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Metrolinx: Sheppard East LRT (In Design)

it was always going to start in 2017 I think, after it was reinstated after Fords cuts. Completion has been at 2021 for a while.
 
The idea... Merging Line 4 with the extended Line 2.

I mean, maybe it doesn't make financial sense (yet) but it may make a whole hell lot of sense somewhat later this century.
So I have questions:

-- Are there any modern precedents elsewhere in the world where an LRT is established between two pre-existing subways, and then later (e.g. 20+ years later) eventually a tunnel is made to connect the two subways together instead into a single continuous subway line?
-- Could it be designed/planned in a way, to make it possible to keep LRT service running above in the event of future TBM tunneling of subway underneath? To prevent transit interruptions? Would it be useful for TTC to make sure that their station designs & planning, "keeps the door open" in a manner of speaking? Like avoiding interfering with certain underground right-of-ways; and inexpensively designing 'friendly' station foundations, especially at major stations/interchanges (e.g. spacing out the piles/foundation structures in a specific calculated way, to protect underground right-of-way, and permit eventual underground stations underneath? Avoiding putting cables and infrastructure underneath the rails, etc, relocating watermains in a specific way such as at the leftmost or rightmost edge of corridor (if they needed to dig & redo watermains and underground infrastructure anyway during LRT buildout), etc?
-- Cost of "keeping the door open" construction tweaks. Minor tweaks might cost a few hundred thousand dollars extra (budget rounding error at pennies per resident), but could theoretically save a billion later and avoid complete LRT shutdown "when the time comes" for a subway conversion?...
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
Construction on SELRT was supposed to begin in 2014. When did this change?
Click to expand...

innsertnamehere said:
it was always going to start in 2017 I think, after it was reinstated after Fords cuts. Completion has been at 2021 for a while.
Click to expand...

TheTigerMaster said:
The ML document embedded in this CBC post says it was supposed to begin in 2014 and completed in 2018: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...pected-to-be-running-by-2020-1.1199753#Report
Click to expand...

Glen Murray said it would start in 2017. He was not a big LRT fan either according to Lorinc at spacing.
 
Cobra said:
I really don't see the point of an LRT past McCowan Road. That stretch is nothing a bus can't handle. The money saved could be used elsewhere.

Won't the Line 2 subway reaching McCowan & Sheppard cause the projected ridership to drop drastically? Those east of McCowan road would no longer bother to continue to Don Mills, right?
Click to expand...

WislaHD said:
That and those east of say Birchmount would likely be choosing to go eastbound towards Line 2 as opposed to Don Mills.

I hate to say it, but if we are removing the LRT east of McCowen anyway... then the Sheppard subway extension to Sheppard/McCowen is only 4 stops (Victoria Park, Warden, Birchmount, Agincourt) and doesn't involve some expensive crossing of the 401 to STC.
Click to expand...

DonValleyRainbow said:
Might as well make the TBMs boring for Line 2 turn west at Sheppard, and bore to Don Mills station. Presto, a Line 4 extension to boot!

/s
Click to expand...

BurlOak said:
I was actually waiting for this to be proposed.

Line 2 (B-D) is extended to STC. The station needs to be at STC, not on McCowan, thus it needs to curve westward. It is not possible to curve westward to STC and then curve back again to McCowan, so why not continue the line to Agincourt GO. From there, it is only 5.5km back to Don Mills - not much more than the SELRT budget.

The logic is there - why won't any Scarborough Councillor or MPP use it?
Click to expand...

WislaHD said:
Because they are in the business of populist rhetoric and vote buying "Subways! Subways! Subways!", not in proposing actual solutions to Scarborough's problems.

But your solution is even better. After Agincourt we would only have to tunnel to just past Victoria Park, not a considerable distance.

So I haven't seen this topic come up on UT for years, what kind of problems would emerge with merging the Sheppard Subway with Line 2? Would the line being too long be a concern at this point?
Click to expand...

DonValleyRainbow said:
This is the largest damage done by changing the Scarborough LRT to a Line 2 extension: now everything, including this, is open to revision. Next thing you know, all the work done to carefully craft The Big Move becomes undone, and only a fraction of the projects will be built by 2031 (the original timeline).
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Of course DonValley. This is what inaction does. And of course this idea cost slightly less then a whole Sheppard East extension because one of the two major crossings (Agincourt GO) is taken out.

Rainforest said:
Thanks.

But, honestly, we won't save much on stations (stops). Surface stops don't cost much anyway.




The ridership will be low east of McCowan.

However, we do not want to create one more transfer along Sheppard East. If we switch from subway to LRT at Don Mills, we need to take the LRT to the east end.




Concern # 1 is the cost; much more expensive than Sheppard LRT.

# 2 is the length as you said.

# 3 is the fact that Sheppard runs 4-car trains at present. Merging the lines will necessitate finishing the existing Sheppard subway stations to handle 6-car trains.

