[nfitz]

Its not unlikely, its happening.

... well I suppose you can ask. I probably should have said "getting"!

There's noway in hell the Province is going to give back the money Toronto has contributed to the SSE or let Toronto pay nothing for things like the YSE and DRL.

The province doesn't have it to give back. It's mostly in future City of Toronto property taxes. There's no trust or fund or anything.

 

[syn]

Onecity.…………..your concern for better transit to STC is a valid one and I don't think anyone here disagrees with it.

The issue is how little the subway will help people considering the massive cost. How would the people in Scar, and STC in particular, be better served by a Danforth extension than by a Smart Track station? The subway extension will make almost no difference in the amount of time it takes people to go from STC to downtown but a ST system would probably get them there is half the time. They would still have access to Eglinton LRT and Danforth subway at Kennedy but have FAR superior service to downtown, Union, First, the Waterfront, Skydome, to say nothing of faster trips to the rest of the GTA thru RER at GO.

I strongly disagree with an LRT which was an incredibly stupid idea to begin with and was a reflection of Miller myopic "LRT or nothing" mentality but a ST system on the back of RER would be far better for Scar and could be up and running in a fraction amount of the time and vastly less money which could be used for Eglinton East further helping Scar.

Miller didn't have an 'LRT or nothing' mentality, he had a 'Let's invest our money wisely with transit that best serves the most people' mentality. The benefit of an LRT is that it would allow for relatively easy future expansion. I'm all for upgrading the current RT, but in the grand scheme of things an RT network throughout Scarborough doesn't make much sense.

 

[innsertnamehere]

It was more or less an LRT or nothing mentality. Don Mills should never have been planned as an LRT - and the Transit City plan ran into issues along the southern portion of Jane St. as there was not really enough road width to accommodate it.

 

[Neutrino]

$3.35 billion according to this Star reporter's tweet.

I misread that as 33.5 lol

 

[BurlOak]

It was more or less an LRT or nothing mentality. Don Mills should never have been planned as an LRT - and the Transit City plan ran into issues along the southern portion of Jane St. as there was not really enough road width to accommodate it.

Miller and Transit City was the worst thing to happen to Toronto transit in the past 15 years. If they would have just picked one line, and done it properly, we would be so much farther ahead. This includes any 1 of:

1. Eglinton fully grade-separated from YYZ to Malvern (via Mount Dennis, Science Centre, Kennedy and STC).
2. Sheppard subway from Wilson to STC.
3. DRL from Spadina to Seneca College.

 

[44 North]

It was more or less an LRT or nothing mentality. Don Mills should never have been planned as an LRT - and the Transit City plan ran into issues along the southern portion of Jane St. as there was not really enough road width to accommodate it.

A couple of things could maybe be added to this:

SELRT: Feel it was too rushed and didn't think broadly or on ways to incorporate the existing infrastructure that is Line 4. Could've been high-floor LRVs, or extending Line 4 as a 'lighter' subway line.
SLRT: Why rebuild an existing grade-separated high-platform subway line for low-floor vehicles designed for roadway operation? Just, why?

Add these onto the problems with the Jane and Don Mills LRT, and it's safe to say there was a fairly myopic view with Transit City. Not saying there's anything wrong with expanding street-level LRT systems into the outer 416. I'm still a huge supporter of large aspects of it. Now I still won't say that Miller/Giambrone were 'LRT or nothing', rather too focused on putting to use urban tram-style LFLRVs. And I know McGuinty was part of that. Must've been some push behind closed doors where the Prov wanted an exceptionally large order of Made in Ontario Flexity Freedoms. Interestingly though had other ideas been considered for certain corridors the likely vendor would've still resulted in a Made in Ontario vehicle (e.g a Movia variant, Innovia).

 

[syn]

It was more or less an LRT or nothing mentality. Don Mills should never have been planned as an LRT - and the Transit City plan ran into issues along the southern portion of Jane St. as there was not really enough road width to accommodate it.

Transit City was an LRT plan, but Miller did speak of getting the DRL done (as a subway).

It was far from perfect, but in hindsight Transit City would've brought Rapid Transit to high priority neighbourhoods that didn't require a subway line.

As for Jane, I believe it was going to be underground for part of the southern portion.

