Sheppard Line 4 Subway Extension (Proposed)

[T3G]

Of course, I never argued anything to the contrary, I was just arguing about the means of transport selected. The suburbs should be serviced by transit, yes - and MUCH better transit than the garbage that they have to offer - but why does it have to be by TTC routes? What does the TTC gain from running an extended line 4 (after a financially intensive rebuild into a light metro, no less) into Mississauga and Oakville? At that point it would make more sense to hand the line over to Metrolinx, with its associated running costs.

I feel I don't need to point out that the TTC is a hugely cash strapped organization, and they should focus their limited resources on serving the city of Toronto instead of every community besides it. Every heavy duty extension of their service mandate outside of the city limits is a neglect of something the city needs. Like how we managed to get a subway up to Vaughan before ever building a Downtown Relief Line is beyond me.

 

[Amare]

Like how we managed to get a subway up to Vaughan before ever building a Downtown Relief Line is beyond me.

Polished corruption is how. Basically a Quid pro quo type of business dealings between government and private landowners/development.

Akin to what we're seeing with the Ford government and Highway 413.

 

[Rainforest]

Of course, I never argued anything to the contrary, I was just arguing about the means of transport selected. The suburbs should be serviced by transit, yes - and MUCH better transit than the garbage that they have to offer - but why does it have to be by TTC routes? What does the TTC gain from running an extended line 4 (after a financially intensive rebuild into a light metro, no less) into Mississauga and Oakville? At that point it would make more sense to hand the line over to Metrolinx, with its associated running costs.

TTC is the agency of Toronto City Council, and thus is obligated to serve all residents who vote for the Toronto City Council.

Let's assume the light metro line, that incorporates the existing 5.5 km of the Sheppard tunnel, runs from the Pickering GO station to Pearson Airport.

85% of the route length will be within the territory governed by Toronto City Council.

The Pearson connection, while technically outside Toronto, will be heavily used by Toronto residents. Both those who go to Pearson to take a plane, and those who work there.

That leaves ~ 5 km in the east outside the Toronto borders and of little use for Toronto residents. But those 5 km will be cheap to build if placed in the 401 corridor, and will provide an important regional connection to Lakeshore East GO. Non-residents coming from that end will pay the fares and improve the total revenue, so even them are not too much of a burden. Or if it is critical to have the eastern terminus within Toronto borders, then the line can connect to Rouge Hill GO instead of Pickering GO.

And the rebuild into a light metro will not be too financially intensive. Just 5.5 km to modify, and the tunnel is already there. Getting the funding for the remaining ~ 30 km is going to be a lot harder.

 

[afransen]

TTC is the agency of Toronto City Council, and thus is obligated to serve all residents who vote for the Toronto City Council.

Let's assume the light metro line, that incorporates the existing 5.5 km of the Sheppard tunnel, runs from the Pickering GO station to Pearson Airport.

85% of the route length will be within the territory governed by Toronto City Council.

The Pearson connection, while technically outside Toronto, will be heavily used by Toronto residents. Both those who go to Pearson to take a plane, and those who work there.

That leaves ~ 5 km in the east outside the Toronto borders and of little use for Toronto residents. But those 5 km will be cheap to build if placed in the 401 corridor, and will provide an important regional connection to Lakeshore East GO. Non-residents coming from that end will pay the fares and improve the total revenue, so even them are not too much of a burden. Or if it is critical to have the eastern terminus within Toronto borders, then the line can connect to Rouge Hill GO instead of Pickering GO.

And the rebuild into a light metro will not be too financially intensive. Just 5.5 km to modify, and the tunnel is already there. Getting the funding for the remaining ~ 30 km is going to be a lot harder.

I think the counterargument is that Sheppard is not going to be a major crosstown route.

 

[Northern Light]

I think the counterargument is that Sheppard is not going to be a major crosstown route.

Putting aside, initially whether it should happen, it will not.

Then lets look at Sheppard ascertain where the route is going beyond the end of Sheppard West Station (nowhere); and also lets look at form. Even the Eglinton Crosstown, its name notwithstanding, isn't really meant as a route someone would be expected to take from Kennedy to Kipling, any more than we expect that on Line 2.

If one is trying to serve that long-distance commuter, you want an express/limited-stop service with stations further apart. I would happily advocate for that in the 401 corridor, but neither the MTO nor the politicians of the day are there yet; and in fairness there are really other better priorities in the near to medium term.

