Transit City Plan

[nfitz]

A sad day for anyone except transit-hating NIMBYs.

 

[superman]

Here's my guess as to what will happen:

Eglinton'z underground portion will be built as a subway.
Sheppard's money will be used for a subway extension east.

Beyond 2015, money from Finch, SRT conversion, and the surface section of Eglinton will be diverted to extend the Bloor Danforth line to Scarborough Center.

 

[Filip]

Eglinton's underground portion is ~15km.. That alone will be the longest subway line built in Toronto since.. well since the 1960s. Ford is guaranteeing himself a second term if he can get that ball rolling.

 

[Hubcap]

I don't even see an Eglinton subway being built from this, the sheer cost of subway tunnels from Don Mills to STC will probably trump any Eglinton Subway. I mean the Eglinton line is planned with tunnels, which may mean the funds are already there, but the line is not as far reaching without its surface sections. And then there is the thought of a subway in the suburbs which is what an expanded Sheppard Line will be, the current "stubway" has little ridership already despite increased density produced by new condos Sheppard, I don't think an expanded sheppard subway line is worth the price, when there are many other areas that require transit infrastructure probably more urgently then Sheppard East.

 

[Filip]

I don't even see an Eglinton subway being built from this, the sheer cost of subway tunnels from Don Mills to STC will probably trump any Eglinton Subway. I mean the Eglinton line is planned with tunnels, which may mean the funds are already there, but the line is not as far reaching without its surface sections. And then there is the thought of a subway in the suburbs which is what an expanded Sheppard Line will be, the current "stubway" has little ridership already despite increased density produced by new condos Sheppard, I don't think an expanded sheppard subway line is worth the price, when there are many other areas that require transit infrastructure probably more urgently then Sheppard East.

The underground portion of Eglinton stretches from nearly Weston to Laird, that is a significant length already (~15km) and guess what, it costs nearly the same to build as a subway than as an LRT tunnel. The stations are already over-engineered and built to subway specifications for 6-car lengths, all roughed in mind you, but that's a trivial increase in total price to make it fully subway compatible.

There will be enough money left over to incrementally extend Sheppard eastbound.. We'll see how far it gets us.

Eglinton will be going ahead as a subway, Stintz is the chair of the TTC and in Ford's inner circle.. She will push for the Eglinton subway harder than anything.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Who says that a Sheppard extension would have to be tunneled?

And plus if Eglinton ends up being an LRT in addition to a tunnel they could take advantage of the fact that there's nothing at Eglinton and Jane but grass so they could take advantage of putting the tracks on the side of the road even though it's at grade, and wherever else that can be taken advantage of.

 

[gweed123]

Right now, the best compromise is to take the Eastern portion of Eglinton (the surface portion), chop it off, and use that money for extending B-D to STC. As has been mentioned, the funding gap between SRT to SLRT conversion and a subway extension to STC is only $600 million. Chopping off the eastern portion of Eglinton would give you somewhere in that neighbourhood (not quite $600 million, but certainly somewhere close). The Eglinton tunnel part is kept, and built using the current TBM contracts. This also gives a chance to re-evaluate the options on the western and eastern portions of Eglinton.

The Sheppard Subway is extended to VP (realistically, the only HRT subway he's going to get in a 4 year term), with BRT running in the LRT ROW east of Agincourt, and queue jump lanes from VP to Agincourt. Pretty much cost-neutral with the current proposal.

This would be as close as you can get to being cost neutral with what's already on the table, while still making sure that no projects get their feet swept out from under them. Is it ideal? No. But with the current amount of funding, and the status of the current projects, it's the least drastic change of course in order to get a Transit City/Ford Plan hybrid. Ford can still have his subway extensions, and Metrolinx can keep the progress they've made over the past few years.

 

[Asterix]

Eglinton's underground portion is ~15km.. That alone will be the longest subway line built in Toronto since.. well since the 1960s. Ford is guaranteeing himself a second term if he can get that ball rolling.

I still can't wrap my head around why some people seem to think it is as easy as flipping a switch to make the Eglinton LRT line into full-bore subway.

Aside from the fact you would be taking away higher order transit from thousands of people beyond the central tunneled portion (unless you've magically discovered billions of dollars to trench/tunnel/elevate the subway line the full extent of the existing planned LRT line), you've got significant additional costs.

