Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

[TheTigerMaster]

This discussion is

If it had been the Liberals or NDP who brought the same Ontario Line there wouldn't be all this backlash. They fought against the underground subway for Scarborough because it was championed by Rob Ford and now they are fighting the Ontario Line since it is being brought forward by Doug Ford.

I’d get this sentiment if the Ontario Line were a robust and well thought out plan. But it is not. A change in government would not erase the myriad of flaws with this proposal.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It is ironic to me, because as far as I can tell, Metrolinx is the one who came up with this plan and sold it to Doug. None of you actually believe that Doug is smart enough to come up with the Ontario Line himself do you? He essentially said as much when the OL was first announced.

Metrolinx came up with the plan, obviously, but was this their preferred option?

Metrolinx independently told us their preferred option back in 2015. It was the Relief Line South + North. That wasn’t a TTC idea or a City of Toronto idea, nor was it invented out of some political directive. The Relief Line North originated out of Metrolinx. And unlike the Ontario Line, there really isn’t any indication that there was political interference in the design process.

What the heck changed in five years to make Metrolinx oppose the Relief Line that they proposed, in favour of a solution with substantially less capacity, one that can't relieve the Yonge Line into the future, and one that, seemingly out of nowhere, decided that, of all places, Ontario Place, needed a subway more urgently than the Yonge Line needed capacity relief. Ontario Place... really? Metrolinx hasn't even attempted to answer for their dramatic change in position (hint: it was politically motived)

Seems to me that Doug came in and told Metrolinx to scrap the old plans and come up with something substantially different. This is what they came up with

You also gotta remember the political context of the time too. The messaging coming from QP and Metrolinx was essentially, "TTC is incompetent, they can't design or own subways, we got these big secret plans that are so much better and will blow your socks off, and everything will be better once we run the subways".

From a messaging point-of-view, the government needed a proposal that was substantially different than the Relief Line, because, as I said above, they were claiming that the TTC just wasn't up to the job of designing and building subways. If they had made the far more logical decision of committing a few billion dollars to bring the City-lead Relief Line up to Eglinton or Sheppard, they would've looked like fools. I'm convinced that if it had not been for the botched subway upload attempt (surprise, surprise: owning a subway isn't "easy", as the Metrolinx CEO claimed), the government likely would've just committed to extending the Relief Line and reap the good PR

Anyways none of this matters. None of this changes the fact that the Relief Line North was far better suited (relative to the OL) to achieve its primary goal of Yonge Line relief for decades to come. It doesn't matter where the proposal originated; an ineffective proposal is an ineffective proposal. All this partisan quibbling here is just a distraction. As is all this talk here about elevation and the Toronto Star and whether or not their biased against Scarbrough or wherever. None of that has any impact on the viability of this proposal. It's a distraction.

 

[OneCity]

I don't think anyone is suggesting Media isn't biased, and generally more Liberal biased (and I'm referring to Liberalism, not the party). But we also need to acknowledge the bias when readers are overreacting to what is simply journalism.

I wont go much further for the sake of the main topic discussion, but when you take the collective output of bias in our local journalism over the years, its hardly an overreaction. It's really a much bigger issue then what has been acknowledged or accepted over the years when it comes to the impacts of transit planning and politics in this City. The hypocrisy and the politics has been on full display with the OL, from the media to the usual organized groups at the open houses. The solace I take is that this crap is now just noise and narrative that no longer holds any relevance to impact capital transit decisions in the City moving forward.

 

[Hopkins123]

This discussion is
I’d get this sentiment if the Ontario Line were a robust and well thought out plan. But it is not. A change in government would not erase the myriad of flaws with this proposal.

It's only "flawed" because the Liberals hadn't thought of it first and didn't have the foresight to put into motion enough contingencies that their version would be un-cancellable like what's happened to Finch West.

