Officially Unofficial Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan Thread

[nfitz]

Do you even know anything about the DRL? Most of it is in above-ground in existing right-of-ways!

The majority of the distance even south of the Danforth is underground. I thought this was discussed in another thread recently, where I had provided the exact distances.

 

[DENTROBATE54]

The majority of the distance even south of the Danforth is underground. I thought this was discussed in another thread recently, where I had provided the exact distances.

Nothing can be said for how exactly a d'Earl line would route through the core yet as no serious proposals have come up pretaining to it since the 1980s. If done completely underground I'd imagine it would be technically impossible to route within the rail corridor without seriously infringing on every rail service in the city.

If done above ground where the rail corridors narrow, land expropiation would be key to maintain existing rail service and accomodate new subway traffic. As such stations would resemble Davisville and be completely susceptible to the elements. What gripes me most about this line though is how it circumnaviagtes the periphery without alotting closer access to serveral inter-city haunts (which aren't on YUS's radar either) ripe for redevelopment.

 

[unimaginative2]

The majority of the distance even south of the Danforth is underground. I thought this was discussed in another thread recently, where I had provided the exact distances.

I've provided exact distances more times than I can count. The large majority of the full 'U' route is above-ground, especially if the rail corridor route is selected on the west. I don't remember you trying to provide distances. Are you sure you got it right, since you've not been clear on the recommended route in the past?

Dentrobate, the section in the rail corridor from Bay to the Don, which is the segment recommended in the original study, has way more than enough room for the line. No expropriation is needed, no existing tracks would be removed, and they wouldn't even have to add more fill.

Yup, you're right about some of the stations: they'd be above ground. For the billions of dollars saved, though, there's absolutely no reason why the TTC couldn't use platform-edge doors and heat them.

 

[nfitz]

I've provided exact distances more times than I can count. The large majority of the full 'U' route is above-ground, especially if the rail corridor route is selected on the west. I don't remember you trying to provide distances. Are you sure you got it right, since you've not been clear on the recommended route in the past?

Not clear? I don't recall ever discussing the route - that was defined in Network 2011. It called for the downtown relief line to be build from Spadina and Front, to Pape Station. There's a good description at the Transit Toronto website. The only above-ground section was from Eastern Avenue to Church Street along the Kingston Subdivision. You and I discussed this previously; I provided distances in a previous post, where I estimated 6 km of tunnel, and 2 km of surface - which you failed to refute. $2 billion might get you this - though I really doubt that the 2 km of alignment along the Kingston sub is actually available any more, what with the GO expansion, and the new yards at Cherry. But that's $2 billion for only 8 km of transit.

Not sure why I'm being flagged here as anti-subway. I posted in the previous post that if this was funded that would be great. However, I feel that blowing the chance at building many km of LRT with only a few limited subway projects - mostly for North York and north Scarborough, as a waste of resources.

People act like Transit City is essentially that Toronto gets nothing but streetcars, streetcars, and nothing else. Well that plan IS streetcars - but in the meantime, were in the middle of the biggest expansion of bus services in decades. We're in the middle of 2 major subway expansions - and the capacity increase on the existing lines. There's an SRT expansion being planned. And the City is yet to announce how they plan to deal with the Don Mills line south of Danforth - which could still lead to a major transit line. And we have the Ontario-funded Super Go line along some of the DRL alignment. Not to mention all the other GO expansion within Toronto. I think when all is said and done, Transit City is less than half the money currently planned. Why the un-ending negativity by a few of the folks here ... who I think are in the minority. Perhaps we should have a poll along the lines of "Do you in general support the Transit City concept, or should this money be spent on a much smaller length of subways instead".

 

[unimaginative2]

Not clear? I don't recall ever discussing the route - that was defined in Network 2011. It called for the downtown relief line to be build from Spadina and Front, to Pape Station. There's a good description at the Transit Toronto website.

Why thank you. I'm glad you're using that as your source, because I know it's accurate! There's a bit of a problem with one of the maps, though.

The only above-ground section was from Eastern Avenue to Church Street along the Kingston Subdivision. You and I discussed this previously; I provided distances in a previous post, where I estimated 6 km of tunnel, and 2 km of surface - which you failed to refute. $2 billion might get you this - though I really doubt that the 2 km of alignment along the Kingston sub is actually available any more, what with the GO expansion, and the new yards at Cherry. But that's $2 billion for only 8 km of transit.

