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

This government is so weird and stupid, then again they all are I guess. Also don't get if people fall for the 'Ford being a businessman' schtick. Who would want to do business with someone like him, or be seen doing business with him. Time to cut away the excess baggage.
 
“But Ford’s government is anxious to secure council approval for the Ontario Line in order for the municipal government to support reallocating about $3.2 billion in federal funding the city had earmarked for the relief line subway to the new provincial project.”

Aha, here we go. I mentioned a few months ago that Queen’s Park was never going to bully the City of Toronto into getting the Ontario Line built, because it was dependant on billions of federal funding that was specifically earmarked for the City of Toronto. There’s nothing QP can legislatively do to release those funds without the City’s approval.

Beyond that, I think Queen’s Park has finally realized that owning a subway network is far more complex and costly than they were planning. Their initial subway upload plans were a joke.

Now that QP’s bluff has finally been called, I think they’d be wise to simply endorse extending the DRL South to Sheppard and call it a compromise. That’s the least painful way forward for everybody. Shovels can be in the ground mere months from now. If QP refuses, let them attempt to upload the subway, at the cost of the OL never being built. The upload will be reversed by the next government anyways
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
“But Ford’s government is anxious to secure council approval for the Ontario Line in order for the municipal government to support reallocating about $3.2 billion in federal funding the city had earmarked for the relief line subway to the new provincial project.”

Aha, here we go. I mentioned a few months ago that Queen’s Park was never going to bully the City of Toronto into getting the Ontario Line built, because it was dependant on billions of federal funding that was specifically earmarked for the City of Toronto. There’s nothing QP can legislatively do to release those funds without the City’s approval.

Beyond that, I think Queen’s Park has finally realized that owning a subway network is far more complex and costly than they were planning. Their initial subway upload plans were a joke.

Now that QP’s bluff has finally been called, I think they’d be wise to simply endorse extending the DRL South to Sheppard and call it a compromise. That’s the least painful way forward for everybody. Shovels can be in the ground mere months from now. If QP refuses, let them attempt to upload the subway, at the cost of the OL never being built. The upload will be reversed by the next government anyways
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Hopefully Tory has the fortitude to make it happen, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

It would suck to have all of this done only to get the city funding a much lesser version of the Relief Line.

Just goes to show Ford was full of it when he said the province would upload infrastructure and fund it themselves if necessary.
 
If we don't build the Ontario line there will be people on this thread 10 years from now claiming Ford had the best plan but there was a witch hunt against him. That said I support building the drl.
 
Looks like Adam Vaughan will be listing the ten reasons he's against the OL in this twitter thread. He cited ten reasons at a recent Transportation Futures debate.

On his concern about tunneling under condos, I don't really get the concern. It's it possible as long as it's deep enough? Are there even any condos the proposed route would travel under?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1181890586674176000
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Now that QP’s bluff has finally been called, I think they’d be wise to simply endorse extending the DRL South to Sheppard and call it a compromise. That’s the least painful way forward for everybody. Shovels can be in the ground mere months from now.
Click to expand...

A meaningful compromise would be retaining the original (deep tunnel under Queen) alignment of DRL through downtown, while accepting elevated over Overlea and Don Mills, and possibly using a new rolling stock type and full automation. The eastern terminus would still be at Science Centre. The western part might have to be shortened to offset the longer tunnel, the terminal station being at Osgode or Spadina in Phase 1. That solution would address the majority of concerns related to constructibility, train size, and the capacity limit.

Extending to Sheppard isn't a compromise, it is a massive scope expansion, compared to either the original DRL or to the OL. Sure it would be nice, but the sticker price would make even relatively transit-friendly governments freak out.
 
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Allandale25 said:
Looks like Adam Vaughan will be listing the ten reasons he's against the OL in this twitter thread. He cited ten reasons at a recent Transportation Futures debate.

On his concern about tunneling under condos, I don't really get the concern. It's it possible as long as it's deep enough? Are there even any condos the proposed route would travel under?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1181890586674176000
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I would think the tunnel can go under condos if it is placed deep enough. However, going very deep may not be possible if the line needs to surface before the Don bridge. He probably has a point here.