# 4 is the absence of transit improvements east of McCowan (although, that could be handled by building a separate LRT or BRT line that starts at STC).




The fear of opening everything for revision does not warrant not revising anything at all.

Just don't change other parts of the plan.
Click to expand...

innsertnamehere said:
^indeed. Slippery slope arguments are generally fairly silly.
Click to expand...
You guys need to stop carrying water for the government. An LRT on a strech like sheppard takes only about 3 years to be built from scratch. It was approved already by council. No excuse, except for the fact it has been pushed back 2017.
mdrejhon said:
The idea... Merging Line 4 with the extended Line 2.

I mean, maybe it doesn't make financial sense (yet) but it may make a whole hell lot of sense somewhat later this century.
So I have questions:

-- Are there any modern precedents elsewhere in the world where an LRT is established between two pre-existing subways, and then later (e.g. 20+ years later) eventually a tunnel is made to connect the two subways together instead into a single continuous subway line?
-- Could it be designed/planned in a way, to make it possible to keep LRT service running above in the event of future TBM tunneling of subway underneath? To prevent transit interruptions? Would it be useful for TTC to make sure that their station designs & planning, "keeps the door open" in a manner of speaking? Like avoiding interfering with certain underground right-of-ways; and inexpensively designing 'friendly' station foundations, especially at major stations/interchanges (e.g. spacing out the piles/foundation structures in a specific calculated way, to protect underground right-of-way, and permit eventual underground stations underneath? Avoiding putting cables and infrastructure underneath the rails, etc, relocating watermains in a specific way such as at the leftmost or rightmost edge of corridor (if they needed to dig & redo watermains and underground infrastructure anyway during LRT buildout), etc?
-- Cost of "keeping the door open" construction tweaks. Minor tweaks might cost a few hundred thousand dollars extra (budget rounding error at pennies per resident), but could theoretically save a billion later and avoid complete LRT shutdown "when the time comes" for a subway conversion?...
Click to expand...

This is why the SRT should remain an SRT. The fact is SELRT will always be at the mercy of the suburbanites.
 
nfitz said:
Nothing been done? Metrolinx has been working for months on the RFQ and RFP packages, including soil testing and engineering. Do you want another multi-million payment from the city to Metrolinx? The RFQ has been scheduled to drop mid-2015 for a while.

See also http://www.metrolinx.com/en/docs/pd...oardMtg_Capital_Projects_Report_EN.pdf#page=2
Click to expand...

Boy, gotta say I didn't even think about it until this morning. Who wants to bet that sunk cost fees would be greater than $85 million for that?
 
nfitz said:
Nothing been done? Metrolinx has been working for months on the RFQ and RFP packages, including soil testing and engineering. Do you want another multi-million payment from the city to Metrolinx? The RFQ has been scheduled to drop mid-2015 for a while.

See also http://www.metrolinx.com/en/docs/pd...oardMtg_Capital_Projects_Report_EN.pdf#page=2
Click to expand...

But shouldn't these have been done already? Council voted to support the Sheppard LRT several years ago now, and Ford only managed to suspend work for about a year.
 
Electrify said:
But shouldn't these have been done already? Council voted to support the Sheppard LRT several years ago now, and Ford only managed to suspend work for about a year.
Click to expand...
Some was done. Either way, Metrolinx did reimburse the City/TTC for the original Sheppard East work - so presumably the city would have to refund that as part of the cancellation fee.

I'd also think there'd be cancelled vehicles as well. I'd be guessing we'd be in the $200 million range for Finch West and Sheppard East combined.

TheTigerMaster said:
Why would you think the sunk costs for SELRT would be greater than $85 Mil?
Click to expand...
Because the $85 million doesn't include vehicles or any construction. There's been the grade separation on Sheppard East built already, which wouldn't have had to have been so wide, if there wasn't suppose to be LRT down the middle. And there's the vehicles. Metrolinx decided they could use the Scarborough RT vehicles on other projects, and no penalty was necessary. But surely there's not an infinite demand for LRVs on other projects!
 
nfitz said:
Because the $85 million doesn't include vehicles or any construction. There's been the grade separation on Sheppard East built already, which wouldn't have had to have been so wide, if there wasn't suppose to be LRT down the middle. And there's the vehicles. Metrolinx decided they could use the Scarborough RT vehicles on other projects, and no penalty was necessary. But surely there's not an infinite demand for LRVs on other projects!
Click to expand...

Make sense.

And wow, this makes the cancellation of the SELRT even more difficult than I had anticipated. Not only will the councillors have to convince Council to vote against the project, but they'll likely need to convince them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to build nothing.
 
Some points:

Construction was supposed to start in 2014 but got delayed to 2017 after the Libs rejigged the dates. (Does Finch start this year or next?)

One could argue that the GO overpass would be necessary for SmartTrack or any increased GO service.

I've been told that a surveying team has been working very recently on Sheppard for LRT work so money is currently being "sunk".
 
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