[Asterix]

- "Ok well then where is the discussion for construction of the DRL?"
- "Well we don't have the money to build the DRL that's why we're building the LRT network"
- "But won't the money spent on the LRT network pay for a DRL?"
- "Well yes but it won't serve as many areas as the LRT network"
- "So you decided to build LRT's in two previously identified subway corridors and ignored another all for the low low price of ~$20 billion?"
- "But we don't have the money for subways"

To be fair, while yes, TC money in theory could build a lot of a DRL, that isn't really a possible outcome (aside from the fact shovels have already gone in the ground for Sheppard and will soon do so for Eglinton). (And I don't believe there is anywhere near $20 billion currently committed for funding TC.)

The province has said that TC money is for TC and not subject to being switched to some new subway project (which hasn't even undergone much in the way of detailed planning).

When it comes to TC money, either we use it to build as much of TC as possible, or we don't build anything (including subways, whether Sheppard, DRL or Bloor-Danforth extensions).

As mentioned by others, arguing against canceling TC in favour of these other wish lists is counter productive.

Going forward perhaps we should be ensuring that whatever future projects are conceived, that the DRL is of the first priority. That means communicating this now to municipal, provincial and probably even federal politicians, not waiting until they've dreamed up something else, started building it and then complaining that there was no public consultation.

 

[LAz]

How much 'more metro'? The bulk of TC money currently on the table is for the tunneled portion of Eglinton. Surface lines of TC are in the $50 million/km ballpark. Tunneling, whether for subways or near-subway LRT is on the order of $300 million/km. You can build a lot more lines, serving a lot more people with surface LRT than you can with subways. Some might argue this is more bang for your buck.

OH, so you are concerned for both people and money?? Why didn't you say so. There's a simple solution. Bus rapid transit. Cheaper than LRT. It's not looked into... so naturally that people and cost is not the main deal behind the thoughts going into this.

Eglinton is not a metro. It's an underground tram. Metro implies high capacity heavy rail.

That makes absolutely no sense, given that Yonge is above capacity. Below capacity means peak passengers per hour per direction less than 10,000 to 15,000. Sheppard East of Don Mills to VP will be about 5,000 in 2030s.; the Yonge line is over 30,000 now.

This is just a bunch of bullshit. The numbers were reduced on purpose from the old sheppard subway figures on the 1990s. Think that is an accident? It's on purpose. Further, the figures are not sheppard to VP, but the entire length of the SELRT line. Hence they were comparing apples and oranges.
I tell those experts FU, just like the people of Roxbury, Boston told experts FU.

If this is being decided by politicians on the TTC board and by provincial politicians giving money to Metrolinx, isn't that a form of accountability?

Both those guys are handicapped incompetent idiots. If in about 25 years they managed to only build the sheppard stub line, then indeed they are incompetent idiots.

Suggestions of an LRT line "impairing" the street seems to suggest a bias towards personal vehicle transportation. Shouldn't the more relevant stat be the capacity of the road to move people? If you can put 50 - 100 or more people in two or three car LRT trains (as I believe they plan to run on Eglinton), is that not preferable to using the same road space for another lane of cars that are moving about 20 - 30 people?

You are trying to wiggle your way out of this issue. There is no bias towards the cars, but towards the human being.
If you care so much about money build some BRT. On the other hand, there is no reason why you should not extend the subway as planned. As the other guy said a few posts ago - that was the priority until this TC b.s. came up.
Instead of a fast metro we are getting a slow tram. They want to increase travel times on purpose rather than making them smaller.
I'll tell you what, the guys who benefit the most from tramsit city are the car and highway lobbies. They would be in big shit if there was to be a big expansion of metro lines. Instead with the expansion of sub-par tram lines people are going to be more likely to stay in their own personal vehicles than switch. The number of people switching will be less.

However I am not convinced that there are, or will be in the foreseeable future, demand numbers to justify the expense of such a subway line, especially when more bang for the subway dollar can be achieved by a DRL. And even with a full east-west line, what are the majority of current and future travel patterns of people using the line? Will not most of them still be looking to go south to the downtown core?

Exactly, they are using it to go to the downtown... that's the exact problem, that the uses of the line are impaired/limited.

DRL costs a whole lot more, if I'm not mistaken.

The province has said that TC money is for TC and not subject to being switched to some new subway project (which hasn't even undergone much in the way of detailed planning).

Oh don't worry, when the next mayor cancels tramsit city, there will hopefully be another plan. They will give funding. Don't worry. Someone just has to have the guts to ask for money. Quite frankly, there is no reason why they would say no. If they wanted to give 20 billion, then they would give a smaller amount over a shorter time or the expansion of metro lines.

