Updated July 15, 2010 at 11:00 am:
With luck, this will be the last update in this thread.
At the TTC meeting on July 14, there was a long presentation and discussion of the issues at Donlands and Greenwood Stations. The presentation materials are not yet online as the project pages are being updated by the TTC to reflect recent changes.
Greenwood Station
TTC staff recommended and the Commission approved that the community’s alternative proposed second exit route be used. This route passes through the back yards of numbers 11 and 15 Linsmore rather than through a site now occupied by any house.
The first version of this scheme included the expropriation of the house now under renovation at 9 Linsmore. A newspaper report of the affected landowner gives some idea of the background and suggests that his 7-year renovation project is a long-standing annoyance to at least some in the neighbourhood.
In any event, it appears that other owners on Linsmore may be willing to sell, and one way or another, that’s where the exit will go. The only remaining issue for the TTC is to determine the location of a sewer that may interfere with the proposed route to the exit, and the feasibility of diverting this sewer to suit the new construction.
Donlands Station
The situation at Donlands is more complex than at Greenwood. TTC staff did a much more thorough job at the Commission meeting, compared with the public meeting a few days earlier, of explaining the standards and calculations used in evaluating the alternatives. Their target for the path length from the point where an exit stair meets the platform to the surface is two minutes. This keeps the total exit time, including getting to the exit on the platform, within the overall code targets.
The original group of exit proposals by the community fails to meet the exit time criterion. However, a new alternative came to light at the Commission meeting. This would link into the east, rather than the west, end of Donlands Station. The exit passages would all lie under roads rather than houses, and the exit building would be on the north-east corner of Donlands & Strathmore where there is now a school parking lot and a vent shaft to the subway. TTC staff will report back on this option once they have a chance to review it.
The most contentious part of the discussion turned on whether the TTC would give approval to any plans on July 14, or would wait until their August 23 meeting to finalize their choice. The community, understandably, does not trust the TTC, and a deferral would have been a sign of good faith from the Commission. Such an action would not have slowed work because the Council meeting at which expropriation will be considered is not until August 25. A TTC recommendation could be taken to Council as supplementary information, a routine process.
On a split vote of 6-3, the Commission decided not to delay approval, and decided to give staff the authority to proceed with the three proposals now on the table: (a) Donlands & Strathmore, (b) the new TTC alternative with a building in the Dewhurst road allowance and (c) the original scheme using property now occupied by 1 & 3 Strathmore.
Staff assured the Commission that they will report back in August with the outcome of their review. More generally, there is a recognition at TTC that a public consultation process is needed for “small” projects that don’t trigger formal Environmental or Transit Project Assessments.
Updated July 12, 2010 at 10:30 pm:
At a public meeting this evening, the TTC presented a review of the options they had originally examined for Donlands and Greenwood Stations’ second exits, as well as comments about alternative schemes put forward by the community. This material is not yet available online, but I hope that it will appear on the TTC’s site in the next few days.
At Greenwood Station, the TTC has accepted the community’s proposed option that would take a tunnel south from the station under the back yards of 11 & 15 Linsmore Cres. emerging in a new exit building to replace the derelict house at 9 Linsmore.
At Donlands Station, the TTC proposes to shift their original planned exit building, which would have required the taking of the houses at 1 & 3 Strathmore Blvd., about 10m to the west. This would place the exit building partly within the roadway of Dewhurst Blvd. This option was not well-received by the community who have argued for various alternatives, notably a point slightly further south and on the west side of Dewhurst.
An issue affecting several of the alternative schemes is that the TTC wants the distance from the platform to the street not to be too long, but they have not defined exactly what this means or cited the standard that would produce an acceptable or unacceptable rating.
When this comes to the TTC for a decision on July 14, there will likely be an effort to split the vote so that each station option is dealt with separately. The Greenwood scheme would proceed, while Donlands would be held back for further consultation. Whether the split-vote tactic will be succeed depends on the lobbying efforts of each side in the debate.
Staff would prefer to get approval for both sites right away and continue consultations afterwards. That, however, effectively says “we are not going to change our minds”.
From the TTC, a request to expropriate property (and any other necessary changes such as narrowing Dewhurst) would go to the August 25 Council Meeting.
I will update this article following the Commission Meeting.
Updated July 7, 2010 at 1:30 pm:
Minutes of the first community meeting have been posted on the TTC’s website. Also available are pages for the Donlands and Greenwood sites, but these show only renderings of the proposed exits, not the details of the below-grade links to the subway or the property requirements.
Updated July 6, 2010 at 11:00 pm:
The TTC will hold a follow-up meeting at Danforth Collegiate & Technical School, 800 Greenwood Avenue, on Monday July 12 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. The purpose, as stated in the notice is:
This meeting is to provide residents of the local community with more information, discuss construction impacts and to consider community proposals, and review alternative options that were previously considered.
Updated June 30, 2010 at 10:00 pm:
A community meeting on June 29th brought TTC staff, Councillors Giambrone and Ootes, and the communities around Greenwood and Donlands stations together for a meeting that ran just over three hours. To everyone’s credit, the discussion stayed focussed and didn’t degenerate into a shouting match between the audience and the presenters.
First off I must congratulate representatives from the two communities whose presentations of neighbourhood concerns and proposed alternative schemes were as good as if not better than those given by the TTC. From my experience with other public participation schemes that have been much more community focussed, I think that starting off with a polished presentation by both sides set the tone for an actual conversation, although at times it was quite animated.
