[denfromoakvillemilton]

Let's not believe for one moment that it is the cost that is the barrier to results - the lack of new downtown lines post 60s isn't the result of cost, but a chosen policy of not expanding subway downtown. A municipality that chose to build a subway extension for 3B+ is in no position to argue that cost is a barrier to build what is needed.

AoD

Burloak nailed it. We spend more effort to talk and explain it than to build it.

Amen to all of this. If we can build this thing in Scarborough. We should be able to suck it up and build from Mt Dennis to Fairview mall and further without difficulty. Bite the bullet for once.

 

[TransitBart]

Amen to all of this. If we can build this thing in Scarborough. We should be able to suck it up and build from Mt Dennis to Fairview mall and further without difficulty. Bite the bullet for once.

Let's review this:

Vision. Mount Dennis to Fairview Mall. Check.
Detailed engineering plan. $150M (gulp) promised from Mrs. Wynne to get this done. Eighteen more months to complete. Check.
Construction equipment. 4 used TBMs on kijiji or four squadrons of beavers required. Meh. Check.
City councillors. Forty-four ecstatically enthusiastic irrevocable votes for. Hmm. Ok. The funding is more likely. Maybe forty-four muzzles instead. Not checked off yet.
City residents. One million against. One point five million for. I call this for the yeas. Check. If you vote against, you have to drive a 53' trailer on Queen Street eight hours a day for a year. Or Queen's Quay. :-( I call this checked.
Money. Hmm. Mr Tory. Check. Mrs. Wynne. Hmm. Can she make a decision? Mr. Trudeau. Where the hell are you?

I really don't see any need to pay for talking here. An afternoon with Tory, Wynne and Trudeau (sounds like a law firm) should suffice.

Ok. It really is that simple.

**bites bullet**

Ok, what comes next?

Oh. And we want it done and in service for 2025 (this 2030 shit has to give) and for the $250M+ per km that Europeans can build subways for. I have never seen anything in Europe's subways that concerns me so I am certain we'll be pleased with the result.

Next...

 

[Hopkins123]

The advantage of Parkside is it would be less costly, although with TTC insistence on tunneling (i.e. Vaughan), I am not sure it would be a huge savings. Also, I don't know if its a selling feature that no station is needed between Queen and Bloor. A Keele interchange is likely easier than most in the west as well. Going up Keele allows several options, including Keele at the way, switch to Jane, or go to Rexdale.

Dufferin does have the density though. My imaginary Scarborough to Exhibition line would serve King West allowing the DRL to curve north sooner.
View attachment 94653

Parkside is the best alignment IMO because it would interconnect the most nodes (stops in the heart of Parkdale, direct connection to St Joseph's Hospital, High Park high rise community, stop in the heart of the Junction and stop in the booming Stockyards commercial area). South of Dufferin Mall, there's nothing really along Dufferin itself that warrants a subway. At least with Parkside you're not using TBMs to drill under a trafficked arterial through a built-up area. Reducing lanes on Parkside Dr during construction probably would not have as much of an impact.

And the appeal of a shallow tunnel at Bloor is a good thing. I could envision the west end of Keele Stn being completely transformed with elevators and escalators leading down to the new station and a new entrance/exit built near Glendale for the high rise communities.

 

[Hopkins123]

Let's not believe for one moment that it is the cost that is the barrier to results - the lack of new downtown lines post 60s isn't the result of cost, but a chosen policy of not expanding subway downtown. A municipality that chose to build a subway extension for 3B+ is in no position to argue that cost is a barrier to build what is needed.

AoD

This is true. We have to remember the political noncompetitive nature of the downtown core. Swing ridings in Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke are much more appealing to power-hungry parties and their bagmen to vye over. If Greg Sorbara owned land in Parkdale or Riverdale, perhaps we'd be looking a very different Toronto transit system today.

 

[Hopkins123]

You mean Evergreen line of course.
Canada Line, also fully grade-separated, was $2B for 19km.

Over in Montreal, their current plans are for some 60+ km of track for about $5B.

Sometimes it's as if Toronto deliberately hikes the price as an excuse to do very little. Good thing places like Vancouver don't perceive elevated rapid transit as an eyesore and even in 2016 still is actively building elevated rapid transit as its solution to congestion.

 

[MisterF]

Let's review this:

Vision. Mount Dennis to Fairview Mall. Check.
Detailed engineering plan. $150M (gulp) promised from Mrs. Wynne to get this done. Eighteen more months to complete. Check.
Construction equipment. 4 used TBMs on kijiji or four squadrons of beavers required. Meh. Check.
City councillors. Forty-four ecstatically enthusiastic irrevocable votes for. Hmm. Ok. The funding is more likely. Maybe forty-four muzzles instead. Not checked off yet.
City residents. One million against. One point five million for. I call this for the yeas. Check. If you vote against, you have to drive a 53' trailer on Queen Street eight hours a day for a year. Or Queen's Quay. :-( I call this checked.
Money. Hmm. Mr Tory. Check. Mrs. Wynne. Hmm. Can she make a decision? Mr. Trudeau. Where the hell are you?

I really don't see any need to pay for talking here. An afternoon with Tory, Wynne and Trudeau (sounds like a law firm) should suffice.

Ok. It really is that simple.

**bites bullet**

Ok, what comes next?

Oh. And we want it done and in service for 2025 (this 2030 shit has to give) and for the $250M+ per km that Europeans can build subways for. I have never seen anything in Europe's subways that concerns me so I am certain we'll be pleased with the result.

Next...

