I think this is the flaw in your argument. Eglinton at rush hour often involves waiting a number of subway trains before finding space to get onto one. However, as a person who arrives at Eglinton daily on surface transit, the big benefit would be the choice to go 3 more stations and ride the Spadina line... a long trip on a bus but quick underground.
I guess I overlooked that issue- Yonge is pretty much at capacity, and I doubt that either options would alleviate the issue without the DRL.
Anyways, news about the Sheppard Line!
TTC revives consulting arm to oversee Sheppard subway
March 08, 2011
Tess Kalinowski
A long-dormant consulting arm of the TTC has been re-activated to oversee the public-private financing and building of Mayor Rob Ford’s Sheppard subway extension.
“Essentially the mayor wishes to advance the P3 application with the federal government using the consulting arm of the TTC,” transit chair Karen Stintz told the Star.
“Someone just needs to be shepherding through that process and there is nowhere in the TTC that we can do that… so this consulting company has been re-established,” she said.
City councillors who sit on the Toronto Transit Commission gathered Tuesday morning to name TTC commissioner Norm Kelly (Scarborough-Agincourt) as director of Toronto Transit Consultants Ltd.
He will be assisted by TTC vice-chair Peter Milczyn (Etobicoke-Lakeshore).
“New directors will be added with expertise in P3 application,” said Stintz.
The TTCL will be responsible for taking the business case for the Sheppard subway before the federal government to make sure “our business model makes sense,” she said.
Ottawa has already committed about $300 million to a light rail line on Sheppard Ave. E., money that went directly to Metrolinx, the provincial transportation funding agency.
But Ford wants a subway on Sheppard, connecting it in the west with the Spadina line and running east from the existing Don Mills station to Kennedy.
The project is expected to cost about $4.5 billion.
It would be built and financed using private sector funding but the TTC would operate it, said Stintz.
The TTCL will meet privately during the city council lunch recess Tuesday to name other directors, likely to include some from the private sector.
The consulting company was retired in the mid-1990s. It is the same body used to show off the Scarborough RT rail technology, which was considered an international innovation.
It also provided consulting services to the Toronto Zoo after a monorail accident in 1994.
It was disbanded after the 1995 Russell Hill subway derailment, said TTC chief general manager Gary Webster, who attended Tuesday’s special commission meeting.
http://www.thestar.com/news/transpo...ves-consulting-arm-to-oversee-sheppard-subway
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The Scarborough RT and the Zoo Monorail? Doesn't sound like an incredible track record.