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Does this mean that Eglinton will go subway under Mayor Ford? I can't seem to find any clarity on his position.
Thanks guys!
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Transit City Plan
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
Does this mean that Eglinton will go subway under Mayor Ford? I can't seem to find any clarity on his position.
Thanks guys!
nfitz
Superstar
As Ford doesn't seem to object to LRT that doesn't interfere with traffic, it seems that the central portion of the Eglinton LRT is safe.
On a project-by-project basis the path forward is relatively clear:
Eglinton: Cancel the 6 km of surface LRT from Don Mills to Kennedy and use the savings to pay for the grade separation around Leslie, and from Black Creek to Jane. Result is a 13.5 km LRT grade-separated line from Jane to Don Mills.
Sheppard: Cancel the 13 km of surface LRT from Don Mills to Conlins and use the money to simply extend the Sheppard subway by 2 stops, 2 km to Victoria Park North. There should be a bit of extra money and you build Ford's proposed Willowdale station and perhaps 1 km on Sheppard West towards Downsview.
Finch West: Cancel the 11 km of surface LRT from Finch West to Humber College and instead build 4.5 km 4-station subway extension from Sheppard to Downsview. A bit of the money comes from Sheppard East LRT project.
SRT: The entire 10 km project is already grade-separated. So in theory you just keep it. Or you could replace the 10 km of LRT with a 5.5 km 2-station subway extension to Scarborough Centre, if you can find a bit of extra $.
So (going with subway for SRT) you replace 53 km of LRT (70 new stations) with 13.5 km of LRT (15 new stations) and 12 km of subway (6 new stations but a loss of 4 existing SRT stations).
What's striking is how few new stations you serve with 12 km and $4-billion of new subway. 53 km of rapid transit versus 25 km of rapid transit. 70 new stations versus a net of 17 new stations.
On a project-by-project basis the path forward is relatively clear:
Eglinton: Cancel the 6 km of surface LRT from Don Mills to Kennedy and use the savings to pay for the grade separation around Leslie, and from Black Creek to Jane. Result is a 13.5 km LRT grade-separated line from Jane to Don Mills.
Sheppard: Cancel the 13 km of surface LRT from Don Mills to Conlins and use the money to simply extend the Sheppard subway by 2 stops, 2 km to Victoria Park North. There should be a bit of extra money and you build Ford's proposed Willowdale station and perhaps 1 km on Sheppard West towards Downsview.
Finch West: Cancel the 11 km of surface LRT from Finch West to Humber College and instead build 4.5 km 4-station subway extension from Sheppard to Downsview. A bit of the money comes from Sheppard East LRT project.
SRT: The entire 10 km project is already grade-separated. So in theory you just keep it. Or you could replace the 10 km of LRT with a 5.5 km 2-station subway extension to Scarborough Centre, if you can find a bit of extra $.
So (going with subway for SRT) you replace 53 km of LRT (70 new stations) with 13.5 km of LRT (15 new stations) and 12 km of subway (6 new stations but a loss of 4 existing SRT stations).
What's striking is how few new stations you serve with 12 km and $4-billion of new subway. 53 km of rapid transit versus 25 km of rapid transit. 70 new stations versus a net of 17 new stations.
Eug
Senior Member
Weird. My post was posted after nfitz's, but appears in the thread before it... errr... before both of them.
SimonP
Active Member
This makes a lot of sense. The big problem with it politically is that Ford has promised the moon to Scarborough and its 10 councillors, and this plan has a subway ending at Vic Park and an unfunded replacement for the SRT.
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
McConnell's an easy pro-TC vote, too. I hope that council gets a chance to vote on the funded projects individually if it comes to that - voting against what essentially amounts to a branding campaign is dumb.
southkeys
New Member
This sounds realistic.
Asterix
Active Member
http://www.680news.com/news/local/article/151260--rob-ford-starts-first-day-as-mayor
"we're going to start building subways, and we're going to start right now."
First day Rob Ford calls a news conference and tells everyone the 'gravy train' of wasteful spending on planning and design is over. Subways are going to be built starting 'right now'. He goes up to Sheppard, points to a spot and tells workers to start digging a hole. He'll be back every day check on their progress.
To save money on issuing RFPs and evaluating bids for the TBMs, he has Doug order a couple off of Amazon with next day delivery, tying in the shipping with a load of glue to the family label factory, thereby getting further efficiencies for the Toronto taxpayer.
Two days later, due to lack of design studies, the TBMs plow through local gas and water mains, leaving dozens without heat or water. Mayor Ford, referring to the upset residents: "My heart bleeds for them, but at the end of the day it's their own damn fault. I've got a mandate."
Not impressed with the progress of the construction, Mayor Ford vows to cut the waste and squeeze efficiencies from the crews, promising to cut their staff by 3% every week until they shape up.
The following week, having not done planning on the tunneled route, the diggers hit a large patch of loose sand, causing a cave-in that kills four workers.
Realizing he can kill two birds with one stone, Mayor Ford fires the remaining workers and contracts out the digging to a squad of ground hogs, saving the city millions in salary costs (plus the hassle of having to deal with employment standards laws) while showing he cares about the environment and providing a livable wage to the city's wildlife.
Due to their lack of formal experience and inability to take instructions given to them in English from a guy yelling football plays down the hole, the ground hogs veer the tunnel off from under Sheppard and beneath nearby houses, causing them to collapse into sink holes.
Seeing the opportunity, Mayor Ford expropriates the land, paves over the rubble and declares victory in finally getting respect for the car by opening a brand new expressway.
"we're going to start building subways, and we're going to start right now."