The full 'U' is majority above ground. That's pretty clear. Your distances are more-or-less correct, though it is actually above-ground for some distance west of Church Street. As for the availability of the right-of-way, you're most certainly incorrect. There are no plans to add additional tracks east of Union Station, and there's no need to: there are already as many as could conceivably be used as the bottleneck is in the number of tracks at the station itself, and it has no possibility of expansion. The "new" yard at Cherry is simply a reconstruction of the Don Yard which was there for decades. They occupy the same footprint.

You're obviously one of these people who view the mileage of "transit" as the only thing that matters. You use the word "transit" judiciously, because it glosses over the massive difference between a subway and light rail. That's like saying that you can build hundreds of miles of country road for the cost of dozens of miles of expressway. Yes, that's true, but they're completely different and not even remotely comparable. scarberiankhatru often points out that you could run express buses to the moon and back for the cost of Transit City, but they're clearly not comparable either. 8 km of subway, especially on that alignment, is an extremely good use of $2 billion, and I would argue far more useful than a streetcar on Kingston Road and Morningside, for example, or an extension of the RT to Markham and Sheppard, when Kingston Road can barely support a full-service bus route for some of its length, and the RT Extension was planned to serve a major development that fell through two decades ago.

Not sure why I'm being flagged here as anti-subway. I posted in the previous post that if this was funded that would be great. However, I feel that blowing the chance at building many km of LRT with only a few limited subway projects - mostly for North York and north Scarborough, as a waste of resources.

Yeah, I know, I've heard the streetcar fan's favourite argument before. How do you know what would be funded? Are you the minister of finance? The evidence is that every single transit route proposed in the GTA was funded by MoveOntario 2020. York Region got every subway it ever mumbled about, because it asked for subways. Toronto got streetcars because it demanded streetcars. Durham got busways because, you guessed it, they asked for buses.

It's even more glaring when some people from the provincial government have talked about examining some Transit City routes to determine whether they would be better as subway, and the Giambrone actually pops up and fights them. Come on, man! Pull your head out of the sand. Transit City's about the ideology of spreading the streetcar to every ward. It has nothing to do with funding. These funding problems exist only in the self-justifying minds of streetcar fans.

People act like Transit City is essentially that Toronto gets nothing but streetcars, streetcars, and nothing else. Well that plan IS streetcars - but in the meantime, were in the middle of the biggest expansion of bus services in decades. We're in the middle of 2 major subway expansions - and the capacity increase on the existing lines. There's an SRT expansion being planned. And the City is yet to announce how they plan to deal with the Don Mills line south of Danforth - which could still lead to a major transit line. And we have the Ontario-funded Super Go line along some of the DRL alignment. Not to mention all the other GO expansion within Toronto. I think when all is said and done, Transit City is less than half the money currently planned. Why the un-ending negativity by a few of the folks here ... who I think are in the minority. Perhaps we should have a poll along the lines of "Do you in general support the Transit City concept, or should this money be spent on a much smaller length of subways instead".

Well, like you said, Transit City, the City of Toronto's transit vision document, is all streetcars. I wouldn't really compare local bus expansion with rapid transit projects. The SRT expansion is patently worthless and a complete waste of funds being built simply to justify the system's retention and to, of course, supposedly serve a "priority neighbourhood" without actually going anywhere near it. The two subway lines proves the point perfectly! Where are they going? York Region! The only municipality in the area that has asked for subways. The City of Toronto has been fighting, kicking, and screaming over the York subway. Super GO is fabulous, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the TTC or the City of Toronto. It's purely a provincial project.