A major concern, separate from the actual design, was the process by which people, especially those whose homes would be expropriated, learned of the TTC’s plans. Sending a general mailing with a drawing that just happens to show your house as a future station entrance is the height of insensitivity, but that’s just what the TTC did. To its credit, the TTC team, headed up by Chair Giambrone, committed to a complete review and improvement of the way they handle this type of situation. Less clear is the role of Councillor Ootes who expressed displeasure with events, but failed to explain why, even though he knew of the plans at least in March 2010, if not earlier, he did not inform the affected homeowners or organize community meetings. He will be gone from Council after October’s election.
The proposed alternatives will be reviewed by the TTC who will meet with community representatives to go over these and over any other schemes the TTC might have considered but discarded. The information will be brought back to another public meeting, likely on July 12, with the intention of still taking a recommendation to the July 14th Commission meeting.
Donlands Station
The proposed exit requires the demolition of a house on the southeast corner of Strathmore and Dewhurst. There are three alternatives proposed for consideration by the TTC:
- Relocate the exit building to the site of an old garage just south of the lane on the west side of Dewhurst opposite number 17.
- Build a tunnel under the lane dividing numbers 14 and 26 Dewhurst to a point where the exit would surface in an existing municipal parking lot behind 14 Dewhurst.
- Build a tunnel south under Dewhurst so that the new exit would surface on Danforth Avenue at Dewhurst.
There are variations on each of these, but broadly this is what community representative have suggested. Their presentation is not yet available online.
Greenwood Station
This station is a trickier situation because the station lies in the middle of a residential block and the new exit cannot be placed at an intersection.
The proposals here are:
- Shift the new exit to the west so that the north-south passage would lie in the back yards of 11 and 15 Linsmore, and the exit building would replace 9 Linsmore which has been unoccupied and under renovation for a considerable period of time.
- Tunnel the north-south passage to Danforth Avenue and emerge through a store front.
My own point of view is that the first of the proposals in each case has a chance of being accepted because each of them stays fairly close to the station and are likely to meet both the distance and cost criteria for the projects.
The second Donlands option (a tunnel under the lane separating 14 and 26 Dewhurst) will likely fail on distance criteria.
Exits on the Danforth itself have problems with distance from the station, but also in the case of Greenwood Station, a tunnel would be required under existing houses to reach the Danforth property. Such a tunnel is not likely possible given that it would be close to the surface (between the roof of the subway station and the street) and would pass under houses that are likely quite difficult to underpin for this sort of construction. Any house that would be tunnelled “under” would almost certainly have to be demolished.
Another consideration, particularly for an exit to Danforth itself, is that the building should include entrance turnstiles given the prominent location.
Further news on this subject awaits the next round of meetings with the TTC.
Original Post from June 23, 2010:
An obscure report at the recent TTC meeting authorized the release of confidential plans for Donlands and Greenwood Stations as a means of aiding public discussion in the affected neighbourhoods. The actual implications are not mentioned in the TTC report, and even the version released after a letter to the General Secretary’s office doesn’t give much detail of what is going on.
I was recently contacted by representatives of both neighbourhoods who found in their mail notices of the impending projects. A few found that there would be substantial easements for construction and new underground structures. A few more found that their houses would be expropriated.
They were not amused.
What is rather odd is that on the same agenda, there was a report about the second exit planned at Woodbine Station which does include detailed drawings including notes about the property taking that would be required. This is not as extensive as in the proposals at Donlands and Greenwood for which no drawings were shown.
As a public service (and because the TTC will only release the info to those who ask for it), here is the material sent to the communities around Donlands and Greenwood Stations.
In both cases, residents have come up with alternative schemes that may prove less intrusive to their neighbourhoods than those put forward by the TTC. I will not discuss these here as the plans may still evolve, and each community is responsible for its own affairs. They have two separate websites.
I hope that the TTC will actually listen with an open mind to alternative proposals for both stations. The organization has a bad history of “knowing what’s best for you” and dismissing critiques and suggestions out of hand. Considering that this is the first anyone in the two neighbourhoods heard of the proposal, the TTC owes people a fair and honest hearing.
Steve Munro 
Andrew , I really hate to say anything negative to a fellow reader but I don’t want to start any feuds here but the way you just commented to Steve here is just plain wrong. We all have a perfect right to our own opinions here and everywhere else in society but I really think you were a bit harsh here. I know that if Steve and I were to lay down every view and opinion on transit in Toronto each one of us has we certainly wouldn’t agree 100 per cent on every thing but there’s still this little thing called respect for others’ opinions. Enough said.
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Thank you, Steve, for posting about the Greenwood and Donlands 2nd exit proposals.
We’re looking forward to our “Community Meeting” in St. David’s Church, 49 Donlands, at 7pm tomorrow night (Tuesday June 29th). Hopefully, the community will have the opportunity to share their concerns and suggest viable alternatives (there are several).
Please read / sign our petition online.
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Hi David…
I agree with you about respecting other people’s opinions. My comment wasn’t directed towards Steve. It was directed towards another commenter who was insulting residents of these areas and spreading misinformation at the same time that he posts arrogant comments slamming other people (as quoted in my last paragraph).
Please note that my earlier comment addressed that other commenter by name (not Steve, obviously) and that the only offensive part of my comment was in quotation marks because it is a quote from that same person.
