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

[Rainforest]

What's the business case for going to the airport? The line we have currently doesn't attract any riders...why would another one improve things?

There is a much more reasonable argument that square one or Hurontario might be a better target to aim for...how often do people go to an airport (twice a year?)...it'd be way better to send the kids to the mall once a week, or centennial park or Hershey center...there is a way more at that mall of interest than at the airport...

There is a large employment area around the airport. UPX does not serve it at all, but the LRT would.

Why not go south on kipling or islington and over to Sherway...or down to Lakeshore and Long Branch Go....these routes would serve way more people and have way more utility and network effects than another line to the airport...unless we are building some movie theatres and schools up there that I don't know about it seems crazy to cater to one-off trips...

That would be a separate service, feeding into the Bloor subway and the Lakeshore West GO RER. There is no point brinding the LRT from Eglinton, 4 km north of Bloor, south across Bloor to serve those areas.

 

[Rainforest]

This isn't something we have to guess about.

Eastbound at peak hour, ridership at jane is 2,900 pphpd. This section between Mt. Dennis and Jane, less than 1 km, is the only section of the line that is solidly in LRT technology.

Moving west to Scarlett Rd, 2 km from Mt. Dennis, ridership drops to 2,100, which is the approaching the lowest I personally would support building an LRT, and is the lowest the TTC recommends.

So in a 2 km stretch, this LRT loses nearly 1/3 of it's ridership.

Continuing on to Royal York, 3 km from Mt. Dennis, ridership drops to 1,700 pphpd, well below acceptable demand for an LRT. It's lost 41% of it's ridership in a 3 km stretch, only 23% of the proposed extension length.

Moving on to Widdecombe, 6 km from Mt. Dennis and well below half the distance of the proposed extension, ridership plummets to 900 pphpd, which isn't anywhere near LRT territory.

First of all, ridership never falls below 1,500 pphpd according to this map. At Widdecombe, it is 900 eastbound, but 1,500 westbound.

1,500 pphpd is above the peak ridership of all bus routes in the city, except a few busiest routes. Assuming that an LRT train comes every 6 min on this section (10 trains an hour), each LRT train will carry 150 riders. That's a half-full train, not an almost-empty one.

Operating expenses needed to carry such load might actually be lower with LRT than with buses (you would need 15 - 18 artics or 20 - 25 regular buses per hour, all with drivers, instead of 10 LRT trains).

Furthermore, the outer section of LRT on almost every major arterial will have ridership similar or less than that on Eglinton West. I am not sure about Finch LRT east of Humber Colledge, but its extension further south down Hwy 27 certainly will have less than 1,500 pphpd. Yet, nobody seems to doubt the viability of extending Finch LRT to Woodbine or Pearson.

If the Mt Dennis bus-to-LRT transfer is made permanent, then it will be very hard to sell LRT to residents of any other arterial street, as they will expect a similar transfer introduced on their street.

 

[andrewpmk]

The ridership "projection" seems insanely low relative to the large amount of employment in the airport area (hundreds of thousands of jobs) and traffic problems on Highway 401.

The only reason that the UP Express is underused is because it has very high fares.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

First of all, ridership never falls below 1,500 pphpd according to this map. At Widdecombe, it is 900 eastbound, but 1,500 westbound.

Usage is lower than 2,000 pphpd everywhere west of Scarlett. That's about 2 km of the proposed 8 to 13 km extension.

1,500 pphpd is above the peak ridership of all bus routes in the city, except a few busiest routes.

Which is why I think it should be a candidate for an upgrade to BRT. That mode can carry up to about 4,000 pphpd.

Operating expenses needed to carry such load might actually be lower with LRT than with buses (you would need 15 - 18 artics or 20 - 25 regular buses per hour, all with drivers, instead of 10 LRT trains).

Operating expenses would undoubtedly be lower. The question is how long do we have to wait for the savings to be amortized.

The Sheppard-Finch LRT benefits case has the annual operating cost of those two LRT lines as being $10.3 million/year. An ECLRT extension to Pearson is about 40% the length of the combined length of Sheppard and Finch, so lets say it will have a annual operating cost of $4.12 Million/year. Now lets assume a BRT costs 50% more to operate, $6.18 Million/year. Thus, the LRT is $2.06 Million cheaper to operate than the BRT per year.

An LRT extension to Pearson should cost about a billion more than a BRT to Renforth. That means it will take 486 years for the additional capital cost to exceed the lower operating costs of LRT.

