[TheTigerMaster]

Seriously, York Region should pay its fare share and Toronto its fair share. The Spadina model (where 60% of the line is in 416 and 40% in 905, and the munis are paying accordingly) seems perfectly reasonable. All you have to do is look at Toronto's secondary plan for that area to see they'll be getting plenty of new taxpayers chipping in. (There's also no reason both municipalities can't use DCs, rather than taxes or debt, to pay a good chunk of it.)

You want Toronto to pay 40% of this thing? This thing isn't even 40% in Toronto.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Not trying to deny what you're both saying, but I'm wondering if you've ever actually driven or taken transit from Finch Station during the height of rush-hour to catch ANY of the buses at the station to get to your final Toronto destination? I'm sure riders of the 60, 42, and 53 would really disagree with your sentiments. I've taken transit around the world and having to take the bus from Finch has got to definitely be one of the 9 circles of hell I'm sure of it. And I regularly have to take the Queen streetcar daily during crush loads. It almost seems sophisticated compared to what thousands of people have to endure every single day at finch (I'm sure other parts of the city too), so please don't say that York Region stands to benefit more from this project. It's not just about congestion on the subway south of Bloor there's congestion at the other end as well.

Yeah I have. It's crazy.

Keep in mind that I'm also the kind of guy to scoff at spending billions to remove that annoying SRT -> Line 2 transfer at Kennedy that I have to use, so maybe I'm just cheap

so please don't say that York Region stands to benefit more from this project

Are you going to try to convince us that Toronto has more to benefit from this project than YR?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

And I still stand by my opinion that a grade-separate LRT / light metro would be more optimal for the Yonge corridor instead of the actual plan. There are very few multi-billion dollar all-underground heavy rail subway lines/extensions that I support - which obviously is a personal opinion. As well, existing ridership along the Yonge corridor north of Steeles is actually relatively low compared to the 40+ corridors/surface routes in TO with higher ridership. The projections for YN's YR section is significantly based off development which doesn’t exist, and potentially won’t exist as promised.

Relatively low? This thing is expected to move 25,000 pphpd. That's higher usage than the Bloor-Danforth subway.

 

[minilude]

Umm... plenty of people have brought up the issues of B-Y capacity concerns, reading the SSE.

And the University of Toronto recently released a report, slamming the SSE because of its low intensification potential.

wow now the capacity issue becomes a common measure in protesting an extension (and tax dollar spending)..back to the topic of our yonge corridor, I think the current "relief line" is the smart track, though not officially, I bet in John Tory's mind it is.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

TJ, the problem with the Yonge corridor is that there is no hydro corridor, rail corridor or highway median that's conveniently closeby enough for 44 North to shove a surface transit line onto, therefore we'll just have to make do with his LRT on Yonge St.

I know, but I'm trying to make nice and throw the guy a bone! It's only hypothetical anyway so let's just all agree: an LRT is better than nothing.

wow now the capacity issue becomes a common measure in protesting an extension (and tax dollar spending)..back to the topic of our yonge corridor, I think the current "relief line" is the smart track, though not officially, I bet in John Tory's mind it is.

I think you're right. I don't think it cancels the need for a DRL but it pretty clearly mitigates it and so now we've got a real quagmire because (for the billionth time in its history and the hundredth in the past 5 years) Toronto is reversing course. Toronto is not an island. If TTC says they can't build the Yonge extension without DRL and then they start studying DRL and then cancel or push back DRL, there's a domino effect. They just go along in blissful ignorance down there.

Umm... plenty of people have brought up the issues of B-Y capacity concerns, reading the SSE.

And the University of Toronto recently released a report, slamming the SSE because of its low intensification potential.

Yawn. A U of T report! Like anyone there except Keesmaat cares what "experts" like Eric Miller have to say!
Did the TTC and city council pass motions stating it can't go forward until those improvements are made? Nah. They only did that for Yonge; that's my point. Instead of imposing those conditions, they imposed a new property tax and wasted $80M cancelling the LRT contracts to make sure it happens. Why the double standard? We know why.

You want Toronto to pay 40% of this thing? This thing isn't even 40% in Toronto.

Sigh. I said FAIR SHARE. I said THE SPADINA MODEL. I didn't do the math. If it's 56% in York Region, York should pay 56%. If it's 83%, they should pay that. If it's 14%, they should pay that. i won't do all 100 numbers; I'll just assume you get what I mean by MODEL now.

