Transit City Plan

[ShonTron]

The Canada Line is also a mini-metro (not LRT), but just not ICTS. I'd be fine with it.

 

[CDL.TO]

The Canada Line is an "ICTS" in the literal sense... and intermediate capacity transit system. The only real difference between it and the SRT is the propulsion technology.

There are subways in the world the look like LRT. And there are LRT lines that look like subways. The lack of standardized terminology is a little unfortunate.

 

[Hipster Duck]

How is this light rail vehicle above any more dinky than the Scarborough RT vehicle below?

The LRV pictured has a higher carrying capacity, is cheaper, has the same headway requirements, and will be run on an automated system (Canada line in Vancouver.) The LRV would also better handle Toronto's climate...

Oh, that's right, it's "dinky". I guess ICTS is worth the extra expense then!!

Oh, I see what you mean now. By LRV, I thought you meant an LRT vehicle, as in:

And I was questioning the rationale of running a streetcar-like vehicle on grade-separated infrastructure.

Although it's sort of a moot point in our Toronto-based discussion, I don't distinguish ROTEM's Canada line technology from ICTS.

 

[officedweller]

The main advantage of a mini-metro like Skytrain or the Canada Line is the short headways provided by automation - and automation requires an exclusive ROW.
You can say that a tunneled section of the Eglinton line will allow short headways because it offers an exclusive ROW, but unless the TTC is going to be short-turning a lot of trains to run back and forth on that exclusive ROW section, the headways will be limited by the at-grade sections at each end of the line.
The short headways achieved with automation also allow use of smaller station infrstructure, reducing capital costs.

 

[waterloowarrior]

The main advantage of a mini-metro like Skytrain or the Canada Line is the short headways provided by automation - and automation requires an exclusive ROW.
You can say that a tunneled section of the Eglinton line will allow short headways because it offers an exclusive ROW, but unless the TTC is going to be short-turning a lot of trains to run back and forth on that exclusive ROW section, the headways will be limited by the at-grade sections at each end of the line.
The short headways achieved with automation also allow use of smaller station infrstructure, reducing capital costs.

you missed the most important benefit of automation... sitting in the front seat

 

[Dan416]

Well it seems like this city has some soul-searching to do with regard to ICTS. It's clear we can't just have the SRT stub and be happy with it. So we either (A) get rid of the SRT or (B) expand the SRT and possibly use ICTS on other routes, such as Eglinton. I have my doubts about using ICTS on Eglinton, but I'll take ICTS over LRT on that route anyway.

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

Well it seems like this city has some soul-searching to do with regard to ICTS. It's clear we can't just have the SRT stub and be happy with it. So we either (A) get rid of the SRT or (B) expand the SRT and possibly use ICTS on other routes, such as Eglinton. I have my doubts about using ICTS on Eglinton, but I'll take ICTS over LRT on that route anyway.

Sorry ... I'll take either LRT or subway over ICTS for the Eglinton route, unless someone finally tells me what the advantage of ICTS is. ICTS will lack the flexibility of LRT, as the former must be fully grade separate. Yet, ICTS will lack the capacity of a subway, so if the route is really very successful in future, it might get over capacity.

Add the smaller market for ICTS vehicles compared to either light rail of HRT ... hence less choice of suppliers and higher prices.

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

Let’s estimate the cost of a subway-centered transit plan for Toronto, Phase I, and hence test its feasibility.

Transit City’s individual lines may be debatable, but it has set a good standard of planning in the city-wide network context. In this post, I’ll try to consider a network with a similar reach, but created in a subway-based paradigm.

Eglinton. There is a big push to implement this line as HRT subway. Cost: at least 6 B, contingent on smart routing and not building tunnels where a guideway or a trench can do.

DRL. The massive development around the Eglinton line will mandate that at least a section of DRL from downtown to Eglinton / Don Mills is built in the same timeframe, or Yonge subway simply won’t handle the flow to downtown. Cost: about 2.5 B. Total: 8.5 B. [Don’t hold me to “Why not extend that line further?†Such an extension makes sense, but my goal here is to estimate the minimal level of funding required for Phase I.]

Sheppard subway. If it is extended at all, I’d think that the minimal useful length of extension is to the Agincourt / Kennedy future transit hub. (A short extension to Consumers or Vic Park will likely incur disproportionately large start up / wind down costs.) Cost: about 1.2 B. Again, if the subway extension triggers massive developments around it, a new link to downtown will be needed. The DRL extension from Eglinton to Sheppard would be about 1.5 B. However, let’s be optimistic and assume that a REX service (useful anyway) is established on the Stouffville GO line for just 0.5 B, and that allows to defer the DRL extension north of Eglinton. Total: 1.2 + 0.5 = 1.7 B. Grand total: 10.2 B.

Spadina subway extension: 2.4 B. SRT upgrade / extension: 1.2 B to Sheppard / Markham, probably 1.5 B to Malvern Centre. I won’t debate the wisdom of those projects, as they seem irrevocable at this point. Total: 3.9 B. Grand total: 14.1 B.

