I'm not saying they're the same.

I'm saying they're part of the same system, being funded by the same taxpayers.

You're dismissing a minimum 15% reduction in capacity as 'no big deal', when in reality it's a very big deal.

We're burying/overbuilding the Eglinton West LRT and SSE at great expense, and value engineering a critical line that that demands the absolute most capacity. The Eglinton West extension and SSE both run through areas that Ford and the Conservatives benefit from politically.

It's all a perfect example of everything wrong with transit planning in Toronto.

The Ontario Gov (seemingly at least) is not playing a zero-sum game with the 4 priority lines they are pushing. They are pushing all 4 forward at a reasonable pace (pandemic included). They have improved the SSE (more stations, longer, finally reaches Shepherd ), the EWLRT (complete grade separation, protection for the future capacity to the airport employment area), and the Ontario Line ( longer phase 1, more stations in phase 1, shallower stations, ability to be run close to GO Trains, ground level and elevated in some sections to save costs).

As a transit enthusiast, I can't complain about getting more grade-separated transit. Decreasing the capacity of one line by 15 percent but having it built sooner and faster is not a bad trade-off.

I agree that 15% (about 4500 PPDPH) is a significant amount. But starting an Ontario Line system in Toronto makes adding more lines easier in the future. As I keep repeating, look at Vancouver. They have built so much transit in such a short amount of time because they use smaller trains/stations. They even have stations fully funded by developers because they can build them so cheaply. ($40 million for elevated, under $100 million for underground) The Skytrain system is lower capacity than what Toronto needs, but there is a middle ground here. We don't need to build huge stations like the Spadina Extension when we can built more reasonably sized stations faster.
 
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Will it be build by 2027? Probably not. But "will never be built" is a bit of a stretch. Can't expect much difference from a self proclaimed socialist website.
 
Will it be build by 2027? Probably not. But "will never be built" is a bit of a stretch. Can't expect much difference from a self proclaimed socialist website.
122 years for the DRL so far, with 2 cancellation for construction in building it so far. Maybe come 2040 we will see it built
 
The Ontario Gov (seemingly at least) is not playing a zero-sum game with the 4 priority lines they are pushing. They are pushing all 4 forward at a reasonable pace (pandemic included). They have improved the SSE (more stations, longer, finally reaches Shepherd ), the EWLRT (complete grade separation, protection for the future capacity to the airport employment area), and the Ontario Line ( longer phase 1, more stations in phase 1, shallower stations, ability to be run close to GO Trains, ground level and elevated in some sections to save costs).

As a transit enthusiast, I can't complain about getting more grade-separated transit. Decreasing the capacity of one line by 15 percent but having it built sooner and faster is not a bad trade-off.

I agree that 15% (about 4500 PPDPH) is a significant amount. But starting an Ontario Line system in Toronto makes adding more lines easier in the future. As I keep repeating, look at Vancouver. They have built so much transit in such a short amount of time because they use smaller trains/stations. They even have stations fully funded by developers because they can build them so cheaply. ($40 million for elevated, under $100 million for underground) The Skytrain system is lower capacity than what Toronto needs, but there is a middle ground here. We don't need to build huge stations like the Spadina Extension when we can built more reasonably sized stations faster.

I can't complain about that either.

The problem is that the one line being value engineered is the most important one. You could certainly argue all of these extensions are important, but they're certainly not equal. The DRL/OL is a critical piece of infrastrcture. It must have maximum capacity. It's more important than a GO connection (which I think may be used less than expected) and other changes they've made.

Ford boasted that uploading subway construction would allow the province to build transit faster and more effectively. So why not actually do it? If you're going to bury the SSE and the Eglinton West extension, there's no reason they can't build a full capacity DRL/OL to Don Mills.

We're doing things backwards.
 
I can't complain about that either.

