[innsertnamehere]

ridership will be higher on the subway. how much is actual new ridership and not just redirected buses or trips that normally go to the yonge line a different way however, is unknown.

 

[BurlOak]

also important to remember that the canada line was finished in 2009, meaning that inflation must be accounted for as well as traditional escalating construction costs.

Canada Line was $110M / km and that was 50 - 60% underground. I inflated that to $150M. Then assume $180M for the tunnelled portion and $120M for the elevated portion with 40m stations. Someone earlier found a cost of.$25 to $30M for each Vancouver station so I added another $30M - to get a total of $150M /km.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Either way, it's not just politics that chooses expansion. In the case where there's a crushing need for relief that people have to go through every day, there would be funding and actual digging fast enough in those extreme cases.

 

[W. K. Lis]

ridership will be higher on the subway. how much is actual new ridership and not just redirected buses or trips that normally go to the yonge line a different way however, is unknown.

Making a (Downtown) Relief Line more needed. Some may use the Eglinton Crosstown to transfer at Eglinton or Eglinton West stations to avoid the Yonge-Bloor, but will only move the chock station further north.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

From Torontoist:

The proposed subway also replaces a proposed Light Rail Transit or LRT line with seven stops extending to the Sheppard Avenue Subway. Which of these two proposals do you think is more appropriate?

Two-stop, above-ground subway to Scarborough Town Centre: 19% (26%)
A seven-stop LRT to Sheppard Avenue Subway: 52% (53%)
Neither of these: 21% (17%)
Don’t know: 8% (4%)
Poll taken: September 21-22, 2013

More polls in the article.

The questioning seems flawed.

 

[Adjei]

How is that Ottawa which is a much smaller city than Toronto is able to put up $900 million for their LRT project but yet Toronto is struggling just to put up our share?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

How is that Ottawa which is a much smaller city than Toronto is able to put up $900 million for their LRT project but yet Toronto is struggling just to put up our share?

Good old fashioned politics. The people want to pay, but the politicians won't let them.

 

[Electrify]

One thing I wish about this discussion is that those pro light rail could at least admit that the initial plan was not perfect. The line would have been shut down for 3 years to... change the electrical?! Hell, since they both use the same gauge, theoretically you wouldn't even have to change the track!

And since we have all become fiscally conservative penny pinchers, rather than using a large portion of that $1.4 billion to change the rail power supply, we could keep the line going as is and use all that money to extend it out to Malvern and beyond. Using it to change what kinds of trains can operate on the tracks is utterly wasteful. On that note, I fail to comprehend how the line is "at the end of its life." It is the third most recent rail rapid transit expansion in the city, and I'm pretty sure those tracks are newer and in better condition than parts of the subway, and that the elevated portions are in better shape than the Gardiner Expressway.

I'm not saying that the subway plan is perfect either. It is questionable if the money available is enough, it will certainly skip a Brimley stop due to money constraints, it doesn't hit as many destinations as directly and is unlikely to be expanded into Malvern, etc. Neither plan is perfect.

At this point I am thinking we should have just gone with Ford City. We would get an efficient crosstown rapid transit line, and would likely see it connect with the MiWay BRT and DRT Pulse lines, and we could come up with a better solution for Sheppard rather than stunting what is already there with an LRT. Yes it would have been wasteful to tunnel under Eglinton through the Golden Mile, but as I said... NO PLAN IS PERFECT!

 

[BurlOak]

Interesting to note that if the vote on the tax increase to pay for the subway falls though, the $660 million that the Feds chipped in is about the right amount to elevate Eglinton East and connect with the SLRT. Even if the money is committed for Scarborough, the Province can easily transfer some of their $1.8 billion off the SLRT and onto the ECLRT.

Let's just hope that if the tax increase falls through that someone offers that up as an honest Plan B (or is it C or D by this point?). It's not every day that the Feds chip in that much money for transit, and it would be a shame to let that go to waste.

It is strange that Plan B (or C or D) may actually be the best one. I agree that this should be pursued so that none of the existing funding goes to waste. We seem to have a difference of opinion on what the additional cost would be for this. It would be nice if Metrolinx would release some information on this option so we could more intelligently discuss this option.
It seems there are numerous posters on the "Rob Ford" thread who are insiders dropping hints and leads about every misstep by the Mayor. Unfortunately, we do not have a single insider from either Metrolinx or TTC who could shed more light on this option.