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Hi Steve,
Once again, thank you for your very informed (and lengthy) earlier response.
An earlier commentor mentioned how much he appreciated the design of the subway entrances/exits in a European city (I believe he was referring to Paris?). I used public transit in Frankfurt, Munich and London in the early 80s and was blown away by how user-friendly and well-designed those systems were – even to tourists who didn’t speak German. It was one of the most significant contributors to our positive impression of those cities. I think the quality of both transit design, and the design process, is of paramount consideration here. The city will have to live with these public transit infrastructure initiatives for decades. Which is advantageous if they’re well-designed, and a burden if they’re not. I’ve worked in IT for many years, and I’ve worked on some spectacularly successful large-scale projects: completed on time and on budget to boot. I’ve also seen some real money-pit stinkers that institutions have had to live with – with considerable on-going expense, inefficiency, and risk. Unfortunately, the TTC planning processes I’ve witnessed thus far are more indicative of the latter than the former.
We could be building systems we can be proud of, whose overall contributions to the community, transportation efficiency, and general quality of life are larger than their parts. But I fear that, instead, we’re making short-sighted changes that we’ll all have to just shut up and put up with.
I’ll beg your indulgence here and ask two or three additional questions (again – to either you or your readers):
From the Introduction section of the TPA document (page 9):
Isn’t this saying – more or less – that this assessment process has no teeth? Or am I missing something? Have you ever seen the TPA used to correct or redress legitimate issues that were not addressed in the planning/consultation phase? What is your opinion of its track record?
Also from page 9:
I note that proponents are only asked to use best practice when determining the “scale and scope”, but not necessarily when conducting “good planning”! Nevertheless, would you know if those environmental assessment “best practices” are named or documented &/or have any official framework that impacted communities could consult? I would also imagine that any projects involving significant impact/change to existing communities should also follow urban planning “best practices”. Would you also happen to know what those might be (off the top of your head!), & under what capacity City Planners are involved in these infrastructure projects (particularly where significant community impact, land purchases &/or expropriation is involved)? Are there transit/infrastructure/urban planning industry equivalents to, say, the ITIL, CMMI or Six Sigma best practice frameworks for IT projects? If so, are our TTC &/or City planners accredited under them?
Steve: The assessment process has teeth, but few and they are rather dull. It is a question more of good will than good practice. Depending on who was in control of various agencies and governments, they could follow the letter of the process and walk over anyone. In that regard, I think the TTC has done fairly well on its TPAs with a considerable degree of preparatory work. I don’t agree with all of it, but they have certainly not stinted on the details. I cannot say the same of Metrolinx, although that agency may still learn what “public participation” really means. I will expand on this more when I write about discussions at today’s Metrolinx meeting.
As for “best practices” etc., these are not defined, and it would be difficult to do so within legislation. It’s one thing to say that a wall must be “this thick” as that is an objective standard, but much harder to define what is meant by “community impact”.
You said: “A challenge to the expropriation is a judicial matter, not one for the Ombudsman.” That makes sense to me. However, I would imagine that the planning/evaluation/consultation process used by TTC &/or city staff to determine which properties should be expropriated in the first place should still fall under jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. Thoughts?
Once again, thank you.
Steve: The appeal of an expropriation is to the courts for judicial review of the premise for the land taking, and the process of determining compensation.
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Well, if I were a property owner there I wouldn’t exactly be amused either. My message to the TTC would be: Build your second entrances if you will but please find some alternative to the taking of peoples’ homes.
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@Andrew: I NEVER said that all people living on Strathmore are against Transit City: I was blasting the mentality people have in this city (which seems to be everywhere) that subways are the solution to all of our problems. People in Toronto have never understood that, and have been blasting Mayor Miller to kingdom come for devising Transit City. They’ve never seemed to understand anything different than cars, buses and subways.
But maybe now they (the people affected by the proposed second exits at Donlands and Greenwood) understand why Miller (and to a certain extent, another city councilor named Gord Perks) wants LRT rather than subways, because now one of the requirements for said subway affects them, and they’re wiling to fight for it not to happen. I never implied that they are all Ford fanatics (although with his popularity and Rossi’s in the stratosphere as it is, I have to wonder)-all I talked about was the mentality that the people of the affected communities seem to have.
Hopefully, they’ll understand that said mentality was (and is) wrongheaded these days, and beyond fighting the exit projects, they’ll also change their thinking about projects like Transit City and not be supporting subway construction all the time, and also not be foolish enough to be supporting-or voting for-either Rossi or Ford.
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I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think we can build a Transit City without expropriation – the important thing is that TTC behave properly toward the property owners.
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Hi Steve,
Thanks for bringing this issue up and giving it the attention it deserves.
At the community meeting last night it was mentioned that the College Station 2nd Exit plan was on hold due to “negotiations with a developer”. This came as a surprise as College is #1 on their list of stations that needs a second exit for safety reasons (I use College, and this is clearly true).
Do you know what the nature of these negotiations are? It seems odd that a truly important safety improvement is being help up while these 2 projects which are much lower on the list are being pushed through. While at the meeting the TTC did offer to consider alternative plans (which is greatly appreciated), it seems the overall timeline is still being help to.
Thanks for all your great work informing the public!
