[valvenis]

I wonder if they'll go the extra kilometer and have the Ontario Line actually go to Ontario Place.

The business case is stronger for that if the provincial government really wants to justify all of the changes they recently announced to Ontario Place.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I wonder if they'll go the extra kilometer and have the Ontario Line actually go to Ontario Place.

The business case is stronger for that if the provincial government really wants to justify all of the changes they recently announced to Ontario Place.

No. This needs to go back to Queen and Roncesvalles via Dufferin.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Does someone know who this TDotResident guy is? He spent all of yesterday afternoon writing these conspiracy theories about government collusion between Ford and the De Gasperis family, citing such evidence like "They bought the Celestica Site 1 month before the Ontario Line was announced" - even though the area is getting the Eglinton Line, and the Relief Line has been proposed to reach Science Center going as far back as the 60s, so anyone who followed transit even a bit would know that this is a great site to invest in for long term gain, even before any public announcement was made regarding the Ontario Line.

I think these days it's a fine line between connecting the obvious dots and seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. Some of his stuff is a stretch but he's also done a good job pointing out the obvious hypocrisy going on. He actually got kicked off Twitter a month or two back for stating some straightforward, factual stuff about the stag and doe attendees (at least IMHO, none of it was slanderous or crossed any lines that would have violated terms of service) and then came back with a new name. But I too am curious

Was the DeGasperis thing something scandalous? Probably not.
But is it possible that the government has long known they would move the OSC to Ontario Place, allowing them to open some sweet development sites at Don Mills/Eglinton to developers (and that the ultimate developers may well be some names already familiar from the Ford family events and the Greenbelt openings and the Highway 413 lands)? Time will tell, but it hardly seems far-fetched.

 

[Coolibop]

To add to the conspiracy theory... The bridge on the OSC is mysteriously in a state of disrepair as of over a year ago and they can't fix it...

 

[Amare]

It's time for another Freedom of Information request to find out what scandals are going on with this one

 

[Jimvee]

If only Rob was as clean as our past Premiers (lol) they all do shady stuff if you look into it.

 

[ARG1]

I think these days it's a fine line between connecting the obvious dots and seeing conspiracy theories everywhere. Some of his stuff is a stretch but he's also done a good job pointing out the obvious hypocrisy going on. He actually got kicked off Twitter a month or two back for stating some straightforward, factual stuff about the stag and doe attendees (at least IMHO, none of it was slanderous or crossed any lines that would have violated terms of service) and then came back with a new name. But I too am curious

Was the DeGasperis thing something scandalous? Probably not.
But is it possible that the government has long known they would move the OSC to Ontario Place, allowing them to open some sweet development sites at Don Mills/Eglinton to developers (and that the ultimate developers may well be some names already familiar from the Ford family events and the Greenbelt openings and the Highway 413 lands)? Time will tell, but it hardly seems far-fetched.

Like I'm not saying that he's necessary wrong, in fact I find it likely that Dougie might've given DeGasperis a heads up, but what he's showing isn't actually proof of anything, not to mention some of his tweets border on insanity, like where he's claiming that because the OSC is being moved, the entire line is now a scam.

 

[Reecemartin]

It's not lighter than our subways. In fact, it's likely to be heavier-per-foot of train length.


Not really. See above.


6-to-10 inches of car width is not going to make an appreciable difference to the overall width of the guideway structure. You're not going to notice a structure that is a foot narrower if it already 30 feet wide.


But at a far, far greater cost.

Dan

The cost per kilometre doesn’t actually appear to be all that much greater. Especially because our light rail projects tend to have more grade separation than historic streetcars / LRT in other places because we run more service.

It might be 2x the cost but the capacity is also great than 2x, what’s more concerning is that a project like Finch has its costs measured in the billions anyways!

 

[TossYourJacket]

Like I'm not saying that he's necessary wrong, in fact I find it likely that Dougie might've given DeGasperis a heads up, but what he's showing isn't actually proof of anything, not to mention some of his tweets border on insanity, like where he's claiming that because the OSC is being moved, the entire line is now a scam.

Twitter is just a bunch of people talking each other into believing the most extreme version of any scenario. Everyone is in a little bubble of people who agree with them, and they just keep inventing increasingly ideological theories of why anything is happening. And then they get mad the General Public doesn't "understand what they do" because, guess what, most people aren't insanely addicted to Twitter.

This is happening on both the right and the left. And like one could even argue centrists have their own version of it. Just like, extreme centrism.

Also a lot of people tweet insanely dumb stuff. Adam Vaughan once tweeted that the OL would only have 6 or 7 stations, because he couldn't bother to read a one line caption that said there were that number of INTERCHANGE stations (with GO/TTC). Twitter is close to useless for anything valuable these days, and we need to collectively treat it as the unsourced mess it is.

 

[smallspy]

The cost per kilometre doesn’t actually appear to be all that much greater. Especially because our light rail projects tend to have more grade separation than historic streetcars / LRT in other places because we run more service.

It might be 2x the cost but the capacity is also great than 2x, what’s more concerning is that a project like Finch has its costs measured in the billions anyways!

I'm not sure how you can consider the $1.2 bil/km that the Ontario Line will end up costing not "all that much greater" than the $243-ish mil/km (Finch West) is costing.

Dan

 

[desperateAmbassador]

I'm not sure how you can consider the $1.2 bil/km that the Ontario Line will end up costing not "all that much greater" than the $243-ish mil/km (Finch West) is costing.

Dan

Because your math is wrong. I'm assuming you're getting that number from the $19B figure that's been floating around which is the TOTAL operating cost of the line including 30 years of operation, not the construction costs alone.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I'm not sure how you can consider the $1.2 bil/km that the Ontario Line will end up costing not "all that much greater" than the $243-ish mil/km (Finch West) is costing.

Dan

I mean one of those calculations has years of additional construction inflation and also 30-years and billions of dollars worth of operations costs in it and the other one doesn't..

 

[cplchanb]

I mean one of those calculations has years of additional construction inflation and also 30-years and billions of dollars worth of operations costs in it and the other one doesn't..

how can you compare OL with FW? they are completely different modes of transport not to mention OL digs deep under historical infrastructure for the majority of the line.
that in itself already doubles the base cost. tunnelling by virtue is the most expensive form of getting from a to b in almost all cases.

 

[T3G]

Why are we comparing the Ontario Line to Finch West anyway? Wouldn't Eglinton vs Ontario be more appropriate, if anything?

Finch West is the closest any of the Toronto rail projects have come to the classic streetcar network. It is so simple even the blockheads at Metrolinx have failed to mess it up significantly.

 

[smallspy]

Because your math is wrong. I'm assuming you're getting that number from the $19B figure that's been floating around which is the TOTAL operating cost of the line including 30 years of operation, not the construction costs alone.

The $1.9bil figure for Finch West considers all of those things as well.

It's not a true construction figure, but it is pretty damn close to apples-to-apples.

Why are we comparing the Ontario Line to Finch West anyway? Wouldn't Eglinton vs Ontario be more appropriate, if anything?

Finch West is the closest any of the Toronto rail projects have come to the classic streetcar network. It is so simple even the blockheads at Metrolinx have failed to mess it up significantly.

Reecemartin was trying to make the argument that the Ontario Line's construction is only slightly more than a traditional LRT - "it doesn't appear to be all that greater" is exactly what he said.

That's a pretty preposterous claim, if you ask me. And so I used Finch West, as that is pretty much a "traditional LRT" in the Toronto sphere of operations.

Dan