If we had stuck with the City's $7.4 billion all-underground alignment, we'd be talking for several more decades before even pushing the subway to the Science Centre and west of University would be considered because we'd be out of money! The 15-stop Ontario Line is only imperfect for skipping perfectly feasible stop locations in Liberty Village, Distillery District and Pape/Mortimer. The future is with technology modes closer to REM and Canada Line's Skytrain, not Toronto's subway car stocks.

 

[MisterF]

^If we had stuck with the superior relief line plan, the government could have simply funded both the south and north portions. The REM and Skytrain vehicles aren't inherently better than what we already have. They're better for some applications and traditional subway trains are better for others. No single technology is the future.

What the heck changed in five years to make Metrolinx oppose the Relief Line that they proposed, in favour of a solution with substantially less capacity, one that can't relieve the Yonge Line into the future, and one that, seemingly out of nowhere, decided that, of all places, Ontario Place, needed a subway more urgently than the Yonge Line needed capacity relief. Ontario Place... really? Metrolinx hasn't even attempted to answer for their dramatic change in position (hint: it was politically motived)

To be fair, that terminus has always been Exhibition/Ontario Place, with all evidence pointing to the station being beside the existing Exhibition Station. There's not going to be a subway station at Ontario Place itself. I suspect that Ontario Place was added to the name because of the name of the line. Agree with everything else in your post.

 

[Johnny Au]

I suspect that Ontario Place was added to the name because of the name of the line.

The same can be said about the other terminal station, Science Centre station, which serves, yes, the Ontario Science Centre, further justifying the Ontario Line name.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Metrolinx came up with the plan, obviously, but was this their preferred option?

Metrolinx independently told us their preferred option back in 2015. It was the Relief Line South + North. That wasn’t a TTC idea or a City of Toronto idea, nor was it invented out of some political directive. The Relief Line North originated out of Metrolinx. And unlike the Ontario Line, there really isn’t any indication that there was political interference in the design process.

What the heck changed in five years to make Metrolinx oppose the Relief Line that they proposed, in favour of a solution with substantially less capacity, one that can't relieve the Yonge Line into the future, and one that, seemingly out of nowhere, decided that, of all places, Ontario Place, needed a subway more urgently than the Yonge Line needed capacity relief. Ontario Place... really? Metrolinx hasn't even attempted to answer for their dramatic change in position (hint: it was politically motived)

Seems to me that Doug came in and told Metrolinx to scrap the old plans and come up with something substantially different. This is what they came up with

You also gotta remember the political context of the time too. The messaging coming from QP and Metrolinx was essentially, "TTC is incompetent, they can't design or own subways, we got these big secret plans that are so much better and will blow your socks off, and everything will be better once we run the subways".

From a messaging point-of-view, the government needed a proposal that was substantially different than the Relief Line, because, as I said above, they were claiming that the TTC just wasn't up to the job of designing and building subways. If they had made the far more logical decision of committing a few billion dollars to bring the City-lead Relief Line up to Eglinton or Sheppard, they would've looked like fools. I'm convinced that if it had not been for the botched subway upload attempt (surprise, surprise: owning a subway isn't "easy", as the Metrolinx CEO claimed), the government likely would've just committed to extending the Relief Line and reap the good PR

Anyways none of this matters. None of this changes the fact that the Relief Line North was far better suited (relative to the OL) to achieve its primary goal of Yonge Line relief for decades to come. It doesn't matter where the proposal originated; an ineffective proposal is an ineffective proposal. All this partisan quibbling here is just a distraction. As is all this talk here about elevation and the Toronto Star and whether or not their biased against Scarbrough or wherever. None of that has any impact on the viability of this proposal. It's a distraction.