As mentioned by others, arguing against canceling TC in favour of these other wish lists is counter productive.

No man, the cancelation of Tramsit City is key. Only that way can they understand to not fuck around with such a b.s. plan that was made without any citizen participation.
End the authoritarian planning methods! Protest, rebel, do whatever it takes, just oppose TC! Everyone should! It's our duty towards not just ourselves but towards the city and our future offspring!

 

[GraphicMatt]

You do understand that extensive consultation sessions have been held on all the TC lines currently funded and will be held on future TC lines should any of them also receive funding, right?

 

[gweed123]

I don't buy this "it's already been funded, it's a done deal, no point in trying to debate it" argument. If that were true, Ottawa would have LRT going out to a corn field right now. Instead it's getting a rational, comprehensive transit plan geared towards citizens instead of developers. No reason Toronto can't do the same.

I also don't buy the "the money was allocated ONLY for Transit City" argument. Ottawa got the exact same amount of funding for its new LRT plan as it did for its old one. Same Prov gov't. Same Fed gov't. So again, why can't Toronto do the same?

 

[W. K. Lis]

Conversion of Eglinton to "Subway" will be an operational thing. One day they'll simply operationally separate the central grade separated part and the outer LRT part. The line will always be run with low-floor stock, though once completely grade-separated there is nothing stopping you from coupling more units together, putting in a state-of-the-art ATC system, and running the line with a capacity that handily exceeds the YUS today.

Calgary is running into this very same dilemma and will have a mixture of high-floor and low-floor LRT lines and vehicles because interconverting is difficult and expensive and costs more than maintaining two separate rolling stock types.

If staged correctly, once the centre and peripheral segments operate separately it should be possible to extend the "subway" part of it with minimal disruption as demand warrants.

The stations have already been designed to be roughed in for full heavy rail train lengths but at opening about half will be low platform for initial use. At a future date, they can convert the roughed in portion for heavy rail use, and extend the platform later. Or they could get make it all low-floor platforms.

 

[Rainforest]

At this point, an outright cancellation of SELRT will do more harm than good. The only advantage of that would be keeping the corridor potentially open for the subway extension, but the chances of such extension in the short or medium term are quite dubious.

The main disadvantage of such cancellation is that spending even modest amounts of transit money to pay cancellation fees will leave a bad taste and discourage future investment in transit by all levels of governments. Looking at the bigger picture, it's better to accept the imperfect SELRT and move on to improving transit in other parts of the city.

Also, note that although SELRT may not be the optimal application of funds, it won't be as useless as some people here paint it. True, few people are lucky enough to live and work on the same street, and for those who have to commute a long distance, SELRT will be slowish. But it will be somewhat better than the bus it replaces. Moreover, people tend to go shopping, choose doctors, kindergartens / schools for children etc in the neighborhood; for that kind of trips, medium-speed LRT is adequate.

Another advantage of SELRT is the construction of Conlins yard, which can later be used to support less controversial LRT lines in the east end. I am thinking of the Scarborough Kingston Road line (Kennedy Stn - Eglinton - Kingston - Morningside to UTSC), as well as McCowan North and / or Kennedy North.

 

[The Mad Navigator]

At this point, an outright cancellation of SELRT will do more harm than good. The only advantage of that would be keeping the corridor potentially open for the subway extension, but the chances of such extension in the short or medium term are quite dubious.

The main disadvantage of such cancellation is that spending even modest amounts of transit money to pay cancellation fees will leave a bad taste and discourage future investment in transit by all levels of governments. Looking at the bigger picture, it's better to accept the imperfect SELRT and move on to improving transit in other parts of the city.

Also, note that although SELRT may not be the optimal application of funds, it won't be as useless as some people here paint it. True, few people are lucky enough to live and work on the same street, and for those who have to commute a long distance, SELRT will be slowish. But it will be somewhat better than the bus it replaces. Moreover, people tend to go shopping, choose doctors, kindergartens / schools for children etc in the neighborhood; for that kind of trips, medium-speed LRT is adequate.

Another advantage of SELRT is the construction of Conlins yard, which can later be used to support less controversial LRT lines in the east end. I am thinking of the Scarborough Kingston Road line (Kennedy Stn - Eglinton - Kingston - Morningside to UTSC), as well as McCowan North and / or Kennedy North.

The SELRT will do JUST FINE.

You'd think you people would be appreciative to not looking a gift horse in the mouth anymore....