We can nitpick about the numbers, but regardless the time to see the savings of cheaper LRT operations is on the time scale of centuries. This is well beyond the useful lifespan of either a BRT or LRT. Heck, Toronto might not even exist 500 years from now (knock on wood).'

 

[Rainforest]

Operating expenses would undoubtedly be lower. The question is how long do we have to wait for the savings to be amortized.

The Sheppard-Finch LRT benefits case has the annual operating cost of those two LRT lines as being $10.3 million/year. An ECLRT extension to Pearson is about 40% the length of the combined length of Sheppard and Finch, so lets say it will have a annual operating cost of $4.12 Million/year. Now lets assume a BRT costs 50% more to operate, $6.18 Million/year. Thus, the LRT is $2.06 Million cheaper to operate than the BRT per year.

An LRT extension to Pearson should cost about a billion more than a BRT to Renforth. That means it will take 486 years for the additional capital cost to exceed the lower operating costs of LRT.

We can nitpick about the numbers, but regardless the time to see the savings of cheaper LRT operations is on the time scale of centuries. This is well beyond the useful lifespan of either a BRT or LRT. Heck, Toronto might not even exist 500 years from now (knock on wood).'

Well, that calculation does not take into account:

1) Ridership growth beoynd the target date. The ridership forecast was for a 15-20 year period. It is conceivable that the ridership of such a central route will continue to grow after that, and will reach a level unsuitable for BRT much sooner than in 400 years

2) Land value and property taxes; many people assume that LRT increases the land value and promotes highrise development more effectively than BRT.

3) Inflation; at 2% yearly, operating expenses will cost twice as much in nominal dollars 40 years down the road.

But perhaps most importantly, the same logic applied to almost any other planned LRT line will force us to declare that the outer section is not needed at all. Finch West south of Humber college, or SMLRT north of Eglinton, will certainly have less than 1,500. Same goes for almost every other arterial (Jane may be the only exception as its northern section would feed into York U and the subway).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Well, that calculation does not take into account:

1) Ridership growth beoynd the target date. The ridership forecast was for a 15-20 year period. It is conceivable that the ridership of such a central route will continue to grow after that, and will reach a level unsuitable for BRT much sooner than in 400 years

2) Land value and property taxes; many people assume that LRT increases the land value and promotes highrise development more effectively than BRT.

3) Inflation; at 2% yearly, operating expenses will cost twice as much in nominal dollars 40 years down the road.

The point of that exercise was to show that it would take so long to see the benefits of the cheaper LRT operating costs to materialize, that it's irrelevant to the discussion. You can bring all of those factors you mentioned into account and probably get 100 to 200 years to wait for the amortized savings of the LRT to materialize. Regardless it's well beyond the lifespan of either option. An LRT or BRT there probably won't last 75 years at the location, let alone 150 to 200 years+.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The ridership "projection" seems insanely low relative to the large amount of employment in the airport area (hundreds of thousands of jobs) and traffic problems on Highway 401.

The only reason that the UP Express is underused is because it has very high fares.

The EA only evaluated peak hour demand. We must remember that work hours of the Airport Corporate Centre are different than any other employment centre. This is because the Airport never sleeps. A significant number of staff are needed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

A typical employment centre might have nearly all their employees travelling to work between the hours of 7 AM and 9 AM. But the Airport corporate centre has this ridership distributed over 24 hours. Thus, this centre will have significantly lower peak hour demand than typical employment centres.

Metrolinx studied this and actually found that Airport employees typically travel to the airport before AM rush hour. Probably between 4 and 6 AM.

Some rough math: The airport will employ 56,000 people in 2031. Current modal share is 17%. Metrolinx expects modal share to grow 2.5% per year, resulting in 25.25% modal share in 2031. The majority of these employees don't live in Toronto, but lets say that Toronto accounts for 50% of these trips, because of better quality transit. That is 7,000 trips per day. That means average hourly ridership to the airport by airport employees per day would be 291 employees per hour.

This calculation is assuming that all Pearson-bound airport employees with points of origin in Toronto would use the ECLRT, which obviously won't be the case. So actual average hourly demand by airport-bound employees on ECLRT would be significantly lower, perhaps less than half of that 291 employee-trips/hour estimate.

Transit City's EA found that the airport had 500 people travelling towards it at peak hour. Obviously we don't have the data necessary needed to make a granular estimate on UT, but operating on the basic premise that ridership at Pearson is distributed relatively evenly across 24 hours, the estimate in the EA appears reasonable.