The Ontario Line is 100% Metrolinx's baby. What I imagine happened is Ford said "I want every project to be evaluated for value for money, and I want lots of subways". Metrolinx went from there and created a plan to reduce costs on the Relief Line and underground the Eglinton W LRT, and is currently in the process of designing the Yonge Subway and Scarborough Subway extensions with a "value for money" lens. The decision to build the Ontario Line instead of the RL is almost certianly from some beaurocrats who came up with the scheme, Doug Ford wouldn't have the technical ability to identify that sort of scheme or desire to push for a different plan than the RL. Metrolinx likely told him that they had a much better plan, and he ran with it.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

This is the point of hypocrisy that I am seeing from the media and parts of the public. It doesn't really matter anymore (at least politically) whether or not the OL is a good plan or an inadequate plan for dealing with our transit demands and capacity needs. The question of whether the OL is capable of running enough trains per hour or has large enough trains to deal with future ridership projections is irrelevant to the conversation being had between the media and the public.

It is exclusively about "stopping Ford at all costs" as OneCity puts it, and the elevated part of the line as StreetyMcCarface references is the raison d'etre being used for why Ford must be stopped.

It is ironic to me, because as far as I can tell, Metrolinx is the one who came up with this plan and sold it to Doug. None of you actually believe that Doug is smart enough to come up with the Ontario Line himself do you? He essentially said as much when the OL was first announced.

Of course they did. See below.

If it had been the Liberals or NDP who brought the same Ontario Line there wouldn't be all this backlash. They fought against the underground subway for Scarborough because it was championed by Rob Ford and now they are fighting the Ontario Line since it is being brought forward by Doug Ford.

I don't think so. This would still be a bad plan. The capacity is not there.

I was talking about the SRT route, not the Scarborough subway route. Saying "yeah there is hypocrisy" doesn't refute my point.


Three out of the four newspapers in Toronto lean conservative. That's not just my opinion, it's there in their election endorsements. TV news is a bit harder to pin down. Conservatives like to accuse CBC of having a left wing bias but it's very conscious of that perception and goes out of its way to be as impartial as possible, to the point of auditing themselves on the subject. The media criticizes the Ontario line because it's a bad plan and worse than what preceded it, not because of which party proposed it.


Again, please take off the partisan goggles. It's been explained numerous times why that line about Scarborough is nonsense but it just keeps getting repeated. People oppose plans that they think will impact their homes. It's really that simple and it has nothing to do with political parties. Not everyone in the world is a partisan sheep.

You're not looking at it from the point of view of Scarborough. They didn't want the Scarborough LRT and we tried to push it through. The Scarborough LRT was a good option, but some people didn't want it. Same here. The issue is people in places like Leslieville support the Scarborough LRT.

Metrolinx came up with the plan, obviously, but was this their preferred option?

Metrolinx independently told us their preferred option back in 2015. It was the Relief Line South + North. That wasn’t a TTC idea or a City of Toronto idea, nor was it invented out of some political directive. The Relief Line North originated out of Metrolinx. And unlike the Ontario Line, there really isn’t any indication that there was political interference in the design process.

What the heck changed in five years to make Metrolinx oppose the Relief Line that they proposed, in favour of a solution with substantially less capacity, one that can't relieve the Yonge Line into the future, and one that, seemingly out of nowhere, decided that, of all places, Ontario Place, needed a subway more urgently than the Yonge Line needed capacity relief. Ontario Place... really? Metrolinx hasn't even attempted to answer for their dramatic change in position (hint: it was politically motived)

Seems to me that Doug came in and told Metrolinx to scrap the old plans and come up with something substantially different. This is what they came up with

You also gotta remember the political context of the time too. The messaging coming from QP and Metrolinx was essentially, "TTC is incompetent, they can't design or own subways, we got these big secret plans that are so much better and will blow your socks off, and everything will be better once we run the subways".