 

[Rainforest]

I don't buy this "it's already been funded, it's a done deal, no point in trying to debate it" argument. If that were true, Ottawa would have LRT going out to a corn field right now. Instead it's getting a rational, comprehensive transit plan geared towards citizens instead of developers. No reason Toronto can't do the same.

I also don't buy the "the money was allocated ONLY for Transit City" argument. Ottawa got the exact same amount of funding for its new LRT plan as it did for its old one. Same Prov gov't. Same Fed gov't. So again, why can't Toronto do the same?

Ottawa did the right thing, but I doubt that doing same to SELRT will be the right thing. Ottawa's situation is different, it is a smaller city and has only 2 or 3 possibilities for adding a backbone transit corridor that makes any sence at all. By cancelling the second-best option, they got a reasonable shot at getting the best option funded.

In Toronto, one can name 8 or 10 corridors that potentially compete for funding. Something will definitely get funded in any event, but the funding saved by cancelling SELRT will not get transferred to another transit project. It will likely be used to offset the growing debt on provincial books, and be lost for transit.

 

[Rainforest]

The SELRT will do JUST FINE.

You'd think you people would be appreciative to not looking a gift horse in the mouth anymore....

I don't regard it as a gift horse, it is funded with my tax dollars amongst others.

Although I think that proceeding with SELRT is the best course of action at this time, we should not over-glorify it. It would be counterproductive if TTC just draws a new solid line on its map and falls into belief that now they have a rapid transit line all the way to Morningside. We should think of what this line can and cannot do in reality, and try to mitigate any shortcomings by adding other network elements.

One point I'd pay attention to is the connection from SELRT to Bloor - Danforth corridor. The connection at Sheppard / Progress is too far east IMO, people from the ceentral parts of SELRT will likely use buses to get on BD rather than backtrack there. Smitherman's BD subway extension plan currently does not have even that connection. Meanwhile, a decent connection to the BD corridor would make SELRT more useful, since more people would only travel on SELRT for 10 or 15 min and then its speed is less important for them.

For the same reason, a better frequency on Stouffville GO train line and a partial fare integration between GO and TTC would improve the performance of SELRT.

 

[Asterix]

OH, so you are concerned for both people and money?? Why didn't you say so. There's a simple solution. Bus rapid transit. Cheaper than LRT. It's not looked into... so naturally that people and cost is not the main deal behind the thoughts going into this.

While BRT may have it's advantages, it certainly isn't a magic solution to the problems TC is trying to address (not saying that LRT is a magic solution either, just that anyone putting forward the belief that any one thing is perfect just has not seriously looked at the situation).

BRT certainly would not be conducive on Eglinton, for example, through the central 12km of the line (and subway isn't a rational economic solution outside that central segment).

Eglinton is not a metro. It's an underground tram. Metro implies high capacity heavy rail.

And I stated Eglinton is a metro where? In the underground portion, running multi-car trains with ATC, it will have near-subway capacity.

Both those guys are handicapped incompetent idiots. If in about 25 years they managed to only build the sheppard stub line, then indeed they are incompetent idiots.

I'm just not following this train of thought (aside from the fact that there are more than two municipal and provincial politicians). You demand openness and accountability from those who make the decisions, so presumably that means you don't want a private corporation or a backroom meeting of political appointees (like, say, Metrolinx). Elected politicians are accountable to the electorate on a regular basis.

But now you complain that politicians are incompetent idiots, presumably meaning you'd rather things were planned by other, non-accountable experts (who are only 'experts' if their plans happen to be what you think they should be).

You are trying to wiggle your way out of this issue. There is no bias towards the cars, but towards the human being.

Say what? My bias most certainly towards the human being as they are the ones being counted in the capacity of a road to transport them. The more human beings that can be moved along a given road within a given time, the better, both for those specific human beings and for the rest of society. With that bias, I would tend to give greater preference to 100 people in streetcars than 20 people in cars. Some view those in cars are more equal than others, but that isn't something I'd agree with.

If you care so much about money build some BRT. On the other hand, there is no reason why you should not extend the subway as planned.

That is a pretty disjointed conclusion as it is not a black or white, BRT or subway option. Subways quite simply cost many times more than surface LRT. If one believes that there will not be subway level demand on a route in the foreseeable future, then it makes more sense to build several kms of surface LRT than one km of subway.

While LRT can cost more than BRT, it also can have a greater capacity (while also requiring few operators - important for costs given the percentage of the TTC operating budget that goes to salaries).

But yes, I understand some people would rather have that much more limited subway.

