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robmausser said:
The funny part about people bringing up the "This was supposed to be an LRT!" historical argument is that if you want to go back in time, the original, original plan for the Scarborough transit line was to be a subway.


The history will show as

Subway > LRT (using TTC streetcars) > ICTS RT > LRT > Subway.
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I see nothing in that article that the line was ever planned as subway before the SRT was built. A desire by a local council is different than a plan. If we included all the unapproved schemes that Scarborough councillors have come up with over the years, the list would be long!
 
When was the ROW from the old rail spur re-zoned to allow residential development? It looks like the ROW was used for Kennedy extension, and would have been perfect for an extension to STC and Malvern. I'm assuming they would have preserved that ROW if they had long-term plans for an extension beyond Kennedy.
 
JSF-1 said:
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).
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That's a great point.

$71.4 million in 1970 is nearly $500 million in today's dollars. A 4-5 km extension is probably over $1 billion in 2021 currency.

This is why I maintain a Scarborough that had to pay it's own way would probably have to be a lot more discerning with where transit dollars are allocated - and there'd probably be more done by now.
 
robmausser said:
The funny part about people bringing up the "This was supposed to be an LRT!" historical argument is that if you want to go back in time, the original, original plan for the Scarborough transit line was to be a subway.



The history will show as

Subway > LRT (using TTC streetcars) > ICTS RT > LRT > Subway.

So really, we are getting now what was always originally the plan.

This bit of history always seems to be omitted by some *COUGH* Steve Munro *COUGH* who always whines that the entire project was supposed to be an LRT in the first place so the LRT is the right way to go.
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Well, he expressed regrets that the LRT plan was scrapped, but he never said that LRT must be chosen this time because LRT was on the books earlier.
 
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Anyway:
- The subway extension is the best plan overall, glad that it is progressing.
- The LRT plan would be best if one wanted to avoid the subway cost, but still get an extension past STC.
- The RT refurbishment would be best/cheapest if the goal is just to keep STC connected to Kennedy, but not bother with any extensions past STC.

And then of course, some variations of the subway plan have been discussed. They could cut the cost of this extension, compared to tunneling all the way. That's a missed opportunity, but too late to go back to the drawing board now.
 
JSF-1 said:
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).
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All it would take is smarter design. Would it be possible to have Kennedy station Curve up towards the rail corridor so that the subway followed the rail corridor instead of the weird east west placement?
 
ARG1 said:
All it would take is smarter design. Would it be possible to have Kennedy station Curve up towards the rail corridor so that the subway followed the rail corridor instead of the weird east west placement?
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Of course that's possible but will never know what may have happened since there was no real apatite on Metro to extend the BD beyond Kennedy by that point. Metro made it clear that the extensions to Kipling and Kennedy would be the last extensions of the subway network for "some time" due to the cost of construction. It's worth remembering a lot of the subway system was paid for mostly by Metro. The Yonge Subway was paid for by the City of Toronto, I believe the University extension and the stretch of the BD between St.George and Greenwood was paid for by Metro. The Provinces contributions were towards the BD extensions to Keele/Woodbine ($60 Million) and to Warden/Islington ($10 Million). I am not sure if the Spadina Extension was funded by Metro or not; someone here could probably answer that. Metro policy at that time was to pursue cheaper alternatives such as LRT although that stance did change when the Province announced Network 2011, likely because it was a provincial plan so we would assume the Province would have been heavily involved in the funding of it. In the end though we all know Network 2011 fell through after Bill Davis retired, and to be honest the cities transit boom went with him. The GTA and Toronto never really recovered from Davis's retirement and it's easy to imagine things have only gotten worse since he left office, although that is a debate for another thread.
 
