Toronto wants subways

[TKTKTK]

Subway expansion in Toronto should be a national concern, but since regional competition is so heated in Canada, that'll never happen.

 

[Dan416]

As much as I don't like the fact that York Region is getting two subway lines and Mississauga has none, you can't blame York for pushing for them.

Under different leadership, Mississauga could have a subway line (or two if you include the airport). Mississauga is both deficit and debt free. It could surely afford the operational costs of a subway within it's jurisdiction, if it wanted to.

 

[Voltz]

As much as I don't like the fact that York Region is getting two subway lines and Mississauga has none, you can't blame York for pushing for them.

Under different leadership, Mississauga could have a subway line (or two if you include the airport). Mississauga is both deficit and debt free. It could surely afford the operational costs of a subway within it's jurisdiction, if it wanted to.

Isn't Mississauga cutting back on bus service? Is this not because of money issues? So how are they supposed to afford a subway?

And no city is allowed to have a deficit.

 

[Brandon716]

So far as costs go, the funny thing about Transit City is that i know for a fact once construction begins on any line there will be a thousand "gotcha's" when it comes to financing it.

The goal is to build a high quality, high capacity LRT network, not a typical LRT system you find in many smaller cities of North America or like the Toronto streetcar. Especially low level platform stations where you pay the driver the same as a bus ride, which is the bane of every el-cheapo LRT system even if they use newer modernized cars.

The reason some LRT systems are dirt cheap is that they run in traffic a great deal, don't have fare booths to pre-pay, only have a max of 2 cars per train, and etc. Yet the stated goal of Transit City is to have this "higher quality" LRT network.

All the estimates that are currently out there are WAY TOO CONSERVATIVE, and Transit City will cost double what they project if they are to build a higher quality LRT network with all the fine trimmings.

What will probably end up happening is that half the lines will get built, so why not do it right the first time and just finish the subways where needed?

Building 3 new TTC subway lines in the form of finishing Sheppard, building a subway DRL, and building a subway Eglinton cross-town line (or at least the core of a new Eglinton cross-town line) is what the GTA should be working on. Maybe a few other light rail lines in areas like Don Mills that makes sense, but I just don't see why Miller and the TTC top heads are so stuck in this LRT phase. LRT isn't the only kind of transit Toronto has, and Toronto already has a LRT network in the form of its streetcars. I know modern LRT is slightly better and has more capacity, but the street cars are still LRT.

To cut costs on Transit City, I suppose they could adopt a Portland MAX style approach. When I lived in Portland, I found it peculiar that there were neither fare booth attendants nor were there any people going to the front to prove they had a ticket. Its an honor based system with automated ATM style ticket booths at every station. You buy your ticket, and at random they put TriMet police/security officers to do a ticket check every so often. Those without transit tickets or passes get a fine.

But at its core it was very much an honor system... I lived nearly a year in Portland and only had maybe a handful of times a ticket police officer come around.

That isn't likely going to work in Toronto, because Tri-Met gets a lot of federal subsidy that isn't available in Canada. And a lot of people in Portland risk getting a ticket because its probably cheaper to pay a no-fare ticket from the TriMet police than to pay for a daily ticket or monthly pass. So TriMet has a lot of lost opportunity on fare revenue because of this honor system. The TTC has no room to afford that kind of system.

 

[Voltz]

To cut costs on Transit City, I suppose they could adopt a Portland MAX style approach. When I lived in Portland, I found it peculiar that there were neither fare booth attendants nor were there any people going to the front to prove they had a ticket. Its an honor based system with automated ATM style ticket booths at every station. You buy your ticket, and at random they put TriMet police/security officers to do a ticket check every so often. Those without transit tickets or passes get a fine.

That is EXACTLY what the TTC is planning to do....


Regarding a subway on eglinton, it would cost $8 billion to $10 billion, and is absolutely not needed, for half the price of a subway, the planned LRT line could be built, it would be more than able to handle the expected demand, and the central section would be a subway anyways.

The rest of the money not wasted on an eglinton subway could then be used to build a lawrence LRT line and the Crosstown GO line (assuming that lawrence does not require much in the way of tunnels), this would provide much better and faster overall service over a larger area for the same price.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

A subway along Eglinton would only cost $8B if they stupidly tunnelled under the Richview corridor...you'd save billions by running it in a shallow trench, or more or less at grade and dipping under major roads. The same could be done east of Leaside, where Eglinton has a decent ROW and is lined by little more than parking lots and grass; a few properties and strips of properties could be purchased and you'd still save several billion dollars. Of course, these design choices are ignored or deemed impossible because this city does not want any more subway lines, they'd rather have rapid transit lines that stop at red lights.

 

[RedRocket191]

A subway along Eglinton would only cost $8B if they stupidly tunnelled under the Richview corridor...you'd save billions by running it in a shallow trench, or more or less at grade and dipping under major roads.

Ah, turning some of the last remaining open space in the area into a trench... Hard edges where there were no edges before... Neighbourhood building at it's finest.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Ah, turning some of the last remaining open space in the area into a trench... Hard edges where there were no edges before... Neighbourhood building at it's finest.

What a lame response. Do Midtown and Bloor West suffer from partial subway trenches a few metres wide? Let's build highways everywhere...there's lots of open space inside cloverleaf interchanges! A widened Eglinton with its Transfer City line will eat up some of the corridor, too.