The real wild card is the province. Wynne may not be in power much longer and given the history of Brown and his party, I wouldn't be so optimistic. I agree that this line is the most crucial piece of infrastructure in the city but the last several decades have shown that that's no guarantee of anything.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Parkside is the best alignment IMO because it would interconnect the most nodes (stops in the heart of Parkdale, direct connection to St Joseph's Hospital, High Park high rise community, stop in the heart of the Junction and stop in the booming Stockyards commercial area). South of Dufferin Mall, there's nothing really along Dufferin itself that warrants a subway. At least with Parkside you're not using TBMs to drill under a trafficked arterial through a built-up area. Reducing lanes on Parkside Dr during construction probably would not have as much of an impact.

And the appeal of a shallow tunnel at Bloor is a good thing. I could envision the west end of Keele Stn being completely transformed with elevators and escalators leading down to the new station and a new entrance/exit built near Glendale for the high rise communities.

Depending on alignment, you can hit either West Quen West or Liberty Village. You also reach the heart of Little Portugal.

The main thing however, is intercepting the College, Dundas and Queen streetcars.

 

[Euphoria]

None of this western routing of the DRL will be completed in your working lifetimes. Without a funding tool, you're SOL on the DRL, unless you'll be working until 2060.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

None of this western routing of the DRL will be completed in your working lifetimes. Without a funding tool, you're SOL on the DRL, unless you'll be working until 2060.

Unfortunately if that is true, then us Canadians have really dropped the ball and will not be globally competitive in the 21st century.

We are the only G20 nation that doesn't receive regular transit funding or subsidies from the federal government, despite the fact we are a very urbanized country and economy.

I hope to be living in the country whose leaders realized that investing in our cities is not just desired but needed to maintain our global competitiveness, and that transit funding is an important part of that. I know it is different circumstances, but in 20 years Spain managed to build our many transit lines for Madrid and Barcelona. Here we are just talking about one.

 

[ssiguy2]

Toronto desperately needs a Relief Line in the East but I still don't think it should be standard metro third rail. Have it part of RER under Queen. The amount of money would be exactly the same from Mortimer to Liberty Village area but after that they could be used on the Hamilton RER and further north on the RH line. By going north to Richmond Hill it would become a real relief line for all of Yonge as opposed to just the portion of Yonge south of Bloor. This would also relieve congestion and overcapacity at Union and give RER a much needed alternative route downtown. Making all of RER dependent on just one station is asking for trouble.

A downtown tunnel is what both Sydney and Melbourne did for their suburban systems as well as the massive Paris RER. Imagine the chaos if all Paris RER lines were dependent on just one station. You build transit for a 100 years, not 20. RER planning should be based on upwards of 20,000 train trips a week and not 6,000 and due to this an alternative downtown route must be found so why not kill two birds with one stone.

 

[TransitBart]

The real wild card is the province. Wynne may not be in power much longer and given the history of Brown and his party, I wouldn't be so optimistic. I agree that this line is the most crucial piece of infrastructure in the city but the last several decades have shown that that's no guarantee of anything.

It is a conversation for another forum, but poor Mr. Brown has been out-manoeuvred by a social conservative twink.

Hmm. The hapless Mrs. Wynne or inexperienced Mr. Brown in a dance of the seven veils with his social conservative wing. A debate interesting - on a good day - to perhaps, hmm - twenty-five people in the province.

Meanwhile, the other 8 million of us in the GTHA can't get anywhere reliably on time. Scary.

 

[MisterF]

Toronto desperately needs a Relief Line in the East but I still don't think it should be standard metro third rail. Have it part of RER under Queen. The amount of money would be exactly the same from Mortimer to Liberty Village area but after that they could be used on the Hamilton RER and further north on the RH line. By going north to Richmond Hill it would become a real relief line for all of Yonge as opposed to just the portion of Yonge south of Bloor. This would also relieve congestion and overcapacity at Union and give RER a much needed alternative route downtown. Making all of RER dependent on just one station is asking for trouble.

A downtown tunnel is what both Sydney and Melbourne did for their suburban systems as well as the massive Paris RER. Imagine the chaos if all Paris RER lines were dependent on just one station. You build transit for a 100 years, not 20. RER planning should be based on upwards of 20,000 train trips a week and not 6,000 and due to this an alternative downtown route must be found so why not kill two birds with one stone.

The problem with that idea is that the Richmond Hill line follows a slow, circuitous route through a valley. It would be extremely difficult to build decent interchanges at Bloor, Eglinton, Lawrence, or Don Mills. Bringing it to RER standard with subway-style interchanges at those streets would probably cost as much as a completely new line. And it wouldn't have the same relief benefits as a new subway up Pape and Don Mills.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

The problem with that idea is that the Richmond Hill line follows a slow, circuitous route through a valley. It would be extremely difficult to build decent interchanges at Bloor, Eglinton, Lawrence, or Don Mills. Bringing it to RER standard with subway-style interchanges at those streets would probably cost as much as a completely new line. And it wouldn't have the same relief benefits as a new subway up Pape and Don Mills.

Yes, this subway has to provide both relief to Line 1 and an additional service.

The problem with RER proposals is that they do not provide for adequate relief to Bloor-Yonge.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I don't think it's all that disingenuous. Many cities cannibalize or reuse existing infrastructure for portions of their subway expansion, which is just one of many ways to bring down per km costs.

We're discussing increases in the cost of subway contruction. It makes no sense to compare to R.E.M., because that's not even a subway.

 

[44 North]

We're discussing increases in the cost of subway contruction. It makes no sense to compare to R.E.M., because that's not even a subway.

Everything I've read about REM implies it's to be a subway/metro system, albeit of the lighter variety. Unless it's to use non-transitlike premium fares I'd say what they're going for is a subway/metro expansion.