Filip
Senior Member
I think you forgot there's a city outside of the downtown core.
Keesmaat is highly unpopular there. Tory is the safe choice for suburban Toronto - and suburban Toronto calls the shots/elections.
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- Thread starter innsertnamehere
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Keesmaat is highly unpopular there. Tory is the safe choice for suburban Toronto - and suburban Toronto calls the shots/elections.
There is a municipal election / mayor thread which I should link for you but it’s awkward on my phone
ssiguy2
Senior Member
I don/t know about that. Keesmaat was a vocal critic of City Hall and it/s complete inertia on nearly every civic profile which alone makes her appealing as Toronto has a habit of studying everything to death and then doing nothing. . She is also known as a person who isn't a career politician but a real city planner and her strong support of good and effective transit plays well in all areas of the city as poor transit is one of those issues that crosses all political stripes, demographics, and incomes..
She also has very good name recognition and Tory's is very susceptible on the rise of gun violence during his tenure. Whether that is real or perceived is irrelevant, he is the natural 'fall guy'. A shoe-in Tory re-election has just turned into a real horse race which is nothing but good news for all Torontonians regardless of who wins.
tayser
Active Member
Just a quick FYI: that project is coming up on 10 years old (and therefore the cost assumptions are out of date). The next electrification-of-existing-diesel-line project will happen soon and the Victorian Government is getting better at disclosing project component costs.
Likewise, even though they're greenfields projects, new underground/metro projects in AU of late usually differentiate between civil costs (digging station pits [basic construction of stations], tunneling) and the fit out costs - including adding into the catenary to the tunnels, getting stations up to spec (installation of everything that makes a station) etc.
steveintoronto
Superstar
Excellent heads-up. In all fairness, I haven't found a costing for just the UPX line alone to electrify. I will, and will consult Melbourne's latest experience. Melbourne is an excellent comparator in many ways to Toronto, currency is roughly at par, standard of living similar (albeit Mel has a slight edge), income and costs similar (Mel might be slightly higher) so when I read that Mel can do electrification for what appears to be an affordable sum, I have to question some of the figures proffered for electrification (by catenary) in the GTHA, specifically the UPX+ Corridor (roughly a section of the Georgetown Corridor).
I don't look at this as an expense as much as a *liberation* of the present UPX to recover the massive costs already sunk into it, utilizing it to a much greater extent instead of Metrolinx dragging their heels due to 'cost issues' for doing the parallel (actually shared) trackage. The UPX platforms (high level, three cars+ long) could just as easily host commuter trains between the present 15 min UPX headway.
The big advantage Mel has over Toronto is experience. A century's worth.
Any links you could provide most appreciated.
Edit to Add: Just doing a quick Google now, still not getting any easy hits, having the right tags would help, but this shows, and an especially good Steve Munro examination of UPX, and what more can be done with it. Reader comments are very informative too.
Bear in mind this is three years old, fares have been slashed to the Airport, and charged at GO prices for points for all but the actual airport station and some track has been added since, and more being added now, but still no sign of electrification:
https://stevemunro.ca/2015/03/29/the-high-cost-of-upx/
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tayser
Active Member
In a freakishly uncanny twist of fate on what is already a freakishly uncanny similarity between Melbourne & Toronto - our primary airports are roughly the same distance from the central areas (and even in broadly the same direction from aforementioned areas!) - last week we saw commitment at the state level to finally commit to building a rail link.
It was somewhere in the range of $500mil to $1bil in capital to build the necessary infrastructure for the UPX, no?
They're budgeting $8-13bil for Melbourne's Airport Rail Link (MARL)! The Federal Government out of the blue in the May budget said they'll stump up $5bil and now the state government has been prodded enough and come to the table and said they'll match funding.
Last week's announcement 'put to bed' the debate on the route from central Melbourne to the airport (surprise surprise it's a route which has been favoured by governments for 20+ years) however the pricetag is baffling for a few reasons.
The Melbourne Metro Tunnel project is about linking east and west lines and bringing a metro/subway-like service to the inner city by ramping up frequencies on suburban services - to the east two branches combine about 30k out of the city and about 10k to the west, at present, there's only a single branch - but that will become two soon.
