44 North
Senior Member
Except none of these extensions would be cheaper. I want you to think about this logically. Let's say we choose to replace the Yonge Line with a Light Metro extension. Problem #1 You now have to build an MSF for the line. Problem #2, you know have to build a new platform at Finch Station which really wouldn't be easy (unless you want to make a Cross Platform Transfer at Finch, but that would seriously reduce the capacity of Line 1). With just these 2 additions, you are now looking at a project that would be the same cost as the current subway extension, but let's continue. Forcing people to take a linear transfer at Finch would be absolutely ludicrous. If you're on the Steeles bus, that means instead of going straight to finch, you have to transfer at steeles, then take this light metro to Finch, then everyone transfers to Line 1, which is absolutely silly, and also dangerous. When you have a linear transfer, you are basically forcing all of the people riding on one line to transfer to the other line all at one, leaving people to rush to get from platform to platform. One of the biggest issues with the Scarborough LRT plan is that linear transfer. In 10 years, the Scarborough Line is projected to carry over 100 000 passengers per day, and imagine all of that traffic just stampeding down 3 floors at Kennedy as all of them rush to get on a train to Line 2. This is why linear transfers create so many problems.
Now one can make the argument that Line 1 should be extended to Steeles, but that's even worse since now you have to get 2 different TBMs, and at this point you get the literal opposite of economy of scale. Adding a light metro as a cheap way of extending a line has literally never worked. I can only think of a few places it has been done, and none of them have been successful. I'm looking at cities like Moscow, San Francisco, and hell we literally have the SRT here in Toronto, a line that was so bad that even though it terminated right next to the highway, Kennedy is still one of the biggest parking lot stations on the system simply because people don't want to deal with it, and just drive from the 401 to Kennedy. The Scarborough LRT wouldn't have fixed this. It would be wasting money on a line that is literally worse than a refurbished SRT.
The Ontario Line is a completely different story. Its a brand new line on a brand new corridor, that serves its own market of riders. Its not a tumour that sticks out at the end of another line, its a completely different service area. Using different rolling stocks is totally fine here. Same story would've been for a light Metro on Eglinton or Sheppard, had they been built with this technology at the start.
There are places to build MSFs. And these aren't one off extensions and the system's complete. They'll continue indefinitely and requests to extend further have been coming in for awhile. That's a lot of money that needs to be factored in.
So again using arguments on previous pages about: TR being oversized, ample unused capacity, not able to handle grades/turns, extreme depth, extreme costs, low density, etc - it makes sense to look at smaller-sized lines in place of suburban extension. Over time a network gets built. Compared with plus-size piecemeal extensions of a "bad" train that even in isolation are some of the planet's costliest transit projects, transitioning to another line is pretty logical. Does a transfer really nullify all your arguments against the TR and general issues of costly subways in this thread? Obviously not. They should still be true.