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The original plan back in the 70''s/80's was to have streetcars going to Malvern and most likely pass UTSC as I have never seen a real detail map for that extension,. The last plan before been replace by subway was to service UTSC, Malvern and interline with Sheppard Line, as well servicing a few other location.
Well a long time ago there was the Toronto & Scarboro Radial Railway which ran from Kingston Road and Queen to what is today Morningside and Lawrence.
Note that the streetcar/radial car is on its own right-of-way, separate from the traffic lane or lanes. When they were forced to provide more spacious traffic lanes, they took the real estate from the right-of-way and turned it over to the automobile.
Clearly you don't understand the math here? The tunnel can cost $200 million to rebuild and the cars can be built for $500 million ish, there you go $700 million vs. the over billion dollar cost of the LRT? Adding elevators is not going to cost on the order of 100's of millions. Which as we have discussed ad nauseum would use inferior vehicles which would easily be thrown down the middle of a road and slowed down.
Most of the cost in the original $190 million estimate the TTC made in 2006 when they recommended doing this was for extending the existing platforms, and replacing the Kennedy platform, with one at ground surface, just east of the existing GO platform.
Mind you the lrt cost includes a northeastward extension, though I've heard that extending and upgrading the rt in it's current state would be just about as expensive as the whole lrt projet, so why not just do that given the higher capacity, comfort, and less service disruptions that comes with the upgraded rt
Not to mention upgrading the RT has less of a risk of corner cutting that can significantly reduce service like an LRT. By replacing it with an RT with an LRT, any politician in the future can neuter service by making an extension that runs in the median of the roadway, basically hampering any possibility of 90s headways + automation. Ottawa has a very similar problem with their LRT, the entire line supports automation and can theoretically reach 90s headways, but because its a low floor LRT, a new mayor or government can come in, turn OTrain Phase 3 into an at-grade median LRT into Kanata and Barrhaven, and absolutely reek havoc onto the entire network.
I'm just getting sick of this romanticism of Transit City as this "greatest plan to ever exist". The same people who will yell at the Fords for replacing a perfectly adequate grade separated LRT with a way more expensive Subway, will also turn away from the fact that Miller did the exact same thing to SRT refurbishment several years prior with his Scarborough LRT plan. SSE is happening, shovels should be in the ground this year and there is nothing anyone can do to change that. If people will still bring up the topic of the Scarborough LRT even now, I have no issue bringing up Scarborough RT refurbishment.
You cannot deny the cost of the subway back then though. The extension to Kennedy alone costed $71.4 Million (remember this is the late 60's/early 70's). Thats $71.4 Million for one station and 2.5km of tunnel. By comparison the extensions of the BD to Woodbine and Keele from the original BD plan which only had the line going from St.George to Greenwood cost $60 Million. Thats $60 Million for 5km of track and 10 stations only a decade prior. The cost of subway construction was already ballooning out of control by the 70's and a further extension of the BD to STC would have easily cost near or over $100 Million. Nobody on Metro was going to pay that and Scarborough would have and did balk at the cost since they would have likely had to bare the brunt of the municipal contribution. As well the Province by this point seemed to have shown no interest in pitching in any extra money for the Kennedy and Kipling extensions beyond what was already contributed. Yes it is true that Scarborough at first wanted the subway to STC and there is no denying it, however nobody, not even Scarborough was willing to pay for it. If only 2.5Km of tunnel costed $71.4 Million, imagine how much another 4-5km of tunnel would have costed (assuming a further extension would be tunneled and not use the rail corridor the RT does).