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thompsonsamm said:
When was the ROW from the old rail spur re-zoned to allow residential development? It looks like the ROW was used for Kennedy extension, and would have been perfect for an extension to STC and Malvern. I'm assuming they would have preserved that ROW if they had long-term plans for an extension beyond Kennedy.
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This rail spur should be set as an example why rail corridors should not be allowed to be redeveloped into real estate. What an epic waste, for a few houses that could be saving this entire crazy situation and billions of dollars.
 
ARG1 said:
Not to mention upgrading the RT has less of a risk of corner cutting that can significantly reduce service like an LRT.
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It had been designed and planned to the Malvern Town Centre as completely separated, just where could it have been extended from there? There was no risk of this made up scenario.
 
Voltz said:
It had been designed and planned to the Malvern Town Centre as completely separated, just where could it have been extended from there? There was no risk of this made up scenario.
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Ok, but can you say that for certain about any future extension? People on here like to rag on about Doug Ford lowering the capacity of the DRL (which I disagree but that's a different topic), yet somehow you're confident that money cautious politicians won't come in to try and create an ultra cheap extension of the LRT that will see it run in mixed traffic just to serve some constituents? You're ABSOLUTELY confident that that wouldn't happen? Part of transit planning is making sure that future decisions won't significantly hamper the mode. One of my biggest issues with At Grade LRTs in particular, and especially the "just add TSP" argument is that any anti transit/pro car politician in the future can just turn off TSP, and overnight the reliability of Finch West LRT and Hurontario LRT could plummet. You can't do that with something like light metros or subways other than maybe cut frequencies.
 
ARG1 said:
Ok, but can you say that for certain about any future extension?
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Yes, just what is there beyond Malvern that anyone would have thought to extend this line to? And who would ever come up with the idea to compromise the existing line just to add an at grade stop? Any further LRT being built in the area would have been extensions or branches of the Sheppard or Eglinton East Lrt's.
 
Voltz said:
Yes, just what is there beyond Malvern that anyone would have thought to extend this line to? And who would ever come up with the idea to compromise the existing line just to add an at grade stop? Any further LRT being built in the area would have been extensions or branches of the Sheppard or Eglinton East Lrt's.
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Who said anything about further north? You can easily have a politician pursue a southern extensions towards the beaches and have it run at grade along Kennedy or something. Also don't ever ask "And who would ever come up with the idea to compromise the existing line just to add an at grade stop?". Its not a matter of if its a matter of when. There could always be a Harris type conservative politician who comes in and cheapens out extensions, there is absolutely no doubt about it.
 
ARG1 said:
Who said anything about further north? You can easily have a politician pursue a southern extensions towards the beaches and have it run at grade along Kennedy or something. Also don't ever ask "And who would ever come up with the idea to compromise the existing line just to add an at grade stop?". Its not a matter of if its a matter of when. There could always be a Harris type conservative politician who comes in and cheapens out extensions, there is absolutely no doubt about it.
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If your rationale for supporting this $6 Billion boondoggle needs to be a thin as these never even suggested scenarios that are never going to happen, then that should say something itself.

Subways can be built at grade too, yes there are a few locations with level crossings, why are you not also against subways?
 
Voltz said:
If your rationale for supporting this $6 Billion boondoggle needs to be a thin as these never even suggested scenarios that are never going to happen, then that should say something itself.

Subways can be built at grade too, yes there are a few locations with level crossings, why are you not also against subways?
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This is a strawman. The Argument isn't LRT vs Subway in this case, but LRT vs SRT Refurbishment, and no you cannot run an ICTS at grade at all. Even level crossings are basically impossible. As for Subways, yes you can have grade crossings with flashing arm gates and what not, and while that would be unfortunate, isn't the end of the world. The point though is unlike LRTs, subways aren't built to run at grade, and so complications trying to get it to run at grade will occur. The whole point of LRTs is the flexibility of operations, you can have grade separated sections and street running sections, and I'm explaining why this is both a blessing and a curse. If you don't believe me when I say allowing street running sections can severely hamper the performance of an LRT, you can ask LA, it absolutely can.
 
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