[Amare]

Not doing this would be incredibly shortsighted. The city has the potential to cheaply cut and cover and tunnel though the vacant Downsview lands and save billions of dollars.

I'd argue just build the tunnels and station caverns preemptively now, then finish construction whenever we do eventually decide to extend Line 4 west of Sheppard Yonge.

Doing this after Downsview is even 1/4 occupied is going to be much more expensive.

If this was the 1960's/70's where the city and province had foresight to protect for the future, then yes they would do that. But we live in a day and age where that doesnt happen, and politicians are content pissing away boatloads of money on capital expenditures that make no sense.

This is all to say, you can be rest assured cut and cover would not be used even if there was prime instances to do it. Asides from SEM, TBM's are the only thing we know about when it comes to tunnelling projects apparently.

 

[Westey]

If this was the 1960's/70's where the city and province had foresight to protect for the future, then yes they would do that. But we live in a day and age where that doesnt happen, and politicians are content pissing away boatloads of money on capital expenditures that make no sense.

This is all to say, you can be rest assured cut and cover would not be used even if there was prime instances to do it. Asides from SEM, TBM's are the only thing we know about when it comes to tunnelling projects apparently.

The only project I am aware where the contractor had the full ability to decide whether to use cut0and-cover was the Canada Line. And they chose it - faster and cheaper. The publics biggest complaint about transit construction is the cost and duration.
Yet is it still not considered.
I wonder if the best construction model is for in-house design and small contracts - where designers are not politically influenced. (this is a pipe dream).
Maybe the next best is a massive contract for and entire line and the contractor can fully optimize the entire project.
Worst of both worlds seems to be what we chose.

 

[NoahB]

Hell, they can elevate it and integrate it into the urban fabric. The area is a clean slate. But the projects are siloed. So this kind of thing is unlikely.

 

[goodcitywhenfinished]

I would just extend Sheppard to end at Sheppard West station, and leave it at that.

Actually since the runway is no longer active, has there been any discussion of completing Dufferin from just north of Wilson to Sheppard? I just noticed Dufferin is disjointed because of the former airport.

Why? Walking from Central Downsview to Sheppard West is not a small distance, forget South Downsview. I will remind you that Downsview is comparable in land area to the Line 1 catchment south of College. These two stations could be built on a per station budget similar to original Line 4 stations if construction started before development.

Second, the Wilson/401 corridor west of Dufferin has the Humber River Hospital and a potential interchange with the future GO Bolton line. Once you get that far, its not a huge jump over to Pearson in a phase 2 or 3 western extension. North York and Scarborough having a direct rail connection to Pearson would be invaluable.

 

[christiesplits]

Why? Walking from Central Downsview to Sheppard West is not a small distance, forget South Downsview. I will remind you that Downsview is comparable in land area to the Line 1 catchment south of College. These two stations could be built on a per station budget similar to original Line 4 stations if construction started before development.

Second, the Wilson/401 corridor west of Dufferin has the Humber River Hospital and a potential interchange with the future GO Bolton line. Once you get that far, its not a huge jump over to Pearson in a phase 2 or 3 western extension. North York and Scarborough having a direct rail connection to Pearson would be invaluable.

Thanks for the map. How much would a hypothetical Pearson to STC Sheppard Subway cost compared to the 401 highway tunnel proposal?

 

[Northern Light]

Thanks for the map. How much would a hypothetical Pearson to STC Sheppard Subway cost compared to the 401 highway tunnel proposal?

As a starting point, if you used the costs for the Scarborough Subway extension, with the maintenance expense removed, its about 9.2B which is around 1.15B per km. That includes land acquisition, and is inordinately expensive due to depth and the manner of tunneling.

IF you could drive those down, it might reasonably offset subsequent inflation and yield a similar'ish number.

If you use that number, you're at ~3km to get to Wilson at the GO Barrie line, then you're at about 7.4km to get to a future Bolton line, and its just shy of 16km on to Terminal 1.

The full line, using the figures above is ~18.9B.

Given the timeframes involved, it would certainly be more by the time it actually got built.

But a phased build out, 2 stations across the Downsview Lands in phase 1, would be ~2.3B, then you go literally one station at a time, and open them as you go, every 2-3 years, it would be about 1.2B annually.

Taken on its own (forgetting the rest of the Line 4 project), its about 1/5 of the cost of a 401 Tunnel, not including upgrading/widening all the roads that would meet same.

If one played with the nuimbers a bit, it could go as high as 1/3 the cost, but that would be a very extreme scenario (401 project coming in surprisingly low and this idea coming in quite high).

The rest of the Line 4 project is in the range of 16-22B depending on how many stations you build, and the cost of additional train storage (Wilson yard is a partial, but not full solution).

Take them together and provide a range of 35-41B Or about 40% of the cost of the 401 project. Extend Sheppard east to UTSC for another ~5-7B and you'll get close to 50% of the 401 project.

***

Numbers will vary based on the time over which they are spent (inflation); and both construction cost choices and soft costs.

