[salsa]

So with TTC now paying the operating costs... does that mean no more ugly metrolinx green colored cars ?

Staff say the "branding is to be determined".

 

[Steve X]

Why a stop at Mulham is so badly needed is a mystery to me considering the 73B Royal York which presumably would still cater to all the apartment buildings in-between Royal York and Scarlett Rd post-Crosstown West expansion.

Widdicombe/Lloyd Manor is very close to Martin Grove and I'm assuming the Martin Grove stop will be situated to the east of the intersection.

Likewise Wincott/Bemersyde is equidistant from either Kipling or Islington and whether those stops have secondary exits (100 metre platform), it probably wouldn't be more than a 5 minute walk for most people.

And let's not forget the 405 Etobicoke community bus route already adequately serves all these aforementioned places:

Who would want to take a bus that goes up and down? It's either east or west or no commuters are going to ride it. The 405 only operates 9am-3pm at 90 min headway with no tracking making it super useless for the regulars. Not many people know it can be flag down and boarded at regular TTC fares either. It absolutely cannot replace the regular 32. I also made this comment here before that people don't live at the corner of those midblock stops. They already walked 300-500m and don't need to walk another 500m to get to the new LRT stops.

I'm envisioning a sort of regular route replacing the 405. This could be tied into the planned new route 170 Emmett. So a continuous route from Mt Dennis or Jane-Eglinton to Widdicombe perhaps with every 30 minutes frequency.

They can still run the proposed 176 Princess Margret route looping on Martin Grove, Eglinton, Islington and Princess Margret seen the the ST plan if heavy rail was used on Eglinton. Cut the 46 Martin Grove back and terminating at Eglinton with rush hour service serving Kipling Station. The 46 runs pretty much like a shuttle outside rush hour, especially weekends with majority of the riders boarding north of Eglinton or as an alternative to the 45 Kipling.

 

[salsa]

They could always increase the frequency if needed. What's worse adding some additional bus trips or building 3 unnecessary Crosstown stops that'll slow down the commute times for the majority of riders?

Well the consultants who actually did the studies say that those stops should be included, as long as it's feasible to operate the LRT as a request-stop service in order to reduce unnecessary delays for other riders.

 

[TransitBart]

At the end of the day, Crosstown was was a line drawn to collect two end points and its role in serving the area it will run through is pretty insignificant, except for those main-route transfers.

- Paul

This understates in a significant way the importance of a second east-west higher order transit connection north of Line 2. Had it been there in the summers I lived with my parents when at university, I'd have taken ECLRT to Mount Dennis and then GO/UPX downtown, or taken it to Cedarvale (Eglinton West) and then Line 1 to Union. Instead I had a meandering ride on the Royal York 73 and then the ride to St. George on Line 2 etc, etc.

Toronto is too large a city to be happy with a public transit connection to the airport which is a bus called the rocket. We know how many airport employees are 905 residents. There is a reason. You cant't get there easily from the city which is absurd. Mount Dennis and St. Jamestown could use employment opportunities. Lets's connect people with jobs.

Finally. We are building a "subway". Ignore the form factor if you will. We want to move a lot of people faster than the Eglinton bus. The point is probably to move then rapidly between major nodes.

Eglinton is a great thing any way you slice it and Toronto has a super local bus network. It's the heavy backbone that is sorely lacking.

I lived a lot further from Royal York as a kid than Widdicombe is from Kipling (Av. at Eglinton, not Station). People will find a way to get to the nodes.

 

[drum118]

We were talking about the airport at Tuesday Night Hurontario LRT PIC and it is a dog breakfast.

Since Toronto only wants to fund the line to Renforth and expect someone else pay for the extension to the airport, are they prepare to have riders pay an extra fare to get there??? Will TTC riders use this line that could cost two fare to get to the airport without TTC running a new line from the Renforth Terminal to the airport or will they do what they do today?? What happens to the express from Kipling to the airport once this line opens??

There are a number of ways to do this, but who will lead the charge as well pay for it??

We know the people mover is useless for any expansion to the point something else is need to replace it. We can extend the LRT to the airport, depending on location as well how will it service the employers around the airport to get workers to them.

We can go back to the idea that surface years ago, that is building another people mover from Renforth to the Woodbine station by the airport. This would have to be funded by the GTAA with no fares require to use it.