 

[RedRocket191]

What a lame response. Do Midtown and Bloor West suffer from partial subway trenches a few metres wide? Let's build highways everywhere...there's lots of open space inside cloverleaf interchanges! A widened Eglinton with its Transfer City line will eat up some of the corridor, too.

Why are you calling my comment lame?

I'm simply challenging you to address that aspect. Why not just respond and leave it at that?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Why are you calling my comment lame?

I'm simply challenging you to address that aspect. Why not just respond and leave it at that?

The challenge was lame and, atypically for you, kinda snarky.

 

[Voltz]

They would not save Billions by building part of a eglinton subway in a trench vs, how the TTC would build it. It would definitely be less expensive, but certainly not by Billions.

But that is besides the point, the point is that a subway is not needed and there are more effective ways to spend the money.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

They would not save Billions by building part of a eglinton subway in a trench vs, how the TTC would build it. It would definitely be less expensive, but certainly not by Billions.

But that is besides the point, the point is that a subway is not needed and there are more effective ways to spend the money.

Yes, it would be billions, and these massive savings would also apply to a fully grade-separated LRT line (a line that doesn't stop at red lights). The billions saved wouldn't just come from not tunnelling, but from the stations...an entire billion dollars could easily be saved on stations (and maybe more, given the rapid rise in underground station costs seen in recent projects).

Spending $3+ billion on a transit line that stops at red lights doesn't sound very effective and could squander the expensive tunnelled stretch (we'll find out when the line opens...building it is one thing; the TTC actually has to run the line properly, of which there's no guarantee). Moving to a fully grade-separated Eglinton LRT would be better, but it would cost more, and every additional dollar spent on the line means building a subway line instead makes more and more sense...just not as the TTC would build it.

edit - of course, we could just build Transfer City lines on streets better suited for them, like Lawrence, Wilson, etc., now and use what would be considered 'phase II' initiative and funds on a street like Eglinton, once the city at large figures out what it wants and what's best for Eglinton and the city. But doing this would mean moving from a "where should streetcar ROWs go?" focus to a "what's the best way to improve transit?" focus, an unlikely shift in today's Toronto.

 

[spider]

Is St. Clair West an LRT?

Yesterday PM I drove St. Clair Ave. from Mt Pleasant to Dufferin.

I found myself slightly back of a Street Car waiting at Yonge, the light changed and the traffic proceeded west. The vehicular traffic was slow, never exceeding 40KMH. I stopped for the light at Avenue Road and noticed the Street Car was still a couple of hundred meters from the intersection. By the time I stopped at Spadina the street car was out of sight behind me somewhere, it reappeared on the eastern horizon as I passed the ramp into the Bathurst station.

Isn't this thing supposed to be fast? They swiped 33% of the road and delivered the same pokey service, what's the point of this LRT thing anyway?

Please tell the TTC that we are a big town now, time to put away their trolleys and build some more subways like real serious cities

 

[Voltz]

Yes, it would be billions, and these massive savings would also apply to a fully grade-separated LRT line (a line that doesn't stop at red lights). The billions saved wouldn't just come from not tunnelling, but from the stations...an entire billion dollars could easily be saved on stations (and maybe more, given the rapid rise in underground station costs seen in recent projects).

Spending $3+ billion on a transit line that stops at red lights doesn't sound very effective and could squander the expensive tunnelled stretch (we'll find out when the line opens...building it is one thing; the TTC actually has to run the line properly, of which there's no guarantee). Moving to a fully grade-separated Eglinton LRT would be better, but it would cost more, and every additional dollar spent on the line means building a subway line instead makes more and more sense...just not as the TTC would build it.

edit - of course, we could just build Transfer City lines on streets better suited for them, like Lawrence, Wilson, etc., now and use what would be considered 'phase II' initiative and funds on a street like Eglinton, once the city at large figures out what it wants and what's best for Eglinton and the city. But doing this would mean moving from a "where should streetcar ROWs go?" focus to a "what's the best way to improve transit?" focus, an unlikely shift in today's Toronto.

I disagree on the cost savings.

The effective distance of the richview corridor is about 3.5km to 4km, (from royal york to martin grove, and slightly beyond) they would not even come close to spending half a billion on the 4 underground subway stations that would be built here, let alone saving a full billion by making them in a trench. On the 6.8km Yonge extension, the cost of the tunnels is only $600 million.

So I don't see how there are billions to be saved here...

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I disagree on the cost savings.

The effective distance of the richview corridor is about 3.5km to 4km, (from royal york to martin grove, and slightly beyond) they would not even come close to spending half a billion on the 4 underground subway stations that would be built here, let alone saving a full billion by making them in a trench. On the 6.8km Yonge extension, the cost of the tunnels is only $600 million.

So I don't see how there are billions to be saved here...

I already mentioned something similar could be done east of Leaside (edit - because, of course, why would design choices that consciously streamline a project be done on only part of a line?), and the line could be not tunnelled beneath Eglinton Flats, too. Throw in some elevated parts and cut'n'cover segments (keeping the line as close to street level as possible at all times) and we're looking at more like 15+km, and if the line went from Markington to Pearson it'd be more like 20km.