[unimaginative2]

I'm not sure how much more cost Giambrone can add to these subway extensions. They're already, mile for mile, pretty much the most expensive in the world. ("The EA says it will be $2.4 billion including $700 million in contingency, so let's round it up to an even $4 billion!") He's already building a half-kilometre long underground bus terminal with about three times as many bus bays as could ever conceivably be required. He's paying more just in architects' fees than most cities pay to build entire subway stations. He's tunnelling under empty, government-owned land. How much more can he inflate the cost of subways before he finally kills them?

Suggestions:

• Gold-plated fixtures in washrooms
• Seven elevators per platform
• Build stations deep enough to serve as nuclear bomb shelters
• Build new yard in the middle of Yorkville
• Moving walkways everywhere (Permanently closed for maintenance after completion, of course!)
• Route all buses to parallel the subway route so that people don't have to sully themselves by riding the subway (oops! They're already doing that)

 

[Voltz]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is it not York Region who has been doing all the planning so far for the Young extension? So why is everyone blaming the TTC for its design and costs?

It's not like the TTC actually wants a line into york that they know will be a money loser.

 

[CDL.TO]

The projected cost is currently at $2.4 billion. I'm sure if we try, we can manage to get the cost over $2.7 billion, making it more expensive per km than London's Jubilee Line Extension!

 

[nfitz]

The projected cost is currently at $2.4 billion. I'm sure if we try, we can manage to get the cost over $2.7 billion, making it more expensive per km than London's Jubilee Line Extension!

Given that the this would be completed almost 20-years after the Jubilee line, and that the Jubilee Line uses much smaller diamater tunnels (and trains) than Toronto, then shouldn't it cost more than the Jubilee line?

The big cost issue, is that to extend the Yonge subway, you have to deal with how to increase capacity from around Eglinton to Union. So your looking at half-a-billion alone to upgrade Yonge-Bloor station, not to mention Dundas, Queen ...

 

[JPG]

BMO, another reason against a stop between North York Centre and Finch Stations is the slope of the tracks.

Since I take the subway northbound to Finch daily, I did some recon...the slope around the area where a station would go is too great. The tunnel basically does a steady climb northward (much the same way as Yonge Street on the surface does) from North York Centre to Finch. My architect friend tells me that a 2% slope is the maximum allowable for a station to be constructed.

When the Yonge line was designed, they allowed for a less than 2% slope in the Park Home/Empress area for at least 500ft so that a station could be constructed at a later date (North York Centre). Similarly, the area around Willowdale on the Sheppard line is also less than a 2% slope for a future station there. I bet there is enough space between the two tunnels for a 10 metre width centre platform. Maybe utilities have been relocated, etc... .

If you want to plan for a station, you pretty much have to do it in the design phase of subway construction.

 

[CDL.TO]

Given that the this would be completed almost 20-years after the Jubilee line, and that the Jubilee Line uses much smaller diamater tunnels (and trains) than Toronto, then shouldn't it cost more than the Jubilee line?

Hmm. Perhaps I should have provided more context.

The Jubliee line extension dealt with many challenges
- Crosses the River Thames 4 times
- Passes below the Parliament Buildings, requiring major work to prevent any damage
- Challenges associated with tunelling through dense and historic central London
- All the stations are designed by high profile architects, including Will Alsop and Norman Foster among others
- Stations were designed to be showpiece projects, and are cavernous and well-finished. "Canary Wharf has been compared to a cathedral, with it being said that the neighbouring Canary Wharf Tower, if laid on its side could fit in the station with room to spare, while Westminster has a dramatic vertical void nearly 40 m (130 ft) deep."

- Plus, the line ended up being 66% over budget. The whole project was widely considered to be a money pit and a boondoggle.

So, with all that, the Yonge Extension is about just as expensive. For the amount of money they're predicting, we had better be getting stations like these:

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I guess the most telling feature of the Yonge extension's extreme price tag is that more will be spent on "engineering and other costs" than any other budget item, including 6.5km of tunnels, new trains, or 6 stations, one of which is projected to cost $200M.

Did Giambrone & friends conspire to inflate the cost? Maybe, maybe not, but the TTC did have a hand in, among other things, the fantastically oversized Steeles station and its three mid-street entry ramps and dozens of bus bays. Also, if the cost standards and gold-platedness of the Sheppard line were met and exceeded by Spadina, the Yonge extension is meeting and exceeding the Spadina standards by a considerable margin. Of course, we're most likely throwing hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain and not actually getting a gold-plated extension. It's quite obvious that not a single person involved in the extension process has stopped to question the budget. This will be Toronto's last subway project, so they seem to be going for broke. And can you blame them? This is an extension of the lauded Yonge line! The extension that will replace the parade of <30 second frequency buses and be the gateway to York Region! Exclamation marks!