From a messaging point-of-view, the government needed a proposal that was substantially different than the Relief Line, because, as I said above, they were claiming that the TTC just wasn't up to the job of designing and building subways. If they had made the far more logical decision of committing a few billion dollars to bring the City-lead Relief Line up to Eglinton or Sheppard, they would've looked like fools. I'm convinced that if it had not been for the botched subway upload attempt (surprise, surprise: owning a subway isn't "easy", as the Metrolinx CEO claimed), the government likely would've just committed to extending the Relief Line and reap the good PR

Anyways none of this matters. None of this changes the fact that the Relief Line North was far better suited (relative to the OL) to achieve its primary goal of Yonge Line relief for decades to come. It doesn't matter where the proposal originated; an ineffective proposal is an ineffective proposal. All this partisan quibbling here is just a distraction. As is all this talk here about elevation and the Toronto Star and whether or not their biased against Scarbrough or wherever. None of that has any impact on the viability of this proposal. It's a distraction.

The Ontario Line is 100% Metrolinx's baby. What I imagine happened is Ford said "I want every project to be evaluated for value for money, and I want lots of subways". Metrolinx went from there and created a plan to reduce costs on the Relief Line and underground the Eglinton W LRT, and is currently in the process of designing the Yonge Subway and Scarborough Subway extensions with a "value for money" lens. The decision to build the Ontario Line instead of the RL is almost certianly from some beaurocrats who came up with the scheme, Doug Ford wouldn't have the technical ability to identify that sort of scheme or desire to push for a different plan than the RL. Metrolinx likely told him that they had a much better plan, and he ran with it.

Let's be honest: This route was always in the works. Look at the map, it's from a while back. Metrolinx always had this alignment in their back pockets. This is part of the Go corridor but same effect. I think MX always intended to push this if the relief line became was too short, and it was.

 

[salsa]

The Ontario Line is 100% Metrolinx's baby. What I imagine happened is Ford said "I want every project to be evaluated for value for money, and I want lots of subways". Metrolinx went from there and created a plan to reduce costs on the Relief Line and underground the Eglinton W LRT, and is currently in the process of designing the Yonge Subway and Scarborough Subway extensions with a "value for money" lens. The decision to build the Ontario Line instead of the RL is almost certianly from some beaurocrats who came up with the scheme, Doug Ford wouldn't have the technical ability to identify that sort of scheme or desire to push for a different plan than the RL. Metrolinx likely told him that they had a much better plan, and he ran with it.

I bet Michael Schabas is the person who's largely behind all this. The guy who published a scathing critique of Metrolinx's transit expansion plans for the Neptis Foundation, in part to justify a large-scale rollout of automatic light rail transit (ALRT) technology as an alternative to LRT and subways. Now he works for Metrolinx as an advisor.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I bet Michael Schabas is the person who's largely behind all this. The guy who published a scathing critique of Metrolinx's transit expansion plans for the Neptis Foundation, in part to justify a large-scale rollout of automatic light rail transit (ALRT) technology as an alternative to LRT and subways. Now he works for Metrolinx as an advisor.

Was he recently appointed to that position. If so, that really does make Metrolinx's sudden policy reversal regarding the Relief Line North make a lot of sense.

 

[JasonParis]

What's wrong with what I said? They did a good job exposing Metrolinx speaking privately to developers. Still doesn't excuse the almost daily weekly negative articles about the Ontario Line from them. Yes we get it. They hate the Ontario Line, but at least they could try to show some partiality. They did the same thing or are doing with the Scarborough subway. Constant negative articles. Back then we heard that the LRT was cheaper per kilometre, longer, and with more stations. We could also say these apply to the Ontario Line vs the Relief Line. I wonder why they dont mention that. They objected to underground in Scarborough and were pushing elevated LRT, but that was ok because it was in out in the boonies. But when it closer to home, now elevated is so evil. Hypocrites.

No. This isn't about archaic municipal boundaries and some suburban vs. city war in your head. It's about land-uses and density along suggested routes. Also, why it is pretty much international standard everywhere (except maybe Buffalo) to bury transit in the densely packed core and elevate (or open cut it) where appropriate in lighter density areas. Also, it's a bit grey in Leslieville/Riverside as I'd say it straddles both worlds and also why it makes a compelling story.

