[leopetr]

Why would you want to create the need to transfer at Agincourt when everybody bitches that Transit City requires a technology transfer at Don Mills?.

In the short term, it would be because a large chunk of the complainers are heading to the offices on Consumers Road or along Victoria Park.

 

[gweed123]

In the short term, it would be because a large chunk of the complainers are heading to the offices on Consumers Road or along Victoria Park.

Which a short-term extension to Vic Park would solve. Followed by a longer term extension to Agincourt/STC. But apparently this logic has a bunch of holes in it...

 

[lafard]

Two lines with an interchange would serve Scarborough much better than a loop.

That's the plan... except scrap the 6-stop SRT extension in favour of a much shorter 2-stop subway extension.

 

[nfitz]

Extend the subway to Vic Park, do the grade separation at Agincourt, and build the ROW from Agincourt to Morningside, but run buses down it for the interim. This accomplishes many of the same goals as the SELRT: avoiding the bottleneck along Sheppard from Vic Park to Don Mills stn, get grade separation at the Agincourt GO (which was needed anyway), get an LRT-ready ROW for when the upgrade is needed, and you save money by not having to purchase new rolling stock or build a multi-million dollar vehicle storage facility.

None of the construction contracts would have to be significantly altered. From Agincourt to Morningside, it's basically the exact same construction, except you aren't laying down the rails (you even could if you wanted to, buses run along streetcar tracks all the time). And from Don Mills to Vic Park, well you're tunneling from Don Mills to Consumers anyways. In fact, doing it this way may actually save money compared to the original proposal. You could put whatever is left into putting in queue jump lanes at key intersections on the rest of Sheppard between Agincourt and Vic Park.

Not an unreasonable suggestion. Personally I'd be quite happy to see the LRT end at Victoria Park, stop the subway at Victoria Park, and design it so the subway can be extended in the future with only a stop at Agincourt before dropping south of the 401; and ultimately maintain both LRT and subway service between Agincourt and Victoria Park.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Elected or re-elected Councilors who may have supported Rob Ford, however still want Eglington Crosstown in any form, now, and not later.

From insidetoronto.com:

It may be a new day for Toronto but it could be deja vu for York.

With the election of Rob Ford as mayor comes his campaign promise to eliminate the underground light rail trains (LRT) planned for Eglinton Avenue in favour of heavy rail subways in Scarborough. The mayor-elect said Tuesday he plans to ask the province to funnel the money it has set aside for the Finch, Sheppard and Eglinton LRTs into a Sheppard subway extension to Scarborough Town Centre. Residents want subways, not LRT, Ford has explained, adding he would run express buses along streets like Eglinton.

If approved by the province and its transit planning agency Metrolinx - no certainty - the shift in strategy would echo the decision made by former Premier Mike Harris in 1995 to shut down construction of the Eglinton West subway, including filling back in the tunnel that had already been dug for it west of Allen Road, and build only the Sheppard subway in North York.

"I think it would be devastating for everyone in the former city of York," said Ward 11 (York South-Weston) Councillor Frances Nunziata of Ford's proposal to remove the funding for rapid transit under Eglinton.

Nunziata, who was mayor of the city of York when Harris made his decision to "defer" the Eglinton subway, does not support the TTC's current approved plan for the Eglinton LRT, the first phase of which will open in 2020 from Kennedy Station to Jane Street, because its underground section only runs from Leaside to Black Creek Drive.

Her ward's residents want it to run underground all the way to Jane Street. They don't care about the technology (three-car LRT trains or six-car subway trains), said Nunziata, who supported Ford's mayoralty bid.

The TTC, this spring, rejected running the LRT underground the extra two kilometres west to Jane Street because it would add an extra $200-300 million to the project cost. Also, LRT trains will have to come out at ground level at Black Creek anyway because that's where the train carhouse is planned to be built, stated the agency.

Some of Nunziata's York colleagues also oppose Ford's plan to kill the Eglinton LRT.

"The plan for Eglinton calls for underground rapid transit with service that would be as fast as the Bloor-Danforth subway with similar station spacing," said Josh Colle, the rookie councillor-elect for ward 15 (Eglinton-Lawrence). "In fact, the tunnel is even larger and will accommodate for higher order rail when density permits. We lost rapid transit once on Eglinton in the 1990s and I will work with the incoming mayor and council to ensure that we do get it built this time around."