Where are you going to store your new subway cars? The LRT plan has a yard out at Black Creek. The advantage of surface running LRT is that you can access the yard just by turning north (see panel 28 http://www.toronto.ca/involved/proj...n_lrt/pdf/2009-11-20_display_panels_part2.pdf).

If you build a subway, you can't pop out of the portal on the side of the hill and then cut across traffic, you'd probably need to tunnel (or some wacky elevated contraption that would be an eyesore and need copious amounts of space just to drop back down to grade in the yard). So now you are coming down the steep hill from Keele (very deep tunnel) and must continue tunneling down and UNDER the watercourse while making the right turn to get into the yard. (And is the proposed yard big enough to handle the full subway cars? Or are you going to have to spend hundreds of millions more to figure out some kind of connection with the YUS line so you access Davisville or Wilson (neither of which will have any available space once the Spadina extension comes on line)?)

On the eastern end, either you end your line at the portal (and give rise to the transfer problem covered below) or you spend hundreds of millions more to either tunnel all the way under the Don Valley and right through to Don Mills, or to build some kind of grade separation along the south side of Eglinton (which is not actually at grade down in the park).

Presuming you can't find the money to extend the line as far as the current proposal, or even as far as Don Mills, you've now got to spend millions on some kind of station at both ends where all the bus routes feeding the line can come and drop off passengers. Anywhere around the eastern portal you can easily build this? There are a lot of bus routes (and corresponding passengers) you need to accommodate.

Or you can stick with the plan that is currently funded, provide a true cross-town route with a central portion in a tunnel that will provide near-subway service. (Also worth noting you can't really be carrying more people than LRT capacity because you've got nowhere for them to go - YUS is already maxed out and additional capacity provided by Toronto Rockets and ATO will be quickly consumed north of Eglinton.)

So all in all, people advocating converting Eglinton to a full heavy subway seem to want to spend billions more dollars for negligible or even less benefit (if they are taking away better transit from the non-tunneled portion). And then they'll saddle the Toronto taxpayer with all the costs of starting over the design, environmental assessments, the endless public and private consultations, the breaking of existing contracts, and throwing away all the money already spent on the line. That sounds like complete disrespect of the taxpayer and a guaranteed gravy train.

 

[SimonP]

From The Star:

TTC chief general manager Gary Webster will meet with Mayor-elect Rob Ford’s team Wednesday.

Transit officials would not confirm speculation that the meeting is about the cancellation of the Transit City light rail lines, although some downtown councillors fear that’s the only item on the agenda.

“We do not know the subject matter of tomorrow's meeting. That is a fact,” said TTC spokesman Brad Ross.

But one city councillor, who didn’t want to be quoted, said that the meeting will almost certainly be about directing the TTC to stop work on Transit City.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Can the mayor unilaterally direct the TTC to do anything he wants? Wouldn't this mean lay-offs?

 

[Filip]

I still can't wrap my head around why some people seem to think it is as easy as flipping a switch to make the Eglinton LRT line into full-bore subway.

Aside from the fact you would be taking away higher order transit from thousands of people beyond the central tunneled portion (unless you've magically discovered billions of dollars to trench/tunnel/elevate the subway line the full extent of the existing planned LRT line), you've got significant additional costs.

Where are you going to store your new subway cars? The LRT plan has a yard out at Black Creek. The advantage of surface running LRT is that you can access the yard just by turning north (see panel 28 http://www.toronto.ca/involved/proj...n_lrt/pdf/2009-11-20_display_panels_part2.pdf).

If you build a subway, you can't pop out of the portal on the side of the hill and then cut across traffic, you'd probably need to tunnel (or some wacky elevated contraption that would be an eyesore and need copious amounts of space just to drop back down to grade in the yard). So now you are coming down the steep hill from Keele (very deep tunnel) and must continue tunneling down and UNDER the watercourse while making the right turn to get into the yard. (And is the proposed yard big enough to handle the full subway cars? Or are you going to have to spend hundreds of millions more to figure out some kind of connection with the YUS line so you access Davisville or Wilson (neither of which will have any available space once the Spadina extension comes on line)?)

On the eastern end, either you end your line at the portal (and give rise to the transfer problem covered below) or you spend hundreds of millions more to either tunnel all the way under the Don Valley and right through to Don Mills, or to build some kind of grade separation along the south side of Eglinton (which is not actually at grade down in the park).