I'll tell you what, the guys who benefit the most from tramsit city are the car and highway lobbies. They would be in big shit if there was to be a big expansion of metro lines. Instead with the expansion of sub-par tram lines people are going to be more likely to stay in their own personal vehicles than switch. The number of people switching will be less.

So it's a cost-benefit analysis then. If, for example, building a given line (say Eglinton) as LRT encourages 3000 more people to use it rather than existing buses, but building it as subway (for several billion dollars more) encourages 6000 more people to use it rather than existing buses, it is an economical decision? (This is starting from the assumption that the bus system on Eglinton, at least through the central portion, is at capacity and can not handle any increase in demand, necessitating something being done.)

Exactly, they are using it to go to the downtown... that's the exact problem, that the uses of the line are impaired/limited.

So the problem is the people using the Sheppard subway as part of their trip downtown? Are you suggesting they should instead be directed to travel somewhere else? What if they want to get to their job downtown?

DRL costs a whole lot more, if I'm not mistaken.

Absolutely DRL will cost billions. It's got to go through tight spaces with a lot of existing infrastructure. But until you come up with a way to convince all those people using Sheppard en route to downtown or all those other people streaming in to Finch en route to downtown not to actually go downtown, then you need to address the very real issue that the Yonge line simply can not handle any more riders during peak periods.

This is not a matter of 'it would be better if we could take the subway all the way to STC', but 'we NEED to relieve the Yonge line'.

Oh don't worry, when the next mayor cancels tramsit city, there will hopefully be another plan. They will give funding. Don't worry.

Sure, I'll put my faith in someone who has little to no record of working with others to magically convince the province that despite their recent assertion to specifically allocate their money to TC, they should instead cancel that funding and put it towards some to-be-determined and planned subway addressing a small segment of the city. Nothing at all to worry about.

No man, the cancelation of Tramsit City is key. Only that way can they understand to not fuck around with such a b.s. plan that was made without any citizen participation.

I believe someone else has pointed out how your claim of no citizen participation is flawed, if not outright false. Just because they didn't set up a discussion forum in your living room doesn't mean it didn't occur.

End the authoritarian planning methods! Protest, rebel, do whatever it takes, just oppose TC! Everyone should! It's our duty towards not just ourselves but towards the city and our future offspring!

I thought you previously said some portions of TC did make sense to you? It's difficult to follow just what your position is in this case.

 

[nfitz]

This is just a bunch of bullshit. The numbers were reduced on purpose from the old sheppard subway figures on the 1990s. Think that is an accident? It's on purpose.

Enough with the conspiracy theories. I used the 2002 RTES number for Sheppard to VP; poiint me to the 1990s numbers you allege were higher. Are you saying the 2002 RTES numbers are bullshit?

 

[nfitz]

Ottawa did the right thing, but I doubt that doing same to SELRT will be the right thing. Ottawa's situation is different, it is a smaller city and has only 2 or 3 possibilities for adding a backbone transit corridor that makes any sence at all. By cancelling the second-best option, they got a reasonable shot at getting the best option funded.

Also ... as far as I understand it, the old Ottawa plan had a fatal flaw. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the maximum capacity of the O-Train through downtown didn't even meet the current usage.

 

[rbt]

Enough with the conspiracy theories. I used the 2002 RTES number for Sheppard to VP; poiint me to the 1990s numbers you allege were higher. Are you saying the 2002 RTES numbers are bullshit?

It is possible even the 2002 RTES numbers are high as they were based on predictions made before Sheppard opened. Sheppard had lower than expected ridership (after gutting rider expectations due to truncating the line).

That said, an over-estimate that is short pretty much makes the argument.

 

[Filip]

The ridership isn't' as expected due to the line not being completed.

This whole debacle with Transit City has left a sour taste in my mouth regarding the TTC. Making such a 180 in transit planning doesn't even have a precedence. Decades of planning were just thrown out the window for tramsit city (good term Laz). I cannot support this, it's a waste of money.

 

[gweed123]

Also ... as far as I understand it, the old Ottawa plan had a fatal flaw. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the maximum capacity of the O-Train through downtown didn't even meet the current usage.

It would have been barely treading water by 2019, even the plan that called for surface LRT said in the report that other options would need to be examined at that point, something that the "the tunnel is too expensive" crowd seem to want to ignore.

My point was that hitting the reset button doesn't mean the sky is going to fall. This whole idea of "it's TC or nothing" I think is setting up a false premise. Ottawa has gotten nearly back to the point where it was 4 years ago. Given that a lot of the studies for some of the proposed changes have already been done, that timeline can be shortened even more. Resetting certain projects would cause a 2-3 delay, at most. In the grand scheme of things, not the end of the world.