Yonge subway extension: probably can wait till Phase II.

LRT: for areas that got no subway, but expect tangible transit improvements. In the west: Finch LRT stands, 0.7 B. Its extension to Pearson, 0.3 B. Kipling (probably higher priority than Jane in this context), 0.7 B. In the east end: Eglinton / Kingston / UTSC, 0.5 B. Kingston Rd south of Eglinton, 0.3 B. McCowan (preferable to Sheppard in this context), 0.5 B. Total: 3.0 B. Grand total: 17.1 B.

I do not claim that the above list of priority projects within “416†is 100 % correct. However, I believe that it gives a reasonable estimate for the needed Phase I funding.

For both technical and political reasons, spending those 17 B in Toronto while not making serious transit investments in the rest of GTA is inconceivable. Let’s assume that additional 17 / 2 = 8.5 B will have to be directed for improved GO services and for local transits across GTA. Grand total: 25.6 B.

Duration of “Phase Iâ€: probably 16 or 20 years (4 or 5 election cycles) would be most sensible. Much less than that, and many projects won’t complete due to technical reasons; much more than that would be too un-foreseeable.

So, can Metrolinx secure (not just “request†or “promiseâ€) those 25 – 26 B of capital transit investments within the next 16 to 20 years?

If a firm amount can be set but it is smaller than the above, then “choices have to be madeâ€. Some subway projects fall back to LRT implementation, or some projects get deferred altogether.

The worst case scenario is no firm amount at all. If so, then lobbyism will continue to pass for transit planning.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Why not build the Yonge extension in that plan? It'd be a profitable project, a slam dunk for redevelopment and would replace well over 100 buses an hour on Yonge north of Finch...the Spadina extension should take at least 20K rides a day off Yonge, and a DRL that continued up Don Mills would take like another hundred thousand rides a day off Yonge. If memory serves me correctly, even a 1.5-2km extension to Steeles would permit the terminus setup to be rearranged to handle a few more trains per hour.

Transit City’s individual lines may be debatable, but it has set a good standard of planning in the city-wide network context.

The worst case scenario is no firm amount at all. If so, then lobbyism will continue to pass for transit planning.

The thing is...Transit City *is* the ultimate lobbyist-based transit plan. The Transit City manifesto says "we think LRT is so cool that we're going to cancel every rapid transit plan on the books for Toronto (except the RT, of course), run LRT lines in largely unexpected corridors and stubbing off already overcrowded subway lines, rewrite the official plan to accommodate these transit plan changes, and lobby upper levels of government to pay for every cent of it."

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

Why not build the Yonge extension in that plan? It'd be a profitable project, a slam dunk for redevelopment and would replace well over 100 buses an hour on Yonge north of Finch...the Spadina extension should take at least 20K rides a day off Yonge, and a DRL that continued up Don Mills would take like another hundred thousand rides a day off Yonge. If memory serves me correctly, even a 1.5-2km extension to Steeles would permit the terminus setup to be rearranged to handle a few more trains per hour.

I don't mind. But the goal of my post was to figure the minimal funding needed for Phase I. If more funding is available, then more projects may be included.

The thing is...Transit City *is* the ultimate lobbyist-based transit plan. The Transit City manifesto says "we think LRT is so cool that we're going to cancel every rapid transit plan on the books for Toronto (except the RT, of course), run LRT lines in largely unexpected corridors and stubbing off already overcrowded subway lines, rewrite the official plan to accommodate these transit plan changes, and lobby upper levels of government to pay for every cent of it."

You are being unfair to Transit City, by ignoring the context it was created in. Two years ago, there was no talk of any systematic transit infrastructure investments (except the one-off Spadina extension). So, the creators of the plan had to find a relatively cheap solution for the creation of a city-wide network. LRT became the tool of choice.

TC was not a perfect plan from the onset, and will become largely inadequate if the fiscal context changes. But I think that the modern push for massive transit funding was partly triggered by the announcement of Transit City.

 

[Dan416]

Transit City was conceived of during a time that there was no money for any subway extensions. It was based on the premise of going it alone, and what the city could realistically accomplish without outside help. It's the cheapest solution for moving people effectively. Not to say it's the BEST solution. That's why some of the proposed LRTs are on subway corridors: Sheppard, Eglinton, for example.

But with the provincial government suddenly willing to pitch in to the city's plans, we MUST start looking at subways again. It's inconceivable that a city like this is NOT planning for the future.

This has nothing to do with money. Or it has everything to do with money. Can you imagine how much these subway extensions will cost when the LRT is exploding with too much ridership? And you say we can't afford it NOW?

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

Transit City was conceived of during a time that there was no money for any subway extensions. It was based on the premise of going it alone, and what the city could realistically accomplish without outside help. It's the cheapest solution for moving people effectively. Not to say it's the BEST solution. That's why some of the proposed LRTs are on subway corridors: Sheppard, Eglinton, for example.