Adding an airport line, technically, is quite easy by adding a third western branch (like the spur built for UPX comes off a GO corridor now) but population is growing so fast that there's already warnings that there won't be enough space on the metro tunnel track pair to cope with outer suburban growth as well as more complexity (a third western branch).
As part of the upgrades + tunnel project, from Sunshine (which is key to the airport line) to Dandenong [which is an equivalent distance of Mississauga/Pearson to Scarborough via central Toronto] a new CBTC signalling system will allow trains to run every 2 min (the new trains to exclusively operate east west can fit 1100 people in 7 cars, works to extend them to 10 cars are seen as a second phase capacity add-on for a later stage will likely push train capacity to 1500 or more) but because trains do the heavy lifting from outer suburbs and inner areas and the very high pop growth the track pair will be saturated quickly. If airport trains were a branch of this track pair, from the city they'd have to stop all stations so as not to compromise overall line capacity.
Conversely, there's a concept out there which addresses another rail issue we have: separation of metropolitan and regional services called the AirTrain (highly recommend flicking through this conceptual brochure) which is a nutshell is about building a new track pair from the city to the airport and a second phase would divert two regional lines away from existing metro lines - therefore increasing capacity/services across both regional and metropolitan areas.
It has a lot of tunneling and a back-of-the-envelope costing would put it within $8-13bil.
We don't know if that's whats on the cards but will by next year - as the route's been settled, now the focus is on the specific business case for the line on the now-settled route - and if it's anything like AirTrain, we'll have a dedicated fleet for the shuttles between the airport and city but also likely we'll have next gen regional trains that can run under wires (with pantos) or diesel (or maybe hydrogen in 10 years?) outside the metro area.
AirTrain concept aims to have a train every 10 minutes and a journey time of 15 minutes (made possible because the route will be built for the faster regional services as well (benchmark: 160kph).
It really is freakish when comparing Pearson to Toronto and Tullamarine to Melbourne - as I said earlier, roughly the same distance away and same direction.
The Bloor and Weston stops on the UPX line are like Footscray and Sunshine on the Melbourne route - Footscray (Bloor) in our case won't have an airport stop (but they'll be connected via the high frequency new metro line that will start operating cross-town in 2025 - Metro tunnel project) but Sunshine (Weston) has some major planning work to concentrate employment and residential development out there. The Victorian government are now referring to the 'Sunshine super-hub'.
Anyhow - sorry for taking over the thread, but yeah, lots of similarities on what's happening in either hemisphere at the moment. Just wish we had politicians with more balls who'd create cross-town links like the Eglington LRT here.
It was somewhere in the range of $500mil to $1bil in capital to build the necessary infrastructure for the UPX, no?
They're budgeting $8-13bil for Melbourne's Airport Rail Link (MARL)! The Federal Government out of the blue in the May budget said they'll stump up $5bil and now the state government has been prodded enough and come to the table and said they'll match funding.
Last week's announcement 'put to bed' the debate on the route from central Melbourne to the airport (surprise surprise it's a route which has been favoured by governments for 20+ years) however the pricetag is baffling for a few reasons.
The Melbourne Metro Tunnel project is about linking east and west lines and bringing a metro/subway-like service to the inner city by ramping up frequencies on suburban services - to the east two branches combine about 30k out of the city and about 10k to the west, at present, there's only a single branch - but that will become two soon.
Adding an airport line, technically, is quite easy by adding a third western branch (like the spur built for UPX comes off a GO corridor now) but population is growing so fast that there's already warnings that there won't be enough space on the metro tunnel track pair to cope with outer suburban growth as well as more complexity (a third western branch).
As part of the upgrades + tunnel project, from Sunshine (which is key to the airport line) to Dandenong [which is an equivalent distance of Mississauga/Pearson to Scarborough via central Toronto] a new CBTC signalling system will allow trains to run every 2 min (the new trains to exclusively operate east west can fit 1100 people in 7 cars, works to extend them to 10 cars are seen as a second phase capacity add-on for a later stage will likely push train capacity to 1500 or more) but because trains do the heavy lifting from outer suburbs and inner areas and the very high pop growth the track pair will be saturated quickly. If airport trains were a branch of this track pair, from the city they'd have to stop all stations so as not to compromise overall line capacity.
