BurlOak
Senior Member
Extending Sheppard (and inerlining) with YUS is a key project.The TTC isn't responsible for making decisions about building transit. However City Planning is very interested in the Relief Line, which looks to be the single project that will have the biggest impact on commute times. They recently received funding to get the Relief Line between Sheppard and Dundas West to shovel ready status. The extension to Sheppard should be shovel ready in three to four years. We just need funding to materialize to actually build it.
For the cost of 4km of tunnel (say $1.5B), you convert a 5.5km stub into a 14km East-West line from Don Mills to Vaughan, and a 36km long line from Don Mills to Downtown (and back up to Finch). Do the math, that's 39km (14-5.5 + 36-5.5) of subway line extension for the cost of $1.5B - $38M/km.
Another thing it does, it eliminates talk of connecting the loop at STC. It is difficult to argue that adding 9km to the YUS make it difficult to operate. But it is easier to argue that adding the 7km of extension and 26 km of B-D subway to a single line would make the 69km difficult to operate. So the priorities are:
- Extension of Sheppard Subway West to make Don Mills, which is accessible to NW Scarborough more useful.
- Improve transit for NE Scarborough with rapid transit to the core. Marlvern to Centennial to STC and then connect to either downtown or Y-E + Pearson. This line is ether connected to a grade-separated Eglinton Line (for connection to Yonge, University, and Pearson), or make it its own line going to downtown.
- Improve transit for NW Scarborough with rapid transit to the core. But instead of down VicPark, make it down Don Mills from Seneca to Fairview to Downtown.
- Now the Sheppard East LRT are the Morningside LRT become local transit that go from Don Mills (with connections to DRL and interlined Sheppard subway) to Agincourt GO (with connection to RER/SmartTrack) to Marlvern (with connection to the grade-separated line there) to UTSC (major node) to Kennedy (with connection to RER/SmartTrack, B-D subway, and ECLRT).
- (I would actually like a B-D extension along Eglinton to Kingston Road. B-D would connect to LSE RER/SmartTrack and it would allow the Sheppard/Morningside LRT to continue along Kingston Road).
- For the time being, I don't think this entire LRT is as high of a priority, so for the time being, it could be BRT Lite.