Ontario Line (was Relief Line South, in Design)

[Coolstar]

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[t54zhao]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/02/16/metrolinx-offered-1-for-his-garage-why-the-gtas-massive-transit-expansion-means-sudden-change-for-some-landowners.html

TLDR for us muggles who dont have star subscription?

The garage sits on top of contaminated soil and it would cost more than the land is worth to clean it up.

 

[Tuck]

Thats kind of damning. They appraised the land at 2.1 million but said it would cost more than that to clean it up, so they offered him a dollar. But they're the ones who want the land, so cleaning it up should be their problem, not his*

I'm all for expropriation for transit expansion, but screwing people out of their land without fair compensation is unacceptable.

*Emphasis on should. No idea on what the law is on this, and to be honest I don't really care. The guy is getting screwed.

 

[syn]

Thats kind of damning. They appraised the land at 2.1 million but said it would cost more than that to clean it up, so they offered him a dollar. But they're the ones who want the land, so cleaning it up should be their problem, not his*

I'm all for expropriation for transit expansion, but screwing people out of their land without fair compensation is unacceptable.

*Emphasis on should. No idea on what the law is on this, and to be honest I don't really care. The guy is getting screwed.

This is exactly why Ford's bill to reduce community and owner rights was so damaging.

Can anyone here say they'd be fine throwing away a lifetime's worth of investment for $1 in the interest of transit expansion?

 

[allengeorge]

Well - Metrolinx being Metrolinx (this is why bigger isn’t necessarily better, and why I’m hesitant to support calls for one GTA-wide super agency).

TL;DR:

* Property assessments seem out of whack.
* Metrolinx is poor at communication, not just in terms of expropriation, but also in terms of community ‘consultation’. (Jimmie Simpson park, Smalls Creek were cited)
* The sheer volume of transit projects being run right now has increased the number of conflicts.
* Experts are mixed on whether the new government powers will result in Metrolinx trampling over people’s rights or not. Apparently they always had the power, but the steps were spelled out in more detail; that’s been removed under the new laws.

 

[nfitz]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/02/16/metrolinx-offered-1-for-his-garage-why-the-gtas-massive-transit-expansion-means-sudden-change-for-some-landowners.html

An excellent comprehensive article.

Though I'm not sure why it is dated today on their website. It was on the front page of yesterday's paper. Normally stuff shows up on the website the evening before publication. Not the day after!

 

[The REAL]

"Smack dab in the middle of the street" lol...as it was designed to be. Crosstown is not a subway line. Argue about the decade and a half-old decision to use LFLRVs and in median all you want, but as it stands today Crosstown is an LRT. On top of that the ridership modelling for west of Jane peters off quite a bit.

I've been an advocate of building a light metro system across Eglinton when the decision was doable. Now that's long past. What we have now is a low-floor urban tram, and tunneling it through central Etobicoke is ridiculous. It actually makes more sense to continue it as the LRT design it was meant to be (and is - east of Leslie). Maybe with a couple duck unders/overs not unlike @ Don Mills.

That was the original plan. But we all know why it's getting buried.. Doug Ford. He has and will do ANYTHING to make sure that he doesn't see a single track laid around his ward or his place of rest for that matter. He hates anything to do with trams, LRT's or streetcars. This is why he is spending billions to bury the line.. even that money clearly could be used to help fund the Waterfront LRT or Eglinton east extension. but no. Doug ford is stuck in the 50's and still thinks cars should rule the road.

 

[mdu]

I have no idea how bad the environmental impact is in regards to remediation required, but if it'll really cost that much, the $1 appropriation isn't unjustified.

 

[nfitz]

I have no idea how bad the environmental impact is in regards to remediation required, but if it'll really cost that much, the $1 appropriation isn't unjustified.

If he was being to required to clean it up, sure. But he isn't. Who knows, remediation could be put off for years, or even decades. Or a land use could be done that doesn't even require remediation.

If you put the clean-up off long enough, the present worth is near $0. Meanwhile the property generates a revenue stream. So what's the present value of that revenue stream - that ends when he sells it?