First day Rob Ford calls a news conference and tells everyone the 'gravy train' of wasteful spending on planning and design is over. Subways are going to be built starting 'right now'. He goes up to Sheppard, points to a spot and tells workers to start digging a hole. He'll be back every day check on their progress.
To save money on issuing RFPs and evaluating bids for the TBMs, he has Doug order a couple off of Amazon with next day delivery, tying in the shipping with a load of glue to the family label factory, thereby getting further efficiencies for the Toronto taxpayer.
Two days later, due to lack of design studies, the TBMs plow through local gas and water mains, leaving dozens without heat or water. Mayor Ford, referring to the upset residents: "My heart bleeds for them, but at the end of the day it's their own damn fault. I've got a mandate."
Not impressed with the progress of the construction, Mayor Ford vows to cut the waste and squeeze efficiencies from the crews, promising to cut their staff by 3% every week until they shape up.
The following week, having not done planning on the tunneled route, the diggers hit a large patch of loose sand, causing a cave-in that kills four workers.
Realizing he can kill two birds with one stone, Mayor Ford fires the remaining workers and contracts out the digging to a squad of ground hogs, saving the city millions in salary costs (plus the hassle of having to deal with employment standards laws) while showing he cares about the environment and providing a livable wage to the city's wildlife.
Due to their lack of formal experience and inability to take instructions given to them in English from a guy yelling football plays down the hole, the ground hogs veer the tunnel off from under Sheppard and beneath nearby houses, causing them to collapse into sink holes.
Seeing the opportunity, Mayor Ford expropriates the land, paves over the rubble and declares victory in finally getting respect for the car by opening a brand new expressway.
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
It sounds realistic, but please remember that the plans aren't just going to be shuffled and everything goes on as scheduled. We'd be pushing everything back by a number of years - we'd likely hit the 2014 election still without any shovels in the ground meaning everything could be overturned again.
Asterix
Active Member
nfitz
Superstar
Oh certainly ... nothing happens quickly. With what I did above, instead of the 2014 opening of Sheppard East, and the 2019-2010 openings of Eglinton, Finch and the SRT we'd be looking at perhaps a 2015 date to extend to Victoria Park, and 2019-2020 for Eglinton, SRT replacement and Sheppard West (given the time and funding constraints).
Shovels would hit ground on Eglinton still in 2011, Sheppard East to Victoria Park around 2012 (I'm being optimistic), and the rest not until 2015-2016.
spider
Senior Member
NFITZ makes perfect sense in his latest post. There, I said it. YIKES!
For those who were interested, I did a preliminary estimate on what the plan I described earlier would cost (Eglinton tunnel only, Sheppard subway extension to Vic Park + BRT, B-D extension to STC).
Cutting the east portion of Eglinton saved roughly $420 million.
Sheppard:
Doing a subway extension to Vic Park (assuming $310 million/km)
queue jump lanes between Vic Park and Agincourt ($7 million/intersection)
keeping the LRT ROW but running buses down it from Agincourt to Morningside ($50 million/km)
and curbside bus lanes along Neilson to Malvern, and McCowan to STC ($40 million/km)
Totaled about $940 million ($50 million less than the SELRT proposal)
That leaves $470 million to cover a $600 million funding gap to fund the B-D extension to STC over the SRT replacement and extension. In short, the plan that I have proposed has a $130 million funding gap (approximately). Given the scope of the project, if Rob Ford wants to fund this, I'm sure he could come up with $130 million from somewhere in the Capital Budget.
Cutting the east portion of Eglinton saved roughly $420 million.
Sheppard:
Doing a subway extension to Vic Park (assuming $310 million/km)
queue jump lanes between Vic Park and Agincourt ($7 million/intersection)
keeping the LRT ROW but running buses down it from Agincourt to Morningside ($50 million/km)
and curbside bus lanes along Neilson to Malvern, and McCowan to STC ($40 million/km)
Totaled about $940 million ($50 million less than the SELRT proposal)
That leaves $470 million to cover a $600 million funding gap to fund the B-D extension to STC over the SRT replacement and extension. In short, the plan that I have proposed has a $130 million funding gap (approximately). Given the scope of the project, if Rob Ford wants to fund this, I'm sure he could come up with $130 million from somewhere in the Capital Budget.
Eug
Senior Member
Yeah, IF they still supported... and prioritized... the Eglinton underground, they could still go ahead immediately.
Asterix
Active Member
You've neglected the extra costs you want to add to Eglinton to tunnel/grade separate from west of Leslie to the Don Mills portal.
Given he is promissing no new taxes, cuts to existing taxes and a likely bill for well over $100 million for cancelling TC work and contracts, just how confident are you that he can find another $130 million under the cushions in the Mayor's office?
I did some maneuvering and deducted that cost from the savings of the extension, and also used the fact that an extensive reno (likely $40+ million) to Kennedy station would not be required to support the LRT. I figured those two factors would just about balance out. I may be off by $10 million or so, but it won't be that substantial.
That's the beauty of this plan. The majority of the contracts stay in tact, or at least parts of them. Eglinton tunnelling stays as is. The eastern part will need to be chopped, but that won't be a substantial cancellation fee. Sheppard east of Agincourt stays as is, you just don't put down the rails. The Sheppard tunnel contract gets modified and pushed back to accomodate subway construction instead of an LRT tunnel. And has the contract for the SLRT even been finalized yet?
And overall, I can't see a difference of $130 million coming between a completely workable transit plan, and having nothing at all. The province isn't going to let that much go to waste over what, at the end of the day, is quite a small sum of money (in the grand scheme of things). When you're talking in billions, $130 million is a rounding error.