Transit City Plan

[rbt]

I agree only with your predictions for the "Conservative majority" case.

The position of NDP or Liberals is not so obvious. NDP generally supports light rail, but they might make an exception for Scarborough if supporting a subway there gives them more votes for the same investment. Likewise, a new Liberal leader might want to differ from McGuinty in some respects. A partial revision of Transit City might be one of his / her options if it brings in more votes.

McGuinty is taking a ton of flak for expenses incurred while winning votes. Contract cancellation costs, etc.

If election debate centers around those mistakes it's going to be really hard for any party to promise to cancel a plan, no matter how small the current investment (LRT vehicles and engineering at this point), without taking heat about it.

That was my primary reason why NDP likely wouldn't make noise in this area to win votes and I don't think the Liberals will even have the option as they'll get attacked just for considering it.


I would like to be wrong about this. I was strongly in favour of the Danforth extension when Soberman presented it in 2006. Ultimately, I think it's too late for that choice now, and would fund the DRL first strictly from a city/provincial revenue perspective.

The next Mayor of Toronto will have some say in the matter, too. Mr. Ford had a lot of influence after he was elected. He lost his clout after he mismanaged the transit file to the point where his own Council rebelled against him, but the next mayor is not likely to repeat the same mistake.

This greatly depends on election timing. I'm expecting a provincial election next spring. With a 3 way race (Liberals, NDP, and Conservatives are all polling between 30% and 35%, with Liberals in last) it seems very unlikely the next Ontario budget will pass.

The decision on the Toronto transit file by the province will be made while Ford is still mayor.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The latest news about the Metrolinx and city agreement (from this link) is as follows:

Metrolinx agreement to be revised

The master agreement governing the construction and control of four Toronto LRTs will be revised before next week’s Toronto City Council meeting, after some councillors expressed concern over the agreement.

New language is being added to clarify the process Metrolinx must follow if it wants to deviate from the plan to build 26 stops on Eglinton spaced about 800 metres apart, said TTC chair Karen Stintz, who met with city and Metrolinx officials Friday.

Councillor Joe Mihevc, a former TTC commissioner, said his concerns have been addressed.

If the stops and stations change, Metrolinx has to apply for an amendment to the environmental assessment that has already been approved. That takes about six months and requires extensive community consultation.

“There's been so much public input and community engagement. That can't be lost," Mihevc said.

The LRTs on Eglinton, Finch, Sheppard and the Scarborough RT are being built with $8.4 billion in provincial funding.

 

[Rainforest]

Which means, assuming that the $300 million in federal funding needs to remain on Sheppard, that the City would need to pitch in an additional $50 million to make the B-D extension to Sheppard & McCowan work ($950 - $300 = $650). I'd say that's pretty doable. In a lot of these projects, $50 million is a rounding error.

No, the B-D extension to Sheppard & McCowan needs all of SRT funding, plus additional $1.2 billion ($500 million to get to STC and $700 million to get to Sheppard).

If only $650 million can be redirected from Sheppard, then the city is on the hook for $550 million of funds that are not even available yet.

 

[Rainforest]

I was strongly in favour of the Danforth extension when Soberman presented it in 2006. Ultimately, I think it's too late for that choice now, and would fund the DRL first strictly from a city/provincial revenue perspective.

Fair enough; if any of the Scarborough subways competes for funding with DRL, I'd rather see DRL funded.

The decision on the Toronto transit file by the province will be made while Ford is still mayor.

Any decision made in 2013 or 2014 might not be final. In the present environment, final decisions are only those that are too expensive to undo or revise.

 

[M II A II R II K]

The Sheppard Subway could be extended if it were to act as a commuter rail line leaving Sheppard and paralleling the 401 where it would terminate at Rouge Hill, and extended west too. It can be known as the Uptown Line.

 

[sixrings]

The Sheppard Subway could be extended if it were to act as a commuter rail line leaving Sheppard and paralleling the 401 where it would terminate at Rouge Hill, and extended west too. It can be known as the Uptown Line.

Im running out of my house right now... but the Toronto star had a article about this a few years ago... Id have to search for it... its worth a read..

 

[rbt]

Any decision made in 2013 or 2014 might not be final. In the present environment, final decisions are only those that are too expensive to undo or revise.

Anything with a design + build contract that you want to start construction immediately after Expo will be tendered/awarded before the new Toronto mayor comes into power. The new mayor cancelling something like the SRT with a design + build contract might cost on the order of $200M.


The $200M cancellation fee + $500M for subway extension + 7 year outage of the SRT service (I'm not convinced it will last until 2015); changing course for the new mayor isn't going to be easy.

