Sheppard Subway - Development Impacts

[scarberiankhatru]

Even if we say it's $3B...that leaves another $3B to either extend it or spend on other projects. The province would have paid for it all, anyway.

Transit City cost estimates exclude streetcar maintenance/storage facilities and include savings from replacing buses, so if we're going to quibble over largely irrelevent details, we should do it properly and include similar savings in the cost of the DRL.

 

[rbt]

Even if we say it's $3B...that leaves another $3B to either extend it or spend on other projects. The province would have paid for it all, anyway.

Once momentum for constructing these projects starts the tap won't turn off for a while unless we have a serious money crunch. I'm optimistically looking forward to a second round for the 2012 election.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Even if we say it's $3B...that leaves another $3B to either extend it or spend on other projects. The province would have paid for it all, anyway.

Transit City cost estimates exclude streetcar maintenance/storage facilities and include savings from replacing buses, so if we're going to quibble over largely irrelevent details, we should do it properly and include similar savings in the cost of the DRL.

First of all, what makes you think that the city can put forth subway lines wherever it likes to and by default the province and GTTA will buy into it? Hindsight is 20/20. Second, have you thought about what would happen if lo and behold, there is a budget cut and descoping is required? How would a 3B line fare? Does one end up having to settle for an all or nothing scenario?

There is also the question of operating cost - can the city afford running those new lines with less than optimal ridership? The province didn't suggest picking up that tab.

AoD

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Wherever it likes to? LOL. The province bought into Transit City in just a few months while subways like the DRL, Eglinton and a finished Sheppard were proposed or started a generation ago and will have to continue to wait for support.

It's hard to dispute that a DRL would have good ridership, unless you're someone who thinks anything that's not crush-load or wait-two-trains-to-get-on capacity is "less than optimal."

Once momentum for constructing these projects starts the tap won't turn off for a while unless we have a serious money crunch. I'm optimistically looking forward to a second round for the 2012 election.

Agreed. Some of the MoveOntario projects should be up and running by then, which will put pressure on governments to do something about downtown, in particular.

 

[EnviroTO]

Even if we say it's $3B...that leaves another $3B to either extend it or spend on other projects.

That figure sounds more reasonable. I figure it would cost about $1B from Dundas West to Union above ground including Union Station, about $1.5B from Union to Pape mixed, $2B from Pape to Eglinton, and about $1B from Eglinton to Don Mills station. That uses up $5.5B of the $6B and nothing has been improved in Scarborough, Eglinton, North Etobicoke, etc.

The DRL has always been about relieving capacity overloads downtown while private ROWs on King, and Waterfront West ROW extensions are about speeding up transit downtown for people actually living and working in those areas. The DRL has side benefits for those people living in the areas it passes through but the motivation for the DRL has always been reducing overloads on the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth line. This is why the Transit City plan is a great plan. Transit City plus the Yonge line extension ensures overload on the Yonge line and Bloor-Danforth line. The TTC didn't even want to prioritize a Yonge line extension because they know it will cause the line to overload. Why would the city get funding for the DRL line now when the funding will be needed on an emergency basis later thus almost guaranteeing it will be available soon after some of these project come on-line?

The DRL is in the plan... its just hidden between the lines.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

...or we could have just planned for it now and it would have been included in MoveOntario. The DRL and downtown routes like King serve the same areas - problems on King wouldn't be much of an issue if there was a parallel subway two blocks away.

$500M of Rocket buses would do far more than $5B of streetcars for the suburbs.

 

[EnviroTO]

Buses don't lure ridership the same way visible infrastructure does. Buses also don't give developers and purchasers confidence that their property is well served by transit. Even when a GO bus is travelling a route with similar performance to a train, the addition of a train run on a line boosts ridership in a way the bus cannot.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The ridership's already out there riding buses. Frankly, some of Transit City's ridership estimates are absurd, particularly since they don't bring transit to any new areas of the city (a DRL would at least bring service to massively intensifying Front St.) or offer any new travel routes. Downtowners love to say how much everybody hates riding buses but that's a myth. You've all either been spending way too much time on Steve Munro's blog or you're just plain dreaming if you think suburbanites are going to flock to these new streetcar lines if travel times go down by 5 minutes, wait times go up by 4 minutes, and the only real difference is riding $6 billion worth of streetcars instead of buses.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

scarberian:

...or we could have just planned for it now and it would have been included in MoveOntario.

What makes you think that it is automatically the case?

Frankly, some of Transit City's ridership estimates are absurd, particularly since they don't bring transit to any new areas of the city (a DRL would at least bring service to massively intensifying Front St.) or offer any new travel routes.

