Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[Eug]

It's only part of a class EA rather than an individual EA, and with the streamlining that was done for Transit EAs it won't take 4 years to get an EA complete - should be less than 12 months. I'd expect the biggest hold-up is that the City is going to freak when Metrolinx presents the bill for cancelling Transit City (which I assume they are waiting to do after the election) ... and Metrolinx may not want to go too far on a new EA until if it sees if City Council is going to go along with paying $100+ million to get out of the old Transit City plans.

$49 million?

“As of April 2011, we estimated the sunk costs would be at least $49 million, which is mainly for work associated with the environmental assessments and design/engineering and project management associated with the Finch and Sheppard LRTs.”

 

[rbt]

“As of April 2011, we estimated the sunk costs would be at least $49 million, which is mainly for work associated with the environmental assessments and design/engineering and project management associated with the Finch and Sheppard LRTs.”

I guess Metrolinx opted not to include the Sheppard grade separation. It was good for GO but they could have pinned it onto the city.

 

[nfitz]

$49 million?

I'd think it may be at least double that by the time they sort out all the costs. The penalties on adjusting the Bombardier LRT contract may be significant. There's also all the EA work on the Eglinton East line that is for nought, and all the design work on the SRT extension to Sheppard.

 

[Eug]

I'd think it may be at least double that by the time they sort out all the costs. The penalties on adjusting the Bombardier LRT contract may be significant. There's also all the EA work on the Eglinton East line that is for nought, and all the design work on the SRT extension to Sheppard.

Well, in the meantime, forgive me if I take Metrolinx's interim assessment instead of your guess. Yeah it's quite possible the price may be significantly higher than $49 million, but it also sounds like it may be way lower than your 100+ claim.

 

[Voltz]

Well, in the meantime, forgive me if I take Metrolinx's interim assessment instead of your guess. Yeah it's quite possible the price may be significantly higher than $49 million, but it also sounds like it may be way lower than your 100+ claim.

Whatever the figure ends up being, it is still nothing compared to what the city will have to spend buying and operating buses for the cancelled lines. Ford may also burn through more money pursuing his delusional subway fantasy.

 

[Eug]

Whatever the figure ends up being, it is still nothing compared to what the city will have to spend buying and operating buses for the cancelled lines. Ford may also burn through more money pursuing his delusional subway fantasy.

It would be interesting to compare projected operating costs of LRT vs. bus in those corridors. Given that some of those routes might have underutilized LRT capacity, I suspect the real operating costs of LRT in the near to mid-term would actually be higher than bus, or at best, not much lower than bus.

Don't get me wrong... I personally don't like taking the bus, but don't mind LRT, but I'm just not understanding your point about costs for running those lines. Remember, the up front cost of bus is much, much less than LRT, and the operating costs of bus and LRT are probably roughly in the same ballpark, after considering the up front costs.

 

[Voltz]

It would be interesting to compare projected operating costs of LRT vs. bus in those corridors. Given that some of those routes might have underutilized LRT capacity, I suspect the real operating costs of LRT in the near to mid-term would actually be higher than bus, or at best, not much lower than bus.

Don't get me wrong... I personally don't like taking the bus, but don't mind LRT, but I'm just not understanding your point about costs for running those lines. Remember, the up front cost of bus is much, much less than LRT, and the operating costs of bus and LRT are probably roughly in the same ballpark, after considering the up front costs.

Yes, operating costs may be higher for LRT in some parts of the lines initially, but we would have have vehicles with twice the lifespan and capacity of a bus paid for, that capital cost is still a major expense to the city that Ford has incurred.

 

[tabeesh]

Crosstown Video

The crosstown has a video overview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyMQGKrlu0

http://www.thecrosstown.ca/news-media/whats-new/video-an-overview-of-the-crosstown

 

[MetroMan]

FYI: This is news to me but TransitCity has not been officially killed off. Gord Perks says that this must still go to a council vote. Given how City Council has suddenly come to their senses and discovered their power to block the Mayor, it wouldn't be surprising if they rejected cancelling Transit City which comes with very large contract breaking penalties.