I don't want to see the extension get snuffed out by funding issues but the price tag is absolutely ridiculous. It's barely a km longer than the Sheppard line but almost triple the cost, and Sheppard included some huge stations and some tricky construction work.

So, with all that, the Yonge Extension is about just as expensive. For the amount of money they're predicting, we had better be getting stations like these:

I hate to burst your optimistic bubble, but a YRT consultant I spoke to at the recent public meeting said the Yonge extension stations aside from RHC will probably be more modest than the Spadina extension stations (which themselves will be both more modest and more expensive than the Jubilee stations).

And in case you're using final costs of the Jubilee line in your comparison, remember that the Yonge extension's $2.4B figure is pre-inflation...by 2017 it could be about $3B.

 

[BMO]

BMO, another reason against a stop between North York Centre and Finch Stations is the slope of the tracks.

Since I take the subway northbound to Finch daily, I did some recon...the slope around the area where a station would go is too great. The tunnel basically does a steady climb northward (much the same way as Yonge Street on the surface does) from North York Centre to Finch. My architect friend tells me that a 2% slope is the maximum allowable for a station to be constructed.

When the Yonge line was designed, they allowed for a less than 2% slope in the Park Home/Empress area for at least 500ft so that a station could be constructed at a later date (North York Centre). Similarly, the area around Willowdale on the Sheppard line is also less than a 2% slope for a future station there. I bet there is enough space between the two tunnels for a 60ft width centre platform. Maybe utilities have been relocated, etc... .

If you want to plan for a station, you pretty much have to do it in the design phase of subway construction.

ooooh ic ic thanks , also with the jubilee line in london, don't the paltforms have those suicide barriers? anyone?

 

[Voltz]

ooooh ic ic thanks , also with the jubilee line in london, don't the paltforms have those suicide barriers? anyone?

Yes, it does have full height glass barriers. And according to a TTC report that I just read, the Young Extension will include them as well, and their cost is already in the budget.

 

[Chuck]

I actually meant express tracks for the Yonge subway, which is why I mentioned that it would be a costly alternative to improve travel times along the corridor.

I just don't get the TTC's anti subway view. How could they argue that Transit City will serve more people when the subway system as a whole serves over a million people per day? Improving Yonge and Bloor station will improve the commutes of probably 25% of all transit riders in the GTA in one swoop.

Enough with the grand subway stations and deep tunnels. Build simple but elegantly designed stations just below street level, and use cut and cover as much as possible. Except for hilly areas, there's no reason why the ceiling of any subway tunnel would need to be more than 2 feet below grade. 20 steps down, and you're on the platform.

 

[Whoaccio]

I don't get it, don't major govt projects like this have to go through some form of consultancy? Wouldn't KPMG, or either the municipal, provincial and federal Auditor General (since I assume that all three levels will finance this) pick up on the bloated bits?

 

[nfitz]

Precisely - there aren't any bloated bits. There seems to be a minority of Urban Toronto conspiracy theorists who believe that that the second gunmen is profiting from this somehow.

 

[junctionist]

Enough with the grand subway stations and deep tunnels. Build simple but elegantly designed stations just below street level, and use cut and cover as much as possible. Except for hilly areas, there's no reason why the ceiling of any subway tunnel would need to be more than 2 feet below grade. 20 steps down, and you're on the platform.

I agree. These are stations on the periphery, there's no need to make them grand in scale by overbuilding. Smaller stations and less tunneling in underdeveloped suburban land would lead to savings while still allowing for some respectable architects to design individual stations. It's important after all, as the system is engraved in our culture, and that fact provides a great opportunity to enrich it through architecture which anyone can enjoy.

 

[Voltz]

I actually meant express tracks for the Yonge subway, which is why I mentioned that it would be a costly alternative to improve travel times along the corridor.

I just don't get the TTC's anti subway view. How could they argue that Transit City will serve more people when the subway system as a whole serves over a million people per day? Improving Yonge and Bloor station will improve the commutes of probably 25% of all transit riders in the GTA in one swoop.

Enough with the grand subway stations and deep tunnels. Build simple but elegantly designed stations just below street level, and use cut and cover as much as possible. Except for hilly areas, there's no reason why the ceiling of any subway tunnel would need to be more than 2 feet below grade. 20 steps down, and you're on the platform.

I believe the TTC said Transit City would carry more people than the Young extension, not the entire system. And they are leaning towards expanding Bloor Young station.

There are many reasons to build larger and deeper stations (but not too deep or large), such as the need for a mezzanine level to access either track direction regardless of where the passenger entered from, or to provide passage ways to nearby buildings or terminals. Modern fire codes come to mind, as well as the fact that the original shallow and simple simple stations are dangerously over crowded, and in need of expansion.

 

[CDL.TO]

*snap*

I don't mean to be rude, but...

It's Yonge. Y-O-N-G-E.

Please, please, please learn the name of Toronto's Main Street.