It's also pretty clear that you've never spent a day in a newsroom if I must be frank.

 

[syn]

The biggest reasons to put things underground include:
1. Use of available space
2. Operational improvements (running trains underground from an operator's perspective is a lot easier than aboveground) due to lack of icing and wet tracks.
3. Increasing train speeds — larger turning radii and faster speeds due to no risks of weather changes.

Capacity doesn't improve with aboveground alignments, capacity improves with train sizes and frequency.

Underground will not increase capacity! The vehicles used will.

I realize all of this. The problem is that the current vehicle choice (smaller, lighter trains) is necesssary to implement the plan as outlined. It's not going to work with full size subway cars, and it's not going to provide the kind of capacity this line requires.

 

[Isotack]

I was talking about the SRT route, not the Scarborough subway route. Saying "yeah there is hypocrisy" doesn't refute my point.


Three out of the four newspapers in Toronto lean conservative. That's not just my opinion, it's there in their election endorsements. TV news is a bit harder to pin down. Conservatives like to accuse CBC of having a left wing bias but it's very conscious of that perception and goes out of its way to be as impartial as possible, to the point of auditing themselves on the subject. The media criticizes the Ontario line because it's a bad plan and worse than what preceded it, not because of which party proposed it.


Again, please take off the partisan goggles. It's been explained numerous times why that line about Scarborough is nonsense but it just keeps getting repeated. People oppose plans that they think will impact their homes. It's really that simple and it has nothing to do with political parties. Not everyone in the world is a partisan sheep.

These answers are so out to lunch as to be foolish. I have known the Toronto Star as a full biased shill for the Liberal Party since I delivered it when I was 12. The globe is also a left\social justice leaner. As for the CBC not being left leaning...PFFFFFT ...lol. THEY GET THEIR MONEY FROM THE GOVERNENT !

 

[44 North]

It is exclusively about "stopping Ford at all costs" as OneCity puts it, and the elevated part of the line as StreetyMcCarface references is the raison d'etre being used for why Ford must be stopped.

Or you could connect the dots to see a different trend than this 'stopping Ford' stuff. Tunneling a subway along Eglinton East to SC? Stemmed from a backdoor meeting with the Prov. SSE? Promised by the Prov before an election. Ontario Line? Secret plan by the Prov. Seems less like Fords are the issue people have, rather it's meddling by higher level governments who ditch democratically-agreed upon projects in favour of murky cloak and dagger ones.

I bet Michael Schabas is the person who's largely behind all this. The guy who published a scathing critique of Metrolinx's transit expansion plans for the Neptis Foundation, in part to justify a large-scale rollout of automatic light rail transit (ALRT) technology as an alternative to LRT and subways. Now he works for Metrolinx as an advisor.

I think he was actually an advisor for Metrolinx when that report was released, which makes me extremely suspect of it and I think others should be too. And the report wasn't all that scathing. Well, it was for the relief line. Guy completely dismissed it in favour of a pedestrian tunnel between Main Stn and Danforth GO. Which chronologically coincided with the Prov/Metrolinx also not really supporting the relief line and focusing on GO upgrades. Late 2013 when Schabas report said RL should be a GO train, early 2014 for RER promise and Mlinx went on the record saying an RL might involve buses and GO trains. Also I think Schabas' son worked for Metrolinx on RER around then too.

Still though, glad he had a change of heart. Much rather a Skytrain-style RL than nothing. Historically we'll still probably get nothing in the end. But things seem more hopeful on the Prov front.

 

[Northern Light]

I don't know what words are appropriate to describe this...........obtuseness seems a good start if a less then fulsome indictment of Metrolinx.

Metrolinx Declines to Answer, Again

On Monday, February 3, both my recent NOW Toronto article about the Ontario line and my own Q&A with Metrolinx diving more deeply into the issues appeared. On the same day, Ben Spurr reported i…

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