Steve: The problem with any new exits from stations downtown is that they must go out through private properties. Unlike houses in residential neighbourhoods, these are not buildings where the TTC can just huff and puff and blow the house down. They actually have to talk to the owners and think about alternative ways to incorporate exit pathways through others’ buildings. There’s definitely a double standard here comparing how people were treated in the announcement of the Donlands/Greenwood projects. While the TTC is taking the heat for this, we might also ask why Councillor Ootes dodged the whole question of how long he knew about the proposal and didn’t talk to his constituents, or, apparently, make any move to get the TTC to look at alternatives.
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Thank you Steve for all your transit support information, allowing concerened citizens to be informed and become involved. I attended the June 29 meeting and found it very well prepared by both groups and well mannered although emotional during the 2 hour meeting with TTC officials. Understandibly stakeholders through homeowner groups make presentations for their critiques and alternatives, yet the response from the TTC is typically one of listening politely then explaining why public input was and is disgarded. This is not consultation at all but calming tactics by a paternalistic TTC management that ignores social and residential impacts/costs in favour of technical issues alone.
The mandate for a city is public works for public use and in the public’s best interest, continuous consultation with which is a necessesity and if the result is technically suboptimal but environmentally and socially minimally intrusive, then the desired balance for public works has been proven as required. This is the mandate for all elected city officials by the voters to whom they must respect above all to be worthy of the voted trust praced into their hands.
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I’ve never liked Councillor Ootes politics … but unless I’m missing something, I don’t see that he did much wrong here. My understanding is that he met with TTC, and they told him that they would meet personally with those immediately impacted, and then hold a public meeting.
He couldn’t start talking about it much then, until TTC met with those involved … and the meeting would be afterwards. I’m not sure I see the point of him doing his own meetings. And if the project came to naught in the meantime (as is so often the case), he’d have merely wound people up for no reason at all.
Perhaps his only failing was not confirming TTC had done, what they said they did. However, the primary blame clearly should go elsewhere.
Steve: A Councillor’s job is to take care of his constituents, not to assume that some other agency will get around to doing his job for him. If there was a possibility of local effects, he should have kept on top of this so that people were not blindsided when the notice came out.
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I really don’t understand the point of these tunnelling mid-block on Strathmore to get to Danforth. With the shallow depths, and the soils in that area, I’d think that you’d have to demolish the house that you went underneath, and the two houses on either side, as they would be all but destroyed in the process. A better solution would be to simply demolish one house, and then excavate a walkway, so as not to impact the two adjacent houses. But I don’t see how either solution give the community anything better.
One simple and cheaper option that might make the residents (other than the one house) happier is to simply turn the exit around so it faces south, and then demolish one store on Danforth to make it into a walkway to the entrance. You still loose a house on Strathmore, but the impacts to the remaining houses would be much smaller, and you get street presence on Danforth for not much more construction.
Steve: Many houses on Strathmore are semi-detached, meaning you have to take two houses to demolish one building.
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After looking at the diagram of Donlands Stn., it’s obvious why the proposed exit is where it is.
From a fire/emergency perspective, the path to the surface needs to be as short and direct as possible.
From a wayfinding perspective, putting the exit at the corner of Dewhurst and Strathmore makes a lot more sense than the alternate locations that the community has proposed.
Sadly, somebody is going to lose their house here, but I can’t see how the community can objectively decide whose house should be saved and whose should be sacrificed — especially over at Greenwood, “turf that house because the owner (who’s renovating it) isn’t living there right now”. Come on.
I agree that the way the TTC notified the affected homeowners was all wrong, but this just reeks too much of NIMBYism. If I were the residents I would instead try to push for as much monetary compensation as possible.
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These stations have survived for 40 plus years and all the sudden the TTC needs to spend millions on new exits? Seems like a very low priority to me. Can’t they get an exemption?
Tearing down residential buildings for exits on quiet residential streets goes against the city’s overall densification policy, which the TTC is meant to support. The plans don’t even show what the new structures would look like. Would they be multi-purpose – containing new housing, retail or community space? Otherwise, it would be mostly underused dead space.
Put this on the back burner and turn off the heat.
Steve: Legally, the exemption already exists by virtue of Building Code requirements that only kick in if and when significant changes to the station were made. For example, the addition of the streetcar loop at Spadina Station triggered the need for the second exit at Walmer Road.
However, there is a Catch-22 here. If there were an emergency, and the station were not up to code, everyone would ask “why not” putting the TTC and the City in a no-win situation.
What is most annoying about this is that if the whole project, starting in 2002, had been run like the EA/TPAs for major transit projects, we would know what the design criteria were in general and could have debated what wiggle room, if any, might exist in the standards. Each site could have been openly evaluated by affected communities and the process would have been well-understood. Springing the idea on people with almost zero notice and an intent to proceed with minimal consultation is a sure guarantee of a negative reaction, something that could have been avoided.
The TTC seems determined to create as much ill will as possible for itself in much that it touches.
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@MarkDowling
“the important thing is that TTC behave properly toward the property owners”
I absolutely agree. But I’m still looking to find out exactly what “behaving properly” would mean. From what I can see thus far there are little or no definitions (or controls) to cover these initial planning and consultation phases.
@MikeRestivo
“The mandate for a city is public works for public use and in the public’s best interest, continuous consultation with which is a necessesity and if the result is technically suboptimal but environmentally and socially minimally intrusive, then the desired balance for public works has been proven as required. This is the mandate for all elected city officials by the voters to whom they must respect above all to be worthy of the voted trust placed into their hands.”