"(Subways) are two to three times the cost of light rail transit," noted Ward 21 (St. Paul's) Councillor Joe Mihevc in a website post Sunday. "It is imperative to note that the Eglinton LRT is a reality: it will be paid for by the province, extensive community consultation has happened, the engineering designs are being completed and the machines to bore the underground tunnels have been ordered and are being built. Tunnel boring will start in 2012.

"To stop the Eglinton LRT to attempt to create expensive and unfunded subways would waste five years of work and financial investment and set the city back a decade or two."

 

[lafard]

Politically speaking, it's a non-starter. You're pitting maybe a half dozen Scarborough wards against pretty much the rest of the city - the 10 or 15 millerites, and another 10 or so wards that lose out with this "Plan". I doubt you'd even get all, or even most of the scarborough wards on board; Malvern loses 2, possibly 3 new lines and the LRT to UTSC dies too. It also kills the direct TTC airport link, which is politically dangerous. Again, the mayor needs a council but councillors know they will be remembered by constituents if they screw over their own ward in favour of one on the other side of the city.

 

[SlickFranky]

Politically speaking, it's a non-starter. You're pitting maybe a half dozen Scarborough wards against pretty much the rest of the city - the 10 or 15 millerites, and another 10 or so wards that lose out with this "Plan". I doubt you'd even get all, or even most of the scarborough wards on board; Malvern loses 2, possibly 3 new lines and the LRT to UTSC dies too. It also kills the direct TTC airport link, which is politically dangerous. Again, the mayor needs a council but councillors know they will be remembered by constituents if they screw over their own ward in favour of one on the other side of the city.

What do you expect? He's not a transit guy. He's going entirely based on what 6 people in Scarborough told him...they want subways not streetcars. He's just trying to do 'what the people want'. He hasn't bothered to consider any of larger ramifications, because frankly he doesn't care. He doesn't read reports, doesn't pay attention in council, doesn't attend meetings, and I guarantee he doesn't know first thing about Transit City, beyond maybe lines on a map. He's trying to stick to the promises he made campaigning, but hasn't yet realized that most of those promises were borderline retarded.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Plus, his transportation plan seems to be the result of a poll his campaign commissioned that asked people whether they prefer subways or streetcars. Of course the vast majority would choose the former. (I would.)

That kind of populism is irrelevant when it comes to transit planning, especially now.

 

[gweed123]

Not an unreasonable suggestion. Personally I'd be quite happy to see the LRT end at Victoria Park, stop the subway at Victoria Park, and design it so the subway can be extended in the future with only a stop at Agincourt before dropping south of the 401; and ultimately maintain both LRT and subway service between Agincourt and Victoria Park.

That would be one scenario for sure. My main worry with that is the the added cost of building the entire ROW between Vic Park and Agincourt may put the project over budget. The idea was that the funds from building the ROW from Vic Park to Agincourt should be enough to offset the cost of extending the subway from Don Mills to Vic Park (SELRT tunnel + that little extra bit that WOULD have been surface). The idea is to come up with a solution that would cost the same as what is being done now, so that no additional funds need to be asked for.

Funds for the tunnel stay as they are, funds from the ROW from Consumers to Agincourt go into extending the subway to Vic Park. ROW east of Agincourt is built as planned, but runs buses instead of LRT for the interim. This saves having to build the vehicle storage facility now. The funds from that go into doing signal priority and queue jump at major intersections between Vic Park and Agincourt. Once further funds become available, the subway is extended to Agincourt, and the ROW east of Agincourt is upgraded to LRT (pretty much only adding it tracks). Subway from Don Mills to Vic Park, queue jump lanes from Vic Park to Agincourt, BRT in-median from Agincourt to Morningside. That should run about the same cost as the SELRT, and would provide the same level of service.

 

[rbt]

The idea was that the funds from building the ROW from Vic Park to Agincourt should be enough to offset the cost of extending the subway from Don Mills to Vic Park (SELRT tunnel + that little extra bit that WOULD have been surface).

