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

WislaHD said:
There are two things that are fundamentally different about Spain. The first is the obvious one, they receive a steady stream of subsidies from the EU to build infrastructure projects like transit. It is much easier to plan transit when you're given a budget of $1 billion that needs to be spent each year (don't quote me on exact numbers).

Second, Spain is a unitary government. That has a lot of drawbacks for their country, such as substantial resentment from places like Catalonia due to central government overreach. BUT on the transit front it is quite productive as there is no provincial level of government to negotiate with (their lower level of government, autonomous communities, are "Creatures of Madrid" the same way the Canadian territories are of Ottawa, or the City of Toronto is to Queen's Park). This means that their national government is able to directly plan and finance projects, without the constraints of a constitutionally split tax base and jurisdiction.
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Ah, Barcelona and Madrid. They’re perfectly analogous to Montreal and Toronto in Canada.Great cities.

Anyways my dream scenario is for the federal government to set up a similar transit funding stream here in Canada. That would be playing the role of EU subsidies. And the ability to raise taxes and build transit would be devolved to the city. This would make the City a lot more nimble in the face of its increasingly challenging job of governing a rapidly growing city

I’m convinced that the biggest challenge facing Toronto’s governance is having too many cooks in the kitchen. Everything from transportation to housing takes coordination of at least two levels of government here, and whenever there’s an election at either level, expect plans to be totally upended.

Over the next decade, I’d like to see as many powers as possible devolved from the province and onto the city, especially around taxation. There is no reason why a city that’ll soon be home to 4 Million people needs to be crying home to daddy to get anything done.

Yes, this is the polar opposite of the regionalism approach introduced by the McGunity government, where Queen’s Park took increasing control of the transit development process. I think that process worked fine in the 905, but in the 416 Metrolinx’s involvement seems to have actually made development of transit in the city even more difficult than it was before. Metrolinx has become yet another political tool for Queen’s Park to yield in Toronto. We don’t need to look any further than the Ontario Line, Finch West LRT, Sheppard East LRT and the Eglinton Crosstown to see how Metrolinx has been used to actively delay the implementation of transit expansion in the City of Toronto, while not bringing anything of value to the table that couldn’t have been done without their involvement. The City seemed a lot more nimble back in the days where QP would just send the City a cheque to build something. I really have no desire to continue with this Metrolinx experiment anymore; at least not within the City of Toronto (GO transit excluded)
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Yes, this is the polar opposite of the regionalism approach introduced by the McGunity government, where Queen’s Park took increasing control of the transit development process. I think that process worked fine in the 905, but in the 416 Metrolinx’s involvement seems to have actually made development of transit in the city even more difficult than it was before. Metrolinx has become yet another political tool for Queen’s Park to yield in Toronto. We don’t need to look any further than the Ontario Line, Finch West LRT, Sheppard East LRT and the Eglinton Crosstown to see how Metrolinx has been used to actively delay the implementation of transit expansion in the City of Toronto, while not bringing anything of value to the table that couldn’t have been done without their involvement. The City seemed a lot more nimble back in the days where QP would just send the City a cheque to build something. I really have no desire to continue with this Metrolinx experiment anymore; at least not within the City of Toronto (GO transit excluded)
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This is my view. I'd take it a step further and argue that their 'upload' of transit-building in the 905 wasn't fine. They took control of the transit development process as you state, but like in Toronto draaagggged things on. Mostly thinking Hamilton and Hurontario here. These are (relatively) simple projects, but have taken way too long. I don't think Hamilton will ever be built. Just like much of the LRT lines the Prov was supposed to build in TO. Whereas KW and Ottawa didn't have any upload and both cities have their lines up and running.

As for Madrid subway costs. One thing I've deduced is that their subway lengths are a lot smaller. That means smaller stations. Maybe doesn't mean much in terms of overall costs, but it's still something. Def not saying RL/Queen Subway should have shorter stations, however do support the building of smaller scale subways elsewhere in the city (e.g Sheppard).
 
WislaHD said:
There are two things that are fundamentally different about Spain. The first is the obvious one, they receive a steady stream of subsidies from the EU to build infrastructure projects like transit. It is much easier to plan transit when you're given a budget of $1 billion that needs to be spent each year (don't quote me on exact numbers).