Very well said. Are you running for public office? I tried to follow the link at your “name” but it is invalid at the moment. Based on what you’ve said here I’d certainly consider voting for you.
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This part of Toronto is quite low density and I don’t feel it justifies the current B-D stop spacing. I would retire the Greenwood stop and Chester. A faster trip downtown from all those connecting Scarborough LRTs.
Steve: While you’re at it, you might also ice Rosedale, Christie, Old Mill, Spadina (north), Bessarion, and who knows what else. It’s so thoughtful of suburbanites to close downtown stations to suit their fast travel times while hollering for closer station spacing on proposed LRT/subway routes in their own back yards.
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Steve, I live in the area (between Greenwood and Coxwell) and I have had Neil’s thought. The city isn’t encouraging sustainable development in the area, with a Beer Store lot at the SW corner of Greenwood and Danforth and a new gas station rising at the SE corner, so ridership isn’t going up any time soon.
I think it would be of more assistance to the neighbourhood if Greenwood and Chester were closed or at least made “peak only” stops so that collectors were only assigned when passengers were plentiful and a local “Sheppard East type bus” or a community bus did pickup along the street where retail businesses are.
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Steve, I’m not a suburbanite, just a taxpayer. Wards 29 and 30 which envelope the 2 stations I mentioned have a comparable population density to ward 38 Scarborough Centre. I would submit that they are all suburbia. So I’m completely with you on that one, we shouldn’t have downtown spacing on suburban routes.
Steve: Actually I do not agree with closing these stations. My comment was to contrast those in the suburbs who complain about a longer walk to Transit City stops with the goal of a faster trip downtown once one is on the subway. It’s all about making “my” trip faster at the expense of someone else.
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Close B-D stations? … why these LRT big-gots must be twisting their hair curlers too tight.
Greenwood has a daily ridership of 10,000. Donlands is about 8,000 and Christie is 13,000. Chester is 7,000-8,000. That’s hardly chump change. And for what, to save a couple of minutes? You could probably get the same time savings by operating BD at high acceleration mode.
The idea of a local Bloor-Danforth bus was briefly floated back in 1966 after the subway opened because, get this, people back then thought the stations were TOO FAR apart, and many didn’t want to deal with all those stairs for local trips.
Steve: As you will see in a preceding comment, I agree with you. Indeed the fact that the TTC has resisted a move to high-rate operation, always with an excuse why it cannot be done, shows just how serious they are about improving travel speed. Oddly enough, when they talk about ATO allowing faster trip times, what they don’t mention is that this would be done with high rate on the new TR trainsets. ATO’s contribution is to allow retiming of the “signals” for faster speeds without having to physically change anything on the line.
On BD, they should move to high rate as soon as the line is completely running with T-1 cars given that it ran this way before. Braking markers will have to be moved, but that’s a one-time cost for an ongoing saving in operating costs and reduction in travel time.
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Said Steve: While you’re at it, you might also ice Rosedale, Christie, Old Mill, Spadina (north), Bessarion, and who knows what else.
Well, I would be interested in re-purposing, as it were, Spadina (north). Convert it into the Lowther station it was supposed to be. Alas it won’t happen. People will complain that they can’t walk through the station to get to the B-D, and the TTC would balk at paying another collector.
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M. Briganti, how much of the ridership at Donlands and Greenwood stations is from bus transfers? This ridership could be diverted elsewhere. What is the walk-up traffic?
Saving a couple of minutes isn’t the main issue. Saving the millions of dollars to pay for the labour of booth agents, janitorial, security, and now appropriation and construction costs is very substantial. At what point do we determine that it’s not worth the citizen’s interests?
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Chad — I don’t know, but at Chester it’s obviously all walk-in, so use that as a guide. I have the station usage counts from 1966 and I was surprised to discover that ridership at Donlands and Greenwood hasn’t grown in almost 45 years.
Donlands was 9,320 in 1966, and 7,990 in 2009 — an actual decrease.
Greenwood was 9,885 in 1966, and 10,240 in 2009.
Steve, why can’t BD operate in high-rate now, even with non-T1s? I remember reading a report that when they switched to high-rate and 4 car trains on BD, the Keele-Woodbine run was 7 minutes faster. How much of that was due to high-rate and how much of it had to do with the quicker acceleration of 4-car trainsets vs. 6 and no wye slowdowns I don’t know.
Steve: The TTC claims that the H series cars don’t work very well in high rate. I have been hearing this story for years, and believe it at most for the H-4’s which are soon to be retired. In any event, the TTC will find a new excuse not to run BD in high rate, I am sure.
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Re: closing down odd BD stations – again I think we have to come back to looking at these things from a larger perspective – keeping in mind all relevant urban planning considerations for this area.
The City’s Official Plan (at least the parts of it the OMB isn’t trying to undo) calls for intensification along major transportation corridors. Which should mean that – eventually – the traffic at the less busy stations should increase with infill development.
That said, unless there is a critical need, one would think these exits could be held off until such a time as relevant redevelopment is proposed, and then put in place in tandem as part of larger projects. That way there is less overall disruption to the community, and better opportunity to put options in place that work for the good of the neighbourhood. Until then, if absolutely necessary, a good old-fashioned low footprint emergency exit could suffice.