I've been working on a paper on the DRL, and I've spent a lot of time going through all of the newspaper articles of the time, something I didn't do as much of when I wrote that article years ago. It's fascinating to read the endless internecine bickering between Metro politicians who were all fighting for transit to their own municipalities. The reason the DRL didn't get built was that it was an orphan with no municipal support. Perhaps the more accurate metaphor would be an abused child: its home municipality fought against it. There was a group of City of Toronto councillors which fought the DRL at every turn. It was led by Jack Layton, who appeared in almost every article attacking the line because it would bring development to the downtown core, which would cause more congestion. He called it a "developer's line," and believed that all office development should be exported to the suburban municipalities. This was a commonly held belief at the time, and it led to the City of Toronto's official plan actually saying they opposed any new rapid transit lines in the City.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

nfitz is the 341 Pizza of transit...quantity over quality.

edit - Transfer City is also the 341 Pizza of transit.

 

[nfitz]

I've been fighting for a balance. We need the expansion of bus service that is planned for 2008 and 2009. We need the LRTs. We also need expanded subways and a downtown line. And perhaps when all that is built around 2025, they can start work on a Sheppard subway extension, which might be completed sometime around 2035 - at the point the track will have to be rebuilt anyway, make only about 6 km of the Sheppard LRT redundant. We need GO Expansion, and a regional RER-like service. And frankly, I don't see what the problem with SRT technology is - the thing moves faster than a subway, and is cheaper to operate and construct.

 

[unimaginative2]

How have you been fighting for a balance and fighting for a downtown line? Unless I've really misunderstood you, you've repeated the mantra that subways are a waste of money because you get less mileage for the dollar, and the DRL is too expensive in particular.

I also fight for a balance, but I guess everyone thinks that's what they're doing. The bus improvements go without saying, but the capital cost of off-peak bus improvements is pretty minimal. I think we need build the York and Vaughan subways and finish Sheppard. We should build a subway to Town Centre and scrap the RT and its useless extension. We should build a Downtown Relief Line subway, first the downtown 'U' and then extending north on Don Mills (the cost of an elevated line would be only marginally more than the streetcar, as we've seen in the Evergreen line study). We should build the Eglinton, Jane, and Finch West LRTs, as well as improve the waterfront light rail west of its connection with the DRL. We should scrap or indefinitely defer the Sheppard East and Kingston Road/Morningside light rail. I've been pushing for S-Bahn/RER-style service on the GO network for years. That's absolutely vital, and I'm so glad they're moving on it.

I'd also love to see the TTC build subway lines much less expensively than they presently do. There's no reason to tunnel the Vaughan subway under government-owned vacant land. They examined an elevated option in the study and dismissed it for completely frivolous reasons, without even looking at how much money it could save! The TTC builds Taj Mahal stations with gargantuan mezzanines these days, even at stations that will never see heavy traffic (Bessarion). There's no reason why stations like that could have a simple surface building with a small bus terminal where appropriate (like Wellesley Station) with escalators and an elevator straight down to platform level. The TTC should look more seriously at Madrid's approach to subway construction, and if that means single-bore tunnels and much faster EAs, they should go for it. The TTC went for a class EA for streetcar expansion projects, but didn't include subway projects, for reasons that are all too obvious. With all of these savings, they could lop hundreds of millions -- even billions -- off the cost of a new subway network.

That's my balanced plan. What's yours?



p.s. The DRL west of Front and Spadina would be ridiculously inexpensive to build. From Spadina west, it could either be wedged between the road and the rail yard, possibly taking a yard track or two that could be replaced elsewhere, or cantilevered over it. West of Bathurst, it just runs in the city already-owned Front Street Extension corridor -- a much better use of that land than a highway! From Dufferin, CDL has talked me into the idea of turning north. It would have a 1km tunnel to Queen, and from there it would use the roomy rail corridor to Dundas West station. I used to be a partisan of the Roncesvalles route. From the Ex, it would take the Waterfront West streetcar's route to Roncesvalles, and then a short 2 km tunnel north to Bloor.

 

[CDL.TO]

From Dufferin, CDL has talked me into the idea of turning north. It would have a 1km tunnel to Queen, and from there it would use the roomy rail corridor to Dundas West station. I used to be a partisan of the Roncesvalles route. From the Ex, it would take the Waterfront West streetcar's route to Roncesvalles, and then a short 2 km tunnel north to Bloor.

Glad to see that I've swayed at least two people's minds.

If the DRL via Weston Sub was built, it could connect beautifully with the Waterfront West LRT at Exhibition, which will likely have stations at Dufferin, Lansdowne, and Roncy, serving both markets.

