Sheppard Line 4 Subway Extension (Proposed)

[Johnny Au]

How 'bout a Sheppard SmartTrack?



What if the Sheppard subway could be extended as a majority elevated subway route utilizing the Seaton rail corridor partially for ROW all the way from Don Mills to the Zoo? Here only the dark purple segments would be underground. Just food for thought someone from the Tory camp can hopefully co-opt into their future plans for the Sheppard corridor.

Subways in the middle of farmland? That would be interesting, although there had been precedence in Toronto.

 

[M II A II R II K]

That would be great, if it connected to Lakeshore East all the way to the Georgetown line in the west would serve as an uptown commuter rail service, unlike the downtown centric commuter rail system we have now.

 

[Electrify]

I cant find the video but was it off or on peak?

Sorry for the delayed reply. I'll post the video in the YRT Rapidway thread, as it is now processing it from my Google backup to YouTube. Was during rush hour and raining. Admittedly the signalling was not perfect, but it was far better than on TTC ROWs (Spadina/Queens Quay, St. Clair, Dufferin North/York University, etc) and you can see it keeping up and beating vehicular traffic pretty well.

Here is also a thread with videos of light rail RAPID transit from various cities, proving that LRT can be a fast and viable form of transit, despite what a certain pathological lying soon former mayor would like you to think:

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showthread.php/12557

 

[M II A II R II K]

Sheppard subway is a costly cautionary tale Toronto risks repeating

Read More: http://metronews.ca/voices/torys-to...stly-cautionary-tale-toronto-risks-repeating/

.....

There are two ways to look at the short line along Sheppard. The first is to look only at population density around some of the stations. By that measure, it might be possible to call the subway a mild success. Density in some areas — around Don Mills Station, especially — has increased as condos have popped up near the subway line. At a reported 10,182 people per square kilometre, the density around Don Mills is downright respectable for a subway corridor.

- At a glance, it’s a stat that could start to justify the simplistic “build it and they will come” approach to rapid transit. Maybe the solution to our endless transit debates is to just throw down some subways and wait for condos to show up. But then we get to the rest of the data. Despite any increased density, the majority of people living along Sheppard still use their car to get to work. Even at Don Mills, the station with the highest density along the line, more people drive to work than use transit. --- And then there’s the cost. Daily ridership on Sheppard is below that of both the Spadina and King streetcars, but the subway comes with a higher daily operating cost.

- New TTC chair Josh Colle estimates the cost at $10 per rider, while Coun. John Filion figures it might be just as costly to “run taxis” along the route to pick up riders. Either way, it’s not cheap. All of this should serve as a cautionary tale. The Sheppard subway was enormously expensive to build and remains enormously expensive to operate. Any gains in population density don’t really begin to justify those costs. But the lesson isn’t that we should think twice before building transit. It’s that we should think twice before overbuilding transit.

- Had Sheppard been built as a mostly above ground light rapid transit or bus rapid transit line in the first place, today the route would still have more than enough capacity to carry the ridership at a lower operating cost. And with proper zoning and an updated planning framework, improved transit would still have had the potential to spur development. After all, many of the city’s denser areas were developed along nothing but simple streetcar lines. The problem with the subway-or-bust approach is that it skips right past interim modes like LRT and presents the most expensive type of urban transit as the universal solution.

- Despite all this evidence, many local politicians — at all levels — haven’t learned anything from the Sheppard experience. Even now, we still end up in debates about subway lines and extensions that don’t meet ridership projections set by experts. We’re building a subway in Scarborough for no apparent reason other than to bolster egos. Mayor John Tory has a transit plan that will put an underground heavy rail line along Eglinton West but no one is entirely sure how or why. And politicians continue to agitate for goofy random subway projects all over the place, costs and ridership be damned.

.....

 

[crs1026]

It's pretty clear that a subway on Sheppard was a mistake. As I recall, at the time there were competing proposals for what transit project to build. A lot of the impetus came from Mel Lastman, who seemed to want his personal political legacy to be that he 'won' over competing boroughs and their mayors. Never mind what would be best for the city as a whole....

The issue for today, though, is how to put the toothpaste back in the tube. We ought to be looking at building *corridors* that link parts of the city, rather than being guided by current or future passenger counts over shorter route segments There is still an opportunity to build a *corridor* along Sheppard, but it needs a view of the whole system and not just what a particular Scarboro Councillor wants in their ward.