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Taking out BD stops wouldn’t reduce labour costs by a meaningful margin because more buses and drivers will be needed to pick up the extra permanent route length and associated travel time while maintaining the same headway and reasonable terminal time, although Chester would be an exception to this phenomenon. There’s the cost of a new local bus service overtop (er, a small block away, you know what I mean) the subway as a new added permanent cost as well. This is an abhorrently inefficient and unattractive way to provide transit service, as it increases operating costs while damaging attractiveness of the service.
Subways do not exist for speedy trips to all corners of the city, they exist for capacity that other modes cannot handle at least during peak periods. The economics of subways are far superior when stops are closer together as it results in a more tightly connected network and more convenient system overall for both walk-ins and transfers. Unless there are major natural features like the Don Valley or similar substantial exception (e.g. an airport in the Wilson-Downsview run), subways should stick to close stop spacing to get the highest efficiency and benefit/ROI on the infrastructure. Of course, that means you can’t build subways to the middle of nowhere, as you need to have the demand.
B-D has excellent station spacing between Jane and Coxwell, and should be the model for others. It is counterproductive to consider removing stations from a well-designed (at a MACRO level, not necessarily at a MICRO level) service level for subway infrastructure.
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Is the presentation from the original meeting online? If not, it really should be.
Steve: The TTC doesn’t have a web page for this project. As for the presentations from the community groups, check their websites.
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Karl — it depends how you look at it. If NYC felt the same way, they’d have no 4-track express/local system.
Steve: It’s important to remember what NYC looked like and the money its three subway companies spent on infrastructure when much of that express trackage was built. They have a hard time paying for double track today, let alone express and local.
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It was such a long time ago when private companies sunk vast sums of money into profitable transit and commuter railways, often building parallel lines on the same street to compete with one another, literally tripping over each other. The differences between then and now are like a completely different dimension. I know the automobile had much to do with this, but when exactly did this transition occur? Is there any way up this slippery slope given that all the hoped-for private investment for TBM did not materialize nor was ever realistic? Is it too easy to commute by car, or have we simply shifted to a culture of entitlement and personal isolation?
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Anne said: That said, unless there is a critical need, one would think these exits could be held off until such a time as relevant redevelopment is proposed, and then put in place in tandem as part of larger projects.
Exactly. And how about pro-actively “densifying” some lower usage stations such as Rosedale by selling of air rights and plunking a condo complex on top while redeveloping the station itself? It’s the perfect location and would bring in a cool chunk of change.
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@ Steve
Thanks for posting the links to the renders. I think they reinforce my pre-existing view, which is that Donlands proposal isn’t quite ideal; but work-able; but the Greenwood one looks completely ridiculous (in additional to being non-functional)
I’ll be interested to see what is said by the TTC at the follow-up meeting.
I hasten to add again, that if we are going to cause all this disruption, for good or ill; we really ought to make these entrances as well, it just seems wasteful not to.
One more thought on Donlands, I see only 1 house between the proposed site and Danforth, that really seems a bit unfortunate, not we want to demolish 1 more home…but obviously putting this just a bit further south (closer to Danforth) would seem ideal.
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@Miguel, there was a proposal for a 9-storey building at Rosedale a few years ago; there was a more of a steam-up then that the current exits are causing. The proposal would have wiped out the landscaped area next to the station, that people think is a park (but is TTC property). Aside from that, and the complexity of building over the subway, did I mention the underground creek (Castlefrank) that passes right under the tracks?
I should add, I’m all in favour of intensifying over stations, but it isn’t always as easy as you might think.
Steve: The question of TTC “parks” applied to my home station, Broadview, too. Once upon a time, the TTC expected to turn a tidy profit selling that land for a new building. Ironically, that was before they decided to expand the loop, a change that would have been impossible had they sold the original, larger, park. This land was recently rezoned as “G” and is an official park.
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One does wonder why how these two stations are a priority over other stations that are very busy, such as Dundas. I wouldn’t want to be at the north end of that platform if a fire broke out at the south end!
Steve: Dundas will be connected to the new Ryerson building, I believe, or at least have an exit somewhere near Gould Street. At College, they are negotiating for connections through adjacent property. At Wellesley, a new exit will be built onto Dundonald Street. With Donlands and Greenwood, we are actually getting down toward the end of the list. A major outstanding one is Dundas West, but that’s all tied up in the GO Weston/ARL plans and an unco-operative owner of the building sitting on top of the subway station.
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@Kristian:
Part of it is the automobile, part of it is massive over-investment in asphalt pavement, part of it is land use patterns, and part of it is the failure of fares to keep up with inflation.
Transit is necessary for people to get to and from jobs, and yet we purposely choose to not use this as leverage to extract the maximum possible fare. Minimum wage is $10.20, which means that even the lowest paid worker only needs to work for 0.5 hours to pay for their trip to and form work.
Suppose we made a one-way fare $10 (333% fare hike). People at minimum wage would have to work two hours a day to pay for their trip. It would still be cheaper than taking a taxi, and I suspect it would also still be cheaper than car ownership. Public transit would then a profitable proposition.
Steve: However, at $10 a trip, monthly commuting costs would be $400, and for a family with more than one regular user, transit fares would easily be greater than shelter costs. I will assume that you are having us on with this proposal.
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If the TTC fare rose to $10 a ride, even Steve would start driving.
