Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

TossYourJacket said:
While true, it's much easier to launch/recover TBMs from within the rail corridor than doing it in the middle of Queen St West. So even if say the OL west section goes back into a tunnel and runs up Dufferin (which MX have said they have planned for as an option), it would be far less costly and disruptive than ripping up Queen St yet again would have been for the RL West Plan. Don't get me wrong, the OL is not perfect, but the RL was phenomenally short-sighted in many ways. Tbh, I doubt RL West would ever have been built.
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The RL was just phase 1 of a larger project. No reason the government couldn't have continued with it and proceeded immediately to phase 2.
 
syn said:
The RL was just phase 1 of a larger project. No reason the government couldn't have continued with it and proceeded immediately to phase 2.
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While that is true, there was absolutely no movement (and dare I say interest) in the western extension on behalf of the City/TTC. The focus was entirely on RL South, followed by RL North (which they had contracted the preliminary design for out to Metrolinx). It's highly unlikely RL West would have been designed fast enough to make use of the TBMs that were being used to build the line between Pape and Osgoode. RL West was never Phase 2, it was always a very clear Phase 3.
 
syn said:
The RL was just phase 1 of a larger project. No reason the government couldn't have continued with it and proceeded immediately to phase 2.
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Lol idk what fantasy world you live in but the word immediately to phase 2 is not possible for Toronto Transit Infrastructure. We would have waited years and with government switches to get RLN. RLW? Lol we all might be dead by the time that would have been built. Here we are getting the RL, RLN, RLW in one shot by 2031. I will take that over RL any day.
 
toronto647 said:
Lol idk what fantasy world you live in but the word immediately to phase 2 is not possible for Toronto Transit Infrastructure. We would have waited years and with government switches to get RLN. RLW? Lol we all might be dead by the time that would have been built. Here we are getting the RL, RLN, RLW in one shot by 2031. I will take that over RL any day.
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I don't agree with this, the OL is as long as it is because that's how long is was decided to build, the RLN was about to begin planning and assessment, there is nothing inherit about the OL that made it just happen.
 
toronto647 said:
Lol idk what fantasy world you live in but the word immediately to phase 2 is not possible for Toronto Transit Infrastructure. We would have waited years and with government switches to get RLN. RLW? Lol we all might be dead by the time that would have been built. Here we are getting the RL, RLN, RLW in one shot by 2031. I will take that over RL any day.
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Eglinton Line isn't open, but Phase 2 (West extension) is under construction and Phase 3 (airport) is being actively discussed. There are no technical reasons why it couldn't have been done.

That said, while I do believe the Ontario Line is the better proposal, there may now be a P3 contractual restriction preventing expansion. Australia ran into that problem with their commuter rail for decades after privatizing operations; changing the contract to expand service was crazy expensive as the vendor had total control over pricing those extensions.. With luck, the OL contract is written to enable service expansion without requiring a new pricing agreement.
 
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Voltz said:
I don't agree with this, the OL is as long as it is because that's how long is was decided to build, the RLN was about to begin planning and assessment, there is nothing inherit about the OL that made it just happen.
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There is one thing about planning / assessment and there is another thing of having funding in place and construction commencing. There have been thousands of projects "planned and assessed" over the last several decades if not over a centennial. How many of them actually got built? I would say a very tiny fraction
 
toronto647 said:
There is one thing about planning / assessment and there is another thing of having funding in place and construction commencing. There have been thousands of projects "planned and assessed" over the last several decades if not over a centennial. How many of them actually got built? I would say a very tiny fraction
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$150 Million was put towards relief line designing and planning, it was happening and was not yet at the stage of needing construction funding, starting it all from scratch with the OL did not magically make things happen. It went forward because the government decided to move it forward, same with any other project.
 
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Voltz said:
$150 Million was put towards relief line designing and planning, it was happening and was not yet at the stage of needing construction funding, starting it all from scratch with the OL did not magically make things happen. It went forward because the government decided to move it forward, same with any other project.
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But regardless of $150 M or not. There was no funding for the RL N. No government committed to it and there was no sign from the Feds or Province willing to fund it prior to the SSE and EGWLRT. You can spend all you want in designing and planning but that doesn't mean anything.

Look at the Waterfront LRT and Eglinton East LRT, both great projects with millions thrown into them. But there is no construction funding hence they won't be built in this decade and probably not in the next lol... Same would have happened to RLN.

link me 1 article where there is proof all levels of governments had billions in funding allocated to it. And if not keep dreaming that it would have been built by the liberals. Show me the money.
 
toronto647 said:
Lol idk what fantasy world you live in but the word immediately to phase 2 is not possible for Toronto Transit Infrastructure. We would have waited years and with government switches to get RLN. RLW? Lol we all might be dead by the time that would have been built. Here we are getting the RL, RLN, RLW in one shot by 2031. I will take that over RL any day.
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I mean, much of these ideas are still but fantasies on paper.

Let's actually wait for something to get built before we tout what a great success the Ontario Line was, shall we?
 
T3G said:
I mean, much of these ideas are still but fantasies on paper.

Let's actually wait for something to get built before we tout what a great success the Ontario Line was, shall we?
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Much of the ideas are still fantasies? SSE, EGWLRTE are already under construction. OL and YNSE early works have already begun. How are they fantasies on paper when construction has already started on 2 of them and early works on the other 2?

The only fantasy is RLN and RLW.
 
toronto647 said:
Much of the ideas are still fantasies? SSE, EGWLRTE are already under construction. OL and YNSE early works have already begun. How are they fantasies on paper when construction has already started on 2 of them and early works on the other 2?

The only fantasy is RLN and RLW.
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Your post was referring to getting RLN and RLW at the same time as the RL, so that is the fantasy I was referring to.

Being in the early stages of design also does not preclude the project being cancelled or delayed. Talk is cheap and inflation rampant.
 
toronto647 said:
But regardless of $150 M or not. There was no funding for the RL N. No government committed to it and there was no sign from the Feds or Province willing to fund it prior to the SSE and EGWLRT. You can spend all you want in designing and planning but that doesn't mean anything.

Look at the Waterfront LRT and Eglinton East LRT, both great projects with millions thrown into them. But there is no construction funding hence they won't be built in this decade and probably not in the next lol... Same would have happened to RLN.

link me 1 article where there is proof all levels of governments had billions in funding allocated to it. And if not keep dreaming that it would have been built by the liberals. Show me the money.
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When was the construction funding for the OL put forward,?

What was so special about the OL that made it a sure thing?

Why could Ford just not have continued with the RL process?

Why were they able to decide to build the OL, but would not have been able to do so for the RL?
 
adys123 said:
Just to throw in a point to the discussion, let's remember that just because there were no public announcements, that there wasn't work being done in the background...
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It's sort of a meaningless claim. Ye, they could've been doing work in the background, but they also might not have been doing work in the background. When we consider the projects we know were active at that time such as RLN which was decades away, the likelihood that they were secretely working on RLW and that could've been accelerated to start around before the DRL finished is... unlikely, to say the least.
 
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