Leaving the subway as is and building LRT around it is a poor solution. People will not board a LRT in Scarboro, transfer to a subway, transfer to another LRT, and then transfer back to a subway. Those suggesting this approach is a "minor" inconvenience to riders are wrong....Each change is two minutes of walking and five to ten minutes of waiting for the connection. AND giving up one's seat and vying for a seat, or at least a sufficient amount of personal standee space, all over again. I would rather see us just build a replacement surface LRT, and seal up the subway....or rent it out as a solar powered hydroponic garden space

Extending the subway at least westwards to the Spadina line will give a seamless ride across town. The "build it and people will find a use for it" does have potential. It is unquestionably the most expensive, but it is the best shot at a good passenger experience for a ride across town. Ditto if the east terminal is moved east of the DVP. That creates the greatest potential for development ideas to come forward. Again, future development rather than today's passenger counts is what matters.

If the issue is that the subway can't be converted to LRT *in places*, then we need to know how much it would cost to shut the subway down for a year and dig up and change those places. That can't be cheap either....but if it's even marginally cheaper than more subway, then it's better than sticking with subway. Then we would have a useful longer LRT that runs cross town. (Cross-town...gee, that would be a cool brand name for an LRT...wonder if anyone has thought of that already....)

- Paul



- Paul

 

[CapitalSeven]

Well, you can fault the politicians for not having learned anything from Sheppard, but I think the blame is misplaced. Most of them probably know the lines they are selling and planning don't make any sense, but they will simply be unelectable if they say that out loud. Subways in Toronto are no longer about transportation, they are about class and regional disparity and conflict.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

<snip>

Agreed. Sheppard Subway corridor is potentially not completely useless.

It is a stubway because it serves just one function: Connecting Don Mills-Sheppard/Fairview Mall with the YUS line.

Would it still be a stubway if it acted as a crosstown line and connected with Spadina (and even FWLRT) line? Suddenly the subway has a purpose beyond being a stub, people can use it to connect from one part of the transit system (along with all its destinations) with the other. It will still be a low-ridership subway with cost-overruns, but it would not be a useless stubway anymore.

Converting it to LRT and building it out should also be studied.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Better to also have it act as an Uptown bridge from Rouge Hill to the Georgetown Line, to provide that option in addition to the Downtown Toronto-Centric GO Network.

 

[Rainforest]

- New TTC chair Josh Colle estimates the cost at $10 per rider, while Coun. John Filion figures it might be just as costly to “run taxis” along the route to pick up riders.

TTC operating budget: $1.6 billion (http://ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commiss.../November_18/Reports/2014_TTC_AND_WHEEL_T.pdf). That includes subways, buses, and streetcars.

Don't know how much of that is used to run the subways, but I would assume, no more than 50%. Thus, the subway budget is $800 million or less.

The total length of TTC subways is about 65 km, of which Sheppard subway is only 5.5 km. Proportionally, Sheppard subway cannot cost more than ($800 x 5.5 / 65) = $67.7 million. Actually, it could be even less, since Sheppard subway is newer than the rest of the system, and has fewer stops per km.

Sheppard subway daily ridership: 49,000 (https://www.ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Subway_ridership_2012-2013.pdf). This is a weekday number; let's assume that weekend ridership is half of that. Estimated yearly ridership: (49,000 x 250 weekdays) + (24,500 x 110 weekends / holidays) = 14,945,000.

Estimated cost per ride: $67.7 million / 14.9 million = $4.54. Definitely not $10 per ride.

It is still a money loser though. The average fare is about $2 per ride, and only $0.5 - $0.7 from those two dollars can be attributed to Sheppard subway, the rest going to feeder buses and / or Yonge subway.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I recall that previously the number has been estimated to be $7 per ride.

 

[drum118]

I recall that previously the number has been estimated to be $7 per ride.

More like $17 per rider and stated by TTC. Operation lost is about $10m

 

[44 North]

IIRC the '~$10 subsidy' is when one includes the capital cost + interest. Which isn't exactly fair.

Eglinton will be probably trump Sheppard in terms of rider subsidy, especially if one were to include its enormous capital cost into that equation.

 

[dowlingm]

given news on how the Zoo attendance has cratered even with the pandas maybe a multi billion transit project there isn't the best idea...

 

[Rainforest]

More like $17 per rider and stated by TTC. Operation lost is about $10m

Operational loss of $10 m per year is believable.

However, that translates to a subsidy per ride: $10 m / 15 m rides = $0.67 per ride.

Obviously, then the total cost per ride (= fare recovery + subsidy) cannot be $17, or even $10. It should be in the $2 to $4 range.

 

[Rainforest]

given news on how the Zoo attendance has cratered even with the pandas maybe a multi billion transit project there isn't the best idea...

There is no such project on the table.

Sheppard LRT is independent on the Zoo.

An extension from Sheppard & Meadowvale to the Zoo will cost, perhaps, additional $100 million. This is a relatively small add-on.