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

MrGoose said:
In what way does the Eglinton Crosstown being an LRT serve more customers than a subway?

The tunnel section is exactly like a subway in terms of construction and the eastern segment would have been the easiest segment to cut and cover. The western extension is being treated as a subway.
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I didn't say the Crosstown does. That ship has sailed, there is nothing that can be done.

I'm talking about all the subway nonsense going about now. We are electing the most expensive transit option every time and fundamentally neglecting other corridors. Imagine if, instead of fantasies about extending the Sheppard line to Downsview Park and Pickering, we were instead talking about LRTs on Lawrence, York Mills, or Finch East. Upscaling those corridors and spreading out the demand city wide would be a hell of a lot more impressive urban planning strategy than overloading Eglinton and then crying that the capacity does not suffice. Not good enough.

Subways are the nuclear option. Why are there literally no other tools in our arsenal?
 
innsertnamehere said:
Sure, then we should build a 26-lane freeway to Sudbury and a quad-track subway line to Oshawa because it might run over capacity at some point a century from now.

There is such thing as "opportunity costs".

What benefit did we gain? How does saving billions on construction costs sound? You can deal with a lot of other things when a line costs 40% less to build.
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How did we save on construction costs?

The tunnels are wide enough for subway trains and the station boxes are longer than an equivalent station box on the Yonge Line.

The eastern at-grade section is a 27m wide stroad which could have been very easily cut and covered.

We aren't going to be adding more stations if it was a subway, if anything, we'd be removing some of them because of faster operations.
 
MrGoose said:
How did we save on construction costs?

The tunnels are wide enough for subway trains and the station boxes are longer than an equivalent station box on the Yonge Line.

The eastern at-grade section is a 27m wide stroad which could have been very easily cut and covered.

We aren't going to be adding more stations if it was a subway, if anything, we'd be removing some of them because of faster operations.
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Because we didn't build 7km of tunnelled subway? The line is $3+ billion cheaper because of it.

Making up theoreticals about cut and cover construction is just not the case or a fair comparison. We know the cost premium for doing it a full subway as it was almost built that way. At the time it was $5.9 billion for the Crosstown as built or $9 billion for a fully tunneled version like Rob Ford wanted. And that plan was universally ridiculed on this board and basically everywhere else at the time. The eastern section of the line is going to have ridership which can be accommodated by a light BRT for the foreseeable future, yet alone a full-size metro. That money is better going elsewhere in the network like the Ontario Line.
 
MrGoose said:
If the planners of the 1900s had this kind of mentality then there would be no subway deck under the Bloor Viaduct, the Yonge Line would have been an streetcar, etc etc.
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Perhaps you missed the period in 2008 where we nearly closed the Sheppard line completely because we massively overbuilt capacity without the ridership to justify it? We built based on wishes and projections (and votes) and it ended up being a huge money sink, and still is some 22 years later. It’s never met projected ridership numbers. Ever.
 
zang said:
Perhaps you missed the period in 2008 where we nearly closed the Sheppard line completely because we massively overbuilt capacity without the ridership to justify it? We built based on wishes and projections (and votes) and it ended up being a huge money sink, and still is some 22 years later. It’s never met projected ridership numbers. Ever.
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This argument might be relevant if we had built the Sheppard line as a crosstown route and it still failed to reach a profitable level of ridership.

Except that the Sheppard Line started at 6km long with only 1 major interchange and the Eglinton line is starting at 18km with 4 major interchanges, with another extension already under construction, and another major line being built to intersect it.

A similar looking Sheppard Line would look like what the Sheppard Line is supposed to look like once its extension is complete and there is no doubt that such a line would have much higher ridership than what the current Sheppard Line has.
 
MrGoose said:
In what way would a subway be more expensive to run than what we have right now?

A subway would have the same tunnels, interchanges and tracks.

Is there anything to suggest that trams are cheaper to maintain than high floor trains?