Also, you need to learn how to do the multi-quote thing or cut and paste, like moi.

So, to be clear: you're in the camp that posits the extension will have massive ridership, and that's precisely why we can't build it? Honestly, I find that notion FASCINATING but at least it makes more sense than the people who think no one will ride it because York Region is all farms and horses.

The notion of who will benefit more strikes me as somewhat abstract and hypothetical. There isn't much question York Region "needs it" more, but that's because they're a suburb trying to urbanize. Denying them the necessary infrastructure strikes me as shortsighted in that "we all benefit" from this happening. Also, Toronto will reap substantial rewards from development and if it's not AS SUBSTANTIAL as York Region, so what? By your own measure, they will have plenty of ridership and there's plenty of development potential so York Region certainly has more right to cry "we deserve a subway!" than Scarborough. Quibbles about who pays for what etc. can be ironed out down the line. In the meantime, get building transit you know will work.

 

[WislaHD]

So, to be clear: you're in the camp that posits the extension will have massive ridership, and that's precisely why we can't build it? Honestly, I find that notion FASCINATING but at least it makes more sense than the people who think no one will ride it because York Region is all farms and horses.

If it comes at the price of crippling the rest of Toronto's transit system then from Toronto's perspective why would we approve it without other infrastructure (DRL & GO-RER) in place?

We obviously want York region to urbanize and densify, and for automobile use to lower, but what good is that if nobody can get on the subway at peak hour past Sheppard?

The way I see it, this project is a political and transportation no-brainer to build once all the prerequisites are met. One of those prerequisites is the DRL.

 

[M II A II R II K]

It would be better to build a 2nd Yonge line that would be express, maybe make it part of Smarttrack and have double deckers.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

If it comes at the price of crippling the rest of Toronto's transit system then from Toronto's perspective why would we approve it without other infrastructure (DRL & GO-RER) in place?

We obviously want York region to urbanize and densify, and for automobile use to lower, but what good is that if nobody can get on the subway at peak hour past Sheppard?

The way I see it, this project is a political and transportation no-brainer to build once all the prerequisites are met. One of those prerequisites is the DRL.

That's all fair (though I think the notion it will "cripple" the system, particularly in the short term, is a bit much). Anyway, RER is going to be in place imminently, so that helps, as does ATC (also imminent, relatively), as is the Spadina extension (which, eventually, I gather, will open?); so IMHO, that should be enough to get moving on the Yonge line, given how advanced the planning is. It's Toronto that's twiddling its thumbs with the DRL and (as Councillor Janet Davis opined today) getting closer to just shelving it, for the umpteenth time in the city's history. If it is shelved and SmartTrack is built, is THAT enough to facilitate the Yonge extension? I don't know, maybe.

I just think there's gotta be a co-ordinated effort to just do it already; no one wants to see the entire TTC undermined in the process but the region is so interconnected now that Toronto's constant reversals and dithering are having more far-reaching effects than they used to.

As for Mark's notion of an express Yonge line. It'd be nice if they'd have thought of that back in the 50s but I think it's an impossibility for all sorts of reasons. Ideally, yeah, I'd love to see a line that stopped at (for example) Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton, St. Clair, Bloor....but, sadly, it's pure fantasy. We've got to do the best with what we've got.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Did the TTC and city council pass motions stating it can't go forward until those improvements are made? Nah. They only did that for Yonge; that's my point. Instead of imposing those conditions, they imposed a new property tax and wasted $80M cancelling the LRT contracts to make sure it happens. Why the double standard? We know why

Double standard? Give me a break

The Yonge North is expected to move 25,000 pphpd. That is more than the usage of the entire Bloor-Danforth subway! That is why it had those restrictions placed on it.

SSE will move only marginally more people than the SRT. It won't have any where near the impact that YN will have.

If SSE were moving 25,000 pphpd, I'm sure the TTC would be screaming bloody murder over the B-Y situation.

 

[GenerationW]

TTC is under no obligation to operate the thing. Give that this extension will push Line 1 to 2/3 of route capacity at Finch Station, it's not inconceivable that the TTC would refuse to sign off on this.

this extension provides very little benefit to the City of Toronto, so I don't see why Council would okay it if the TTC said no to it.

