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It's more accurate to say the Scarborough line is crumbling because it's being replaced. The city dithered for years on what to do with it. It could easily have been maintained and then adapted to a new generation of light metro or light rail. But because the decision was to replace it with a subway, it was allowed to fall apart.
First of all, you got to thank Bill Davis for forcing the SRT onto TTC when TTC only wanted to build a high speed streetcar line with some branches.

Than thank the city for going after the Pan Am games as TTC was planning on replacing the SRT with an LRT at the time. Then there ML that needs to be thank for pushing the plan down the road as they felt the line wouldn't be open in time for the Pan Am games. Then there are the Scarborough Councilors who sat on TTC commission board who pouch on the delay to go after the subway plan knowing full well about the extra cost to built it, as well operate it, the extra time to builds it so they could reelected.

Because of ML screw ups, Line 5 cannot be extended like it was supposed to that you will have to change trains to go east of west of Kennedy.

The best you will see on line 5 is an 3 car train every 90 seconds.
 
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Instead of upgrading Line 5 in the future an alternate heavy duty line could approximate its route, like a GO Midtown line, particularly if it’s a TTC line.
go-midtown-map.png
From link.
With a few more stations added to the GO Midtown, it would be the "express" rapid transit between Line 2 and Line 5. Not everyone wants to go downtown, some may want to bypass it. Maybe connect with a VIA high speed train station away from downtown, to reduce congestion around Union Station.

Ottawa is finally on board with plan to modernize passenger rail in Canada

See link.

The idea of faster passenger rail service has been on the minds of central Canadian politicians ever since France introduced its train à grande vitesse, or TGV, leading to more than a dozen feasibility studies on high-speed rail funded by the federal, Ontario and Quebec governments over the past three decades.

But without the population density of some European countries, or their willingness to pump massive operating subsidies into high-speed rail service, efforts to bring fast trains to the Quebec City-Windsor, Ont., corridor have never left the station.

In 2015, Via Rail Canada, the federal Crown corporation that provides passenger rail service across the country, decided to switch tracks by abandoning the fast-train idea in favour of its proposal for a high-frequency rail, or HFR, network in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor that accounts for almost all its business.

If Via could not make the economic case for high-speed rail, it argued that investing in dedicated electric tracks for its trains would at least ensure they would run on time, all while slashing their carbon footprint.

Indeed, Via has been at the mercy of the freight railways that own the tracks on which its trains run. That is the main reason the passenger rail service has a horrendous on-time performance record. Just 56 per cent of its trains arrived on schedule during the first nine months of this year. During the peak summer period, the rate was 47 per cent.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government was slow to get on board with the HFR idea. But its creation last week of a new entity charged with soliciting proposals from private partners to build and operate a HFR network between Quebec City and Toronto (a Toronto to Windsor leg would have to wait) suggests Ottawa is now serious about moving forward with an ambitious plan to modernize passenger rail service.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said the new entity, Via HFR, is “now well-positioned to lead the biggest Canadian infrastructure project of the century.” In naming Via HFR’s first three directors, including Robert Prichard as chairman, Mr. Alghabra effectively removed responsibility for the HFR project from Via itself. Mr. Prichard’s first task is to recruit a chief executive officer for the new unit that will oversee a formal request for proposals next year. The union representing 2,400 Via employees accused Ottawa of seeking to privatize Via’s core operations, and it was not entirely wrong about that.

The new unit’s creation, which had long been in the works, helps explain the departure of Via Rail CEO Cynthia Garneau last May. Ottawa has not named a permanent replacement. Martin Landry, Via’s chief commercial affairs officer, has been serving as interim CEO.

The HFR project was originally proposed by Ms. Garneau’s predecessor, Yves Desjardins-Siciliano, who left Via in 2020 to become CEO of Siemens Mobility Canada. In 2018, Siemens won a $989-million contract to provide 32 train sets to replace Via’s aging fleet of cars in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. The new bimode train sets are configured to operate with either diesel locomotives or on electrified tracks.

That contract marked the beginning of a series of major cash injections by Ottawa in the passenger rail service. This year’s federal budget provided $397-million over two years to advance the HFR initiative. That is on top of hundreds of millions more from Ottawa to cover Via’s ballooning operating losses since the pandemic. Via posted a $281-million operating loss in 2019. The deficit surged to $416-million in 2020 and to $371-million last year. In the first nine months of 2022, Via lost $345-million.