I'd think that trying to force him to take $1 for it would be criminal, if I we didn't have a long history of Metrolinx's legal incompetence.

 

[officedweller]

Thats kind of damning. They appraised the land at 2.1 million but said it would cost more than that to clean it up, so they offered him a dollar. But they're the ones who want the land, so cleaning it up should be their problem, not his*

I'm all for expropriation for transit expansion, but screwing people out of their land without fair compensation is unacceptable.

*Emphasis on should. No idea on what the law is on this, and to be honest I don't really care. The guy is getting screwed.

Well, it's more of a practical commercial situation.
No one else in their right mind would pay for that land unless it is cleaned up (or the price adjusted to reflect the clean-up cost) so who would he sell it to?
Maybe wait long enough for the land value to exceed the clean-up cost?
The one difference is the rent he gets from it.
The Expropriation Act should have the method for calculating compensation.

 

[superelevation]

This is why I have always thought the DRL should be a RER tunnel and not a subway.

Certainly build the DRL as planned with the same number of stations and frequency but use standard gauge with catenary. This way the system can be part of RER so electrfied RER trains can also use the tunnel. This allows for some 'relief' on Union station and fewer transfers for those not going right to the financial core. If RER is successful, trains could be arriving every 20 seconds in 20 years and that will put too much pressure on Union and a RER DRL tunnel would also allow for a back-up way into the city if for any reason there is n incident at Union.

By building standard gauge the system will also be vastly cheaper and easier to expand north of Eglinton as it can then make use of the already existing Richmond Hill GO corridor.

Building an "RER" tunnel before we have RER seems odd . . .

I'm fairly certain that past GO expansion plans have called for six or more tracks through here, but now this shortsighted limiting of the corridor to four for the sake of ramming the Ontario Line though will come back to bite us.

Only in North America would it be suggested that you need more than four tracks to handle the traffic on this corridor for decades, we don't need more tracks folks, we need better operations and planning.

It will be standard gauge with catenary, but its extremely likely that the tunnels will be too small to handle GO EMUs, not to mention it will probably be electrified with 1500V DC compared to 25kV AC on GO RER.

There's also no way you are gonna get regulatory approval so its a non starter . . . The OL trains will NOT be designed to handle collisions

I'm amazed that ML pushed the OL plan forward given their institutional emphasis on regional travel. I wonder how that ended up happening. It's telling that over the past three years, they've never addressed the concerns surrounding the impact of the OL on the capacity of RER

There is no reasonable concern, 4 tracks is plenty if we NEED more we can find other options . . . we don't even have catenary going up, lets get RER going before we start worrying that quad tracks aren't enough for the like 20 tph we might need? Like seriously folks, 2 tracks is enough for 30 tph . . .

Also ML didn't push the plan, the province made them in charge of the rt stuff . . . and the OL is much more integrated with GO than the DRL . . .

 

[t54zhao]

Building an "RER" tunnel before we have RER seems odd . . .

Why not, plenty of places build infrastructure before laying track. The Bloor Viaduct had the subway deck built years before the subway. Infamously North York Center could’ve had a subway station built during construction except they didn’t do that and so a cavern had to be dug for higher cost.

In the UK, the Canal tunnels carrying Thameslink were built 12 years before trains started running through them.

 

[Coolstar]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1363977888505159680

 

[innsertnamehere]

If he was being to required to clean it up, sure. But he isn't. Who knows, remediation could be put off for years, or even decades. Or a land use could be done that doesn't even require remediation.

If you put the clean-up off long enough, the present worth is near $0. Meanwhile the property generates a revenue stream. So what's the present value of that revenue stream - that ends when he sells it?

I'd think that trying to force him to take $1 for it would be criminal, if I we didn't have a long history of Metrolinx's legal incompetence.

Yup. The proper valuation would be on the highest and best use that can occupy the site without remediation. Which may just be the existing use. So the value would likely be relatively low as it would be considered to have no "Development potential" in the pricing, but it should still be valued on the existing cash flow at worst.