned about transfers? Gimme a break. The LRT folk don't care about the transfer at Scarborough Centre, or about the forced transfer to connect Sheppard subway with a Sheppard LRT, but if Eglinton were to get a subway, then ZOMG transfers out of the tunneled portion to get onto buses or LRT or whatever. Now all the sudden transfers MATTER!

Hahahaha

 

[scarberiankhatru]

7.5B for subway versus 3.5B for LRT is not a 3 times difference, but it is still quite a bit.

Building the Eglinton subway in phases only makes sense if the funding for the whole thing is guaranteed from the onset. Otherwise, we will end up with one more stubway. How many transfers will it take to get, for example, from STC to Eglinton / Kipling, if the subway stretches from Jane to Don Mills only?

Your concerns are a bit silly. The point is that a subway should not cost $7.5B because only morons would tunnel Eglinton through Etobicoke and east of Leslie, which would mean spending $3B on gold-plated mezzanines and escalators. Building it in phases many be the only thing that makes sense unless they work on all of it simultaneously...if 6km of it are ready, open it for service and move on to the next 6km. Complete EAs for the whole thing, put it on maps, tell people the city wants and intends to keep going and that this is just phase I. Besides, it's equally possible that an LRT might not be finished, leaving a streetcar stubway. If funding for a $5B subway line is risky, funding for a $3.5B LRT is equally risky.

Who cares how many transfers it would take...people making that trip in the absence of a full Eglinton line can take the Bloor/Danforth line like they currently do. Extend Danforth to STC and it would be 1 transfer. People will usually accept transferring a few times if they need to change directions or get from one awkward place to another...it's transferring to continue on in the same direction in huge bulk crowds that's a bigger problem.

 

[Dan416]

Poll results updated:
57.95% in favour of subway now. It looks like the idea of subway (rather than LRT) along Eglinton has gained traction since I first made this poll and it drifted off the front page (when those in favour of subway accounted for 53.52% of the votes)

 

[Panzerfaust]

Your concerns are a bit silly. The point is that a subway should not cost $7.5B because only morons would tunnel Eglinton through Etobicoke and east of Leslie, which would mean spending $3B on gold-plated mezzanines and escalators.

The emphasis is mine. We're talking about the same TTC that wants to tunnel under empty, government owned fields up in Vaughan for the Spadina extension. I'm not sure where I stand on this whole issue, but I'm enough of a realist to know that, regardless of the technology, the TTC will handle it in the most inefficient, expensive way possible.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The Spadina extension was made as expensive as possible in an attempt to run support for the subway out of town...it failed and now the subway is being run out of town - literally - and the inflated plans are being used because McGuinty just rubber stamped everything for MoveOntario. As soon as public servants get ideas into their heads, like "subways are expensive and must be 100% tunneled," it's difficult to change their minds. If Metrolinx and some councillors and provincial officials are the ones pushing the Eglinton subway, taking some of the effort out of the oppressively dogmatic TTC's hands, there wouldn't be the same incentive to inflate the costs to make subways look bad...there could be reason and common sense included and perhaps even incentive to not waste a few billion dollars.

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

Now you're suddenly concerned about transfers? Gimme a break. The LRT folk don't care about the transfer at Scarborough Centre, or about the forced transfer to connect Sheppard subway with a Sheppard LRT, but if Eglinton were to get a subway, then ZOMG transfers out of the tunneled portion to get onto buses or LRT or whatever. Now all the sudden transfers MATTER!

Hahahaha

A transfer always matters, more transfers means less convenience. The Crosstown operation is one of the main arguments for Eglinton line, be it LRT, subway, or any technology. What's the point of spending MORE on Eglinton line, AND losing the crosstown advantage as a result?

Besides, we all know that a longer line tends to attract more riders than a short line. If you want good return on the investment in Eglinton subway, make sure it is Crosstown. Otherwise, a Crosstown LRT will be more useful than a Stubway.

 

[Rainforest]

The point is that a subway should not cost $7.5B because only morons would tunnel Eglinton through Etobicoke and east of Leslie, which would mean spending $3B on gold-plated mezzanines and escalators. Building it in phases many be the only thing that makes sense unless they work on all of it simultaneously...if 6km of it are ready, open it for service and move on to the next 6km. Complete EAs for the whole thing, put it on maps, tell people the city wants and intends to keep going and that this is just phase I. Besides, it's equally possible that an LRT might not be finished, leaving a streetcar stubway. If funding for a $5B subway line is risky, funding for a $3.5B LRT is equally risky.

Let's not mix the deployment phases with the funding plan. If the funding for the whole Eglinton subway project is guaranteed from the onset, then yes, actually building such a long line in phases makes sense. As you said, build one portion for example Yonge to Jane and put it in service, then extend to Don Mills ... etc until it reaches Pearson in the west and Kennedy in the east.