We can go back to the idea of extending the LRT not only to the airport, but to a central location that will service the local business. This would be a TTC Fare. At the same time, Mississauga would use the ROW to move their riders as well charge their fare. This would have to be a 3-5 way funding split to built the ROW. If GO Transit wants to use this ROW as well, they will have to kick in extra money since they will provide more service than TTC and Mississauga. GO will cause more wear and tear on the ROW and why they will have to kick in more funding to maintain the ROW.

At the end of the day, there needs to be better transit to the airport by the various transit system. Most cites in Europe have buses/trams, buses/subways, trams/subway/rail/buses and so on. A few have buses only, but most have some type of rail as well.

If Toronto let Metrolinx build the extension as original plan years ago before funding was deferred, then there is no cost to them like it is under Tory plan today.

Tory wants one thing, but not prepare to pay for it.

Maybe this line extension will be up and running by 2035 at the rate things are going.

 

[smallspy]

I'm envisioning a sort of regular route replacing the 405. This could be tied into the planned new route 170 Emmett. So a continuous route from Mt Dennis or Jane-Eglinton to Widdicombe perhaps with every 30 minutes frequency.

I'd suggest checking out the area, or at least something like Google Street View then. In an awful lot of cases, a full-sized bus will not fit into most of the areas that the Community buses run. Converting them to a full-sized route is simply not feasible.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The 170 Emmett bus may serve the expanded West Park Health Care Centre on Buttonwood.

 

[Rainforest]

It looks increasingly likely that some level of parallel bus service will be retained on Eglinton West. If so, then their approach to LRT stations is reasonable (they keep stations with higher expected usage, and drop those with lower usage).

 

[Rainforest]

Regarding the section between Renforth and the Airport, it is fairly reasonable for Mississauga not to pay for it. Few of the Mississauga's residents will use that link. They have bus routes going directly into the Airport.

GTAA's contribution is questionable, too. They would be interested if the parking spaces in the Airport were about to be exhausted and that could limit the number of air travellers; but that won't be the case for a long time.

The Airport link will mostly benefit Torontonians (not downtowners) who will get a very cheap and reasonably fast way to get to the airport. Thus, Toronto and Metrolinx should share the bill. The cost is not that high.

 

[Palma]

Staff say the "branding is to be determined".

but i thought the company building the crosstown was not only building the crosstown but going to be maintaining it for 30 years as part of this P3. So how is it that Toronto is now paying operating costs are am i mixing up operating with maintenance?

 

[salsa]

Regarding the section between Renforth and the Airport, it is fairly reasonable for Mississauga not to pay for it. Few of the Mississauga's residents will use that link. They have bus routes going directly into the Airport.

"Mr. Tory, we’re not going to pay for your wall"
- actual quote from a Mississauga councillor.

http://www.mississauga.com/news-story/6943662--mr-tory-we-are-not-going-to-pay-for-your-wall-says-mississauga-councillor-on-eglinton-crosstown

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The cost is not that high.

You have an interesting definition of "not that high".

The Airport link will mostly benefit Torontonians (not downtowners) who will get a very cheap and reasonably fast way to get to the airport.

It'll benefit very few Torotonians. We've not had three separate ridership evaluations completed, and they've all shown incredibly minimal peak demand to/from the airport via Eglinton Line. I've yet to see a coherent case made for the extension to Pearson. Yes there are a lot of flights at Pearson, and yes there's a ton of people employed in the area, but it's yet to be shown in any study that it would translate to significant ridership originating at the airport. It feels like this airport extension is being pushed out of aspirational reasons ("it's the airport so obviously it needs rail rapid transit") than out of any genuine transportation demand. If GTAA wants to waste their money on this (and pay to operate it too), they're more than welcome, but the people of Toronto and Mississauga should not be stuck with the bill.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

"Mr. Tory, we’re not going to pay for your wall"
- actual quote from a Mississauga councillor.

http://www.mississauga.com/news-story/6943662--mr-tory-we-are-not-going-to-pay-for-your-wall-says-mississauga-councillor-on-eglinton-crosstown

Smart guy.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Story in The Star, at this link.

Mississauga fumes over $470 million Toronto LRT funding assumption

Toronto wants its neighbour to pay a share of $470 million for LRT plan.

Mayor John Tory and senior city staff are being condemned in Mississauga after Toronto made public a $470 million LRT funding expectation of the local airport authority and Mississauga — without telling officials in the neighbouring city.

“Mr. Tory, we’re not going to pay for your wall,” Councillor Jim Tovey bellowed during a committee meeting Wednesday, comparing the Toronto mayor to Donald Trump, who expects Mexico to pay for a border wall it doesn’t even want.