 

[Rainforest]

The Sheppard Subway could be extended if it were to act as a commuter rail line leaving Sheppard and paralleling the 401 where it would terminate at Rouge Hill, and extended west too. It can be known as the Uptown Line.

That makes sense, but should be deferred until DRL is built at least to Danforth, and perhaps even to Eglinton.

And if, in some distant future, we decide to have a long transit line across the north of 416, perhaps a conversion of Sheppard to light metro should be looked at if it can trim costs. Conversion to a high-floor system will be a lot easier than conversion to low-floor LRT; speed will not suffer and might actually increase dependent on the acceleration capabilities of the new rolling stock. The capacity limit will be lower than now, but if it is estimated that the demand on Sheppard will never exceed say 20,000 pphpd, then perhaps a properly scaled light metro system will be acceptable.

 

[M II A II R II K]

And even better to ICTS-ize the whole thing since it would only warrant that much space in each trainset, and plus you can send longer ones for rush hour and shorter ones at night.

 

[gweed123]

My understanding is that just the subway to STC will cost about $500 million more than the whole amount allocated for the SRT project. Getting the subway from STC to Sheppard / McCowan will cost additional $700 million.

That seems kind of strange to me. Even assuming $325 million/km (pretty high estimate), the 7.5 km stretch (Kennedy to Sheppard via Danforth-McCowan) would be around $2.4 billion. That's $1 billion more than the refurb + extension option. That would mean the City would need to put forward an additional $350 million, on top of the $650 million diverted from Sheppard East.

$700 million for 1.75 km (the difference between STC & Sheppard) is pretty outrageous IMO. That's $400 million/km.

 

[ssiguy2]

This whole situation has become completely comical and I wouldn't be surprised if none of the TC lines are up and running by 2020.

 

[Amy Rose]

And even better to ICTS-ize the whole thing since it would only warrant that much space in each trainset, and plus you can send longer ones for rush hour and shorter ones at night.

Same could be done with subways. IIRC, the Yonge line used to run 4/6/8 (G1s were 57'/car compared to the now standard 75' cars) car trains depending on the demand and time of day.

 

[Electrify]

I'm currently working on a research project to try and see if people would prefer wider stop spacing in favour of higher speeds. While still fairly early, most surveys completed point to yes.

Also, I am curious as to how density along these avenues compares to the densities along Bloor and Danforth, and along Yonge away from the stations. While the urban form isn't as sexy as it is in the inner city, there are at least a dozen high rises in the vicinity of Kennedy and Sheppard, not to mention many plazas and malls creating a mixed use environment.The way people describe these areas as low density filled with white car driving boomers, you would think we are debating building a subway in Oakville instead of Scarborough.

I'm not saying that subways should be built, but I wish people would stop with the suburban density argument.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Electrify:

I'm currently working on a research project to try and see if people would prefer wider stop spacing in favour of higher speeds. While still fairly early, most surveys completed point to yes.

This is interesting - is there stratification of the sample to identify respondents located proximate to the station? The reason I am asking is framed by the response to the deletion of Leslie station - people might prefer wider stop spacing until it is their station/stop that gets deleted.

AoD

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

I'm currently working on a research project to try and see if people would prefer wider stop spacing in favour of higher speeds. While still fairly early, most surveys completed point to yes.

Also, I am curious as to how density along these avenues compares to the densities along Bloor and Danforth, and along Yonge away from the stations. While the urban form isn't as sexy as it is in the inner city, there are at least a dozen high rises in the vicinity of Kennedy and Sheppard, not to mention many plazas and malls creating a mixed use environment.The way people describe these areas as low density filled with white car driving boomers, you would think we are debating building a subway in Oakville instead of Scarborough.

I'm not saying that subways should be built, but I wish people would stop with the suburban density argument.

I'm sorry, but isn't the surbuban density argument the exact same for Scar as for Oakv (or anywhere else in the universe?) That the density is much lower than a subway would demand, given the cost? Did the density of Scarborough change dramatically while I've been away? With friends in West Hill and on Whites Rd in Pickering, and a daughter who practiced at Agincourt, I've driven Lawrence, Eg, St. Clair, Danforth, Kingston Rd, and the N/S routes all over Scar. It's a suburban density, man! Roads are wider, lots are bigger, strip plazas have more parking lot than shop area.

More importantly, there is (seriously) nothing wrong with surface LRTs! They're a great form of transit that will be appreciated by millions of Torontonians in the inner suburbs if they just open their minds and take the chip off their shoulders.