"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" -Isaac Asimov
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Transit City Plan
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" -Isaac Asimov
Asterix
Active Member
I was actually quoting the Post's Jonathon Goldsbie who happened to quote Doucet. The Doucet quote though is of less relevance than the point Goldsbie made about a 'vaguely defined underground alternative, setting the city back several years', which is very close to what we have in Toronto right now.
We've got a funded and shovel-ready LRT plan and instead are being told there is a very vaguely defined underground alternative which we all know will take years to plan, source funding and be ready to put shovels in the ground. Plus the costs to cancel existing contracts.
Fair enough on the Doucet quote. However, O'Brien's election promise was "we will draft a new plan that will include a tunnel under downtown". If you ask me, that's a pretty specific promise for an election. Besides the downtown tunnel, the vast majority of the rest of the plan didn't change. They changed priorities and timelines, but the lines on the map stayed relatively the same, except for the ~3km through downtown.
And 70% of the planning and engineering done for the N-S LRT is still good, and is still very likely close to shovel-ready. All it really needs is funding. Also, not all of the Ottawa TMP was scrapped. In fact, the Southwest Transitway extension into Barrhaven, the Cumberland Transitway extension in Orleans, the construction of Terry Fox Station, and the complete reconstruction of Baseline Station (an underground station that is being built to include a BRT-LRT transfer) have all been started (and in some cases completed) AFTER the TMP was retooled. So the notion that 'nothing has happened since the TMP was scrapped' is not exactly true. It is true that there would have been a lot more happening than has been, but still, those projects are still more than what Toronto has done in the same timeframe (2006-2010).
If Toronto is going to follow a similar path, an effective alternative plan will need to maximize existing work (ie central portion of Eglinton).
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Asterix
Active Member
That's where the vagueness is. Ford doesn't seem to have paid attention to projected costs or Metrolinx telling him there is money for Eglinton OR money for his Scarborough subways, but not both.
Has this been accounted for in his alternative plan? Has he accounted for timelines (ie is it reasonable to expect to build 12km of unplanned, unfunded Scarborough subways in 4 years when the Vaughan extension of half the distance will take 9 years between funding secured in 2006 and expected opening in 2015?) Has he defined the specific route or just the end points? Does anyone really expect the TTC plan they are to produce in a six week time period will address all these and other important factors?
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Even with an upgraded SRT, they could still move the Kennedy Station above or below the subway station.
Dan416
Senior Member
The real question is, why would anyone in their right minds even dream that keeping the SRT transfer at Kennedy is an option?
LowerBay
Active Member
What's the big deal with the transfer? You're transferring to an empty B-D train at Kennedy and you're getting a seat. I'm 60 (I know, a little too old to be posting here) but I remember that the transfer at St. George didn't bother me until the Spadina line opened and southbound trains came in to the upper level already crowded. Before that, there was interlined service and St. George wasn't even a transfer point. The point is that the transfer at Kennedy really isn't all that bad.
nfitz
Superstar
I completely disagree.
Welcome to the forum Solid Snake. But I have to say it's unusual that a brand-new poster has joined the forum, and dived right into this thread with such fully-formed arguments.
Perhaps you could simplify matter and tell us what name you previously posted under, so that we can put your suggestions in context.
Solid Snake
Active Member
I read the posts for a month before joining. Does that help?
Solid Snake
Active Member
I think that the cost difference between digging the subway and converting to LRT is low enough to just extend the subway instead while the RT still operates avoiding cutting the service completely. (by 600M? correct me if I'm wrong)
Otherwise MarK II trains on the RT and merged with Eglinton Crosstown made sense to me
Platform 27
Active Member
It most certainly has not. The TTC/Miller admin's early TC LRT estimates were all ridiculous lowballs, yes, but there's no way anyone, be it the TTC, Metrolinx, or magical private sector fairies can build a B-D subway extension for "almost the same" as a refit of the SRT. Also, everyone conveniently forgets that the SRT refit price as usually quoted includes a fairly substantial extension to the northeast via Centennial College (and a ludicrously overbuilt interchange at Sheppard) that has no equivalent in most subway plans.
I think it's a fairly popular opinion amongst TTC-watching types both around these parts and elsewhere that when the rumblings in the press came up last month about TPTB thinking about taking parts of Transit City and going elevated with them, the chunk of TC that was the single most likely to be on their minds was Eglinton from the Leaside portal to Kennedy.
Eglinton Crosstown, Transit City edition, probably wouldn't relieve a huge portion of SRT-to-B-D traffic, no. But the time maps change drastically if you grade-separate Eg East, erase a few stops at places like Lebovic and Ferrand, and interline services eastwards along the SRT. Then, relative to a hypothetical extended B-D, Eglinton becomes a faster conduit from STC to about 80% of destinations in the central/western suburbs, and a wash for STC-to-Toronto CBD trips.
When erasing that transfer costs billions and doesn't offer squat by way of substantial network benefits, I would damn well hope right minds would dream about the alternatives.
Dan416
Senior Member
Billions? Please explain how eliminating the Kennedy transfer would cost billions. I'd love to hear this.
nfitz
Superstar
The only way to eliminate the transfer would be to extend the subway. It would cost billions (approximately two of them) just to extend this to Scarborough Centre, let alone along the rest of the SRT route.
Dan416
Senior Member
Assuming a subway from Kennedy to STC costs 2 billion (which just barely comes under the term "billions"), the billions are from extending the subway to STC, not from eliminating the transfer at Kennedy per se.
Yes you could argue it's just semantics. But my point is 2 billion dollars isn't just to eliminate the transfer, it's to bring the subway system to Lawrence East and Scarborough Centre, especially in light of the SRT coming to the end of its life which provides a perfect opportunity to run the SRT into the ground while the Danforth extension is built underneath. I'm glad we have a visionary mayor who will make this happen. We should all feel so blessed in this new year.
LowerBay
Active Member
The subway system already goes to STC. The RT *is* a grade-separated rapid transit "subway" that simply uses a different technology. You're better off taking that $2-$3 billion earmarked for BD and using it to extend the RT deeper into Scarborough instead. OK, so you have that transfer at Kennedy, but as I said, it's nowhere near as inconvenient as the transfers at Bloor-Yonge and St. George. When I worked for the TTC, we had origin-destination studies (from 1978 I think) which showed that where people had a choice between using an E-W surface route to YUS vs. a N-S surface route to BD and a subsequent transfer at St. George or B-Y, the YUS non-transfer option always won out, even if it meant a longer trip. This also shows up today in the ridership difference between BD and YUS. Unless you reconfigure BD via the old Y so that Scarborough gets a one-seat ride downtown, eliminating that extra transfer at Kennedy to the RT doesn't really buy you very much, because there's always the deterrent of the transfer at St. George or B-Y. If you add in a DRL, the number of transfers becomes even worse.
The TTC gets a failing grade because they designed a fractured rapid transit network that requires too many transfers, but those transfers don't stop people from using the system. I still remember the day the Y closed (I was a summer student), and everyone complained about the added transfer, but then they resigned themselves to it. My point is that Scarborough residents are already so used to that transfer at Kennedy, why spend a pile of money to eliminate it when that same cash could be used to extend the RT even further north than an extended BD would reach?
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