You actually need to target about 80% of current funding. Expected inflation for the construction industry is in the 5% per year range (Eglinton EA included annual expected values for contract staging/costing). A 4 year delay will eat ~20% of your the currently allocated funds.

A change to subway will take time for engineering, waiting on TBMs (re-use Spadina's probably), some time for political manoeuvring and resigning agreements (It could take 3 years to get a new three-party agreement in place).

 

[SlickFranky]

Doesn't this is all presuppose that B-D gets extended as subway as well? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood the maintenance/storage facility would serve both Sheppard and SRT. The BRT vs LRT savings are negligible when building a proper ROW anyway, as the costs of laying the actual rails and wiring are minimal. The big BRT saving are in half-assed HOV lane use, and we can all agree that's not sufficient here. It seems we're getting back to the same old argument really....do we want 3x1 or 1x3? More of less, or less of more?

Personally, over either option, I'd like to see Go's mandate in the 416 drastically changed. Providing frequent, fast, all day service on these lines should be the priority. The Go-owned ROWs are severely underused. We need to get that owned-network expanded, get signaling bumped up to where 5-10 min frequency is possible, and then to start connecting our long-distance 416 riders to those trains. We can't keep sending full subway trains out from Finch and expecting the rest of the system to function. My only real concern with TC is that, by improving transit on subway feeders, it exacerbates the bottlenecks in our current system, and no SELRT variation or Sheppard subway extension scheme changes that fact. We need massively expanded Go and a DRL, and we need them both yesterday. What happens on Sheppard is secondary to the larger issue. Shit, it's secondary to at least 2-3 other transit lines. IMO, we could sit on Sheppard pretty much as is for another 10 years. Although the jam at the 404 is begging for some kind of tunnel, massively expanded service to Agincourt (and Oriole, and several stations a bit further north) could handle a lot of that problem.

I'll map out my plan (for that thread) at some point, but I think it's fairly straightforward.

And for transparency's sake, as to my own personal bias...I don't really have any; I commute from Little Italy to Steeles E, off peak and counter flow both ways. Everyday I get seats on the streetcar, and subway, and the express bus through the burbs. None of these improvements will effect me in any way. If anything, improved Go service might decrease the need for my 53E/F.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The new light rail vehicles are to be 2.65 m wide.

That makes them wider than the new streetcars at 2.591 m wide.

The new Rocket subway cars will have the same outside width as the old subway cars: 3.134 m (10' 3 3/8") wide.

For comparison, in the New York City subway there are two widths. The New York City subway cars are: 3.0 m (10') (BMT/IND) wide or 2.67 m (8' 9") (IRT) wide.

The Montreal Metro cars are 2.5 m (8' 2.4") wide.

That means the light rail vehicles will be wider than the Montreal Metro cars and about the same width as the New York IRT subway cars. In fact, the IRT cars are only 15.65 m long, making the light rail vehicles almost twice in length as the NYC IRT subway cars. The LRV's will be 30 m in length.

The main difference will be that the light rail vehicles will use the overhead catenary for power, instead of the third power rail.

 

[gweed123]

You actually need to target about 80% of current funding. Expected inflation for the construction industry is in the 5% per year range (Eglinton EA included annual expected values for contract staging/costing). A 4 year delay will eat ~20% of your the currently allocated funds.

A change to subway will take time for engineering, waiting on TBMs (re-use Spadina's probably), some time for political manoeuvring and resigning agreements (It could take 3 years to get a new three-party agreement in place).

I would expect the delay would be 2 years max. Like I said before, the subway extension to Vic Park has already been EA'd, and if I'm not mistaken, preliminary engineering done on it as well. The ROW construction east of Agincourt would continue as it is today, no interruption necessary. Designing a few intersections to add in queue jump lanes is a matter of months, not years. The good thing about BRT is that you don't need the entire line up and running before you start using portions of it. The ROW could be used before the tunnel is completed. So even if the tunnel delays the project by another 2 years, the queue jump lanes and in-median ROW will already be providing an enhanced service from what currently exists, so it's not like any improvements at all are stalled until the tunnel is operational.

 

[gweed123]

Just to visually show what I've been talking about, here's this:

 

[LAz]

Weed, how feasible is it to take the subway one more stop eastwards?