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Transit City Plan

3000 is a number that Soberman pulled out of his hat in a report designed entirely to justify his recommendation that refurbishing the RT is the way to go. There are at least 3000 riders already taking routes out of their way to avoid the overcrowded and unreliable RT. That figure doesn't come close to including the number of riders induced to switch to the TTC because of the much faster and easier trip, nor the many people who would choose to live in Scarborough Centre if direct subway service were available.

That aside, no city in the world would want more than 8000 riders an hour at its terminal station. It just doesn't make sense. I guarantee there weren't 8000 riders an hour out to Woodbine when they first built the BD line, and nobody considers that a failure. Find out how many people ride the A train out to the Rockaways. I guarantee it isn't 8000 an hour.

Obviously, at some point out from the core, it becomes necessary to step down to a lower order of transit. It's glaringly clear that such a place in Scarborough is the City Centre. Bus routes from all over Scarborough radiate there. Kennedy is an arbitrary point where planners back in the 70s decided to stop building. If they had any idea how successful Scarborough Centre would be, there's absolutely no question that they would have continued the line.

If you ask nearly anybody in northern or eastern Scarborough, I guarantee that they would happily give up an RT extension to Markham and Sheppard in exchange for a subway to Scarborough Centre. It benefits everyone, even the few dozen people living at Markham and Sheppard. Nobody's going to take the streetcar from Morningside Heights down to Kennedy station to get downtown. It would be a 45 minute trip just to Kennedy. The few from Morningside Heights taking transit downtown will still go through Scarborough Centre, especially if it were right on the subway. They woulud benefit far, far more from a Neilson express bus on the 401 with shoulder bus lanes, connecting to the BD subway at SCC.
 
I know there has been talk on this issue, and talk of "consolidation" of freight lines, and the purchase of the GO rail lines in the past (just talk though). The problem is that no-one is taking a holistic view today, ordering things patch-work. Talk of new non-electric vehicles etc. While at the same time, they are planning something for the GTAA with GO, since they folded GO into a new crown corporation. What will probably happen, is that they will go out and buy new equipment for the lines, then start talking about upgrading GO service and that money will be wasted.
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What else would you expect from GO? People do not work for GO because they are transit visionaries who want to push forward new ideas and rock the boat. GO attracts beaurocrats who want safe positions so they can have a steady income to feed their mortgage on their home in Newmarket while sticking to the status quo. Maybe once (in the era of GO-ALRT) this was not the case, but for the past 35 years, GO has only really been about providing transit to affluent commuters and not much more.

Not only that but even if GO were overtaken by radical thinkers and planners the changes needed are really out of their hands. Changing ownership and regulations over what locomotives and rolling stock can operate on rail lines is in the hands of the federal government. Funding for GO and any large scale investment is in the hands of the province, and subject too public approval. That all leads to the need for public support and pressure on governments to make those changes happen. At the very least that means that public support has to be greater than the financial resources of freight comapnies, airlines and over lobbying interests. At best GO will get to draw up pretty maps and diagrams but beyond that its role is pretty minimal.

So yes, it will be business as usual. Buying desiel locomotives and making trains longer. There is no reason to think it would be any other way. Although it is really not money wasted since growing ridership is always a good thing and most of the new stock can just be sold off once it is not needed anymore.
 
unimaginative2

If you look at my early post, on the last page, you see the link to the TTC study on the RT. 3000 additional riders are expect if a subway is built per peak hour by 2021.

And we aren't talking with unlimited money. Under today's alternatives where dollars are scarce, you think accomadating what the TTC predicts ridership of the stub line being 8000 by 2021 enough to justify the cost, vs the alternatives? The LRT lines can feed the riders from northern scarborough and markham onto both the sheppard and BD lines. Commutters are currenlty doing it now via bus to these lines, LRT done properly should improve their trip times.

If LRT fails and the trip times from Morningside Heights take that long, then during rush hour these people use GO. Especially when a new LRT line is nearby and can take them to it.

Saying that, I do agree that STC does seem like the practical end of the subway as oppose to Kennedy. But there is no money, no political will, and alternative bandaid solutions that won't necessarily be the quickest way to move people, but if done right will be adequate and the cheapest. And vs. what we have right now, its a lot better.
 
There are at least 3000 riders already taking routes out of their way to avoid the overcrowded and unreliable RT
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Talking about pulling numbers out of a hat, Its obvious there are people going 'out of their way'. But if your saying that people will take a bus 'out of their way' to avoid the RT, the new LRT lines should benefit them. I suspect it is less than that, even 500 excess capacity riders can seem like hordes.
 
Yes, I've read the SRT replacement study.

I'm talking entirely about limited funds. I'm saying that it would be far more useful to replace the existing SRT with a subway than it would be to refurbish and extend the RT to Sheppard and Markham, especially since the latter would require at least a year of shutdown time. The total cost of the two options would be almost identical.

The TTC's study demonstrated 2000 bypassing the RT because of overcrowding, if I recall correctly. Scarberiankhatru would know the exact figure.
 
2000 riders, or rides?

Even at peak time over the 1.5-2 hour rushour period, thats not exactly mind boggling. It does point to that something does have to be done. But does it mean to go all in with a billion bucks?
 
Rides. It's always rides.

For the umpteenth time, it's not a billion bucks. The marginal cost is a few hundred million. The refurbishment has to be built anyway. How many more riders will the refurbishment lose when it takes rapid transit in the corridor out of service for a year?
 