 

[syn]

Miller and Transit City was the worst thing to happen to Toronto transit in the past 15 years. If they would have just picked one line, and done it properly, we would be so much farther ahead. This includes any 1 of:

1. Eglinton fully grade-separated from YYZ to Malvern (via Mount Dennis, Science Centre, Kennedy and STC).
2. Sheppard subway from Wilson to STC.
3. DRL from Spadina to Seneca College.

Really?

Rob Ford cancelling everything and promising to pay for everything else with private sector money isn't a clear winner in this category?

Nearly a decade of Conservative leadership at City Hall has resulted in nothing on the transit file. Every major project under construction or completed is from the Miller era. The one project championed by Conservative mayors (the SSE) has seen the number of stations and usefulness constantly reduced to keep costs down. That would make some sense if we hadn't seen the cost increase exponentially in a relatively short period of time. That can't even get that right lol.

Ford and Tory make Miller look like a transit genius.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Miller and Transit City was the worst thing to happen to Toronto transit in the past 15 years. If they would have just picked one line, and done it properly, we would be so much farther ahead. This includes any 1 of:

1. Eglinton fully grade-separated from YYZ to Malvern (via Mount Dennis, Science Centre, Kennedy and STC).
2. Sheppard subway from Wilson to STC.
3. DRL from Spadina to Seneca College.

disagree.

 

[ssiguy2]

I misread that as 33.5 lol

Don't laugh too hard. If Toronto decides to go ahead with it then by the tine it eventually gets completed after the standard decades long studies, reviews, and political games, your first estimate might not be as far fetched as it seems. If you don't believe me, just go ask Queen Street.

 

[TrickyRicky]

Here’s a radical idea: maybe things are turning out how they should?

Eglington cross-town is being built, it’s LRT which will give Torontonians the chance to figure out that this transit type is not a downtown streetcar and may indeed be appropriate for some suburban routes. Eglington is below grade generally where this is appropriate and above grade where it is generally appropriate.

The Scarborough subway is staying as a subway which may be appropriate but it’s dragging on which may be appropriate because it’s not really the top priority in sequence for the City.

Finally, Toronto is lagging global trend setters in effective transit system improvements. It’s also failing certain particularly suburban areas in this regard. Yet Toronto is booming nonetheless and population and economic development are concentrating in areas already well serviced by transit.

 

[nfitz]

It was more or less an LRT or nothing mentality. Don Mills should never have been planned as an LRT - and the Transit City plan ran into issues along the southern portion of Jane St. as there was not really enough road width to accommodate it.

It wasn't an LRT or nothing mentality. There was significant progress with bus, LRT and subway during those years, with the Spadina extension never being considered for LRT, and the Miller administration advocating for the DRL and pushing the province to prioritize it in the Regional Plan - recall that it was originally in the 25-year plan, but not the 15-year plan.

Even the Don Mills study (which was never completed after Fords managed to kill it) was looking at subway as an alternative, particularly for the southern end of the line.

Miller was the best thing to happen to Toronto transit in the past 15 years! Rob and Doug Ford made little progress, and went backwards on many files. And the $4 billion one-station Scarborough subway plan by John Tory has got to be the silliest thing ever, other than perhaps SmartTrack, which appears to be increasingly dead now that the province has indefinitely deferred most of the stations! Has Tory done anything else of note, but advance various files from the Miller administration?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Don Mills wasn't Don Mills in 2006. But even now the DRL is not going there for phase one when it should.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Transit City was an LRT plan, but Miller did speak of getting the DRL done (as a subway).

It was far from perfect, but in hindsight Transit City would've brought Rapid Transit to high priority neighbourhoods that didn't require a subway line.

As for Jane, I believe it was going to be underground for part of the southern portion.

There were several options for Jane. The underground option was presented, along with the statement that it would cost more. The underground option for south of Wilson, was considered the best, with open or above ground sections at Eglinton Flats to connect with the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

 

[nfitz]

Don Mills wasn't Don Mills in 2006. But even now the DRL is not going there for phase one when it should.

The LRT was proposed by the city in 2007, with a construction start of 2012 and opening in 2016 after the 4 earlier LRT lines.

With Phase 1 of the DRL currently planned for 2029, it's unliikely that we'll see it extended north to Eglinton until the 2030s ...and how many more years to get to Sheppard? The Eglinton LRT could have been running for a quarter-century by then.