If the money came through tomorrow, I bet Council (and the TTC) would sign on the dotted line in about three seconds. No one is ever turning down a funded subway, even if we could be screwed by Yonge without a DRL.

Not just council. Metrolinx too states that it needs to be phased in with the DRL and other improvements at Yonge and Finch:

http://www.metrolinx.com/en/docs/pdf/nextwave/Fact_Sheet_Yonge_North_Subway_EN.pdf

Metrolinx simply adopted what Council passed. Before that, Metrolinx barely knew what the DRL was.

I don't disagree but...no one is pushing this. Not even York Region..

York Region has never stopped pushing this.

Perhaps that's where it should end up. But that shouldn't be the opening bid. The opening bid is ... Toronto doesn't need this subway. You want it, you pay for it. We have higher priorities and an approaching debt limit.

I'm all for Toronto playing hardball on a funding formula, but unfortunately that horse has left the barn. The time to do that with York Region was regarding Spadina.

 

[innsertnamehere]

on the 33/33/33 split model toronto would owe roughly $300 million for this line, as roughly 1/3rd of the line is in Toronto.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

on the 33/33/33 split model toronto would owe roughly $300 million for this line, as roughly 1/3rd of the line is in Toronto.

That's a damned bargain. I wouldn't have guessed it was quite that low. Call it $500M, for the sake of argument and, in a cost-benefit analysis (new development and revenue + buses off the road), you're probably 5-10X better off than spending $4B on Scarborough. I just made that number up, but still; cheap for a subway on Yonge Street with a connection to a major transit hub.

Metrolinx simply adopted what Council passed. Before that, Metrolinx barely knew what the DRL was.

That's probably not true. Indeed, I bet the pros at Metrolinx knew the importance more than Toronto staff. It was on the 25-year Big Move plan, after all. As said before, the great irony is that it was this extension that put the DRL on TTC's radar so hard in the first place, as if they'd totally forgotten about their capacity issues downstream and the need for this line which first surfaced in, what, the 50s? It was only when the extension moved so fast that they "remembered." And now this super-important line they should have found a way to build 20 or 30 years ago is getting pushed back by Scarborough and Smart Track. iPods don't go in and out of fashion with teenagers as fast as foundational transit projects do with Toronto City Council.

Double standard? Give me a break

The Yonge North is expected to move 25,000 pphpd. That is more than the usage of the entire Bloor-Danforth subway! That is why it had those restrictions placed on it.

SSE will move only marginally more people than the SRT. It won't have any where near the impact that YN will have.

Man, do you not see the absurdity of this argument?!
"We're building a POINTLESS subway! You're talking about POTENTIALLY VERY SUCCESSFUL SUBWAY! Obviously council and TTC approved the pointless one with no caveats! No double standards here!"

And that's ignoring that this pointless line is eating up funds and resources that could have gone to the DRL, making the whole thing exponentially worse.

Really, up is down and black is white when it comes to transit planning in this town.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

If the money came through tomorrow, I bet Council (and the TTC) would sign on the dotted line in about three seconds. No one is ever turning down a funded subway, even if we could be screwed by Yonge without a DRL.

Metrolinx simply adopted what Council passed. Before that, Metrolinx barely knew what the DRL was.

York Region has never stopped pushing this.

I'm all for Toronto playing hardball on a funding formula, but unfortunately that horse has left the barn. The time to do that with York Region was regarding Spadina.

Please find a quote from YR from end of last summer to right now. Go ahead, I'll wait. The budget had the line going to Steeles. And the smear against Metrolinx about the DRL is unfair and uncalled for given they're doing the leg work.

 

[Forgotten]

All of this arguing about need is fine and all but you're forgetting one thing: If the Yonge line isn't extended to RHC in one shot, TJ O'Pootertoot's self-admitted land holdings in Thornhill won't see full property value uplift. That's why the sarcasm drips heavy when he derides the SSE. That's why he's so defensive with regards to the criticism of the pie in the sky renderporn. That's why it all has to be built in its entirety and NOW before the wool is lifted from everyone's eyes.

York's delusions are the reason why the region is drowning in massive crippling debt like a failed European state.

 

[GenerationW]

Please find a quote from YR from end of last summer to right now. Go ahead, I'll wait.

I don't do UT assignments for free.