I question how successful the currently planned WWLRT will be counting that the plan still calls for a meandering route via Queensway, Gardiner, Exhibition, Fleet, Fort York, Bremner, and into Union somehow. Negotiating several turns and traffic lights, it will be only a marginal improvement over the current Queen car. With the DRL and the WWLRT, you could count on reliably speedy transit all the way from downtown to Park Lawn.

 

[DENTROBATE54]

Wow Uni, it must have took you forever to get all that posted!

Glad to see that I've swayed at least two people's minds.

As if Roncevalles or worse Parkside has anything of worth to justify those meandering alignments over the rail corridor. In this case I guess I'll make the third person in agreeance .

If the DRL via Weston Sub was built, it could connect beautifully with the Waterfront West LRT at Exhibition, which will likely have stations at Dufferin, Lansdowne, and Roncy, serving both markets. I question how successful the currently planned WWLRT will be counting that the plan still calls for a meandering route via Queensway, Gardiner, Exhibition, Fleet, Fort York, Bremner, and into Union somehow. Negotiating several turns and traffic lights, it will be only a marginal improvement over the current Queen car. With the DRL and the WWLRT, you could count on reliably speedy transit all the way from downtown to Park Lawn.

DRL=WWLRT, major difference between one proposal wants to close itself off to further western/eastern expansion when the midriff of Toronto already has a decent proximity to YUS/BD, in the grand scheme of things. It almost makes me long for a Queen subway (almost).

 

[nfitz]

I question how successful the currently planned WWLRT will be counting that the plan still calls for a meandering route via Queensway, Gardiner, Exhibition, Fleet, Fort York, Bremner, and into Union somehow.

I have to agree with you there. The obvious alignment is to connect to the Front Street extension alignment just east of Dufferin, and bring it right to Bay and Front on a reserved ROW ... not quite sure what you'd do with it then, perhaps just loop it around Wellington.

How have you been fighting for a balance and fighting for a downtown line? Unless I've really misunderstood you, you've repeated the mantra that subways are a waste of money because you get less mileage for the dollar, and the DRL is too expensive in particular.

I've been arguing that using subways for the transit city lines is too expensive, and not necessary. And I've argued that people are low-balling the DRL costs. But I think the full answer is building the Transit City lines (and making sure major underground segments can be converted to subway in the future), extending the Spadina and Yonge subways, building a DRL from the Don Mills line terminus (though we could argue the details of the route - I'm not convinced running on Front is the best idea), extending the SRT north AND south to Kingston Road. And I could be convinced that the Sheppard West subway should be constructed (though perhaps a reserved BRT lane for the Sheppard West rocket would suffice - that thing does move) along with extending east at least to Victoria Park before going LRT (and why not connect the Finch West LRT along Finch east to Don Mills and/or Victoria Park).

However, what you've heard me doing the most is shooting down people trying to cancel the Transit City lines, to replace them with a few km of subway.

One thing is clear though; the LRT has to work a lot better than the existing Spadina and Harbourfront lines -which often seem slower than a regular streetcar line. This is one place where the SRT succeeded - running faster than any of the other subways.

 

[unimaginative2]

Glad to see that I've swayed at least two people's minds.

If the DRL via Weston Sub was built, it could connect beautifully with the Waterfront West LRT at Exhibition, which will likely have stations at Dufferin, Lansdowne, and Roncy, serving both markets.

I question how successful the currently planned WWLRT will be counting that the plan still calls for a meandering route via Queensway, Gardiner, Exhibition, Fleet, Fort York, Bremner, and into Union somehow. Negotiating several turns and traffic lights, it will be only a marginal improvement over the current Queen car. With the DRL and the WWLRT, you could count on reliably speedy transit all the way from downtown to Park Lawn.

Exactly. That's what I figure. The DRL and WWLRT complement each other beautifully. Exhibition could be a fantastic transit hub, with subway, LRT, and GO trains. A trip from downtown to Park Lawn could potentially take less than 20 minutes, which is very competitive with the car and would completely eliminate people riding up to the Bloor subway and back down again to get downtown from south Etobicoke.

Wow Uni, it must have took you forever to get all that posted!

Haha. I type really fast! I can be a blessing...also a curse.

