Re: John Barber: All aboard the Wal-Mart express!
All aboard the Wal-Mart Express
JOHN BARBER
E-mail John Barber
They say not to bite the hand that feeds you. But when the hand is always empty, there's nothing else to snack on. So let's make the point: For most of the people who actually use and rely on public transit in Toronto, this week's announcement of federal support for the Spadina subway extension is no good news. On the contrary, it is a virtual guarantee of further corrosion and thickening crowds on that part of the system real people actually use.
In the annals of politically motivated subways to nowhere, a local specialty, this one's a peach. Except for York University, there isn't a single destination or actual neighbourhood on the entire line. Most of the six new stations will serve as nothing more than parking lots for years to come. The terminus is a Wal-Mart store reputed to become something called the Vaughan Corporate Centre.
It takes some digging to find out how many people will actually use this new service. In last spring's provincial budget, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara claimed that the subway to his suburban riding would "remove" 30 million car trips a year by 2021, seven years after its expected opening. The TTC says that it will carry 30 million riders by 2021, some of whom will come off buses -- an entirely different proposition. The technical studies appear to say something different again.
A deeply buried appendix to the environmental assessment of the extension to York University predicts it will attract 5,500 northbound riders in the morning peak. Currently, 21,000 people a day ride the express buses between Downsview Station and York, suggesting that the extension will produce little ridership or revenue gain.
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As for the idea of developing the extension a further 2.5 kilometres past city limits to Wal-Mart, the TTC formerly dismissed it on the grounds that there were too few people or jobs located on the route.
"Therefore," it said on the extension website, "potential subway ridership is limited at this time."
That professional opinion changed abruptly the day Minister Sorbara announced the Wal-Mart Express, but York Region's early estimate of demand on its section of the extension clearly bears it out. By 2021, fewer than 3,000 people will ride the subway south to York during the morning peak, according to regional planners. Estimated daily boardings by then will be fewer than 15,000 people.
To put those numbers in perspective, 48,000 people a day currently ride the King streetcar. By 2021, the number of suburbanites riding York Region's first subway line will be the same as the number of Torontonians who currently -- right now, in 2007 -- jostle and cram onto the 47 Lansdowne bus.
But most of those suburban riders don't even exist today: They are assumed into the scenario on the expectation that, once the extension is finished, developers will finally build something besides parking lots and box stores on the barrens it traverses.
Even if they appeared in future decades and took 30 million rides a year on the $2-billion Spadina extension, however, there still wouldn't be enough of them to overcrowd two busy streetcar routes.
Sure, it will pay off in the long run -- when we are all dead. Subways always do. But for a city with immediate short-term needs, the Spadina extension represents a massive misallocation of resources.
It won't be the politicians who suffer the consequences, however. It will be the millions of real people who rely on the existing system today. Every nickel spent in the politicians' latest campaign to coax suburban motorists onto luxury transit is a nickel that doesn't buy new streetcars and buses, better service or greater accessibility for existing riders.
Not that there's anything wrong with coaxing motorists onto transit. In that respect, the new suburban bus services for which Ottawa also announced support this week are exemplary starter efforts -- just what the experts ordered.
But the experts long ago lost the authority to determine the TTC's priorities. When there is no money available, they recommend sensible plans. As soon as the prevailing politicians announce yet another subway to nowhere, they abandon all sense and fall in.
The last one to buck the trend was former TTC chief David Gunn, who essentially refused to build the Sheppard subway until the province gave him an equal amount of money to fix up the existing system.
When the Spadina line reached Downsview, he boycotted the opening of the new station, complaining that the extension did nothing but add operating costs the system could ill afford.
During his own tenure as TTC chief, Rick Ducharme ranted plenty about the need to support subway construction with real-estate development. But he's gone, too -- and the latest extension is proceeding absent any firmly linked land-use plans.
The current leaderless regime, happy for any funding whatsoever, stays quiet.
The last time the TTC built a subway to nowhere, it concurrently slashed service on surface routes across the city, eliminating many altogether, and raised fares relentlessly. Now the same dynamic is back in action.
Thank you, transit-friendly politicians.
jbarber@globeandmail.com
