[OneCity]

I'm sure the people on Lawrence East are loving the socioeconomic benefits of the subway

Ya thats the stupidity of the current design. Not the technology. We should be discussing these details are the main issue and not making it about the same old transfer LTR to SCC nonsense. But it is what it is... We can only hope they find a way to engineer it in for the future.

 

[salsa]

Ya thats the stupidity of the current design. Not the technology. We should be discussing these details are the main issue and not making it about the same old transfer LTR to SCC nonsense.

You're still gonna defend the plan no matter what, even if the cost were to jump to $5 billion and the rest of Scarborough gets nothing.

 

[syn]

According to the report the cost could still potentially be up to 50% off.

It's only a matter of time before the cost hits $4 billion.

Absurd.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

So at what point does someone run for mayor, making the insanity of the project central to their campaign? John Tory really does deserve the boot because of this.

 

[BurlOak]

I wonder how previous generations managed to get by without street car availability while the Yonge Street Subway was being built?

The Murray route is by far the most sensible solution. It is a direct connection to downtown. It traverses the proposed Scarborough City Center from east to west with potentially multiple stops rather than a single stop on a north-south axis. It will service far more residents and can reach low income areas with very poor service today. It offers access to significantly more development (particularly in the Progress corridor parallel to the 401).

The service disruption is a relatively minor inconvenience to the potential upside that would be realized.

The Murray Subway is on the West side of the GO coridor, while the subway is on the East. How would this be done?

1. Close SRT.
2. Build partial tunnel under west side (under where SRT used to be).
3. Relocate GO (2 tracks?) to the West side (and over this tunnel).
4. Build remainder of tunnel under GO to get subway to the East side.

Somewhere after 3 - GO RER or SmartTrack would be implemented. Then the shuttle buses would only have to run to Ellesmere. Also, the RER SmartTrack would have stations at Sheppard and Finch. This would minimize the disruption of the shuttle buses.
Again, the nobody thought to mitigate the inconvenience of the shuttles. They just said put up with it. So instead of spending some to improve the shuttle situation, we are spending a Billion.

 

[W. K. Lis]

They're going to replace the 36 streetcars on the 501 QUEEN between May and September, this year, with 65 buses. I can see them using 65 buses to replace the SRT while they work on replacing it with whatever. Okay, maybe not 65 buses, maybe less than half.

 

[OneCity]

They're going to replace the 36 streetcars on the 501 QUEEN between May and September, this year, with 65 buses. I can see them using 65 buses to replace the SRT while they work on replacing it with whatever. Okay, maybe not 65 buses, maybe less than half.

I fully agree this should not be an excuse. Inconvenience for the greater good should not be a deterrent.

 

[nfitz]

So we all agree the murray plan is the best, just as I thought. 1.8 billion in 2012, why didn't this happen? ...

No we don't. But I think many have given up even following the thread, and certainly in repeating the same thing over and over again.

The Murray route wasn't technically very good; TTC had major issues with it, and also was never fully costed. I'm sure the price of both the terminal at STC and the Kennedy alterations would have gone way up. It was not considered, because part of the criteria was not shutting down the SRT for several years.

 

[OneCity]

So at what point does someone run for mayor, making the insanity of the project central to their campaign? John Tory really does deserve the boot because of this.

As long as the person running is promoting transfer LRT they will be recruiting votes for Doug Ford

Unless a candidate comes forth with a seamless option (Similar to Rob Ford EglLRT spur or Murray's subway but as @nfitz points out its wasnt an accurate cost) there is zero chance and even then unstudied napkins plans are not going to be well received.

Im personally torn because by the point we study further those other options will be over $3Billion and another lost decade. Id rather just see them go ahead and leave opportunity to add stops.

Hopefully the City take a hard look at what got them in this situation so this doesnt happen again. There is major fault all around on both extreme sides for decades and this could have been avoided with compromise

 

[Forgotten]

I wonder how previous generations managed to get by without street car availability while the Yonge Street Subway was being built?