Conversely, there's a concept out there which addresses another rail issue we have: separation of metropolitan and regional services called the AirTrain (highly recommend flicking through this conceptual brochure) which is a nutshell is about building a new track pair from the city to the airport and a second phase would divert two regional lines away from existing metro lines - therefore increasing capacity/services across both regional and metropolitan areas.
It has a lot of tunneling and a back-of-the-envelope costing would put it within $8-13bil.
We don't know if that's whats on the cards but will by next year - as the route's been settled, now the focus is on the specific business case for the line on the now-settled route - and if it's anything like AirTrain, we'll have a dedicated fleet for the shuttles between the airport and city but also likely we'll have next gen regional trains that can run under wires (with pantos) or diesel (or maybe hydrogen in 10 years?) outside the metro area.
AirTrain concept aims to have a train every 10 minutes and a journey time of 15 minutes (made possible because the route will be built for the faster regional services as well (benchmark: 160kph).
It really is freakish when comparing Pearson to Toronto and Tullamarine to Melbourne - as I said earlier, roughly the same distance away and same direction.
The Bloor and Weston stops on the UPX line are like Footscray and Sunshine on the Melbourne route - Footscray (Bloor) in our case won't have an airport stop (but they'll be connected via the high frequency new metro line that will start operating cross-town in 2025 - Metro tunnel project) but Sunshine (Weston) has some major planning work to concentrate employment and residential development out there. The Victorian government are now referring to the 'Sunshine super-hub'.
Anyhow - sorry for taking over the thread, but yeah, lots of similarities on what's happening in either hemisphere at the moment. Just wish we had politicians with more balls who'd create cross-town links like the Eglington LRT here.
steveintoronto
Superstar
Absolutely no apologies necessary. With first hand comparisons like this, it's invaluable to get a 'litmus' of where we stand. I often use Crossrail as a comparison, but many factors don't compare linearly.
You got the ballpark figure for UPX about right, albeit it's difficult in Mel's case, as it is here, to separate branches from trunks to cost them.
I see you allude to the 'Hydrail' issue for Mel. I'll have to Google that, to see if the same spiel as Toronto and the UK's Transport Minister is being touted. Excellent post btw! I'd followed back your credentials to see you're the main man for a general Mel blog. That you write so well on rail issues seems incidental to the blog, so I'm doubly happy for your response.
I'm going to pore over your links and further Google, and pose some questions back to you later. Costs do seem to have climbed in Mel compared to what I'd read a year or so back.
Edit to Add: Now this is prime to discuss:
That has striking similarities to Crossrail! It might be because both London and Melbourne are at the 'state of the art' edge for what's possible for 'RER in tunnel' (even if outer sections are daylight).
As much as Toronto, Melbourne, and in a roundabout way, London have existing 'through' connections on the surface, it's those 'through-running tunnel' connections that are radically improving the performance of what were disparate branches terminating in the core prior.
In Toronto's case, Union was/is reaching saturation point, but much of that is due to terminating w/o through running. That will be changing there, but also I see Toronto being forced to tunnel a cross-core connection for regional rail in lieu of building old-style subways. The cost is roughly equal, the capacity is multiples that of subway, with headways like Mel will be getting via CBTC: 2 min headway. And the longer the train, the greater that pathing can carry. And far further, out onto regional mainlines.
Toronto has the infuriating hobble of 'TTC Gauge' unique to here, and it prevents sharing of track and 'one seat rides' to the periphery since the track is unusable for mainline or standard gauge LRTs. Streetcars are TTC gauge.
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rbt
Senior Member
Kinda but not really. The $450M UPX price was for Union Station, Pearson Station, and the tail track between the mainline and Pearson.
There is an extra $1.3B for the Georgetown South project + $500M for rail-rail grade separation (West Toronto diamond).
Also, the Highway 401 tunnel which was to be a part of the project got cut to hold the cost but has since been tendered ($150M?).
UPX was the driver for most of that due to the frequencies. A RER service on the Kitchener line with similar frequencies also would have required many of those changes. All day hourly service did not require most of those changes
~15 years worth of price escalation (to compare to the Australian projects which are whole-corridor improvements) makes UPX about a $4B project.