For all we go on about the cost of building subways, here's an article that gives actual information on costs in Madrid.

Madrid expansion plan nears completion
Anonymous. Railway Gazette International. London: Feb 2007.Vol.163, Iss. 2; pg. 59, 1 pgs

Abstract (Document Summary)

Pinar del Rey station on Line 8 between Colombia and Mar de Cristal was formally opened by Esperanza Aguirre, President of the Madrid Regional government, on January 15, having cost euro40m to build. It was due to be followed last month by Arganzuela-Planetario on Line 6. By the time Aguirre's term of office comes to an end this spring, the Madrid Metro network will have grown under its 2003-07 expansion programme by 90 km and 80 stations.
Full Text (250 words)
Copyright Reed Business Information UK Feb 2007

THE EXTENSION of Madrid Metro Line 11 from Pan Bendito to La Peseta in the southwestern suburb of Carabanchel opened to traffic on December 18. With intermediate stations at San Francisco and Carabanchel Alto, the 2-7 km extension has cost euro172m to build and is expected to be used by 46000 passengers/day.

A new bus interchange is due to open this year at Plaza Eliptica, Line 11 's northern terminus which is also served by Line 6. On December 22 Aviación Española station was opened between Colonia Jardin and Cuatro Vientos on Line 10. Built at a cost of euro30m, this is intended to support the redevelopment of a former military site.

Pinar del Rey station on Line 8 between Colombia and Mar de Cristal was formally opened by Esperanza Aguirre, President of the Madrid Regional government, on January 15, having cost euro40m to build. It was due to be followed last month by Arganzuela-Planetario on Line 6. By the time Aguirre's term of office comes to an end this spring, the Madrid Metro network will have grown under its 2003-07 expansion programme by 90 km and 80 stations.

In 2006 the metro was used by 655 million passengers, 11 million up on 2005. The largest increases were seen on Line 12 (MetroSur) where traffic grew by 10% and on Line 6 where it grew by 3.6%. At its busiest period, more than 678000 passengers were using the network, with a record 282 trains in service at the same time.
 
There's no point in comparing Toronto to anywhere else. Costs vary wildly for different cities. The 13km Second Avenue subway in New York is projected to come in at $16 billion US. We could probably build the entire LRT proposal as a subway for that amount.
 
Why is there no point? Any business compares its costs with its competitors to find out why it is more or less competitive. If a steel company finds a new steel mill will cost them $5 billion, but its competitor in China can build one for $1 billion, they'd clearly want to see what's wrong. Of course, in that case it could be a matter of cheaper labour costs. Between Canada and Spain, there's pretty much no difference in average wages, and Spain has higher taxes and more generous employment regulations. Equipment for building transit facilities, such as tunnel boring machines, is only supplied by a few global firms. It's hard to think that Spain is getting such a better deal. Toronto is a much younger city than Madrid, so archaeological concerns should be much less significant. I certainly have no inside information, and I don't have a team of expert researchers. I don't know why there's such a difference in costs, but even a simple layman's examination would suggest that there are clearly cost savings to be derived from examining an organization which can build the same product (subways) at a fraction of the cost in a region with a comparable labour environment.

Obviously New York is vastly overpaying, and needs to look at other countries like Spain even more desperately than Toronto. They're spending $8 billion just to rebuild the Tappan Zee Bridge, a perfectly ordinary structure with countless comparable examples around the world. It makes no sense.
 
good for Toronto, I kinda wish I was living there again, cuz its going to be so easy to get around the city.
 
For the umpteenth time, it's not a billion bucks. The marginal cost is a few hundred million. The refurbishment has to be built anyway. How many more riders will the refurbishment lose when it takes rapid transit in the corridor out of service for a year?
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A couple of hundred million? How do you figure that? Based upon the TTC:

Cost of subway $1.2 Billion
Cost of LRT $0.5 Billion

Difference = 0.7 Billion

On top of that, annual costs:

Subway $110 MM
LRT $60 MM

So in summary, the subway will cost $700MM more upfront, and $50MM a year, to service the 2000 lost rides a day that people divert to other routes, and probably another 2000 more rides in attracted riders.

If we assume that 4000 rides equals 2000 commutters, thats an extra yearly cost (per commutter) of $25,000 a year, and $350,000 per commutter. Even 10,000 extra rides, or 5,000 commutters, over doubling the current SRT ridership during peak, the cost would be:

(Per commutter) $140,000 upfront, and $12,000 a year.

For the umpteenth time, I repeat saying that attracting this smaller group doesn't justifiy the extra costs under the current fiscal constraints.

I fail to see how this benefits a lot of people, LRT you get more bang for your buck.
 
But a subway extension with no transer terminating at SCC would probably attract more riders and development than replacing the RT. Especially considering it wouldn't require shutting down the existing line. That would make the operating costs more competitive.
 
It is difficult comparing the costs from even one line to the next, let alone comparing it to other cities.
- what are you digging through?
- drainage of the area
- what services have to be relocated (telephone, sewer, etc.)
- etc. etc. etc.
 
Oh for the love of grade separation, the ship has sailed. Better spend your time on the problem of designing the ideal configuration for Kennedy station or the optimal spacing of the LRT stops. Toronto, Ontario, and Canada are not going to give you 3/4 of a billion dollars for not riding up 2 escalators, no matter how long you hold your breath. Move on and ride the LRT.
 
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