Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group

for job growth, Vaughan Centre has quite a bit of office space going up. It has good subway and highway access, which doesn't exist elsewhere. Office is fleeing NYCC today because the 401 is too congested for car commuting employees to reach it, this is not true for the 407 and 400.
so hire employees that live in TO and can take transit
 
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...panda-train-marks-chengdu-line-3-opening.html

Ignore the panda train....how on earth are they able to construct 57km of metro heavy rail in less time (assuming the 2018 timeline holds) its taking us to make a paltry 7km......let's say even they have the same amount of time for consultation and appeasing lobbyists and NIMBYs...they would still beat this extension. we won't ever get 57 km in our lifetimes....
 
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...panda-train-marks-chengdu-line-3-opening.html

Ignore the panda train....how on earth are they able to construct 57km of metro heavy rail in less time (assuming the 2018 timeline holds) its taking us to make a paltry 7km......let's say even they have the same amount of time for consultation and appeasing lobbyists and NIMBYs...they would still beat this extension. we won't ever get 57 km in our lifetimes....

Even if China have lobbyists and NIMBYs; they would have ignored them. And plus cheap labour.
 
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...panda-train-marks-chengdu-line-3-opening.html

Ignore the panda train....how on earth are they able to construct 57km of metro heavy rail in less time (assuming the 2018 timeline holds) its taking us to make a paltry 7km......let's say even they have the same amount of time for consultation and appeasing lobbyists and NIMBYs...they would still beat this extension. we won't ever get 57 km in our lifetimes....

The length doesn't have much impact on the timeline. That's a money flow issue rather than a construction issue.

The timeline is mostly fixed on the duration it takes to dig down then build the station back up again after the TBM passes through. Whether 500 stations or simply 1, that duration doesn't change much. Ditto for tunnelling; you can run 16 or 20 TBMs instead of just 4. The annual amounts paid to contractors and number of staff increases significantly, but not the timeline.
 
The length doesn't have much impact on the timeline. That's a money flow issue rather than a construction issue.

The timeline is mostly fixed on the duration it takes to dig down then build the station back up again after the TBM passes through. Whether 500 stations or simply 1, that duration doesn't change much. Ditto for tunnelling; you can run 16 or 20 TBMs instead of just 4. The annual amounts paid to contractors and number of staff increases significantly, but not the timeline.

So in order words...we're broke... Yay....
 
So in order words...we're broke... Yay....

Yep. The timing of most of our transit projects is around cash-flow concerns rather than technical requirements. That's true in China too. Shanghai could have built 30 additional 57km subway lines over the last 7 years; but they didn't and they have a million unemployed former coal workers too (they're used to underground labour).

All that said, we've had well above average construction activity for transit over the last 5 years. As much as I'd like more components under construction simultaneously, I appreciate recent efforts.
 
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Yep. The timing of most of our transit projects is around cash-flow concerns than technical necessities. There are a few exceptions, like Yonge station on the Eglinton line which is being built last to minimize traffic disruptions; starting TBMs there would have enabled a faster opening to the line BUT there would have been hundreds of trucks per day hauling dirt away from Yonge & Eglinton for a few years too.

True, but I still believe that another large factor is the bureaucracy side of this and the fact that there's too much red tape and ancillary processes/costs. Not to mention too much self interests in the planning and procurement phases. One of the downsides of North American democracy
 
True, but I still believe that another large factor is the bureaucracy side of this and the fact that there's too much red tape and ancillary processes/costs.

Yeah, efficiency could improve BUT we could spend our way through all that.

Hiring 10 separate groups to move 10 separate projects through the red tape simultaneously doesn't lengthen the timeframe for any single project; even if those projects are 10 separate phases of a single 100km long subway line.

Not to mention too much self interests in the planning and procurement phases. One of the downsides of North American democracy

Agreed.
 
Quick snaps of Vaughan Centre station (I refuse to use the pretentious official name).

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Thank heavens for the KPMG Tower. Without it the most urban thing around this subway station would have been the Home Outfitters with an abandoned Future Shop on top.
 
Thank heavens for the KPMG Tower. Without it the most urban thing around this subway station would have been the Home Outfitters with an abandoned Future Shop on top.
... which makes me ask, why was the extension necessary to go this far? I know lots of development is planned, but that was after it was announced. Why not, say, extend the Bloor-Danforth line into Mississauga? I feel like the case could be equally made.
 
Thank heavens for the KPMG Tower. Without it the most urban thing around this subway station would have been the Home Outfitters with an abandoned Future Shop on top.

Finch Station didn't have much around it save for a few strip malls when it opened. Nor did Sheppard.
 
... which makes me ask, why was the extension necessary to go this far? I know lots of development is planned, but that was after it was announced. Why not, say, extend the Bloor-Danforth line into Mississauga? I feel like the case could be equally made.

Three reasons:

- York University wasn't just pushing for a subway, they wanted to get all the buses out of their main campus. The subway only to York U would only eliminate one bus route: 196 York University Rocket, and would probably attract even more bus routes. Why this was a problem, I don't know. It's GO Transit's second most important hub for ridership, and a major one for York Region Transit. Brampton even sends a bus all the way here (its busiest route, too). A big underground bus terminal, out of the way of York would have been great, but no. GO, YRT, Brampton passengers will be making a forced transfer instead.

- Politics. Vaughan has long had more political clout than its size demands at Queen's Park. That one riding is almost guaranteed to have a powerful cabinet minister (Al Palladini, Greg Sorbara, Stephen Del Duca). So Greg Sorbara, then finance minister and Dalton McGuinty's closest political partner, got the subway extended 2-3 more stops to Vaughan. (The fact that Sorbara's family owns land along the route had absolutely nothing to do with it, of course.)

- Mississauga was pushing for the Transitway, not a subway extension. Only York Region and Scarborough are seriously pushing for subway extensions.
 
^well, money also. I highly doubt that Peel Region was going to contribute money to extend the BD into Mississauga the same way that York Region did of YUS extension into Vaughan.
 

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