Transit City Plan

[khris]

People care too much about cost of building tunnels. If Eglinton was built as a subway, it would pay itself off in no time anyway.

 

[nfitz]

People care too much about cost of building tunnels. If Eglinton was built as a subway, it would pay itself off in no time anyway.

Very is a very limited and finite amount of money; the province is balking at the $1 billion to replace streetcars!

 

[allabootmatt]

Actually, they're balking at about $400-million over ten years, which is basically a rounding error. Ergo, their 'balking' has nothing to do with cost.

 

[kettal]

People care too much about cost of building tunnels. If Eglinton was built as a subway, it would pay itself off in no time anyway.

how would it pay for itself? will there be an extra surcharge to use it?

 

[EnviroTO]

No, I'm sticking to the fact that a tram will be more crowded because even the manufacturers own web site states they have slightly less capacity.

How many seats wide is a tram then? How wide? How long? What is the capacity? What gauge to these trams run on? The only figures you have access to are based on what operators ordered to drive around streets in Europe.

*Slightly more capacity

There is no set capacity. What is the base capacity of the non-tram you are using to decide this and what is the capacity of the TTC vehicle you are using to compare?

*Designed to be 2x, 3x, or 4x in length by stringing cars together straight from the factory without 'customization' or additional couplers like the outlook

Operators need to order couplers. There are non-trams that don't have couplers. The only vehicles you can order straight from the factory in Thunder Bay right now are subways and GO train bi-level railcars. Both come with couplers.

*Competitive in price for purchase and maintenance, similar technology to between the models from the same vendor.

Two different models don't lead to cost savings just because the manufacturer is the same. A Bombardier Q400 doesn't share many parts with a Bombardier Global Express even though they are both aircraft and both Bombardier.

I just think there is a slightly better way to build Eglinton LRT considering just how busy its intended to be, and they should use Flexity Swift LRV vehicles, low platform if they want.

OK. Believe what you will. Maybe when you see the Flexity Outlook that the TTC is ordering and how it is wider (four seats plus and aisle) and has couplers which came from the factory you will realize that Outlook versus Swift is about vehicle weight and speed, and not about available options and capacity.

Again, if billions are being spent, why not spend it the best way possible?

They are spending it the best way possible. They are getting fleet commonality which reduces costs. They are combining the bids to make a bigger total order size which reduces costs. Thunder Bay only needs to be tooled once reducing costs. They are getting a lightweight vehicle which reduces costs. What would really waste money is to retool Thunder Bay twice to create two different vehicles to achieve a slightly faster vehicle, a whopping 5-10cm in width, and because mounting a coupler (i.e. mounting a bracket in a place the structure supports it) seems complex to some.

 

[Second_in_pie]

People care too much about cost of building tunnels. If Eglinton was built as a subway, it would pay itself off in no time anyway.

Agreed. People will use it more than an LRT for crosstown trips, and if it's built with proper stop spacing like B/D more people will be likely to use a subway than a LRT. Those are just the reasons I can think of that it would simply gain more revenue than a LRT.

 

[Voltz]

People care too much about cost of building tunnels. If Eglinton was built as a subway, it would pay itself off in no time anyway.

Not a chance, fare revenues don't even cover the operating costs, so no matter what they build it won't pay for it self.

 

[EnviroTO]

A Flexity Outlook doing the impossible with a width of 2,650mm.

A Flexity Outlook with similar styling which is 2,470mm.

Which one didn't come from the factory? Which one is standard?

 

[nfitz]

Actually, they're balking at about $400-million over ten years, which is basically a rounding error. Ergo, their 'balking' has nothing to do with cost.

$400-million a rounding error? Yeah right ...

Besides, it's $800-million ... round that to a $billion. We all know that the federal government isn't going to give a cent with the current regime in power (and it would be a tough sell no matter who was in power).

 

[allabootmatt]

The Ontario budget is what, $110-billion a year?

$40-million (or hell, $80-million) annually to overhaul the transportation system of the core of the provincial capital is peanuts!

 

[nfitz]

The Ontario budget is what, $110-billion a year?

$40-million (or hell, $80-million) annually to overhaul the transportation system of the core of the provincial capital is peanuts!

And so are the other $200-billion a year that people want; I'm not arguing against the streetcars here ... I'm arguing against this "let's build all the LRT as subways because there's an infinite pot of money" belief that still seems to be out there.

 

[khris]

Not a chance, fare revenues don't even cover the operating costs, so no matter what they build it won't pay for it self.

I didn't say anything about operating costs. That's a management problem. I'm talking about construction costs.

 

[Second_in_pie]

I didn't say anything about operating costs. That's a management problem. I'm talking about construction costs.

To add to that, of course LRT will "pay off it's construction costs" as well, but a Subway would attract enough extra people that it probably would not take that much longer to pay for the construction costs than a LRT would.

 

[Voltz]

I didn't say anything about operating costs. That's a management problem. I'm talking about construction costs.

How are they supposed to pay off the capital debt of a transit line if the fare revenues don't cover the operating costs of that line?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

And so are the other $200-billion a year that people want; I'm not arguing against the streetcars here ... I'm arguing against this "let's build all the LRT as subways because there's an infinite pot of money" belief that still seems to be out there.

And, once again, people bring this up without noting that it is utterly undeniable that we can *easily* afford to build some lines as subways. The pot of transit money is not fixed, which in practical terms means it actually is infinite.