As if Roncevalles or worse Parkside has anything of worth to justify those meandering alignments over the rail corridor. In this case I guess I'll make the third person in agreeance .

Ah, dentrobate. I'm not quite sure what you're saying here, but I assume you're making jabs at the DRL. Which meandering alignments over the rail corridor are you talking about? They're all pretty much due west and north. The Weston corridor route, which you say you support, is partly on a diagonal, so I guess it's the most meandering of the bunch.

DRL=WWLRT, major difference between one proposal wants to close itself off to further western/eastern expansion when the midriff of Toronto already has a decent proximity to YUS/BD, in the grand scheme of things. It almost makes me long for a Queen subway (almost).

Again, not too sure what you're saying. The DRL obviously shares a bit of the corridor and would attract many of the riders of the WWLRT. I think it's a better option, though, because it would be much, much faster, more reliable, and therefore attract far more people. The point of the DRL isn't just to serve people around the intermediate stops, but I can't quite see how south Parkdale or the Ex are very close to BD or YUS.

I have to agree with you there. The obvious alignment is to connect to the Front Street extension alignment just east of Dufferin, and bring it right to Bay and Front on a reserved ROW ... not quite sure what you'd do with it then, perhaps just loop it around Wellington.

I think you'd have a pretty hard time fitting a streetcar ROW on Front Street, and it gets pretty terribly congested westbound in the peak.

I've been arguing that using subways for the transit city lines is too expensive, and not necessary.

But why? Why is it not necessary? Why is it too expensive when the province has offered to fund every project that was on the table, and is trying to upgrade some of the Transit City lines to subway at their cost and is getting shot down by the city? Do you accept that a subway is a superior mode, cost aside? Because if you do, how can you support the City of Toronto's plan to bar Metrolinx from studying whether a subway would be more appropriate in some Transit City corridors?

The fact is, I do think subways are necessary on some of these routes. Nobody has shown me how these streetcars will be any faster than the buses that are already there, and the TTC's abysmal record of streetcar operation suggests that they won't be much more reliable, either. I think Sheppard, in particular, is a ridiculous case since it's a very busy corridor with a lot of growth potential, and the subway's already half built! We're going to add a completely useless connection, and force people from Town Centre going to North York Centre to take a subway, a streetcar, and a bus. It's nuts.

And I've argued that people are low-balling the DRL costs.

You've suggested that the $6 billion (now $9 billion) of Transit City routes would be $60 billion if they were subway. Claiming that subways are 10 times as expensive as this light rail suggests that you have a peculiar approach to costing. For example, the Sheppard East LRT will cost about $700 million. Finishing the Sheppard Subway would most assuredly not cost $7 billion.

extending the SRT north AND south to Kingston Road.

But...why? Could someone please explain to me why the thing needs to be extended to Markham and Sheppard? I've been there countless times, and I still haven't figured out why this is the only place in the city that the TTC deems worthy of a rapid transit extension. I must admit to being completely baffled by people who want to keep the SRT. I actually have nothing in particular against the technology, and it seems to work very well in other cities, but in Toronto, it's an overcrowded orphan. The renovation will mean years of disruption, and at the end of it all, we'll still have the extremely inconvenient transfer at Kennedy and problems with snow. For the same amount of money as the SRT conversion and the completely useless extension to Markham and Sheppard, we could be rid of all those problems and have a subway to Scarborough Centre. Remember that the overwhelming majority of Scarborough residents -- the people who actually ride the thing -- wanted a subway. They signed petitions by the thousands. If the cost is equivalent, what possible reason is there to deny them their wish?

The Markham and Sheppard extension would benefit, if we're being generous, people from parts of Malvern very slightly by allowing them to transfer from their bus to the RT somewhat earlier than they do now. However, it adds an extra transfer, negating the time savings, if they're going to Town Centre, the most popular destination in Scarborough. By contrast, extending the subway to Town Centre would save everybody in north and east Scarborough, including Malvern residents, a significant amount of time and inconvenience when they're going to the BD, and Malvern would still have a direct trip to Town Centre. They'd be far better served, anyway, by a Neilson express route that uses shoulder bus lanes on the 401 from Neilson to McCowan. Total cost: A few thousand dollars for signs saying that the bus can drive on the shoulder.