The above poster must be smoking something. When the TTC fare was 10c, minimum wage was 50c to a $1 — so it’s all in proportion. Nobody would pay even $5 for a TTC ride today, never mind $10.
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When the NYC subway was built, there was no income tax. While the companies paid no income tax, neither did the employees pay any income tax. Not so today.
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The renderings both say the exits are exit-only structures. I recall there being talk of being automated entrances as well. Like Markham (Bathurst) or Walmer (Spadina).
Or am I just misremembering things because I am tired?
Steve: You are misremembering.
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I have talked to my son-in-law about these new exits in general. He is a PhD. and as a part of his studies he had to study the evolution of property and civil rights. He said, that there is a principle in both US and CDN laws, that may be used “against” any property owner, if the “state” as a controller of all properties can prove, that it needs your property or a piece thereof.
I am saddened, that City or TTC would not stand more on the side of the affected property owners and ask for legal “easement” or delay in the application of the “exit law”.
Btw. when I bought my house I have asked my lawyer to provide me with an explanation of all “easements” on my property – I have two.
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Re: Update 4
“they have not defined exactly what this [distance from the platform to the street] means or cited the standard that would produce an acceptable or unacceptable rating.” I believe John Sepulis, General Manager, Engineering & Construction mentioned at last night’s meeting that there is no standard but the TTC tries to keep emergency exits less than 1/2 a subway platform length or about 100 meters.
Steve: Thanks for this clarification. I was talking to people from the Donlands group after the meeting, and they seemed to still be concerned that they didn’t have a standard to use when looking at alternatives. It’s possible that this info was lost in the shuffle. I certainly understand the half-platform length idea, although that would only be about 75 metres, not 100.
You mentioned that a request to expropriate property would go to the August 25 City Council meeting but I suspect they will rubber stamp (unless there is significant public opposition) the Government Management Committee’s recommendation coming from its August 12th meeting.
Steve: Yes, the Government Management Committee is the last place where there is a chance to depute on the issue, but given that all of the major mayoral candidates were present or had a representative at the meeting last night, I think you can be sure there will be a robust debate at Council.
This is, after all, the last chance that Giambrone’s opponents will get to beat up the TTC before the election.
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First of all, I’m happy for the Greenwood folks – that’s a great outcome for them. Let’s hope that their option does indeed proceed as planned.
I am quite concerned, though, that the TTC original option still stays on the table with almost equal weight and, more importantly, in the motion. ANY option can hit unforeseen difficulties (has anyone out there ever renovated anything and not hit unforeseen difficulties?) When the TTC considered their original options they didn’t proceed to the vote with a motion stating: “Option 1 unless there are problems, if so then option 2”. One would assume alternatives would be brought back up by another vote if and when those difficulties arise. Leaving them both on the table creates a situation where it is easy to “fall back” to the original plan – without any vote, criteria, or oversight. Let’s hope they firm up this loosey-goosey language and write in hard and fast conditions stating exactly under what criteria – as a standard – they would abandon one option for the other. I assume they’ve had to do that in the past – what were the milestone decision points then?
Steve: I think it will be important for language to be inserted in the motion either at the TTC or when this goes forward to the City that prevents an automatic fallback to the original designs. I am not as distrustful of TTC staff as many were at the meeting, if only because this issue has such a high political profile, and any attempt to backslide to the original scheme would not endear staff to the incoming Council and Commission.
@ A. Hahn: “I believe John Sepulis, General Manager, Engineering & Construction mentioned at last night’s meeting that there is no standard”
I think Lisa Dymond’s presentation, and the several comments by the engineers in the crowd, did a masterful job at showing just how arbitrary the “rules” and reasons are for this “Second Entrance” project, as Mr. Giambrone continually freudian slipped about it. This seems to be about some department’s (possibly engineering?) job performance metrics to get this done, rather than an honest look at what is needed for this particular station, let alone any attempt to meet building codes.
Steve: I too am quite baffled by the urgency with which this is being pushed through.
It was quite illuminating to hear the presenters contradict themselves repeatedly (what follows are not exact quotes, but close):
“we are required to do this based on the building code”
“we are building to code”
and then in response to some very good audience questions:
“we can’t meet ALL of the code”
“no, we’re not meeting that part of the code”
“no, we’re not meeting that part of the code (either)”
“if we had to be compliant with all of the code this project would be prohibitively expensive”.
Those type of answers seemed to flip flop throughout the night.
Steve: I think that the TTC’s presentation would have been helped immeasurably if they had simply produced a table showing what the “standards” they are working to are, and whether these are legislated/regulated, or simply best practice standards. Each of the options could then be listed with the applicable issue noted in the table. For example, if there is a value for the maximum egress distance, and each of the options had the calculated distance shown in the comparison table, it would be immediately obvious whether the option passed or failed.
In the discussion of which parts of the code were being recognized and which not, I don’t think that the tone of the debate was helped by the heat, both in the room’s temperature or of some of the questions. When speaking of which parts of the code are addressed, the remark about prohibitive expense was, I believe, in reference to retroactively making the entire station comply. This is not practical or legally necessary, and in that respect, the TTC is “not meeting code”. This is not much different from a homeowner who does not have to completely rebuild their house just because they are adding a new deck.