Presuming you can't find the money to extend the line as far as the current proposal, or even as far as Don Mills, you've now got to spend millions on some kind of station at both ends where all the bus routes feeding the line can come and drop off passengers. Anywhere around the eastern portal you can easily build this? There are a lot of bus routes (and corresponding passengers) you need to accommodate.

Or you can stick with the plan that is currently funded, provide a true cross-town route with a central portion in a tunnel that will provide near-subway service. (Also worth noting you can't really be carrying more people than LRT capacity because you've got nowhere for them to go - YUS is already maxed out and additional capacity provided by Toronto Rockets and ATO will be quickly consumed north of Eglinton.)

So all in all, people advocating converting Eglinton to a full heavy subway seem to want to spend billions more dollars for negligible or even less benefit (if they are taking away better transit from the non-tunneled portion). And then they'll saddle the Toronto taxpayer with all the costs of starting over the design, environmental assessments, the endless public and private consultations, the breaking of existing contracts, and throwing away all the money already spent on the line. That sounds like complete disrespect of the taxpayer and a guaranteed gravy train.

There's a lot of things you're not taking into account and I'm not going to bother arguing with.. But for every reason you give, there's a solution, and in fact, some of them are quite simple.. This has been shown through YEARS of arguing on this website why Eglinton should be a subway. If these problems were so pronounced, the 1990s wouldn't have seen the START of construction on Eglinton's subway line.

 

[Filip]

Can the mayor unilaterally direct the TTC to do anything he wants? Wouldn't this mean lay-offs?

The mushy middle in council is already siding with Ford on numerous key issues, including Transit City.

Ford now fully has the capabilities to stop it.. I expect a formal cancellation of the project in the following weeks, with a statement from Ontario saying that Torontonians have spoken and we must listen.

 

[Asterix]

There's a lot of things you're not taking into account and I'm not going to bother arguing with.. But for every reason you give, there's a solution, and in fact, some of them are quite simple.. This has been shown through YEARS of arguing on this website why Eglinton should be a subway. If these problems were so pronounced, the 1990s wouldn't have seen the START of construction on Eglinton's subway line.

That seems like a rather nonsensical brush-off. Of course most of those problems have solutions - I even identified them. The problem is that they will cost a lot of extra money and in the final outcome, provide minimal additional benefit. That is gravy train spending by definition (and that's not even touching on the pure waste of money to cancel existing contracts and go another decade or more before actually having anything productive built).

(And if you look up the history of the aborted Eglinton subway line, it wasn't being built in response to an identified need for subway level capacity and was only going to be a token Shepard stubway-esque line from the Allen west.)

 

[Calrissian]

There's a lot of things you're not taking into account and I'm not going to bother arguing with.. But for every reason you give, there's a solution, and in fact, some of them are quite simple.. This has been shown through YEARS of arguing on this website why Eglinton should be a subway. If these problems were so pronounced, the 1990s wouldn't have seen the START of construction on Eglinton's subway line.

As has been pointed out many times before, the prior start of the Eglinton line was not the same as what we have today. And your understanding of the solutions (which by no means are backed from any true planning experience/pov) are not realistic and cost effictive... Asterix has clearly defined the issues. He understands.

As per most of our fears, the real danger here is basically what we've been predicting: back to the drawing board, and another generation of nothing.

You will not be riding any subway on eglinton in your lifetime... sheppard too, most likely. (assuming all this passes council)

 

[Filip]

There were numerous third party consultations on the Eglinton corridor which identified ridership projections rivalling the Bloor line. Most were posted on this blog.

The contracts are simple to sort out.. Here are the major ones I've identified.

1)The Flexity trams for Transit City... Well, nothing is being built yet, and many Ontario towns are embarking on major LRT projects.. Ottawa, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, just to name a few... Ontario can easily send those cars to those cities sans penalties.

2) The TBM for Eglinton.. Well under Ford we'll be building subways in Scarborough and possibly under Eglinton so it doesn't really matter where it goes, right?

3) Construction on Sheppard for the LRT.. Note, this construction is only the grade separation of the GO line from the intersection. Sheppard will dip under the railway. Now, this project, in reality, is necessary with or without the LRT as GO's ridership growth envisions that ALL level crossings have to be eliminated.

4) The only money spent on Transit City has been consulting. This amounts to a few million, something the city throws at bullshit projects all the time. I think Ford AND the city can swallow this without feeling too sour about it.