And in terms of personnel , an automated subway would not need to have any drivers whereas we are locked into having drivers for the Crosstown
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The average kilometer of subway cost $7mil to maintain over 10 years ago. (That number is probably closer to $10mil/km today.)

The surface section will cost considerably less to maintain. There are no needs for systems to provide lighting, fire prevention, life safety, passenger elevating, etc., and thus no need to maintain the same. The signalling system is simpler, and therefore less expensive to operate and maintain. No faregates to maintain. The list goes on.

Will the equipment be more expensive to operate? It's unknown, but considering the number of systems that are not required by running it on the surface, I would bet a crisp $100 bill that it will cost a lot less on the whole.

Dan
 
MrGoose said:
Except that the Sheppard Line started at 6km long with only 1 major interchange and the Eglinton line is starting at 18km with 4 major interchanges, with another extension already under construction, and another major line being built to intersect it.
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The original Yonge line (Union to Eglinton) was barely 7km in length and did just fine. It had no interchanges.

MrGoose said:
A similar looking Sheppard Line would look like what the Sheppard Line is supposed to look like once its extension is complete and there is no doubt that such a line would have much higher ridership than what the current Sheppard Line has.
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Sure. But enough to justify the added cost of making it 3x the length? Not likely. Great swaths of Sheppard in the late 90s when the line was being planned was nothing but SFH. Even now it still doesn’t have anything close to the density Eglinton did when they planned the first Eg Subway in the 80s.

You keep pointing out the crosstown tunnels and stations are big enough for subway trains, then it’ll make it super easy to upgrade when the time actually comes and the density truly justifies it and. Then we can tunnel some more.

Throwing money at something right now for the sake of 30-40 years down the line is ridiculous for the sheer maintenance costs, let alone the initial–unjustified–capital. Unless you haven’t noticed, the TTC (as one of the least subsidized transit agencies in North America) emptied the couch cushions long ago.
 
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zang said:
The original Yonge line (Union to Eglinton) was barely 7km in length and did just fine. It had no interchanges.



Sure. But enough to justify the added cost of making it 3x the length? Not likely. Great swaths of Sheppard in the late 90s when the line was being planned was nothing but SFH. Even now it still doesn’t have anything close to the density Eglinton did when they planned the first Eg Subway in the 80s.

You keep pointing out the crosstown tunnels and stations are big enough for subway trains, then it’ll make it super easy to upgrade when the time actually comes and the density truly justifies it and. Then we can tunnel some more.
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Thats the problem. The stations are low-floor stations so the conversion is not easy or cheap to do.

And by then you'll be shutting down a major 15kPPDPH line, and causing transit chaos.
 
MrGoose said:
How did we save on construction costs?

The tunnels are wide enough for subway trains and the station boxes are longer than an equivalent station box on the Yonge Line.

The eastern at-grade section is a 27m wide stroad which could have been very easily cut and covered.

We aren't going to be adding more stations if it was a subway, if anything, we'd be removing some of them because of faster operations.
Click to expand...
The Eglinton underground stations are not as long, 90m vs 150m.

An Eglinton Subway would not have made it east of Yonge by now, and we would have been lucky if serious planning was underway to make it to Don Mills,
 
This map is not aging very well.
1719014636748.png
 
I don’t know if everyone forgot. The whole point was originally to build a LRT line on the surface but Eglinton was too narrow in midtown with a higher ridership projected. So the tunnel was selected between Keele to Brentcliffe. The rest of the line from Martin Grove to Kennedy would be in the surface. The alignment beyond Martin Grove was undecided. Either a split with a spur to Renforth and another to Pearson or one line passing both destinations. Eventually they terminated the line at Weston with funds running dry.
ML stepped in and made everything west of Brentcliffe grade separated leading to this discussion of a full subway instead.

If they were to spend money on a subway. It’s better off they spend it to extend OL to Sheppard and extend that to meet Line 2.
 
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