Kay...you throw out a lot of figures but try and think about them. How one can extrapolate the cost of a mostly elevated and at-grade DRL from that of a totally underground (and massively overbuilt) Spadina extension is beyond me. Moreover, a DRL would also allow the subtraction of the Don Mills and Waterfront West streetcar costs, plus the cost of whatever inevitable project actually connects with the Jane and Don Mills streetcars to get people downtown rather than jamming onto B-D and Yonge.
I never priced DRL. I simply priced 120 km of subway - without specifiying location, based on the most recent estimates. The Spadina costs are similiar to the Sheppard cost (once you account for inflation). Obviously, it's very approximate.
I was simply pulling the $4 billion for Transit City and replacing with the 2/3 of the approximately $45 billion that 120 km of subway would cost.
I'm not sure where you divined $4 billion for Transit City, since its project cost is currently running around $9 billion.
The TTC priced Transit City at $6 billion back in March 2007. These are the numbers that were around when the Ontario funded MoveOntario 2020. TTC's own website notes that "
today's provincial funding announcement for the TTC's Transit City plan, providing two-thirds of the required $6 billion funding needed to complete the project. ". Obviously, a 50% bloat in the cost, is going to raise questions of how much will be built.
My whole point was simply that there aren't unlimited funds. The province committed $4 billion for LRT costed at $6 billion. A similiar length of subway is in the ballpark of $45 billion. My point - and only point, is that if Toronto has proposed 120 km of subway instead of 120 km of LRT, then it is not conceivable that Ontario would have announced $30 billion of funding last June.
The originally-planned first phase of the DRL from Spadina to Danforth would require about 4.5 km of tunnel, plus 3km completely at grade in an established, vacant right-of-way. The latter shouldn't cost more than at most $20 million per kilometre (and that's generous), while the we can use nfitz's inflated Spadina figures of $250 million per kilometre for the tunneled portions. That's $1,125 million plus $60 million or $1,185 billion for the entire thing, roughly approximated. I'd say that's a damned good deal.
I'm not 100% sure at your distances, looking at
http://transit.toronto.on.ca/images/subway-5113-01.gif - Church to Spadina was in a subway tunnel. And I'm not sure the right-of-way is vacant any longer, given the new yard at Cherry Street, various redevelopment proposals, and competition from SuperGo which would share the alignment from Eastern to Cherry (I think that's closer to 2 km than 3 km).
Looks like about 6 km of tunnel to me, and 2 km of surface. I really don't think $40 million will get you that surface route - including a new bridge over the Don River - but for argument's sake, let's take it. About $1.6 billlion. You'd need tail track at both Pape and/or Spadina; they put about 800 metres at Sheppard/Yonge station - so I'd assume they'd do similiar at Pape, so that would run you another $200 million or so (and I'm ignoring the service tunnels that would have to connect to the BD line - or a connection to the YUS line). So $1.8 billion?
I think this would be an excellent addition to MoveOntario 2020 - it is a bargain. Some kind of connection from Pape (or wherever) to downtown is part of the Don Mills Road Transit Improvements EA. Subway is supposed to be out of consideration, but I have a hard time seeing how you would do anything but a tunnel of some kind.
At most this is a $2 billion project. And I can see a lot of reasons it should be funded. But it's a finite amount, of similiar magnitudes to the 2 other subway lines that are funded. It would probably be a better bang for the buck than yet another subway extension in North York.
If someone can get money for this out of the Ontario government in addition to what has already been funded, then that would be great!