The Murray route is by far the most sensible solution. It is a direct connection to downtown. It traverses the proposed Scarborough City Center from east to west with potentially multiple stops rather than a single stop on a north-south axis. It will service far more residents and can reach low income areas with very poor service today. It offers access to significantly more development (particularly in the Progress corridor parallel to the 401).

The service disruption is a relatively minor inconvenience to the potential upside that would be realized.

It's prejudiced bull from know-it-all new age planners. In the 1940s Yonge was 5 times busier than any line today but they still dug up the street and managed. In today's backrooms disruption is being used as an excuse to rule out paths which are better for city-building before we can even have any legitimate discussion. It happened downtown, it's happening in Scarborough, and it's wrong.

 

[dowlingm]

I wonder how previous generations managed to get by without street car availability while the Yonge Street Subway was being built?

http://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4125.shtml

CONSTRUCTION CHAOS
The TTC struggled to maintain service on Yonge, using temporary tracks atop wooden decking, or diverting streetcars on new tracks built into residential Alexander and Maitland streets. It helped that parallel tracks were available on Mount Pleasant, Avenue Road, Bay, Church and Victoria streets, but riders largely had to grin and bear the inconvenience, comforted in the knowledge that the subway would whisk them away in just a few years. The TTC was also conscientious enough to return the route to its normal operation in time for the Christmas shopping season, for the benefit of the businesses along Yonge Street, who were taking a beating from all the construction.

The Murray route is by far the most sensible solution. It is a direct connection to downtown. It traverses the proposed Scarborough City Center from east to west with potentially multiple stops rather than a single stop on a north-south axis. It will service far more residents and can reach low income areas with very poor service today. It offers access to significantly more development (particularly in the Progress corridor parallel to the 401). The service disruption is a relatively minor inconvenience to the potential upside that would be realized.

First of all, let's remember that Glen Murray is a provincial cabinet minister. If this was really doable, and a cabinet minister wanted it, it would be done because of the leverage the Province holds on capital works. So that fact that this has sunk without trace should be telling.

Let's then remember what the Murray route actually entailed. Building a completely new Kennedy subway station to the north of the existing one, pointing northeast, so that the curve onto the SRT ROW would be doable. This would be a new tunnel under the GO tracks and the SRT would have to be severed. It is assumed that the Murray plan used subway curvatures that conform to the current standard as used in TYSSE. But maybe not. Then the subway tunnel between Warden and Kennedy would have to be severed to allow the new tunnel to be joined to it. There's a pretty good chance, therefore, that for some period of time that there would be no higher order TTC service between Warden and STC.

This would be accompanied by the resignalling of Warden-Kipling to join up to the new signalling in the SSE-SRT section. (Of course, this would happen in a Kennedy-extension scenario too, with extra fun when the construction met the Kennedy tail tracks, but at least the subway would still be running to Kennedy most of the time.)

 

[bobbob911]

I fully agree this should not be an excuse. Inconvenience for the greater good should not be a deterrent.

Ha! Four summer months is hardly the same as *years* of bus coverage in case of an SRT->LRT

 

[OneCity]

Ha! Four summer months is hardly the same as *years* of bus coverage in case of an SRT->LRT

And when I build a house & run out of cement, I could also just finish the rest with wood to save time & money. But the foundation wouldn't be as strong & I prefer to see things done right the first time. Less chance you ever have to go back like we are now.

In the big picture its short term pain for a better SCC in the long run.

 

[bobbob911]

And when I build a house & run out of cement, I could also just finish the rest with wood to save time & money. But the foundation wouldn't be as strong & I prefer to see things done right the first time. Less chance you ever have to go back like we are now.

In the big picture its short term pain for a better SCC in the long run.

If you were building a house and the builder told you you would have to find somewhere else to live for 4-7 years, you would never do it.

If you had to find somewhere else to live for fours months, you would. (In fact you would have an excellent builder in this case!)

 

[sixrings]

I'd argue its long term pain for the rest of the city's if there's no money left over to build a drl for one cities dream