But with the provincial government suddenly willing to pitch in to the city's plans, we MUST start looking at subways again. It's inconceivable that a city like this is NOT planning for the future.

This has nothing to do with money. Or it has everything to do with money. Can you imagine how much these subway extensions will cost when the LRT is exploding with too much ridership? And you say we can't afford it NOW?

I agree with Paragraphs 1 and 2 of your post.

Concerning Paragraph 3, I do not know the answer at this point, and suspect that nobody really does. The climate has changed and the need of massive transit investments is now recognized. However, the actual funds are not committed yet, and the mechanisms to raise them (I'm afraid, no way but to create / raise certain taxes) have not been tested.

Technically, we are still at about 2.9 B of committed funds (1.4 B provincial for Spadina extension, 0.7 B federal for Spadina, about 0.8 B provincial for Yonge signal improvements and a bunch of smaller projects) plus about 10 B of promised but not committed yet (MoveOntario announcement less the amounts already counted in as committed). This is not much, compared to the 25 - 26 B needed for Phase I of subway-centered plan (as my estimate above suggests).

If the needed funds can be raised, then of course it makes sense to look ahead, and build subways in the corridors that will likely need them eventually.

Otherwise, we might have to make choices. For example, extend the Sheppard subway, but settle for LRT on Eglinton. Or vice versa, build subway on Eglinton, but LRT on Sheppard, or defer the latter corridor altogether. Here I'm not suggesting either solution for those two particular corridors out of the network context. The point is that the actual Phase I plan has to be network-based and fiscally attainable.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Sorry ... I'll take either LRT or subway over ICTS for the Eglinton route, unless someone finally tells me what the advantage of ICTS is. ICTS will lack the flexibility of LRT, as the former must be fully grade separate. Yet, ICTS will lack the capacity of a subway, so if the route is really very successful in future, it might get over capacity.

Add the smaller market for ICTS vehicles compared to either light rail of HRT ... hence less choice of suppliers and higher prices.

How does being "at grade" make LRT more flexible? Can LRTs short turn on a side street? Can LRTs pull over to let another one pass? Being consigned to a track makes LRT as flexible as subway and ICTS, but at least the other two options have greater capacity, speed and appeal.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

TC was not a perfect plan from the onset, and will become largely inadequate if the fiscal context changes. But I think that the modern push for massive transit funding was partly triggered by the announcement of Transit City.

Miller and friends must have been at least warned about upcoming funding, if not told outright to submit a fantasy map, for them to jerry-rig an LRT scheme that went against the grain of existing official and transit plans and got full funding almost instantaneously. The province asked the city what they wanted, and the city asked for LRT lines, so that's what got included in MoveOntario.

 

[Dan416]

I agree with Paragraphs 1 and 2 of your post.

Concerning Paragraph 3, I do not know the answer at this point, and suspect that nobody really does. The climate has changed and the need of massive transit investments is now recognized. However, the actual funds are not committed yet, and the mechanisms to raise them (I'm afraid, no way but to create / raise certain taxes) have not been tested.

Technically, we are still at about 2.9 B of committed funds (1.4 B provincial for Spadina extension, 0.7 B federal for Spadina, about 0.8 B provincial for Yonge signal improvements and a bunch of smaller projects) plus about 10 B of promised but not committed yet (MoveOntario announcement less the amounts already counted in as committed). This is not much, compared to the 25 - 26 B needed for Phase I of subway-centered plan (as my estimate above suggests).

If the needed funds can be raised, then of course it makes sense to look ahead, and build subways in the corridors that will likely need them eventually.

Otherwise, we might have to make choices. For example, extend the Sheppard subway, but settle for LRT on Eglinton. Or vice versa, build subway on Eglinton, but LRT on Sheppard, or defer the latter corridor altogether. Here I'm not suggesting either solution for those two particular corridors out of the network context. The point is that the actual Phase I plan has to be network-based and fiscally attainable.

Given the choice I'd rather Sheppard was finished as subway, and Elginton was LRT. But I do think we can build both as subway. It'll take some effort, but I think we should take the time to do it right. The need for a subway on Eglinton has been recognized for a while. As has DRL.

I'm not advocating subway all around the GTA. For me, the following would make a decent network:

1. Yonge line to Steeles (or a little further if York Region provides funding)
2. Spadina line to Steeles, period
3. Replace SRT with subway to Scarborough Centre
4. Finish Sheppard subway to Scarborough Centre
5. Eglinton Subway (how far in each direction I don't know, since I don't know the street in Toronto that well, all I can say is that subway along Eglinton in Mississauga at least would not be feasible right now, not by a long shot)
6. Downtown Relief Line (routing I'm unsure of whether Queen or another street would be better, although I'm biased toward having it go through Union
7. Expand the Bloor line further west, preferably to MCC, but at the very least Dixie/Dundas

And that's all the subway I think we'll need for a while to come

Eglinton subway