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pman
Senior Member
Thanks for the Melbourne comparison, Tayser. One of my concerns about Toronto transit planning and operations is how we seem unable or unwilling to consider what other cities do and how we might learn from them. We need more posts like yours.
steveintoronto
Superstar
@tayser Was Googling for "Melbourne Hydrogen rail" and "Melbourne Hydrail" last night, couldn't get any hits. Any info on that most welcome. *Ostensibly*...it's projected use has been cancelled in all but name with our latest provincial election result here. Haven't had chance yet to pore over your links.
Crossrail, for instance, wasn't cheap, but the 'yield' from doing it is tremendous.
We're all walking on eggshells here wondering what the highly unpredictable premier is going to announce next. What he says and what he does are completely unrelated.
That's sobering! I'll see if I can corroborate that later. Steve Munro most likely will have an analysis on that.
Couldn't agree more. It's always valuable at the other end too, just to get even a ball-park figure as to what can be done at a given price, enough factors being similar.
Crossrail, for instance, wasn't cheap, but the 'yield' from doing it is tremendous.
We're all walking on eggshells here wondering what the highly unpredictable premier is going to announce next. What he says and what he does are completely unrelated.
steveintoronto
Superstar
This ties into a possibility that the present Ford regime might want to consider: Utilizing what's extant and maximizing the yield (the present UPX pathways and trackage) and putting AD2W to K/W on further hold. Trust me, I'm no fan of the latter, but since slashing is the name of the game right now, the least Ford et al can do for the 905 region affected is to use the present UPX signalling, control and pathing, and insert high frequency three-car (perhaps four, if the doors are strategically located) commuter operations between the present UPX 15 min headway. This would allow the present UPX service to remain virtually as is, minimizing loss to convert the rolling stock and terminals, and run an electric service, starting with a diesel module added in (so three car+ to start) as the FLIRT offers, with eventual through running on the regular platforms at Union. Whether or not the present Pearson terminal could be utilized for GO bus connections is a separate question, but the Union UPX terminal at present would be problematic since it's single track and operationally a stub (albeit a through running option for reversing is possible).
This would be high-platform, single decker (D module optional EMU) in short consists. The viability of tying this into either the Stoufville or Richmond Hill lines as a through-running option should be considered.
Longer term all-day two-way service to K/W would remain on the table as they now are, but the immediate utilization of UPX+ could be realized far faster and effectively than other plans now lagging.
This would be a PR coup for the Ford regime, maximizing what was a massive investment for limited return (never to pay its own way just as UPX, not even close) and show an initiative and intention to serve GO travellers to the northwest of Toronto with the fastest, most direct rail service possible. And most of the infrastructure is already extant.
Here's an example of what could be considered, albeit the high-platform version and 25kV 60 cy catenary option:
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/...-view/view/electro-diesel-flirt-unveiled.html
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yrt+viva=1system
Senior Member
Doug Ford's move to slash council barely scratches the surface of his powers, experts say
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-premier-powers-1.4764817
I hate to post this but it's reality that we face now.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-premier-powers-1.4764817
I hate to post this but it's reality that we face now.
steveintoronto
Superstar
Except what's good for the goose, is good for the ford turkey:
The Feds are now offering Toronto special status (indirectly, nod, wink) and will now channel funds directly to Toronto instead of Queen's Park.
Unconstitutional? Take it to court!
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...tutional-fight-over-toronto-council-cuts.html
pstogios
Senior Member
This would be the amazing and satisfying middle finger to Ford that he deserves.
steveintoronto
Superstar
It's going to be tricky, but it's a bit like Judo, where you use the attacker's own force and momentum against them. The Fordites haven't a clue as to how off balance they are to begin with, and when they start 'slashing', they become especially vulnerable. Case in point: Cap and Trade.
The Feds are going to be the ones sending out cheques, not QP, and the Feds will support some of the programs being slashed. Very few legal and constitutional scholars believe the Feds will lose in this battle.
Just as Ford wants to beat up on Toronto, he's going to receive same from The Hill, and he launches himself right into it. The man is highly imbalanced to begin with. Most bullies are.
And then if QP wants to take the Feds to court, let 'em. With taxpayers' money yet...