Mr. Alghabra last year suggested the price tag for the HFR project could run between $6-billion to $12-billion, but no one really knows for sure. Ottawa wants private operators to bear most of the upfront capital costs in exchange for “downside protection” against future operating losses. Indeed, Ottawa will likely need to provide continuing subsides to the private operators to ensure they can earn a return on investment and keep ticket prices affordable.

Federal documents also refer to the potential for upside risk for Ottawa in the event the project turns a profit. But that is a remote possibility. Passenger rail service is a highly subsidized endeavour almost everywhere, especially where it competes with air travel.

France has attempted to boost rail travel, and cut carbon emissions, by banning short-haul flights on routes where train service is available in under 2½ hours. But the move affects only a few flights between Paris Orly Airport and Lyon, Nantes and Bordeaux. Travellers can still fly to those cities out of Paris’s Charles-de-Gaulle Airport, and often for less than the price of a train ticket. As a result, France’s Société nationale des chemins de fer received €18.5-billion ($26.8-billion) in state subsidies last year alone, or about €275 for every French resident.

HFR will require big subsidies to get off the ground. But the alternative – an antiquated rail service whose trains are always late – could prove even more costly for Canada.
 
The City never had to refurbish existing underground stations and tunnels to support high floor platforms though.
You can look up the term 'premetro'. The Crosstown can be considered one if you squint hard. But it wasn't built with conversion to high floor in mind. So grade-separating the surface section, if that ever happens, will be low floor probably.
... at the time of the Line 1/2 upgrades, the cost of construction was much cheaper than today.

Scarborough Subway Extension is a bondoogle, an overexpensive project meant to further the government's political goals.
Compared to today. But that is not relevant. They considered it expensive at the time and still did it. There are multitudes of projects currently in Toronto that are expensive but are being done for political reasons as you said.
In neither of those examples was existing infrastructure (track, platforms, catenary, etc.) retained, but rather, a new system built. Could we re-jig the ELRT for a metro? Yes, but by 2050, building a parallel line will be better value for money.
I don't particularly disagree that is a better value. But we are building the Ontario Line/Relief Line right now to reduce congestion on Line 1. We still needed the ATC and Bloor-Yonge upgrades because the line will still be at capacity after relief. Eglinton Line 5 could also reach that point. And the measly 15k per hour ultimate capacity for the crosstown will one day not be enough.
Centinela Grade Separation is not a convincing example, $500 million for a single grade separation along a brand-new LRT line.
These things can get cheaper if built intelligently and in bulk. For the REM it cost only 7 billion to build 67 km of track including 21.5km elevated, 26 fully enclosed stations, 5 km of tunnel rehabilitation, a giant OMSF, and 212 train cars.
It's possible, just very expensive, and we have plenty of places to put extra capital dollars (if it was burning a hole in our collective pockets, which it isn't).
Sure. But the gov isnt behaving like that in the transit file. They are not playing a zero-sum game even if they pay lip service to it as the PCs.
 
The Scarborough RT is getting replaced because it's literally crumbling apart and that's entirely on the city. I dont see Metrolinx allowing the Crosstown to fall into such a state of disrepair.
Reading how we got to this point would make you laugh and cry. The SRT is crumbling because the City could not decide on how they want to rehabilitate the SRT a project that was gimped by political fighting. But it didn't need to be this way. The Vancouver Skytrain and the SRT are the same tech. They even opened the same year. The difference is that the trains on the Skytrain were upgraded since it opened in 1985 but the SRT was left to crumble. Toronto had a plan to upgrade the SRT in the early 2000s to Mark II trains along with an elevated extension to Melvern. But things like smaller tunnels and tight curves (purpose-built deficiencies by the province to stop the city from using streetcars on the SRT) made the cost look large at the time. (now it is laughably small at 500 million compared to the SSE's 3-6 billion) City infighting on whether to switch to streetcars, update to Mark II, or extend the subway paralyzed the file for decades. Now we reached the end of life for the equipment and they chose to dismantle the line and build a subway extension at their leisure. A big point for the subway extension plan was to prevent a multi-year shutdown of the SRT. Now that is happening regardless. There is no technical reason why they can't just still upgrade the SRT line today with a full shutdown. But the mood shifted and the subway plan become preferred politically.

To upgrade a line from bus to LRT/subway is entirely different discussion. We've replaced the Bloor-Danforth line from streetcar operations to heavy rail...in an entirely different political climate. I think those days are long behind us in Toronto.
The current climate is to build more grade-separated transit using ways to reduce costs (avoid tunneling under rivers/sharing corridors etc). Metrolinx seems more ready to break the status quo these days with Ford's blessing. (Ontario Line) It is fair to say the climate is different than in the 50s and 60s.