Some of his other points are questionable though. If he is concerned about interrupting the Queen and King streetcars during construction, very similar concerns would be relevant to the oiginal DRL plan (goes under Queen, and crosses under King near Sumach).
 
Rainforest said:
A meaningful compromise would be retaining the original (deep tunnel under Queen) alignment of DRL through downtown, while accepting elevated over Overlea and Don Mills, and possibly using new rolling stock and full automation. The eastern terminus would still be at Science Centre. The western part might have to be shortened to offset the longer tunnel, the terminal station being at Osgode or Spadina in Phase 1. That solution would address the majority of concerns related to constructibility, train size, and the capacity limit.

Extending to Sheppard isn't a compromise, it is a massive scope expansion, compared to either the original DRL or to the OL. Sure it would be nice, but the sticker price would make even relatively transit-friendly governments freak out.
Click to expand...
But I think Extending to Sheppard would get the "Downtown" tag away from the line in the sense that more people would feel this isn't just a south of bloor solution. What Doug could do instead is build the Sheppard East Line in full, from Sheppard West to Scarborough Town Centre. That would be better to win voters, much less costly as well. And just back the Malvern and Eglinton West LRT's.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
But I think Extending to Sheppard would get the "Downtown" tag away from the line in the sense that more people would feel this isn't just a south of bloor solution. What Doug could do instead is build the Sheppard Line in full. That would be better to win voters, much less costly as well. And just back the Malvern and Eglinton West LRT's.
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Agree with all of that, except "the Sheppard Line in full". Doug finally recognized that some form of Relief Line is needed, downtown won't have too many subways, and the very appealing Yonge North extension cannot proceed without Yonge relief. Now we are struggling how to pay for the minimal required subway package, RL + SSE + Yonge North; not sure why anyone in charge would be interested in adding the Sheppard line to the mix.
 
Rainforest said:
Agree with all of that, except "the Sheppard Line in full". Doug finally recognized that some form of Relief Line is needed, downtown won't have too many subways, and the very appealing Yonge North extension cannot proceed without Yonge relief. Now we are struggling how to pay for the minimal required subway package, RL + SSE + Yonge North; not sure why anyone in charge would be interested in adding the Sheppard line to the mix.
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Politics imo. It's a quick win that locks in the outer 416. Even at 7 billion, it will be 25% up the upload plan. Let the city extend the Bloor Danforth line to STC. Put in the other stations later. It also closes the loop and will allow everyone to move on. Also, the Dundas West to Sheppard relief plans could be something to look at.
 
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However, if Doug had included relief line west in his analysis, then he would have gotten away with this. The Exhibition part is really bad imo.
 
Rainforest said:
Extending to Sheppard isn't a compromise, it is a massive scope expansion, compared to either the original DRL or to the OL. Sure it would be nice, but the sticker price would make even relatively transit-friendly governments freak out.
Click to expand...
I don't think that the extra bit between Sheppard and Eglinton would be that arduous to construct. It is a relatively straightforward subway line on an alignment with relatively few annoyances like utilities, when compared to downtown.
 
Rainforest said:
A meaningful compromise would be retaining the original (deep tunnel under Queen) alignment of DRL through downtown, while accepting elevated over Overlea and Don Mills, and possibly using a new rolling stock type and full automation. The eastern terminus would still be at Science Centre. The western part might have to be shortened to offset the longer tunnel, the terminal station being at Osgode or Spadina in Phase 1. That solution would address the majority of concerns related to constructibility, train size, and the capacity limit.

Extending to Sheppard isn't a compromise, it is a massive scope expansion, compared to either the original DRL or to the OL. Sure it would be nice, but the sticker price would make even relatively transit-friendly governments freak out.
Click to expand...

How is extending to Sheppard a massive scope expansion? The DRL South + North should cost roughly the same as the OL. We’d essentially be replacing the western half of the OL proposal with a northern extension to Sheppard.
 
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