 

[SashaLemon]

The suburbs are not part of Toronto, they are their own individual towns/cities and this should be dealt with accordingly. We have transit like GO whose express purpose is to serve the commuter belt around Toronto, I see no reason to extend local transit devised for serving Toronto way beyond our boundaries. A bus into Mississauga or York, maybe, but extending a subway into the suburbs has always been a ludicrous option. And what is the cut off point? As we see with Yonge North, everyone not living in Toronto seems to want their own piece of the pie. Do we keep saying yes to each of them until we - or, more accurately, our great grandchildren - find ourselves at the opening of the Line 1 extension to Barrie?

Why do all of these people want a subway anyway? The subway makes local stops and the journey would hardly be faster than taking the car. What time savings will be found, for example, by taking the 1 from Richmond Hill to Union instead of taking the GO train, which has much less stops and can achieve much higher top speeds before the next station forces it to brake?

That doesn't mean they should have any say in how that money is used though. The biggest problem with transit in this city is that politicians play act as transit planners and get to throw their weight around and push their vision through even if it doesn't make any sense, like the use of the ICTS technology on the Scarborough RT in place of the infinitely more reliable CLRVs which were originally supposed to run there.

Opening a chequebook doesn't make a politician knowledgeable about transit, or what mode is most appropriate to run in that section. The insistence on pushing subways everywhere stinks of Scarborough Subway style populism.

All I basically said was a line that would be mostly in Toronto, ending up within the rapidly urbanizing core of Mississauga, opening up opportunity to do major TOD development along the way. The GO lines don't even service the Mississauga core. This could be the midtown line, and it could be an S-Bahn not a subway. But those rapid S-Bahn trains must not be slowed down by slow Diesels. (Line 5 could also go to Mississauga, as its so painfully obvious that's where it might end up, due to the extension ending up at Renforth.) With this in place then yeah, maybe this would be completely not required. (For now)

What rapid transit is required in the actual city of Toronto? Of course Line 4s extension to Sheppard West and Scarborough. What about an west/north extension of the Ontario Line? To the Airport? A rebirth of the Jane LRT only this time with the Ontario Line?

 

[11th]

I don't think 'Stubway' would be a reasonable characterization at all. That would imply that it were short; but this route would be 17km long. So........not really a stubway.

What we might debate is whether we should stay rigidly tethered to the grid, following Sheppard whether or not that makes the most sense.

I like starting with a 'grid base' as it makes it easy for people to understand how to get from one point to another, and makes building it slightly more straight-forward; but I don't really understand the Toronto aversion
to actually diverting off-grid to hit key nodes.

When you get to eastern Scarborough there are several nodes of high volume, high ridership potential nodes. You can't hit all of them with one subway or LRT, but its certainly worth asking if we could hit one or more.

A diversion to the north, east of McCowan can hit Malvern, which is obviously a dense population cluster, it could stop there, or continue due east 3.5km to hit the Zoo. The downside there is that Zoo's traffic is very seasonal and also tends to be very limited in evenings; it would also have to cut a swath across environmentally sensitive lands.

Alternatively, one could hit Malvern and still divert back south-east to hit UTSC.

Or, one could ignore Malvern entirely; and head south-east, west of Mc Cowan to hit SCC, then due east to hit Centennial and UTSC.

We have a while to lobby for our preferred options, funding is not imminent.

That's an extension that can be done cheaply - elevated on Nugget and/or surface along the CP ROW.

 

[KhalilHeron]

Of course, I never argued anything to the contrary, I was just arguing about the means of transport selected. The suburbs should be serviced by transit, yes - and MUCH better transit than the garbage that they have to offer - but why does it have to be by TTC routes? What does the TTC gain from running an extended line 4 (after a financially intensive rebuild into a light metro, no less) into Mississauga and Oakville? At that point it would make more sense to hand the line over to Metrolinx, with its associated running costs.

I feel I don't need to point out that the TTC is a hugely cash strapped organization, and they should focus their limited resources on serving the city of Toronto instead of every community besides it. Every heavy duty extension of their service mandate outside of the city limits is a neglect of something the city needs. Like how we managed to get a subway up to Vaughan before ever building a Downtown Relief Line is beyond me.

It's not as if the TTC or City is paying for extensions into the suburbs. York region paid $251m/km vs the City of Toronto's $145m/km for the TYSSE, proportionately they are paying way more. I definitely don't think Toronto residents should pay to extend our local transit into the 905, but the majority of funding is coming from the province and feds these days, so if it's not hurting our transit, why not extend and try to blur municipal borders in terms of mobility. I don't necessarily agree agree with the projects that extend into the suburbs but it makes far more sense for cities to be working together to provide more access to local transit, than isolating themselves and their systems.

 

[ARG1]

Why do all of these people want a subway anyway? The subway makes local stops and the journey would hardly be faster than taking the car. What time savings will be found, for example, by taking the 1 from Richmond Hill to Union instead of taking the GO train, which has much less stops and can achieve much higher top speeds before the next station forces it to brake?