The problem is that the one line being value engineered is the most important one. You could certainly argue all of these extensions are important, but they're certainly not equal. The DRL/OL is a critical piece of infrastrcture. It must have maximum capacity. It's more important than a GO connection (which I think may be used less than expected) and other changes they've made.

Ford boasted that uploading subway construction would allow the province to build transit faster and more effectively. So why not actually do it? If you're going to bury the SSE and the Eglinton West extension, there's no reason they can't build a full capacity DRL/OL to Don Mills.

We're doing things backward.

You are right. It is backward. The Ontario Line should have a high capacity and minimal capacity handicaps.

In an ideal world, I would elevate the whole SSE and EWLRT alignments and use the money saved towards expanding the Ontario Line infrastructure and having it go all the way to Shepperd.

For now, we all just need to wait to see what gets put into the 3P contract/proposal.
 
The DRL/OL is a must top dog to be built 1st, as it change the travel pattern for a large number of riders as well increasing space that will be fill by new riders living on the Yonge line as new towers are built. I support the line to Eglinton, but will not have the same impact of removing riders off the Yonge line if it gets built to Finch with Steeles being top dog.

I maybe be gone by 2050 and not have to witness the collapse of the Yonge Line if the DRL/OL is not built as noted.

Even if the DRL/OL is built as noted, a 2nd Yonge Line will be needed from Steeles to the Queens Quay that will take a different route south of Eglinton since the existing Yonge Line stations will never handle the ridership between the 2 lines.

EWLRT was to be grade separated at major roads, but thanks to the Ford Brothers that land is gone now for an elevated line.

The Yonge Line Extension is at the bottom of the list, where the SSE should go back to what it was to be and be done years ahead of the current plan as well serving more of Scarborough, as well saving a ton of money.
 
The costs are being cut by having a good chunk of it be overground. The original DRL was entirely underground cut using deep-boring technology with large cavernous stations planned. By having key stations especially the LSE corridor above ground, you significantly reduce the cost since you no longer have to literally tunnel underneath the Don River.

It's true that above ground construction costs much less, but, there is significantly more complexity with the frequent grade changes. I'm not convinced that the whole line can be had for 10 B, which in reality is only 3-4 B more than RLS.
 
The Ontario Gov (seemingly at least) is not playing a zero-sum game with the 4 priority lines they are pushing. They are pushing all 4 forward at a reasonable pace (pandemic included). They have improved the SSE (more stations, longer, finally reaches Shepherd ), the EWLRT (complete grade separation, protection for the future capacity to the airport employment area), and the Ontario Line ( longer phase 1, more stations in phase 1, shallower stations, ability to be run close to GO Trains, ground level and elevated in some sections to save costs).

As a transit enthusiast, I can't complain about getting more grade-separated transit. Decreasing the capacity of one line by 15 percent but having it built sooner and faster is not a bad trade-off.

I agree that 15% (about 4500 PPDPH) is a significant amount. But starting an Ontario Line system in Toronto makes adding more lines easier in the future. As I keep repeating, look at Vancouver. They have built so much transit in such a short amount of time because they use smaller trains/stations. They even have stations fully funded by developers because they can build them so cheaply. ($40 million for elevated, under $100 million for underground) The Skytrain system is lower capacity than what Toronto needs, but there is a middle ground here. We don't need to build huge stations like the Spadina Extension when we can built more reasonably sized stations faster.

I'd be really curious to see an analysis of how train size would actually impact the project costs here. I'd expect longer trains to have a substantial impact, no doubt, as the station boxes themselves would have to be larger, but I wonder how much of a financial impact we'd see from wider trains. We know that tunnel boring costs aren't very sensitive to tunnel diameters, and I suspect that adding a few feet of width to the stations wouldn't have an outsized impact on cost either.

Also I largely agree with what you've written above, but I don't believe for a second that Toronto's relative lack of transit expansion had much to do with cost

Between 1954 and 2020, Toronto has built a grand total of two rapid transit lines of substantial length. For most of that period, transit expansion has been relatively dirt cheap. More than anything, the issue has been the tremendous degree of political meddling, and a lack of commitment. The Ontario Line, until proven otherwise, is a particularly egregious continuation of this long standing legacy.

