Interesting interview with Phil Verster
The very interesting bits are
9:20 - Verster indicates that changes to the design at East Harbour will mean a flyunder at Scarboro Jct isn't needed. Intuitively that implies that Stouffville trains will end up on the north tracks from Don up to Scarboro Jct. I wonder what options that creates/eliminates for VIA HFR, and how express LSE will integrate with stopping trains on that route.
12:05 - Verster's view of what RER ridership may evolve to post COVID
14:30 - Comments about the Missing Link bypass not being needed "by being more commercially astute"
Kudo's to Reece for upping his journalistic game - this is a more substantive interview than many, even those produced by the mainstream Toronto paper and broadcast media.
Verster is himself, and I stick my tongue in my cheek about some of his statements (such as taking credit for moving away from the procurement model of three years ago.....the one that he and his gang pursued in the first place....sigh) but it's a more informative discussion than many we've seen.
- Paul
There's a few things to look at with this. One of my biggest issues with the Ontario Line when they first showed it off was East Harbour. While I liked having a cross platform connection to GO, it made one of the biggest parts of GO Expansion which is exclusive tracks for each line kind of dropped on its head. The new version of East Harbour does fix this problem, but I wonder if it introduces new problems as well. Yes Metrolinx can now save a lot of money by not building a flyover, but this also means that you no longer have an advantage of having a common platform for the lines running in the same direction. Now if you're accessing East Harbour station, or even Danforth or Scarborough, and you want to catch a train to union, you now have to look ahead of time on which line the next Union Station train will come, rather than have an island platform where the trains arrive on both sides as was suggested in the old Liberal plan. It makes me wonder if the flyover actually makes financial sense if it makes the shared corridor more accessible and more easily navigable.
The other question I have is Verster's comment on the Missing Link and being "commercially astute" because its a big statement that ends up not really saying a lot. That statement implies that alternatives to the Milton Line are being built that are more effective than a theoretical Milton RER, which is A) a massive claim, and B) makes me wonder what these alternatives are. My first guess would be the Eglinton West subway, with the idea being that instead of building the missing link and electrifying the corridor, an alternative is to build the transitway (already done), and then fully grade separate the Eglinton West extension so that you end up with a fully grade separated commute from Square One to downtown, and then worst case scenerio, you also have the Hurontario LRT which would take you to Port Credit, then take the GO train. Now to some extent I actually think this makes a lot of sense. Yes, Eglinton West is foolishly tunneled and would've been cheaper elevated at very minimal service cost, but even then, the project is still cheaper than the Missing Link. The issue really comes up when you consider that if you exclude getting to this line, Going from Square One -> Renforth -> Dundas West -> Union, that's 3 modes and 2 transfers you have to use compared to the Milton Line, however I guess its important to realize that Milton goes to Cooksville so either way you have to take the Hurontario LRT to reach it unless you want to build a Milton RER Subway to Square One which would increase the costs even more dramatically. Unfortunately I do not live in Mississauga so I am in no real position to quantify whether this alternative that Verster is referring to makes sense or not, but at least from a surface level I can see where he is coming from.
On a positive note, I cannot agree with Verster on the whole "building transit as a network" any more. Something a lot of people on this forum miss about projects like Eglinton West, Ontario Line, and Yonge North is that their purpose is to make a cohesive and unifying network. The reason why the grade separation of Eglinton West is so important is because it allows us to have a fully grade separated corridor from Square One to Midtown Toronto, to massive up and coming development nodes, and having fast and reliable transit connections between these nodes is an absolute necessity, and it would be silly to hamper that with an at grade section where the trains are restricted to the whim of cars and traffic lights. Yonge North will extend to Richmond Hill Centre, a transit hub that will connect to 3 BRT routes, a transitway, a GO Line, as well as a major east-west highway. While if you're looking at this from the surface as a "subway extension to suburbs" the extension might seem questionable, when looking at it from a cohesive network perspective, Yonge North is actually extremely important especially if we're looking at the really long term, like 40-50 years where the fruits of our labour today will pay off in the future. Its just unfortunate that there are areas where some of these principles seem to be falling through cracks such as Science Center Station.
This I guess leaves us with the ultimate question about Metrolinx, what is the proper balance between saving money while building an ideal network. What is the bright line standard where you have to stop looking for corners to cut and say that "paying for this is vital to what we're doing and what we're building". A running theme with Metrolinx is unfortunately how standards don't seem to be applied universally. The Ontario Line was changed from the DRL in order to facilitate transfers from GO to the Subway, and on that regard the Ontario Line is absolutely fantastic, but at the same time the Science Center Interchange leaves a lot to be desired. Why are some lines like Yonge North being modified to be more cost effective meanwhile Eglinton West is going full swing with no cost cutting measures in sight that wouldn't impact service or the network its trying to build (well the answer to that is obvious, but let's ignore that at least for now)?
Overall though I do think most of these issues are minor nitpicks, and at the very least I can say that Metrolinx at the very least has their head in the right place at the moment, and while there are a few design hiccups, overall the current transit plans in the region are much stronger than they were years ago.