 

[andrewpmk]

The 401 to and from Mississauga has severe congestion problems in rush hour. I think that a lot of the employees who work in the area around the airport (not the airport itself) do work 9-5 hours, particularly people who work in office buildings. The roads in that area are severely congested in rush hour and tend to be deserted on weekends.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The employment in the airport area is diffuse - it doesn't matter whether they work 9 to 5 or not if you don't have a good, competitive solution to the last mile problem vs the car.

AoD

 

[LNahid2000]

The 401 to and from Mississauga has severe congestion problems in rush hour. I think that a lot of the employees who work in the area around the airport (not the airport itself) do work 9-5 hours, particularly people who work in office buildings. The roads in that area are severely congested in rush hour and tend to be deserted on weekends.

Congestion on the 401 isn't an indicator for demand on Eglinton between Jane and Pearson. People also used congestion on the 401 as justification to build the Sheppard Subway, but we all know how that turned out.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The employment in the airport area is diffuse - it doesn't matter whether they work 9 to 5 or not if you don't have a good, competitive solution to the last mile problem vs the car.

AoD

Exactly. The last mile problem is very challenging here. The only way to make transit to this location desirable is to have a robust network of frequent busses serving the Airport Corporate Centre. But given the large size of the centre, about the size of Downtown Toronto, if I recall correctly , I can't ever see this area effectively served by busses or any other transit. Frequently and dense service would be too expensive to operate and have too little ridership.

The other issue is the night time network elsewhere in the GTA. Like I mentioned in my last post, airport employees come to work 24 hours a day. If someone is a shift worker who regularly has night shifts, they're going to buy a car and make all their commutes (even daytime) with that car. That's because the nighttime surface network is too infrequent to be used to commute to the airport.

Anecdotally, my experience travelling to the airport at early morning (5 to 6 AM) is that few employees take the TTC to get to work at that time. Last time I saw between 5 and 10 employees get off the night bus that comes hourly. This time is apparently around peak time for employee travel to Pearson.

 

[Palma]

Exactly. The last mile problem is very challenging here. The only way to make transit to this location desirable is to have a robust network of frequent busses serving the Airport Corporate Centre. But given the large size of the centre, about the size of Downtown Toronto, if I recall correctly , I can't ever see this area effectively served by busses or any other transit. Frequently and dense service would be too expensive to operate and have too little ridership.

The other issue is the night time network elsewhere in the GTA. Like I mentioned in my last post, airport employees come to work 24 hours a day. If someone is a shift worker who regularly has night shifts, they're going to buy a car and make all their commutes (even daytime) with that car. That's because the nighttime surface network is too infrequent to be used to commute to the airport.

Anecdotally, my experience travelling to the airport at early morning (5 to 6 AM) is that few employees take the TTC to get to work at that time. Last time I saw between 5 and 10 employees get off the night bus that comes hourly. This time is apparently around peak time for employee travel to Pearson.

If the size of the centre is about the same size as downtown Toronto, does that mean the same ooo's worker? If that's the case then why would it have too low ridership!

 

[TheTigerMaster]

If the size of the centre is about the same size as downtown Toronto, does that mean the same ooo's worker? If that's the case then why would it have too low ridership!

Downtown Toronto is 17 square kilometres. The Airport centre is, very roughly measured, 140 square kilometres. So the airport centre's geographic area is 8 time bigger than Downtown Toronto.

The Centre hosts 245,000 jobs and is the second largest employment centre in the GTHA. In contrast, Downtown Toronto hosts about 500,000 jobs (about twice as many). This large size and low density makes serving with transit a challenge.

Transit modal share here is very small; only 7%. The majority of these workers don't live in Toronto, and the Crosstown extension would only cover a few hundred meters of this 17 square kilometre centre. There are plenty of better options for travelling here, including the Mississauga Transitway and various RER stations in the area.

 

[raptor]

It's official:

From: http://thecrosstown.ca/news-media/w...ical-tests-scheduled-for-the-future-caledonia

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Nice knowing I have been annexed by the Leasiders.

I think in time Keelsedale, Fairbank, Cerdarville will become colloquial. Leaside is annoying but at least it is unique and one-quarter accurate. Eglinton should still be Eglinton-Yonge and I will continue to refer to it as such.

The only real insult is Hakimi Lebovic.