We've seen this story play out over and over again: (1) new government comes in, (2) scraps all the old plans and (3) proposes shiny and ambitious new plans. A few years go by, (4) costs are higher than expected, (5) lines are truncated and delayed indefinitely, (6) until the next government comes in and scraps all the old plans. We are currently at step 3, and will likely be at step 4 by mid next year. Time will tell if we reach step 6.

I have absolutely no idea how the Ontario Line is going to progress from here. But depending on its fate, its either going to be looked at as:

A) A brilliant shakeup of the transit building process in the GTHA
or
B) Yet another underhanded cancellation of a well-developed transit plan

To date, this government has achieved nothing more than the cancelation of the Relief Line, when, after a century of planning, we were closer than ever to getting built. Until we see contracts signed and shovels in the ground, there is nothing celebratory about that. We've been through this same song and dance too many times.
 
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We've seen this story play out over and over again: (1) new government comes in, (2) scraps all the old plans and (3) proposes shiny and ambitious new plans. A few years go by, (4) costs are higher than expected, (5) lines are truncated and delayed indefinitely, (6) until the next government comes in and scraps all the old plans. We are currently at step 3, and will likely be at step 4 by mid next year. Time will tell if we reach step 6.
The cycle never ends.
32f.jpg
 
You are right. It is backward. The Ontario Line should have a high capacity and minimal capacity handicaps.

In an ideal world, I would elevate the whole SSE and EWLRT alignments and use the money saved towards expanding the Ontario Line infrastructure and having it go all the way to Shepperd.

For now, we all just need to wait to see what gets put into the 3P contract/proposal.


I'd be really curious to see an analysis of how train size would actually impact the project costs here. I'd expect longer trains to have a substantial impact, no doubt, as the station boxes themselves would have to be larger, but I wonder how much of a financial impact we'd see from wider trains. We know that tunnel boring costs aren't very sensitive to tunnel diameters, and I suspect that adding a few feet of width to the stations wouldn't have an outsized impact on cost either.

Also I largely agree with what you've written above, but I don't believe for a second that Toronto's relative lack of transit expansion had much to do with cost

Between 1954 and 2020, Toronto has built a grand total of two rapid transit lines of substantial length. For most of that period, transit expansion has been relatively dirt cheap. More than anything, the issue has been the tremendous degree of political meddling, and a lack of commitment. The Ontario Line, until proven otherwise, is a particularly egregious continuation of this long standing legacy.

We've seen this story play out over and over again: (1) new government comes in, (2) scraps all the old plans and (3) proposes shiny and ambitious new plans. A few years go by, (4) costs are higher than expected, (5) lines are truncated and delayed indefinitely, (6) until the next government comes in and scraps all the old plans. We are currently at step 3, and will likely be at step 4 by mid next year. Time will tell if we reach step 6.

I have absolutely no idea how the Ontario Line is going to progress from here. But depending on its fate, its either going to be looked at as:

A) A brilliant shakeup of the transit building process in the GTHA
or
B) Yet another underhanded cancellation of a well-developed transit plan

To date, this government has achieved nothing more than the cancelation of the Relief Line, when, after a century of planning, we were closer than ever to getting built. Until we see contracts signed and shovels in the ground, there is nothing celebratory about that. We've been through this same song and dance too many times.

That's what's disappointing to me about all of this. Ford, who has the suburban vote, is in a position to build a full length, full capacity DRL and sell it to his constituents. They're probably the people who will benefit from it most.

Instead, he's fast tracking the Eglinton West LRT extension (in his neighbourhood) and the OL has already slipped.

There's no problem with fast tracking the Eglinton West LRT, but why isn't that being done for the most important project?

Can't help but feel so far things are following the usual pattern.
 

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