A totally different situation arises if we only have funding say from Jane to Don Mills, no guarantee for other sections, but go ahead with building it anyway and hope to secure the missing funding in future. By the time that future arrives, priorities shift / province falls into deficit / other tasks pop up ... the line never gets finished.

The risk of the LRT line not being finished is virtually zero, barring an alien invasion or a similar global catastrophe. The first part in operation will likely be the tunnel portion that takes most of the funding ... adding surface sections later will be relatively cheap.

 

[kettal]

How can you possibly have guaranteed funding? If the reincarnation of Mike Harris gets elected premier, he can do what he wants even if that means pulling the plug on a half complete project.

 

[kettal]

The Spadina extension was made as expensive as possible in an attempt to run support for the subway out of town...it failed and now the subway is being run out of town - literally - and the inflated plans are being used because McGuinty just rubber stamped everything for MoveOntario. As soon as public servants get ideas into their heads, like "subways are expensive and must be 100% tunneled," it's difficult to change their minds. If Metrolinx and some councillors and provincial officials are the ones pushing the Eglinton subway, taking some of the effort out of the oppressively dogmatic TTC's hands, there wouldn't be the same incentive to inflate the costs to make subways look bad...there could be reason and common sense included and perhaps even incentive to not waste a few billion dollars.

That's an interesting take on it. The story I've heard is that consultants and politicians are so tight with the construction industry lobby, the main purpose of these projects is to get as much cash out of the public purse and into the contractors as possible.

 

[CDL.TO]

How can you possibly have guaranteed funding? If the reincarnation of Mike Harris gets elected premier, he can do what he wants even if that means pulling the plug on a half complete project.

I was unaware that the reincarnation of Harris was running for the office of Premier (and that he isn't capable of pulling plugs on potential half-complete LRT project).

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

How can you possibly have guaranteed funding? If the reincarnation of Mike Harris gets elected premier, he can do what he wants even if that means pulling the plug on a half complete project.

Well, technically it can never be guaranteed to the level of 2 + 3 == 5 ... even if it is built into a provincial law, a future parliament can repel any law passed by the present parliament.

Having said that, a commitment from the government, coupled with a funding plan it had signed to, would provide a reasonable business case to commence the subway construction. Just hoping that one day it will somehow get funded does not constitute a business case.

For LRT (on Eglinton, I'm not talking a general case), non-completion is an unlikely problem, as 70 or 80 % of the costs will apply to the first (tunneled) section. Even if one Premier cancels the work on remaining sections, next Premier can easily resume. The City even might be able to complete it using its own funds.

 

[kettal]

I was unaware that the reincarnation of Harris was running for the office of Premier (and that he isn't capable of pulling plugs on potential half-complete LRT project).

I was unaware that I claimed any of those things? I simply asked an unpretentious question, which is indeed relevant. As far as I know, anything can be canceled by change in government: LRT, highways, bike lanes, you name it.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Let's not mix the deployment phases with the funding plan. If the funding for the whole Eglinton subway project is guaranteed from the onset, then yes, actually building such a long line in phases makes sense. As you said, build one portion for example Yonge to Jane and put it in service, then extend to Don Mills ... etc until it reaches Pearson in the west and Kennedy in the east.

A totally different situation arises if we only have funding say from Jane to Don Mills, no guarantee for other sections, but go ahead with building it anyway and hope to secure the missing funding in future. By the time that future arrives, priorities shift / province falls into deficit / other tasks pop up ... the line never gets finished.

The risk of the LRT line not being finished is virtually zero, barring an alien invasion or a similar global catastrophe. The first part in operation will likely be the tunnel portion that takes most of the funding ... adding surface sections later will be relatively cheap.

You seem to come up with different theoretical constraints in every post. It reminds me of the RT replacement "studies" a few years back that claimed ICTS or LRT options costing roughly $0.5B would leave money left over for other projects but a subway extension costing roughly $1B would be unaffordable, as if there would only ever be exactly $0.8B made available to the city.

That's an interesting take on it. The story I've heard is that consultants and politicians are so tight with the construction industry lobby, the main purpose of these projects is to get as much cash out of the public purse and into the contractors as possible.

Oh, there's room for both to play a part Miller and friends are so anti-subway that they welcomed inflating the cost to ridiculous extremes to make subways seem prohibitively unaffordable, including $500 million of "contingency" that will end up in the pocket of Sorbara's friends and family or whoever gets all the construction and engineering contracts. Combine no incentive to save money on one end, and huge incentive to induce spending money on the other, and you have an accountability disaster.

 

[Dan416]

The risk of the LRT line not being finished is virtually zero, barring an alien invasion or a similar global catastrophe.

This is an unwarranted assumption. We don't even know the full cost of LRT yet, so how can you say the funding is virtually guaranteed, but for a subway it isn't? That makes virtually zero sense.