That's akin to saying that an area is not served by transit just because it the line is five minutes walk away (like Front Street). What area(s) of the city are currently not serviced by transit in some form?

You've all either been spending way too much time on Steve Munro's blog or you're just plain dreaming if you think suburbanites are going to flock to these new streetcar lines if travel times go down by 5 minutes, wait times go up by 4 minutes, and the only real difference is riding $6 billion worth of streetcars instead of buses.

You yourself said it - streetcars, not LRT.

AoD

 

[CDL.TO]

Downtowners love to say how much everybody hates riding buses but that's a myth. You've all either been spending way too much time on Steve Munro's blog or you're just plain dreaming if you think suburbanites are going to flock to these new streetcar lines if...

What really irks me about your posts on this topic is your eagerness to present this as an "us vs them" debate. Who is this monolithic group of "Downtowners"? Who are these homogeneous "suburbanites"? And for that matter, why is it valid to provide assumptions that all light-rail lines will be as poorly designed as possible for cost and speed (a criticism that has merit), BUT assume that subways can and will be built perfectly and optimally designed for cost? I feel like I'm reading an American nutjob conservative political blog (or the Sun) foaming-at-the-mouth about one of his favourite targets.

"Liberals love to say how much everybody hates greenhose gases but that's a myth. You've all either been spending way too much time on Al Gore's blog or you're just plain dreaming if you think real Americans are going to flock to these new taxes if..."

We're discussing transit plans, is there any need to toss such generalisations of groups of people and us vs. them attitudes in to it?

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

EnviroTO: I agree. If this plan goes forward then in just a few years time as all the projects start to be constructed or come online there will be little choice but too focus on downtown. The Jane and Don Mills LRT lines will have to be extended downtown for them to be truely efficient, which could be along a surface route or could inspire something a little bolder (a new streetcar terminal at Union with the Jane and Don Mills lines being connected via tunnel and the Lakeshore and Spadina routes being fed into it too is one possibility). And of course a subway or streetcar tunnel along Queen (or an adjacent route) is going to be necessary to divert traffic and make the system more efficient. As you said, downtown transit is there in the plan, even if there are not pretty lines on a map yet.

Scarberian: The problem with buses is not that they are not effective in a lot of cases, it is perception, which is in many cases an accurate one. Streetcars are quieter than buses, there are no smelly diesel fumes, the ride is smoother and more enjoyable, and there is a 'cool' factor about them that buses will never have. It is not that those factors alone are going to cause people to use the new line, but they are important enough that they can't be ignored. And it has nothing to do with reading Steve Munro's blog, which I don't, or being anti-subway, it is just about trying to pick the best solution for each problem and LRT routes on main arterials in the more suburban regions of Toronto is the best way too increase capacity and ridership without sinking the billions it costs for subway lines.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

What makes you think that it is automatically the case?

They're funding everything else, including subways. Enviro's strategy of purposefully overloading the system even more than it is and putting even more strain on downtown so that we're forced to do something may very well work by 2040...let's drop this subject for now and come back to it in 3 decades.

You yourself said it - streetcars, not LRT.

If I had more than a sliver of hope that they'd build real, functional LRT, I'd say LRT. I'm certainly not going to call Spadina LRT.

We're discussing transit plans, is there any need to toss such generalisations of groups of people and us vs. them attitudes in to it?

De Baeremaeker alone is practically the "them" to the "us" in Scarborough. I know I'm pretty much the only one on this forum who doesn't salivate when they see the letters LRT. Maybe it's un-urban or a little nutjob conservative, but there can be no debate when those in control are so insulated and assured that they are right and the essentially voiceless (by choice) rest are told what's good for them, told with certainty that "light rail is affordable and better than buses." Transit City amounts to over $6 billion worth of "trust us" and it's hard to trust that it'll be done right when the streetcar system is the least reliable component of the entire TTC network.

I'd love it if some of the politics were taken out of the plan. If Transit City's main goal was the improvement of transit service across the city, step #1 would be adding even a barebones Rocket bus network that would not be dependent on benevolent premiers in election mode or 12 years of EAs and construction to get rolling. They also need to address valid questions of whether we're getting a half dozen new Spadinas or not, and if we're not, because they're going to do this, this, and this to prevent bunching, etc. This isn't being done and Transit City's supporters just keep reciting "yeah but light rail is affordable and better than buses, therefore it should be built everywhere."