This comment as a whole screams to me that you don't know much about GO other than its a way for 905ers to get to Toronto.

It's sort of common knowledge at this point that the Richmond Hill Line is BAD, like REALLY BAD. The route it takes is extremely winding and slow, and it's position at the bottom of Don Valley makes it basically impractical to use for any purpose other than getting to Union. According to Metrolinx, once YNSE opens, Travelling from Langstaff GO to Queen will take the EXACT SAME TIME as with both Line 1 and RH Line, despite the latter only have 2 intermediate stops. If you want another example of how bad the Richmond Hill Line is, theoretically, if you took the 4 from Richmond Hill GO to Maple GO, then transferred to the Barrie Line, assuming you don't have to wait for the train, this journey would take just as long to reach Union before Davenport Construction, as it would to just go direct via the RH Line (It's 15 mins from RH to Maple, plus 30m from Maple to Union, vs ~45 mins from RH to Union). While there are theoretically ways to improve the RH line, such as reactivating the CP Don Sub and Leaside Spur, these would require fighting through a ton of NIMBYism, refurbishing the CP Don Sub, and finding a way to build a flying on the Midtown Corridor to reduce conflicts with CP trains. A project like this would almost certainly cost Billions, and would still likely be a worse value proposition than YNSE due to issues like lack of strong transfers specifically to the Ontario and Bloor-Danforth Lines, and avoiding many of the major city centers (Line 1 goes straight through NYC and Midtown).

 

[ARG1]

Of course, I never argued anything to the contrary, I was just arguing about the means of transport selected. The suburbs should be serviced by transit, yes - and MUCH better transit than the garbage that they have to offer - but why does it have to be by TTC routes? What does the TTC gain from running an extended line 4 (after a financially intensive rebuild into a light metro, no less) into Mississauga and Oakville? At that point it would make more sense to hand the line over to Metrolinx, with its associated running costs.

I feel I don't need to point out that the TTC is a hugely cash strapped organization, and they should focus their limited resources on serving the city of Toronto instead of every community besides it. Every heavy duty extension of their service mandate outside of the city limits is a neglect of something the city needs. Like how we managed to get a subway up to Vaughan before ever building a Downtown Relief Line is beyond me.

These aren't TTC Projects. The TYSSE was the last time the TTC ever headed a subway project, from here on out every extension and new line will be built, managed, and owned by Metrolinx. The only thing TTC is doing is operations. The YNSE is a Metrolinx project, the infrastructure will be owned by Metrolinx. The TTC will only be in charge of operating the trains through it.

 

[SashaLemon]

These aren't TTC Projects. The TYSSE was the last time the TTC ever headed a subway project, from here on out every extension and new line will be built, managed, and owned by Metrolinx. The only thing TTC is doing is operations. The YNSE is a Metrolinx project, the infrastructure will be owned by Metrolinx. The TTC will only be in charge of operating the trains through it.

What happens when Toronto someday gets charter city status and uses its own taxes how it wants to. I wonder if Metrolinx would still be involved in that scenario for transit expansion within city limits.

 

[nfitz]

These aren't TTC Projects. The TYSSE was the last time the TTC ever headed a subway project, from here on out every extension and new line will be built, managed, and owned by Metrolinx. The only thing TTC is doing is operations. The YNSE is a Metrolinx project, the infrastructure will be owned by Metrolinx. The TTC will only be in charge of operating the trains through it.

TTC is heading $billion Yonge/Bloor station new platform and upgrades. Also looks like city will be doing Line 7 as per the old model. I don't think anything precludes city building/expanding an existing line - except the four they've been legally banned from doing.

I wonder if Metrolinx will clean toilets faster.

 

[ARG1]

What happens when Toronto someday gets charter city status and uses its own taxes how it wants to. I wonder if Metrolinx would still be involved in that scenario for transit expansion within city limits.

That's a big and really big if, and even if that happens, I'm pretty certain it won't be just the city of Toronto, but will include many of it's neighbouring cities

 

[SashaLemon]

That's a big and really big if, and even if that happens, I'm pretty certain it won't be just the city of Toronto, but will include many of it's neighbouring cities

They would have to seek separate charter status, as they are diffrent municipalities.

 

[afransen]

They would have to seek separate charter status, as they are diffrent municipalities.

Municipalities are just legal fictions employed by the province as convenience. If the province were to consider granting Toronto sweeping powers, it would really only make sense as an organization fr the GTA. That said, Queens Park is already basically the regional government for Toronto. I don't see them conceding much power in this regard. I think Ontario will become more like the UK where it is all about London.