Tovey joined a chorus of staff and council voices expressing outrage that Toronto would publicly reveal plans to get Mississauga to pay for part of Tory’s Smart Track plan, without even asking if the city supports the idea.

“There has been no request of us,” said Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie. After the meeting, Crombie, Tovey and Mississauga city manager Janice Baker voiced their incredulity over the note in a public report from Toronto’s city manager this week that assumes Mississauga and the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) will fund $470 million toward the extension of the Eglinton West LRT into Mississauga and Pearson airport. The report assumes a $1.18 billion contribution from Toronto, and a $822.9 million contribution from the federal government toward the $2.47 billion cost of the Eglinton West LRT extension.

“That is just a crazy number in our world,” Baker said of the $470 million, acknowledging that it’s unclear how much of the money Toronto expects Mississauga to pay and how much the GTAA is expected to contribute.

Baker said Mississauga’s current infrastructure and capital costs for planned projects — funded primarily by the city’s property tax base — wouldn’t be sustainable if Mississauga had to pay even a small portion of the assumed amount.

Asked to respond to the anger voiced inside Mississauga City Hall Wednesday, Tory replied through spokesperson Keerthana Kamalavasan. “The Mayor has a close and productive relationship with Mayor Crombie. . . . City of Toronto staff have been in contact with their colleagues in Mississauga about this important project.”

Kamalavasan said a “formal request” will now be made of Mississauga council to gauge “their interest” in extending the LRT project to Pearson airport.

After the Mississauga committee meeting, Crombie didn’t sound particularly congenial.

“Let’s call it a non-starter,” she said, referring to the surprise funding request. “Finding out from the newspaper is not what I call ideal.”

Crombie and Baker said they have no idea how Toronto reached the $470 million figure and what actual benefit the LRT line, to run primarily along Eglinton Ave. in Toronto, would have for Mississauga taxpayers. The Toronto report shows one possible stop on the Toronto-Mississauga border just south of the airport and two other possible stops in lands controlled by the GTAA.

Toronto city manager Peter Wallace was asked why details of the $470 million funding expectation were not shared with Mississauga officials before his report was made public this week. He was also asked how the figure was reached and what analysis was done to ensure Mississauga would only be asked to pay its fair share.

City spokesperson Wynna Brown responded in an email: “The City Manager’s report does not request $470 million, but requests the City of Mississauga and the GTAA to formally, through their Council and Board respectively, to indicate whether they are interested in this extension from Renforth to Pearson.”

The GTAA didn’t answer directly when asked if the authority knew of the $470 million funding assumption before Wallace’s report went public. “The (GTAA) welcomes the recommendations released…by City of Toronto staff regarding priority transit lines,” read a statement sent to the Star.

Crombie told the Star it makes little sense to release a dollar figure to the public without any real idea of how the $470 million was calculated. “If they know how that figure was reached and how they determined the fair cost for Mississauga, they didn’t tell us before making the ask.”

Regarding how the dollar figure was reached, Brown said it is a “high order estimate,” describing it as a “placeholder estimate until more detailed design can be undertaken in partnership with the City of Mississauga and GTAA.”

Tovey was concerned, given recent controversies in Toronto about transit expansion, including the debate over whether to build a subway or an LRT extension to Scarborough.

“This could be potentially unfair to the taxpayers of Mississauga,” said Tovey, who along with other councillors called on provincial transit agency Metrolinx to step in and take over negotiations between Toronto and Mississauga.

Metrolinx told the Star that the provincial ministry of transportation and Metrolinx “are working with the municipalities and GTAA. Decisions will not be made on the project until funding is committed.”

Baker said the LRT might not even connect to the airport, if Toronto has to rely on Mississauga for funding.

“We have our own transit priorities. We have to look at the Dundas (St.) corridor, how we are going to provide increased transit on our lakeshore, and we have our own Hurontario LRT to think about.”

This can be easily solved. Toronto should annex Pearson Airport. The UPX is used by mostly Toronto visitors or residents to get to and from the airport. Most people going to Pearson Airport are from Toronto itself. So, Toronto should annex it, and then pay for the Crosstown LRT to reach it.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Story in The Star, at this link.

Mississauga fumes over $470 million Toronto LRT funding assumption

Toronto wants its neighbour to pay a share of $470 million for LRT plan.



This can be easily solved. Toronto should annex Pearson Airport. The UPX is used by mostly Toronto visitors or residents to get to and from the airport. Most people going to Pearson Airport are from Toronto itself. So, Toronto should annex it, and then pay for the Crosstown LRT to reach it.

I think we should invade Mississauga and take their oil.