 

[datamouse]

Public polling on these issues always seems a bit off. IT doesn't help that people seem to be generally uninformed on the issue. I have a bit of a laugh of over the notion that more stations means more people will walk to transit. Stations like Ellesmere and Midland aren't exactly located in walkable areas. If you're going to have passengers access the LRT/subway through bus connections then you might as well consolidate where you send the buses and stop fooling yourself that these "extra" stations are really going to popular.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

One thing I wish about this discussion is that those pro light rail could at least admit that the initial plan was not perfect. The line would have been shut down for 3 years to... change the electrical?! Hell, since they both use the same gauge, theoretically you wouldn't even have to change the track!

And since we have all become fiscally conservative penny pinchers, rather than using a large portion of that $1.4 billion to change the rail power supply, we could keep the line going as is and use all that money to extend it out to Malvern and beyond. Using it to change what kinds of trains can operate on the tracks is utterly wasteful. On that note, I fail to comprehend how the line is "at the end of its life." It is the third most recent rail rapid transit expansion in the city, and I'm pretty sure those tracks are newer and in better condition than parts of the subway, and that the elevated portions are in better shape than the Gardiner Expressway.

No. The tracks are incompatible with the Light Rail Vehicle. The whole line needs to be replaced. The stations need to be rebuilt as well since the LRVs are larger than the ICTS Mk. 1 vehicles. They're essentially rebuilding the entire line from almost nothing.

At this point I am thinking we should have just gone with Ford City. We would get an efficient crosstown rapid transit line, and would likely see it connect with the MiWay BRT and DRT Pulse lines

What? Ford never proposed such a thing. And I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "efficient". How are you measuring this?

And we could come up with a better solution for Sheppard rather than stunting what is already there with an LRT.

Of course we could come up with a better solution for Sheppard. Converting the Subway to underground LRT would be wise, but not worth the ~$1 Billion extra cost. We have more urgent priorities. An eastward extension of the subway is out of the question, as has been shown by every single study done on the route.

Yes it would have been wasteful to tunnel under Eglinton through the Golden Mile, but as I said... NO PLAN IS PERFECT!

Yeah the ECLRT isn't perfect. It should be elevated.

 

[gweed123]

It is strange that Plan B (or C or D) may actually be the best one. I agree that this should be pursued so that none of the existing funding goes to waste. We seem to have a difference of opinion on what the additional cost would be for this. It would be nice if Metrolinx would release some information on this option so we could more intelligently discuss this option.
It seems there are numerous posters on the "Rob Ford" thread who are insiders dropping hints and leads about every misstep by the Mayor. Unfortunately, we do not have a single insider from either Metrolinx or TTC who could shed more light on this option.

I did the calculation a while ago using the figures from the Evergreen Line in Vancouver, which is the closest Canadian example to what would be built on Eglinton. Admittedly it is just split-balling on my part though, and yes it would be nice to get a rough cost estimate from Metrolinx about it.

Of course, I don't think they'll offer that up without being prompted, because the last thing they want to do is toss yet another option onto the pile and muddy the waters even further, even though the option they would be tossing on is actually the best one.

 

[GenerationW]

If there's enough ridership for a subway extension to replace the SRT, then there is need to have the DRL built first to accommodate the extra riders. You can't both argue that Scarborough can support a subway and that the DRL is a luxury.

It's easy to make a case for calling the DRL a luxury -- it achieved that status the second after we spent nothing on it with the $8.4 billion that went into Transit City. Even with Council finally waking up and declaring the DRL our #1 priority last year, promoting it as an absolute necessity still falls on too many deaf ears. Who exactly are the true DRL believers on Council? Because the only way to really move the DRL along is to get enough Councillors to support it. Otherwise, we'll keep getting more things to flood Yonge like the Eglinton Crosstown and the Bloor-Danforth extension.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Until that outside agency find away to fund itself without any public money, politicians will always be involved in transit planning. As long as public money is building our transit, politicians will be involved.

I totally agree. Which is why they spent 5 years coming up with a plan to do just that.
And now there's a panel.
After which I guess a blue ribbon panel
Then a Royal Commission, perhaps.
Then, around 2020, we can start having REAL discussion about how to empower Metrolinx.

(Somewhat more seriously, I expect the Liberals will actually try to do something in the spring budget, at which point we will head to the polls and, if I have a crystal ball, end up with another Lib minority.)

Every year they wait on this the worse the problems get and the more people crowd at the trough. politicians can be involved so long as they're not the ones making the final call. I don't have a problem with Metrolinx taking TO council's position into consideration, for example, but if all their data shows that LRT or subway makes more sense and that alignment A or B makes more sense, they should say so.

 

[TrickyRicky]

On a brighter note isn't it worth pausing and taking note of the fact that EVERYONE is now talking about transit. Transit is the new gravy train and every level of government is jumping to get on board. Whatever problems there are with details of funding and alignment, and however dumb you think the solutions are, Toronto is and will continue to be building a lot of Tansit in the next decade.