GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
In the current climate, they'd find a way to spend 400 million/kilometre on an Eglinton subway. It's not right, but it is what it is.
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Yes. The original Eglinton LRT proposal was priced at 2.2 billion for 30 km (Martin Grove to Kennedy, with possible future extensions to PIA and Mississauga). They probably hoped to build 9 km of tunnel (Keele to Laird) for something like $150 million/km, and the remaining 21 km of surface ROW for 40 million/km.
If that was doable, I'd say it is a good value for the money.
Once the design work started, the expected price grew to 3.4 billion, then 4.6 ... and now we are at 6 billion for a truncated 20-km line. Only half of that line would be tunneled, but the average per km cost almost matches that of the fully tunneled TYSSE.
Having that kind of cost estimates and still pursuing LRT in this corridor borders insanity.
One problem is that in June Metrolinx wants to place the light-rail vehicle order (including vehicles for Eglinton) and the order for TBMs. If those orders are placed, it will be harder for the next mayor to change the technology. And the last thing we need is paying penalties for the changes in the vehicle order size and the TBM specs out of the already scarce transit funds.
The prices per km likely also include projected expropriation costs. Eglinton will require far more expropriation than the Spadina extension did because the land on which many of the stations will sit have existing buildings on them. With the Spadina line I'm not sure any building needed to be razed or significantly altered to accomodate the surface entrances of the stations.
People think that renegotiating now will lead to even further construction delays, yet they fail to realize that the past 5 years spent discussing TC has further led to the DRL being on the backburner as well an Eglinton West subway to the airport which was slated as next-in-line as a priority after the Sheppard Line before TYSSE (and RHC) weaseled their way into the debate.
In the current climate, they'd find a way to spend 400 million/kilometre on an Eglinton subway. It's not right, but it is what it is.
This is very interesting to read, because you haven't repeated this countless times. By the way, I was wondering if you could tell us if you like monorails?
That's precisely why they're rushing this through, they're terrified that our next Mayor will be of the common sense variety and obliterate everything Transit City to start anew. People think that renegotiating now will lead to even further construction delays, yet they fail to realize that the past 5 years spent discussing TC has further led to the DRL being on the backburner as well an Eglinton West subway to the airport which was slated as next-in-line as a priority after the Sheppard Line before TYSSE (and RHC) weaseled their way into the debate.
We've gone from those heights to now being grateful that they're at least stubbing a light-rail line at Eglinton Flats Park? C'mon.
Don'y have to look to Monorails to see how obscene this is. Vancouver is going to begin construction of it's new Evergreen SkyTrain line in 2011. It will cost $1.4 billion but is 11km which includes a 1.5 km tunnel and vehicles. Are these just numbers grabbed out of thin air? I'm with Fresh Start and demand to know how every single penny is being accounted for. That will clarify the true costs and how many palms are getting greased at city hall and construction companies.
BTW, please don't bring in the land buying bill as property costs are 50% in Vancouver than they are in Toronto and this figure doesn't even include a new stock yard as that is already accounted for in the Sheppard East extension.
This might play a role; but do they need to destroy any buildings for the Eglinton underground stations? If they only adding entrances and redesigning parts of existing buildings, it should not be that expensive.
Well, I'd like to see evidence of that.
Evidence of higher expropriation costs? It is obvious. Sheppard West, open field with height restrictions... if it was really valuable land it would have been developed already and the current property owner might even be the federal government. Finch West, used car lot... there will be a cost associated with the impact on the business as well as higher expropriation costs compared to others on this extension (but still relatively cheap) since it is a more developed area. York U, the empty space in the middle of campus with universities being closely related to the provincial government. Steeles West, empty space and parking spaces, much of the land owned by the university. 407 Station, empty field. VMC, empty property next to Future Shop in an area with lots of empty lots and there may be some business impact costs related to Caterpillar. Compare that to the Eglinton stretch getting subway which has retail against the street almost in its entirety, and no vacant empty lots that I can think of besides the area around the GO Barrie line. On Eglinton almost every vent, entrance, and emergency exit will impact property the city doesn't currently own and impact many existing businesses. I don't know what percentage of the budget expropriations and settlements ends up being but the expropriation costs on Eglinton are surely more significant than the Spadina Extension and the Canada Line.
The same people who are saying "we'd have to start all over again!" are probably the same people who like to conveniently forget that we HAD a working transit plan before Transit City came in and started everything from scratch. RTES was a workable plan, with the planning for it pretty well underway. I find it ironic that the LRT supporters are throwing their arms up saying "we can't cancel it now! It'll set us back at least 5 years!". Newsflash: that's what Transit City did to us 5 years ago. Had Miller and Co not decided to create their own little pet project, we would have probably had at least 1 more subway line under construction now than we do already, and likely set to open soon.
And I don't buy the length of time some people are saying it would take to get a subway-based plan in motion. The Sheppard EA was completed, the Eglinton West EA was completed (heck, construction was even started), the DRL is being studied as we speak. Granted, the Sheppard and Eglinton EAs may have to be updated slightly, but that would take a matter of months, not a matter of years.