One thing is clear though; the LRT has to work a lot better than the existing Spadina and Harbourfront lines -which often seem slower than a regular streetcar line.

I completely agree. How you would you go about guaranteeing that before we spend $10 billion, though? I know it's not your job, it's the TTC's job. That's why I'm deeply alarmed that their prototype on St. Clair seems to have applied absolutely no lessons from the failures on Spadina and the Harbourfront; failures that the TTC seems to pretend don't exist. Nobody has told me how the new lines will be different. Not any forumers, not TTC staff, not Adam Giambrone ("They'll be just like streetcars on St. Clair or Spadina," he said), not Steve Munro. Nobody. That's why I'm a lot more hesitant to spend $10 billion on a technology that the TTC has a proven track record of not operating properly, than I would be with $10 billion on a technology that the TTC has a proven track record of operating extremely successfully.

 

[Towered]

What's going on with Kingston rd anyway? It seems like there are never any updates about the EA - by the way, how many years has that been under way now? It's a joke how long that's taking.

 

[nfitz]

Why is it too expensive when the province has offered to fund every project that was on the table, and is trying to upgrade some of the Transit City lines to subway at their cost and is getting shot down by the city?

The province has only committed to funding 2/3 of these projects - their desire is that the feds would pay the other 1/3. However the latest budget makes it clear that will never happen - at least with the current jokers running the place. So the city is going to have to come up with 1/3 of the cost here. If people propose $20 billion of subway, the city still needs clost to $7 billion.

For example, the Sheppard East LRT will cost about $700 million. Finishing the Sheppard Subway would most assuredly not cost $7 billion.

Building the proposed 13.6 km Sheppard East LRT as subway would cost $2.7 billion using a conservative $200 million per km. $250 million per km is likely more appropriate if you want to cost like Transit city in future $, instead of current $ - so that's $3.4 billion - and that doesn't include vehicles. So a 5-time multiplier doesn't seem unreasonable. Also as noted above, building a good chunk of this as subway is likely a good idea - and probably easier to build a new intermodal station at Victoria Park, than try and get something convenient retrofitted into Don Mills.

 

[Le Gique]

"I'll lash your back if you lash mine..."

it has been said, "The evidence is that every single transit route proposed in the GTA was funded by MoveOntario 2020. York Region got every subway it ever mumbled about, because it asked for subways. Toronto got streetcars because it demanded streetcars. Durham got busways because, you guessed it, they asked for buses."


aksh, Durham has for so long not known WTF they want, except highways ever'which way. even now it's not clear they have a credible transport plan, beyond reinventing the BRT (for which they have had to be prodded, it seems)

York Region did not expect the Spadina subway north of Steeles when the province announced it.
-and there's no indication York was asking for the Yonge extension -- it did ask for (and got) Viva BRT funding for the same corridor

2020 was largely taken from the IBI report for MTO, itself apparently an amalgam of municipal requests, dingy reports and consultant wishlists

the IBI report snuck out in early 2007 -- few realize how much 2020 is taken from it

IIRC early 2007 was pre-TC, which was hustled out to coincide with the federal budget, where it was ignored until McG threw it into 2020

previous to that, TTC's standing official request was pretty well subway-oriented (what was that report called?), an obsession which amounted to paltry nothing for everybody else in 416

in that fiscal/political environment until 2007 we were touting a few subway extensions -- some were possibly good but Spadina was the one that got picked up

the TTC's subway long-standing obsession was changed by TC -- a political backlash of Miller allies and others that came from frustration over Sheppard, and deep skepticism about Spadina's ridership potential -- even Rick Ducharme eventually said he wanted no part of Spadina unless development was dramatically beefed up around stations

--FF>> to 2008 -- now that more money seems likely, some here want to revert to the subway-obsessive era, in effect backlashing against the perceived LRT obsession at City Hall, no?

-- i ain't the finance minister, but even if there are $$ signs in a lot of eyes, we won't have as much subways as can be justified by good planning -- and we don't have the time to wait for them to be built
-- the politicians certainly don't want to wait 8 years for the ribbons to be ready

-- it's still not clear to me if there is anywhere in 416 that TC-lashers would acknowledge is appropriate for light rail