How long can a transit project be built after a thread is opened in UT?

[hw621]

Was looking at the Ion LRT in KW thread and just realized the thread was first opened in 2007. So after 11 years this thing is near completion. That prompted me to look at other similar threads in UT:

Projects Year Thread Opened Current Status Time to complete
Ion LRT, KW 21-Mar-07 Near Completion 11+ years
Hamilton LRT 10-Apr-08 Undecided NA
Ottawa LRT Don't have a thread???
Finch West LRT 12-Jul-08 Not started NA
Crosstown 25-Mar-08 Under construction, 13+ years
expected completion 2021
Hutontario LRT 28-Feb-06 Not started NA
Relief Line South 04-Mar-08 In design NA

Just to show you how long it takes to actually build something here.

 

[Neutrino]

Haha love the thread name you chose. "If a thread is started on UT, does it make a noise?"

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Thread start is not a meaningful measure of anything - particularly since we have moved forum software and hosts before, and previous versions were not necessarily able to capture the very start of the threads either. Plus UT itself (circa ~2000/2001) post-date many of these proposals.

AoD

 

[hw621]

^that means it actually took longer than shown above?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

^that means it actually took longer than shown above?

Relief line for example have been in serious discussion since the 70s and 80s. The comparator you should use isn't how long the UT thread had been around - but how many lives it have bypassed.

AoD

 

[crs1026]

Good thing that UT wasn't around when the Prince Edward Viaduct was built. That subway project took a while.

Arguably, some of the Relief Line planning goes back to the first subway proposals for the city.

Moral of the story: It isn't real until shovels hit the ground, and maybe not even then (eg pre-Harris Eglinton subway).

Discussion on UT is generally about as impactful as the two old guys at the opera on the Muppets. Personally, I would be more impressed if it could be shown that an idea *began* on UT, perhaps in a fantasy thread, and then found its way into being. Smarttrack comes close to that, are there other examples?

- Paul

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Smarttrack comes close to that, are there other examples?- Paul

Nope, Smarttrack is derived from the SSRA report, not UT.

AoD

 

[Edward Skira]

Good thing that UT wasn't around when the Prince Edward Viaduct was built. That subway project took a while.

Construction of the current Union Station started in 1914. Basically complete in 1920 but didn't open until 1927. Would have been fun to see how long that thread would have got.

 

[hw621]

^honestly it would not have been longer than some of the above-mentioned ones (threads been around ten years and still no words when construction will begin)

 

[WislaHD]

I am particularly fascinated with how quickly some projects have moved.

When I first joined this forum (after lurking for a few years), the Relief Line North was a complete pipe-dream. Then the Metrolinx YRNS report came out, and it was less pipe-dream and more of an obvious move.

Fast forward a few more years after that and the Relief Line North began to be legitimately studied, and we were forced to split the UT thread to focus RLN discussion there.

 

[mdrejhon]

Thread start is not a meaningful measure of anything - particularly since we have moved forum software and hosts before, and previous versions were not necessarily able to capture the very start of the threads either. Plus UT itself (circa ~2000/2001) post-date many of these proposals.

Hogwash, I beg to disagree in the same way as the "Big Mac Index" -- where the price of a Big Mac can be useful data of affordability of a country. There's not a 1:1 correlation but there's a really striking pattern.

The amount of time elapsed from thread start to construction, can be very useful index -- called the "UrbanToronto Index".

I think it should be monetized by UrbanToronto staff as a popular Googleable webpage.

 

[Neutrino]

Well, first you need to establish whether that correlation exists.

 

[mdrejhon]

Projects Year Thread Opened Current Status Time to complete
Hamilton LRT 10-Apr-08 Undecided NA
Finch West LRT 12-Jul-08 Not started NA

FOUL!
(at top of my lungs, as a Hamiltonian) (some in kidding jest, some in serious note)

Whatever label you use, make them the same labels, such as "Not started".
Hamilton LRT is still on schedule at the moment.

In fact, a Hamilton LRT booth was run just a few days ago at a community event, "business as usual" --

This remains so until decided otherwise. The city council has repeatedly voted in favour of it all year long on the important thing (At the critical votes, anyway). More than 45 critical votes in favour since 2007ish, leading up to our self-funded B-Line study that was submitted to Metrolinx in 2011 which led up directly to the surprise funding in full in 2015. And our mayoral election with LRT as main issue de-facto reaffirmed LRT again -- with a higher vote percentage (54%) than for the Red Hill freeway election (DiLanni, 2003) which had only 51%. So until high level (Metrolinx, Premier, Prime Minister, City Hall) says otherwise, the LRT is still on track.

I think, let's keep the "Not started" vs "Undecided" debate out of this "Big Mac Index" style thread....
I don't care "Ford", just fix the labels, and use generic label for construction not started.

 

[mdrejhon]

Well, first you need to establish whether that correlation exists.

Exactomundo!
To do so, this thread needed to be created first. Research.

It *might* not be meritworthy, but I think there may be. I've been paying attention to masterplanning (25 year masterplanning thread), and this thread is directly up this very alley -- how long it takes for a masterplanned route to become built.

And now UrbanToronto has been around for more than 10 years, it is now potentially studyable. (You could use social media too, but they often all line-up too -- Twitter, Facebook, and UrbanToronto usually simultaneously post stuff about a new transit line being announced. It's just more fun to just have our in-house Canadian/Toronto brand, much like using a corporate burger to represent an "index" -- same branding gist!!!). Even if it permanently remains a hobbyist thread of armchair research, I don't think it's useless to begin looking.

Understandably, I'm being partially flippant, but so was the Big Mac Index -- someone thought to try researching that, and later, and partial correlations were found that made the index noteworthy -- and it became very popular after that.

 

[WislaHD]

Exactomundo!
To do so, this thread needed to be created first. Research.

It *might* not be meritworthy, but I think there may be. I've been paying attention to masterplanning (25 year masterplanning thread), and this thread is directly up this very alley -- how long it takes for a masterplanned route to become built.

And now UrbanToronto has been around for more than 10 years, it is now potentially studyable. (You could use social media too, but they often all line-up too -- Twitter, Facebook, and UrbanToronto usually simultaneously post stuff about a new transit line being announced. It's just more fun to just have our in-house Canadian/Toronto brand, much like using a corporate burger to represent an "index" -- same branding gist!!!). Even if it permanently remains a hobbyist thread of armchair research, I don't think it's useless to begin looking.

Understandably, I'm being partially flippant, but so was the Big Mac Index -- someone thought to try researching that, and later, and partial correlations were found that made the index noteworthy -- and it became very popular after that.

I don't doubt that future historians will be studying UrbanToronto threads. Hello future researchers!

I just wish we had this sort of library of knowledge for the master plans of decades past. Then again, maybe it would be depressing to read about plans never implemented.