Second, Spain is a unitary government. That has a lot of drawbacks for their country, such as substantial resentment from places like Catalonia due to central government overreach. BUT on the transit front it is quite productive as there is no provincial level of government to negotiate with (their lower level of government, autonomous communities, are "Creatures of Madrid" the same way the Canadian territories are of Ottawa, or the City of Toronto is to Queen's Park). This means that their national government is able to directly plan and finance projects, without the constraints of a constitutionally split tax base and jurisdiction.
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Sure, but this doesn’t really explain how slowly we build even after the money is allocated and we’ve started digging. I’m not asking for us to build 200km of lines in a decade (though it would be nice) but how is it possible that it’ll take 10-15 years to build a single line in Toronto but Madrid built an entire network in that time with new lines opening every few years? And before you bring up the E.U. or central government putting money into Madrid, they built their subway at a substantially cheaper per/km budget.
There’s just something horribly inefficient about our bureaucracy, how we reward contracts and/or our labour laws.
The point here is that the Relief Line has gotten beyond urgent. We cannot wait until the 2030’s. This needs to be recognized as an emergency, we have to circumvent our conventions and regulations and build it in half the time. This is *not* a physical limitation even though we’ve become used to thinking of subway construction as something that takes a decade to build.
 
44 North said:
This is my view. I'd take it a step further and argue that their 'upload' of transit-building in the 905 wasn't fine. They took control of the transit development process as you state, but like in Toronto draaagggged things on. Mostly thinking Hamilton and Hurontario here. These are (relatively) simple projects, but have taken way too long. I don't think Hamilton will ever be built. Just like much of the LRT lines the Prov was supposed to build in TO. Whereas KW and Ottawa didn't have any upload and both cities have their lines up and running.
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I say Metrolinx's involvement in the 905 was fine, simply because there really was no existing transit building process in the 905 prior to Metrolinx. I don't know what could fill that void if Metrolinx were to vanish. Would Missisauga (the largest of the 905 municipalities) be capable of competently building the Hurontario LRT without Metrolinx? I don't know.

In Toronto though, Metrolinx has certainly been detrimental. I'd much rather Toronto go it alone when it comes to city building. And I say city building, because this goes beyond transit to include things like housing. Queen's Park has been acting totally obvious to the housing crisis in this city. We absolutely can't afford to wait around for Queen's Park to wake up, as the population of our city continues to explode.
 
MetroMan said:
Sure, but this doesn’t really explain how slowly we build even after the money is allocated and we’ve started digging. I’m not asking for us to build 200km of lines in a decade (though it would be nice) but how is it possible that it’ll take 10-15 years to build a single line in Toronto but Madrid built an entire network in that time with new lines opening every few years? And before you bring up the E.U. or central government putting money into Madrid, they built their subway at a substantially cheaper per/km budget.
There’s just something horribly inefficient about our bureaucracy, how we reward contracts and/or our labour laws.
The point here is that the Relief Line has gotten beyond urgent. We cannot wait until the 2030’s. This needs to be recognized as an emergency, we have to circumvent our conventions and regulations and build it in half the time. This is *not* a physical limitation even though we’ve become used to thinking of subway construction as something that takes a decade to build.
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I'd think economies of scale would play a factor with one government handling everything, especially if there's a lot of construction happening at once.

You make a great point though. There's something seriously wrong with the prices we're paying for expansion.

I can't help but feel organized crime may be a factor. If that's the case, I don't see things improving with Ford running the province. :p
 
I think the true issue is Metrolinx doesn't have a real mandate to control and implement transit in the GTA , and all stems from the old Metrolinx board that actually represented the GTA in a way TransLink does is now run as a corporation. I think if the TransLink model was implemented with funding mechanisms and regional representation it would serve Toronto and the GTA well.
 
I don't know the answer to why our subway is so expensive to build compared to cities like Madrid, but the City of Toronto going it alone sure isn't it. Toronto isn't an island; it's the core of a large urban region that needs coordination to tie it all together. Each city in the GTA going it alone would simply be another version of too many cooks in the kitchen that would make the TTC and GO Transit silos even more isolated from each other than they already are. That's the opposite of what we need.