To be fair to the TTC, some of the proposals from the floor were contradictory. For example, one faction wants these to be exits with the minimal usage possible. Another wants them to be fully accessible with escalators and elevators. If that sort of investment is made, the structures will be (a) larger and (b) full time entrances. This sort of inconsistency in questions from the floor is common in public meetings, and replying is like trying to hit a moving target.
As my husband pointed out, if this were truly about fire safety egress (the stated reason for the project) the code they would be working to meet, and which they’ve stated they’re not even attempting to, is the 4-minute platform evacuation requirement. If this were truly about fire and emergency evacuation safety, the standard to test against would be the ability to evacuate “x” number of people (1200? I don’t remember their figures – 3 trains worth plus one platform) quickly and without panic out of harm’s way in a short timeframe.
Sometimes your regular entrance shouldn’t be used in an emergency. Anyone who’s been in that situation knows that you look for the big fluorescent coloured “EMERGENCY EXIT” signs. To maximize safety the emergency exit design should be standard throughout the entire TTC system. That way every rider in every station is familiar with the emergency exits – whether it’s their stop or not. Doesn’t matter if it’s the same exit you’ve used for years, or if you are in a completely unfamiliar place. This nonsense of making a daily use exit/entrance to increase familiarity in case of an emergency for less than 5% of patrons, while NOT appearing to address the requirements for the other 95% in the same plan is, well – nonsense.
Steve: That part of the TTC’s argument really falls apart. For any emergency evacuation, the assumption should be that most of the people won’t know the lay of the land, and will depend on proper signage. Stations that have been redone do get new signs, but there has not been a retrofit to existing stations.
It really does appear to me that this is someone’s workplace objective to put in “x” number of second entrances by “y” point-in-time, prior to their year-end evaluation.
My husband also wonders what criteria Council uses to justify allocating funds for these projects, and what the implications may be for TTC staff; the funding formula for Second Entrances is probably considerably more than for Emergency Exits.
Steve: The project is one of a very large number of items in the TTC’s Capital Budget, and it is a single item covering all of the stations. Council approves the five-year budget plan overall, and this is renewed every year with an updated budget. Individual stations would not come to Council for approval expect for the requirement for expropriation, easements or, in the case of the new Donlands proposal, a road narrowing. If the TTC could build a new exit entirely on property they already owned, Council would not have anything to do with the approval which would occur, for the purposes of design and contract approval at the Commission level.
Btw, does anyone know if Lisa Dymond’s presentation is available on-line anywhere?
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Speaking from an educational background in architecture, there is no legal requirement to do this, as the Building Code is not retro-active, as has been mentioned by Steve and others before. There is no legal requirement to do this. Like Steve said about adding a deck doesn’t require you to retro-actively comply with code requirements newer than your house, adding an elevator or other accessibility upgrade (required by law within 10 to 15 years from now) does not require a subway station to retro-actively comply with all current code requirements.
However, if my memory from past TTC reports is accurate, the Fire Department has been on the TTC’s case about this. The Fire Department had been on the TTC’s case about Garbage Trains, too (according to Transit Toronto files), but TTC didn’t listen until after a Garbage Train caught fire (I believe that was at Old Mill), and the Fire Department basically got their “told you so” rights. Not wanting to light themselves on fire again (figuratively speaking), although TTC has been “burned” at stations in the past already, the TTC is co-operating with the Fire Department on the Second Exits.
While the Fire Department is getting what they want, I still think that this is not a good use of funds unless it is a full second entrance. The second entrance does not have to be accessible, but it should be required to be bi-directional (enter and egress), and should also not be located across the street from the existing entrance (it should ideally be at another street to serve a broader usefulness to walk-in traffic along the corridor in question (Danforth Ave, Bloor St, Yonge St, etc.), wherever possible), in order to be worth the investment. While those requirements make the investment higher in capital, the actual benefit provided by it outweighs the added capital expense in my opinion.
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Will the new exits have bicycle parking? Or was that forgotten again?
Steve: If it’s an exit-only structure, bicycle parking isn’t much use as you would have to walk down to the main entrance to get into the station. At Greenwood, it’s only across the street, and so hardly a stretch.
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Any idea why they do not just do what they did on the Sheppard line and create emergency exit buildings with marked and exclusive emergency exits in the stations, on the platforms? This is exactly what Anne stated above my comment with exclusive emergency exits that are marked with big flourescent signs. The Sheppard line has these at each station on each platform with big signs that flash in an emergency saying.. EMERGENCY EXIT, EXIT WHEN FLASHING. This gives me peace of mind, and I have never actually seen an emergency exit, other than the buildings along Sheppard which are built specifically for that purpose.
Steve: The emergency exits on Sheppard may well be combined with other structures such as a substation. I am not going to repeat long private correspondence with various parties on this subject, but the amount of space that would be saved by an emergency exit-only structure is comparatively small. The size is dictated in part by the capacity of the stairway from below and doors needed to allow the designed flow rate of exiting passengers. You cannot just pop out in a little hut on the side of the street.
I believe that the issue of building only emergency exits is a red herring in this case, but the TTC has done a poor job of establishing why through the simple expedient of drawing up the plans for what it would look like (size, placement). As a result, people in the community can keep on about this issue without understanding that it does not buy them a lot.
There are other issues about how the building code is interpreted, especially for very deep stations where there is a substantial vertical climb, but that’s a completely separate issue that will not affect the outcome of the discussion at Donlands.
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The fellow who owns 9 Linsmore is not happy that nobody consulted him. See the Star’s article.
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