Transit City Plan

[EnviroTO]

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?

With subway fanboy magic of course. Pay billions for a tunnel, pay a billion for vehicles, run services at a loss and presto... its paid for itself. A formula that can't loose in a city which can't cover its current budget without begging to the province and pissing off its residents with tax increases and new fees.

 

[Voltz]

With subway fanboy magic of course. Pay billions for a tunnel, pay a billion for vehicles, run services at a loss and presto... its paid for itself. A formula that can't loose in a city which can't cover its current budget without begging to the province and pissing off its residents with tax increases and new fees.

And don't forget that subway cars are cheaper than LRT cars, logically making a subway line cheaper, as well as the "infinite" pot of transit funding that is available.

 

[EnviroTO]

And don't forget that subway cars are cheaper than LRT cars, logically making a subway line cheaper, as well as the "infinite" pot of transit funding that is available.

I forgot about that. I need to trade in my bicycle for a Waterfront West subway line to take advantage of the infinite transit funding that is available. I really can't afford my bicycle anymore so a new subway line to serve my interests is much more feasible.

 

[nfitz]

The pot of transit money is not fixed, which in practical terms means it actually is infinite.

If that's what you think the only infinite pot is the stuff you're smoking!

 

[nfitz]

And don't forget that subway cars are cheaper than LRT cars, logically making a subway line cheaper, as well as the "infinite" pot of transit funding that is available.

About 20% cheaper (by the metre) but that doesn't make the subway line cheaper, as the cost of a subway station is a just a bit more than the cost of a St Clair streetcar stop!

 

[Voltz]

I forgot about that. I need to trade in my bicycle for a Waterfront West subway line to take advantage of the infinite transit funding that is available. I really can't afford my bicycle anymore so a new subway line to serve my interests is much more feasible.

Now you're thinking logically, I mean, the amount of your tax dollars that would go to this well used investment in the transit system would be less than you would spend on a bike, therefore it's cheaper.

 

[ellett44]

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

Huh? Am I missing something here...isn't there some type of forum rule out there for unintelligible posts?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

If that's what you think the only infinite pot is the stuff you're smoking!

I encourage you to think, too. Try it, it's useful!

About 20% cheaper (by the metre) but that doesn't make the subway line cheaper, as the cost of a subway station is a just a bit more than the cost of a St Clair streetcar stop!

And an at-grade or trenched subway station is a lot cheaper than a tunnelled streetcar station, a significant consideration given the billions of dollars that might get spent on tunnelled streetcars.

 

[Epi]

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.

Sometimes I wonder if you actually pay taxes or if you ever ponder how spending decisions are made at the government level. Do you really believe what you just wrote? Every dollar spent on transit, is a dollar not paying to build new hospitals, or paying for welfare, or building public housing, or closing city pools. There is only so much money to go around, so when we spend public money, it should be used in the most effective way possible. The tax rate can only rise so high you know...

I don't think anyone on this forum is against more transit, but instead for the idea that transit should make sense for it's locale.

 

[toraerach]

Sometimes I wonder if you actually pay taxes or if you ever ponder how spending decisions are made at the government level. Do you really believe what you just wrote? Every dollar spent on transit, is a dollar not paying to build new hospitals, or paying for welfare, or building public housing, or closing city pools. There is only so much money to go around, so when we spend public money, it should be used in the most effective way possible. The tax rate can only rise so high you know..

Or it's going to fight an unpopular war in Afghanistan, or subsidizing tar sands development, or building/maintaining highways, etc. There are many expenses at all levels that can be shifted towards transit not all of which are as essential as healthcare, education, or poverty reduction. Besides, Metrolinx is supposed to find new sources for funding transit projects in the near future.

What I don't understand is how some people can support LRT until subway ridership levels are reached at which point we will replace it. Building a line twice is much more expensive than building it once now. LRT is well suited for corridors that will only have LRT-level ridership for the foreseeable future. If a corridor looks like it could have subway level ridership sometime in the future (10, 20, 30 years) we should ask ourselves if we really want to spend money on that corridor again years down the road. I'm sure there's a point in time where the operating costs of a underused subway would outweigh reconstructing an LRT line as subway. When is that point in time? If ridership meets subway-level demands before that time, I would think it would save us money to build the line as subway now.

 

[EnviroTO]

What I don't understand is how some people can support LRT until subway ridership levels are reached at which point we will replace it. Building a line twice is much more expensive than building it once now.

It saves us money to build the tunnel sections and tunnel stations in a way which can be easily converted to a subway later. It doesn't save us money to run a subway where we are not going to build LRT in a tunnel now and it isn't convenient to have extra transfers between the tunnel built now and the surface section built now.

 

[Voltz]

And an at-grade or trenched subway station is a lot cheaper than a tunnelled streetcar station, a significant consideration given the billions of dollars that might get spent on tunnelled streetcars.

That might actually be a valid point of concern, IF they where planning to build an underground LRT line where a surface subway line could be built instead.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Sometimes I wonder if you actually pay taxes or if you ever ponder how spending decisions are made at the government level. Do you really believe what you just wrote? Every dollar spent on transit, is a dollar not paying to build new hospitals, or paying for welfare, or building public housing, or closing city pools. There is only so much money to go around, so when we spend public money, it should be used in the most effective way possible. The tax rate can only rise so high you know...

I don't think anyone on this forum is against more transit, but instead for the idea that transit should make sense for it's locale.

Yeah, every dollar spent on transit you don't approve of is a dollar stolen from you and your unborn descendents. How many billion dollars of revenue were lost when the GST was cut? How many billions go to the programs lesouris mentioned? What differs a dollar spent on a construction worker working on a hospital from a dollar spent on a construction worker working on a transit line?

That might actually be a valid point of concern, IF they where planning to build an underground LRT line where a surface subway line could be built instead.

The actual point here is that subways are more expensive than LRT in practice much more so than in theory...theory that can be very easily applied, though, and has been applied in the past in this city. Giambrone can say Eglinton would cost $10B as a subway but under no circumstances does that need to be true since A) the tunnelled LRT section is already costing a fortune and B) the Richview and Scarborough segments would not need to be tunnelled, dramatically reducing the cost of the line. The same is also true for Don Mills, where tunnels are needed anyway in the south and not at all needed for all of the north. Instead, subways continue to be irrationally vilified due to their supposedly outrageous and unaffordable cost, even as the LRT scheme becomes more and more bloated. Bloating it even more could result in higher capacity, grade-separated (actually fast!) lines that don't stop at red lights, which is what is needed (a fully grade-separated/trenched/Richview-corridored Eglinton LRT would work fine), but when that point comes we might as well spend equivalent sums on subways.

 

[nfitz]

And an at-grade or trenched subway station is a lot cheaper than a tunnelled streetcar station

And a wooden spoon is cheaper than a television ... but what's that got to do with anything?

 

[Eug]

I don't understand what the fascination is with subways. Subway is great when the projected ridership justifies the cost, but when it doesn't, it is just a waste of money.

I'm personally thrilled with the LRT implementation that Metrolinx envisions, at least for the Eglinton Crosstown line. As far as I can tell, a well planned LRT line will be able to last many, many decades. Once ridership starts to actually need a subway line, we can create new tunnels beyond the currently planned tunneled portion and update the whole system as we please.

However, I suppose if someone here is able to convince some rich benefactor to build us a subway system from Scarborough to Etobicoke without it costing us taxpayers anything, then I'd be on board for that.