How can it be argued that Metrolinx has been detrimental to the city when the city was building precisely nothing in the years leading up to the creation of Metrolinx? Sure the Transit City plan was created around the same time that Metrolinx/GTTA was, but that's not a real rapid transit plan. RER is going to have a far greater impact on the city than Transit City could ever hope to and it's entirely a provincial initiative. The problem with Metrolinx isn't its existence, it's the details in how it's structured. We should be asking ourselves how a city like Vancouver, a smaller city with far greater integration across its metro area than Toronto does, has managed to build a larger rapid transit system than us in the last 30 years. Madrid, too, doesn't isolate itself from the surrounding suburbs.

We need more integration across the GTA, not less.

MetroMan said:
Sure, but this doesn’t really explain how slowly we build even after the money is allocated and we’ve started digging. I’m not asking for us to build 200km of lines in a decade (though it would be nice) but how is it possible that it’ll take 10-15 years to build a single line in Toronto but Madrid built an entire network in that time with new lines opening every few years? And before you bring up the E.U. or central government putting money into Madrid, they built their subway at a substantially cheaper per/km budget.
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The thing is, we kind of are building 200 km of rapid transit in a decade, it's just that most of it will be on upgraded existing rail lines. Those rail lines will have rapid transit across large parts of the city that currently have nothing, both downtown and in the suburbs. It's far and away the most significant transit project in the city, save for the relief/Ontario line.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
absolutely can't afford to wait around for Queen's Park to wake up, as the population of our city continues to explode.
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While we're at it, maybe we should also ask the feds to ease up on the immigration spigot which is going at full blast.
 
MisterF said:
How can it be argued that Metrolinx has been detrimental to the city when the city was building precisely nothing in the years leading up to the creation of Metrolinx?
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The fact that stuff is being built now has nothing to do with Metrolinx, and everything to do with the increased availability of funding for transit construction. This stuff would be getting built with or without Metrolinx.

MisterF said:
How can it be argued that Metrolinx has been detrimental to the city when the city was building precisely nothing in the years leading up to the creation of Metrolinx?
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You just have to look at how Metrolinx was used to secretly cancel the Sheppard East LRT, without telling their municipal partners, to see how detrimental Metrolinx has been to the process. If Metrolinx did not exist, and we went back to the old days where Queen's Park would just write the TTC a cheque to build the thing, the SELRT would've been running for five years now.

It's a similar story with the Finch West LRT as well.

Cannot emphasize enough that without Metrolinx's involvement , the SELRT and FWLRT would be up and running, and the Crosstown would be mere months from revenue service, save for any construction-related delays (which Metrolinx is not immune to either). Their principal job is to deliver transit expansion. They've demonstrably failed. All the regional coordination in the world doesn't mean anything if these projects aren't getting delivered.
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
I say Metrolinx's involvement in the 905 was fine, simply because there really was no existing transit building process in the 905 prior to Metrolinx
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Brampton Transit would certainly like to argue against that point.

In fact, from my contacts in there, it seems that Metrolinx is actively fighting against its further expansion and improvement - whether by accident or willingfully is unknown.

Dan
 
Allandale25 said:
Posted today:

blog.metrolinx.com

Metrolinx Press Room

Find the latest Metrolinx news, project updates and more.
blog.metrolinx.com
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Except at Science Centre station, which will now be elevated, while the Crosstown goes underground, basically pushing itself away from the Ontario Line.

The Ontario Line HAS to go underground at Science Centre station. Its ridiculous to elevate it while the transferring line literally goes further away from it underground.
 
robmausser said:
Except at Science Centre station, which will now be elevated, while the Crosstown goes underground, basically pushing itself away from the Ontario Line.

The Ontario Line HAS to go underground at Science Centre station. Its ridiculous to elevate it while the transferring line literally goes further away from it underground.
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From the blog:
Riders will have a much faster connection above ground than was envisioned under an earlier plan that would have seen the Downtown Relief Line built 38 metres below ground at East Harbour.

“Getting out through a cascade of escalators from 38 metres to the top would be a slow experience for customers,” Goetzke explains.
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The change to above ground for East Harbour is perfectly fine, but the premise is rather questionable - if you have a 15 minute frequency route and transfer time is 5 minutes, what drives your decision isn't going to be that indoor escalator ride.

AoD
 
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