Were we hopeless optimists and you build cut and cover on the Downsview lands, elsewhere were land is sufficiently cheap, and likewise chose, even when tunnel boring not to go any deeper than necessary, you could take those numbers down a bit. In the alternative, if we opt for most expensive building techniques throughout and typical Mx soft costs, you might need to goose my estimates by 25%, or more.

For clarification on the 401, we don't have any serious proposal elements to cost with, but I've used a placeholder of 100B which many experts have suggested is a realistic ballpark. The high end estimates are closer to 130B.

 

[dowlingm]

The only project I am aware where the contractor had the full ability to decide whether to use cut0and-cover was the Canada Line. And they chose it - faster and cheaper. The publics biggest complaint about transit construction is the cost and duration.
Yet is it still not considered.

Cut and cover went down so well in Vancouver for Canada Line that they promised not to use it for the Broadway extension...

 

[goodcitywhenfinished]

Cut and cover went down so well in Vancouver for Canada Line that they promised not to use it for the Broadway extension...

Yes it went very well from a project finance and timeline perspective. Probably the most successful transit procurement in recent Canadian history.

The public did not like the inconvenience of roads being torn up for months.

 

[Jonathan's Junction]

The public did not like the inconvenience of roads being torn up for months.

The thing is, TBMs don’t necessarily prevent that either. Think Eglinton and Allen, Yonge and Queen etc.

 

[urbanclient]

Cut and cover went down so well in Vancouver for Canada Line that they promised not to use it for the Broadway extension...

Are we sure cut and cover wasn't used at all for the Broadway extension?

Also: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brit...oject-will-close-1-block-for-months-9.6952544

 

[innsertnamehere]

As a starting point, if you used the costs for the Scarborough Subway extension, with the maintenance expense removed, its about 9.2B which is around 1.15B per km. That includes land acquisition, and is inordinately expensive due to depth and the manner of tunneling.

IF you could drive those down, it might reasonably offset subsequent inflation and yield a similar'ish number.

If you use that number, you're at ~3km to get to Wilson at the GO Barrie line, then you're at about 7.4km to get to a future Bolton line, and its just shy of 16km on to Terminal 1.

The full line, using the figures above is ~18.9B.

Given the timeframes involved, it would certainly be more by the time it actually got built.

But a phased build out, 2 stations across the Downsview Lands in phase 1, would be ~2.3B, then you go literally one station at a time, and open them as you go, every 2-3 years, it would be about 1.2B annually.

Taken on its own (forgetting the rest of the Line 4 project), its about 1/5 of the cost of a 401 Tunnel, not including upgrading/widening all the roads that would meet same.

If one played with the nuimbers a bit, it could go as high as 1/3 the cost, but that would be a very extreme scenario (401 project coming in surprisingly low and this idea coming in quite high).

The rest of the Line 4 project is in the range of 16-22B depending on how many stations you build, and the cost of additional train storage (Wilson yard is a partial, but not full solution).

Take them together and provide a range of 35-41B Or about 40% of the cost of the 401 project. Extend Sheppard east to UTSC for another ~5-7B and you'll get close to 50% of the 401 project.

***

Numbers will vary based on the time over which they are spent (inflation); and both construction cost choices and soft costs.

Were we hopeless optimists and you build cut and cover on the Downsview lands, elsewhere were land is sufficiently cheap, and likewise chose, even when tunnel boring not to go any deeper than necessary, you could take those numbers down a bit. In the alternative, if we opt for most expensive building techniques throughout and typical Mx soft costs, you might need to goose my estimates by 25%, or more.

For clarification on the 401, we don't have any serious proposal elements to cost with, but I've used a placeholder of 100B which many experts have suggested is a realistic ballpark. The high end estimates are closer to 130B.

I think we'd have to be fair and compare coverage too - a $100b 401 tunnel is going to be a lot longer than the Sheppard subway extension. The $100b cost comes from building a tunnel from Milton to Pickering basically. I think this is unlikely and that the tunnel will likely be proposed at less than half that size, focusing on from the 427 to 404, and that tunnel is estimated to be closer to the $30 billion range.

 

[JasonParis]

Would UPX, Line 4, 5, and 6 be overkill for Pearson? I wonder if Line 4 would simply turn south and simply terminate somewhere like Keelesdale station.

 

[north-of-anything]

Would UPX, Line 4, 5, and 6 be overkill for Pearson? I wonder if Line 4 would simply turn south and simply terminate somewhere like Keelesdale station.

Maybe extend it a little bit further west and it can become the Sheppard-Jane line. As long as it hits Jane and Wilson, that's where the ridership from all directions converges to go south...

 

[JasonParis]

I see that as the western leg of Line 3 personally. But not a terrible idea by any means either.

 

[nfitz]

The public did not like the inconvenience of roads being torn up for months.

Which is why the Danforth subway is not under Danforth, and the Bloor subway isn't under Bloor.

I think we'd have to be fair and compare coverage too - a $100b 401 tunnel is going to be a lot longer than the Sheppard subway extension. The $100b cost comes from building a tunnel from Milton to Pickering basically. I think this is unlikely and that the tunnel will likely be proposed at less than half that size, focusing on from the 427 to 404, and that tunnel is estimated to be closer to the $30 billion range.

Any idea how frequent the emergency exits need to be in Ontario for a tunnel like 401?