Streety McCarface
Senior Member
That's a good point. Definitely not an example of how things should be done.
Well, generally speaking history demonstrates that it doesn't work - certainly not to any degree that justifies the initial investment, especially when there's other more pressing needs.
The problem with extensions like the TYSSE and the SSE is that they are being largely justified on future growth. There is no business case for the SSE based on actual ridership, density and demand.
Over the long term it generally does, but that implies running a subway line nowhere near capacity for a significant amount of time while density eventually follows after decades. It's why the Yonge and Bloor subways are so popular, they've been around for over 50 years. They've had time to allow for density to build up. Of course, there was existing demand on both corridors and as a result, while they both ran under-capacity for decades, they had room to grow, while still being used enough to justify subway service. Sheppard is a little tricky because for a relatively young, super short line, it is very well used, especially since its in the suburbs and has led to significant improvements to Sheppard overall, however, it's not as full as we might have wanted it to be, and we don't know whether it was ever justified in being a priority or not.
I'd say the current SSE plan is poorly planned, because it doesn't account for current travel patterns. The best solution is the three stop one, even though it's significantly more expensive. An increase of 2 billion dollars to the budget would pretty much double ridership on opening, which would justify its existence. There's no reason for a subway to run for 7 km without anywhere to add potential riders, especially when there's a RER corridor right next to it. A three stop solution would shift it's existence from a growth-based plan, to one in which serves existing travel problems. With this, however, an influx of riders would need to be accounted for elsewhere in the system. The Relief Line is quintessential to this, however, there are other solutions that can mitigate issues while the relief line is built (open gangway cars, better signaling, more trains, platform edge doors (no need for screen doors which I believe are too heavy for the existing platforms without expensive modifications), better yard management, adding the walkway back at Spadina to reduce crowding at St George and Bloor, enhance the streetcar and RER networks, etc). They say 30% of travel in Scarborough is heading to old Toronto, and for a section of the city with 600K people, that equates to around 200K people that head downtown daily (or 400K trips). Heading downtown will always be best done on transit, and the easier we make it for people, we can eat further into the downtown traffic market. Currently, the TTC already carries around 170K of those daily trips (sum of ridership at Vic Park, Warden, Kennedy, and the SRT). If that number is increased to 225,000 (or holds 57% of the market), the SSE will be carrying 55,000 additional trips (along with the SRTs 40K), which isn't far fetched given the incentives of better bus service and easy connections (and the fact that the Eglinton Crosstown will give options for commuters to midtown). If we honestly have a budget crises, then the best thing to do is renew the rolling stock of the SRT and build the Relief line, but if the fords want to get this project done, we should just let them. We can build Eglinton east instead.