I'm all for the Eglinton crosstown, but I think that burying it all is a huge misplacement of funds. I like how the new line will replace the SRT but I feel that the above ground portion previously planned should be built that way and those funds directed back at the Finch LRT and the Sheppard LRT. I preferred a continuation of Sheppard as a subway but not at the cost of cancelling the rest of TransitCity and losing Federal funding.

I think that the Finch LRT was the biggest lost opportunity. The land is there to build an above ground rapid transit line without sacrificing car lanes, the plans were done and the province had committed the money. This part of Toronto needs this line badly.

What do you all think Council will do? Entirely reject Ford's move to cancel TransitCity and revert back to the original plan? Accept the whole idea? Find a hybrid idea that will preserve some of TransitCity lines?

 

[nfitz]

FYI: This is news to me but TransitCity has not been officially killed off.

Yes ... interesting isn't it. The irony is Ford might have had a better chance of pushing this through council 6 months ago, than after his monorail wet dream, and before it became clear just how financially unsustainable the Sheppard subway extension is.

In a way it's a shame ... the revised Metrolinx plan to build the subway under Eglinton from Kennedy to Jane makes such an improvement to travel times, that it would provide some serious relief to the Danforth line. On the other hand, we could do a lot more with that $2-billion.

Too early to tell what will happen. Let's see how the election goes, and then how Ford packages the Sheppard subway to council ... which is surely also a huge factor in this.

 

[rbt]

Yes ... interesting isn't it. The irony is Ford might have had a better chance of pushing this through council 6 months ago, than after his monorail wet dream, and before it became clear just how financially unsustainable the Sheppard subway extension is.

The real irony will be when council cuts the Ford Plan and reinstates transit city as a budget savings measure to prevent paying back that minimum $49 Million.

 

[Dan416]

The real irony will be when council cuts the Ford Plan and reinstates transit city as a budget savings measure to prevent paying back that minimum $49 Million.

Okay let's not get delusional now.

 

[ssiguy2]

I'm curious, where did the Toronto money for TC go?
Remember when it was first announce the City said it would pay for one third and then Queen's Park came by and said they would fund the city's portion. How exactly was the city going to get those funds and can they still raise those funds to satrt a DRL?

 

[Eug]

The crosstown has a video overview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyMQGKrlu0

http://www.thecrosstown.ca/news-media/whats-new/video-an-overview-of-the-crosstown

Thanks for the link. It actually provides some limited simple, but useful information for the layperson, and has good production quality without looking overproduced. The two people in the video aren't particularly slick, but they're real people: Peter Allibone, Chief Project Manager, and Franca Di Giovanni, Community Liaison.

http://thecrosstown.ca/

P.S. Here is the illustration of the launch site in case you haven't already seen it:

And here is a hypothetical station, illustrating the pedestrian traffic flow:

---

P.P.S. On another topic: Regarding Transit City, I wasn't aware of this, but maybe it's just because I don't follow these things as closely as some of you do:

Peak ridership for the Eglinton section of the Eglinton-Crosstown is projected to hit 12000 pphpd, in 2031. This is an enormous increase from the projected numbers from Transit City's Eglinton section (5000 pphpd), because most of those people coming from the outer parts would have just transferred from the LRT to Bloor-Danforth.

What was the max capacity in terms of passengers per hour per direction for the Transit City LRT design?

 

[W. K. Lis]

In Steve Munro's blog (at this link), Steve made this comment:

I was just on Ledrew Live as part of the audience for Tim Hudak’s appearance. I asked him about transit funding, but he made disparaging comments about both Transit City and Metrolinx. He supports Ford’s transit plans, and thinks that long range transit planning is a waste of time. He is obviously out of sync with his own transport critic.

Transit planning a waste of time? We have another Mike Harris waiting in the wings.