Scarberian: The problem with buses is not that they are not effective in a lot of cases, it is perception, which is in many cases an accurate one. Streetcars are quieter than buses, there are no smelly diesel fumes, the ride is smoother and more enjoyable, and there is a 'cool' factor about them that buses will never have.

That's your opinion, one that I and many others don't share. I always have great naps while flying along Finch. Buses are effective enough on many of Toronto's suburban roads that there's no need to replace them, but there is a perception among the learned left that streetcars and light rail are automatically better.

Support for Transit City's streetcars is not rising up from disgruntled suburban bus riders, but the overwhelming majority of people in this city will ride the new streetcar lines without complaint because they don't complain about anything. If told light rail is better and if it's marketed properly, they won't have any problems with it. Even if they don't improve service, the buses will be out of sight, out of mind.


edit - but about that Sheppard subway...has anyone else noticed that it's always really cold down there? Is it the cavernous stations coupled with smaller crowds of warm humans or do they just keep more [cold] air flowing through it?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

scarberian:

They're funding everything else, including subways. Enviro's strategy of purposefully overloading the system even more than it is and putting even more strain on downtown so that we're forced to do something may very well work by 2040...let's drop this subject for now and come back to it in 3 decades.

Ipso facto, the promise (note, a pre-election promise, without having the proposals being vetted by GTTA) will automatically translate into subways being built where they're proposed, just because they're on the books. I don't know about you, but that sounded like loading the system up for pork.

Note that there is also nothing in the current Transit City plans that would prempt any DRL - the very fact that there is nothing in it per se means all options are potentially on the table.

Transit City amounts to over $6 billion worth of "trust us" and it's hard to trust that it'll be done right when the streetcar system is the least reliable component of the entire TTC network.

There we have it again - equating street cars to LRT. If one's concern is about the execution of the latter, one should focus energies onto making that right, not to perversely suggest the next iteration as the solution. Need I remind you that the Yonge line was a replacement for streetcar lines?

Buses are effective enough on many of Toronto's suburban roads that there's no need to replace them, but there is a perception among the learned left that streetcars and light rail are automatically better.

In addition to that, one has to keep in mind the relationship between the "Avenues" concept in the OT with the Transit City plan, and the potential for increased ridership. The buses and BRT can only go so far.

AoD

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

That's your opinion, one that I and many others don't share. I always have great naps while flying along Finch. Buses are effective enough on many of Toronto's suburban roads that there's no need to replace them, but there is a perception among the learned left that streetcars and light rail are automatically better.

I am not going to militantly defend LRT and Streetcars because I don't really care all that much. But, just to follow up on Alvins point, a rather good illustration of the difference in quality of life between a street with lots of buses and one with lots of streetcars is Spadina in Toronto and Albert or Slater in Ottawa. If streetcars get bunched up or there is a lot of traffic moving in both directions, it is far more tolerable than what happens when Albert or Slater get jammed with buses. Perhaps if all the buses were brand new and running perfectly then it would be less of an issue, but most buses are not in optimal shape and the result is a street that is loud, unpleasant, and smells of diesel fumes (in addition to the exhaust from car traffic). I am not saying that those qualities alone make LRT or Streetcars instantly more desireable, but they are important factors.

As far as whether there should be more investment in buses or LRTs or subways, the answer is easy, it is all three, and every other issue or problem that you can think of as well. There are lots of areas in regards to transit that need investment and as nice as the MoveOntario funding is to help get all these plans off the ground, there are still many other just as important projects and basically you just have to pick a bunch and go with it and if your pet project wasn't in this batch of funding then maybe you will get it next time around.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

There we have it again - equating street cars to LRT. In addition to that, one has to keep in mind the relationship between the "Avenues" concept in the OT with the Transit City plan, and the potential for increased ridership. The buses and BRT can only go so far.

If the Transit City documents equate streetcars with LRT, I will, too.

Most of Finch West, Jane, Don Mills, and Morningside aren't "Avenues" and continued population growth in the suburbs is far from a sure thing. I never said buses could solve all our problems, but there's a lot they can do with buses that can make a significant difference in a very short time and for almost no money.

Antiloop, my first choice pet project was the billion dollar GO funding, which is on its way. Waiting for the first election cycle after MoveOntario is finished and the YUS line has been losing riders due to crowds for a few years will guarantee that the DRL (or some equivalent) won't be built before a full half century has passed since it was proposed...maybe we can afford to wait that long, maybe we can't - I'd rather not take the risk. I'm always amused by how often people on this forum say we need new transit infrastructure downtown such as, for example, a tunneled streetcar on King, but a DRL is out of the question.