Toronto is not LA or Tokyo, as you saw with the Scarborough RT debacle, it's clearly not easy for this city to replace a rail line that's literally about to crumble away. Not even talking about replacing/upgrading a rapid transit line which is at capacity. In any case Metrolinx holds all the cards with the Crosstown line, and I dont see them upgrading this line asides from the 3rd train we'll see once the line builds ridership through demand.
You are right, we will wait and see. The thing is that the city has no say anymore in these matters. Metrolinx is more receptive than the city to consultant-pitched ideas. And these days these ideas are very standardized outside of the US/Canada to favor grade-separated metro systems. (from my perspective at least. I come to this conclusion from watching basically all new subway systems in Asia and Europe looking the same now.) But you are right. This is all speculative and only time will tell.

My whole argument is you can't say that the Crosstown cannot be upgraded. Nobody expected the OL nor the REM and now they are under construction capping decades of dithering.
 
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From the recently updated Eglinton Complete Street Project website:


According to Metrolinx, construction-related activities and equipment on the roadway will be removed by the end of April 2023, with the exception of Cedarvale Station (Allen Road interchange) and the section between Avenue Road and Yonge Street, which are anticipated to be completed in the summer of 2023.
 
From the recently updated Eglinton Complete Street Project website:


According to Metrolinx, construction-related activities and equipment on the roadway will be removed by the end of April 2023, with the exception of Cedarvale Station (Allen Road interchange) and the section between Avenue Road and Yonge Street, which are anticipated to be completed in the summer of 2023.

Those are the only spots with equipment if I'm not mistaken
 
From the recently updated Eglinton Complete Street Project website:


According to Metrolinx, construction-related activities and equipment on the roadway will be removed by the end of April 2023, with the exception of Cedarvale Station (Allen Road interchange) and the section between Avenue Road and Yonge Street, which are anticipated to be completed in the summer of 2023.
so can we say now that summer 2023 is the new target?
 
From the recently updated Eglinton Complete Street Project website:


According to Metrolinx, construction-related activities and equipment on the roadway will be removed by the end of April 2023, with the exception of Cedarvale Station (Allen Road interchange) and the section between Avenue Road and Yonge Street, which are anticipated to be completed in the summer of 2023.
The Uni-directional cycle tracks is wrong. Should be combined into one duel-direction cycling track. Then emergency vehicles could use the duel-direction cycling tracks to bypass the single-occupant motorists. There is still time do it before April.

 

Rawlinson Avenue Reopens at Eglinton Avenue East - Late-February 2023

From link.

reopening_of_rawlinson_ave_1_0.png


What Work is Taking Place?

In approximately late-February 2023, Rawlinson Avenue will reopen at Eglinton Avenue East. All traffic lanes and turns will be reinstated at the Rawlinson-Eglinton intersection (refer to map above). No further traffic changes at this intersection are expected as a result of Crosstown construction.


What to Expect

Access to Eglinton Avenue East from Rawlinson Avenue will be reinstated. Noise from relocation of fencing, equipment, and materials can be expected during this work.
 
The Uni-directional cycle tracks is wrong. Should be combined into one duel-direction cycling track. Then emergency vehicles could use the duel-direction cycling tracks to bypass the single-occupant motorists. There is still time do it before April.

I dont have any documents off the top of my head. But Montreal decided to move away from bi-directional cycle tracks because they are less safe than having one on each side of the road. So you give access to emergency vehicles but then you risk having more bike-car crashes.
 
I’m in Seoul Korea currently and on business, so spending much time in the ‘downtown’ areas. Traffic is still much worse then Toronto, especially as much of the area is built Mississauga style, with huge complexes surrounded by broad multi- lane avenues (sorry , no bike lanes) where the local and plentiful busses move at walking speed in many areas at certain times of the day.. Seoul also has a 23 line subway network that has a major complaint about having too many stations, so average speeds are not high enough and suffer from lack of capacity.

The solution here is to build a new system of high speed underground. Apparently speeds up to 180 km/h. The first line is 83 km long I believe with just 10 or 11 stations. This is under construction. There is a second similar line that I understand is starting or about to start building. And a third similar line starts building this year.

Seoul has a population in excess of 10 million and size wise is very comparable in size to Toronto, 605 vs 630 km squared. But a population density of almost three times (and increasing) that of Toronto, at slightly over 15,000 people per sq km

And if you walk down some of the streets where construction is taking place, it looks a lot like Eglington did and what the Ontario line will as well. The exception being the width of the street and sidewalks is much greater allowing more flexibilty, but still causing major traffic and walking disruptions.

I’ll see if I can get some daylight photos.
 

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