Updated April 2, 2011 at 6:30 am: Additional details about the plan have been provided by Metrolinx. The dialog below has been slightly edited from email exchanges, but preserves the sense of the conversation.
Q: The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) refers to both Black Creek and Jane as western terminals for the Eglinton line. However, these are over 1km apart. Where will the line actually end? How will the line connect with the GO corridor if it ends at Black Creek?
A: The exact terminus for the Eglinton line, which is in the Mt. Dennis area, will be determined through a future additional study due to the vertical and horizontal alignment (how steep the grades can be climbing out of the tunnel and which side of the road we will be on to approach the yard) between Black Creek Drive and Jane Street. The objective is to make the connection to the GO rail corridor.
Q: When does Metrolinx expect to have a preliminary design proposal for the section of the line east of Leaside that will now be substantially underground?
A: We are meeting with the TTC now to discuss the timing for the preliminary plans and profiles for the underground segment.
Q: The SRT replacement is described as ending at STC. Does this mean that McCowan will be abandoned as a station? Will the proposed right-of-way beyond McCowan to Sheppard and Malvern be protected to allow for future extension of the route? Is there any plan for an eastern yard so that trains would not all have to be based at the Black Creek yard?
A: The Scarborough LRT would follow the same route as the existing SRT and will include McCowan Station. At this time, there are no plans to close McCowan Station. We do see value in potentially re-using the McCowan yard for at least a layover site and we will need to study this further.
Q: Although the MOU states the number of stations on the Toronto projects, it does not mention this with respect to Eglinton. The press release specifies 26 stations. When will Metrolinx produce a station plan for the new line?
A: The exact number and location of stations for the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT project will be finalized as part of the environmental assessment amendment process.
We expect the Eglinton project will have about 26 stations along a 25-kilometre stretch, and we’re pleased to provide this as a single-seat trip for residents from Scarborough to the Mount Dennis Area.
Since the new Eglinton project has changed from the previous concept, the working assumption now is that the station spacing across the route is approximately at 1 kilometre.
We want to make certain that residents get the best use from the Eglinton line, so we are taking more time to study the specifics of the project to determine the exact number and best locations for the stations along the Eglinton line.
The finalization of the Eglinton line and the locations of the station will be part of the preliminary engineering and Environmental Assessment, which is expected to be completed in the coming months.
Comment: The 26-station count includes not just Eglinton but also the SRT. There were 26 stops on the Transit City version of Eglinton, not including Kennedy, and 6 more on the SRT. The new combined route will have to go on a diet, and the roughly 1km average spacing implies that some stations will be dropped. Throughout the Transit City debates, Metrolinx consistently wanted fewer stations on Eglinton, although at the time the underground section was shorter.
Q: Although the MOU makes reference to “LRT”, for certainty does this mean “Light Rapid Transit” as in the Flexity cars recently ordered from Bombardier, or is Metrolinx contemplating a return to ICTS Mark II technology once proposed for this route? This is an important decision as it affects the ability of the line to be extended.
A: On June 14, 2010, Metrolinx announced a $770M purchase of Light Rail vehicles from Bombardier, which included vehicles for the SRT upgrading project. We expect that we will need about 130 LRTs for the adjusted plan, but we will have to sit down with Bombardier and discuss the details. At this time, we do not plan to change from LRT to ICTS MARK II technology.
Comment: “At this time” are three little words that could do a world of damage to future LRT expansion in Toronto. Metrolinx owes us a definitive answer in the context of their Big Move plan.
Q: The Sheppard East LRT’s costs to date are chargeable to Toronto, but one piece of work already underway is the Agincourt Station grade separation. Is this going to proceed independently of the LRT project as a GO improvement? If so, will it be built with room for a future LRT right of way if that scheme is resurrected?
A: At this time, there are no plans to change the current design for the Agincourt grade-separation. The grade separation construction work that is currently underway at the Agincourt GO Station to separate the GO tracks from Sheppard Avenue will proceed independently of the former LRT project.
It is important to note, though, that this grade separation construction work is an important safety improvement for GO commuters and drivers that use Sheppard Avenue. This grade separation is a project that has benefits to GO’s operations and traffic.
Updated March 31, 2011 at 5:45 pm: The Memorandum of Understanding between Queen’s Park, Metrolinx and Toronto is now available. It contains a few items of interest, notably that the document is non-binding and that the Mayor is signing on his own behalf with hopes for approval from others.
I have a number of questions out to Metrolinx for clarification and will update this post when I have more details.
Updated March 31, 2011 at 10:55 am: The details of the agreement are now available on the Ontario Government’s website.
Original post from March 30:
Both the Star and Globe report that Premier McGuinty will announce the long-rumoured “deal” between Queen’s Park and Toronto on the future of Transit City.
Queen’s Park will fund the Eglinton line as an underground LRT from Jane Street to Kennedy Station, with an extension over the existing Scarborough RT line’s route replacing the RT technology. This project will cost $8.4-billion and will be completed in 2020.
Toronto will undertake funding for a Sheppard Subway extension west from Yonge to Downsview, and east from Don Mills to Scarborough Town Centre. This project will cost $4.2b and will be completed in 2019. Although this is touted as a public-private partnership, Toronto hopes to raise money from a Federal program for PPPs, “PPP Canada“. However, this program only has an investment of $1.25b. Obviously, much more money will be required from Ottawa if this is to have additional projects beyond a Toronto subway, or conversely the contribution it will make to the Sheppard Subway will be small. It is unclear where the $333m originally announced by Ottawa for the Sheppard LRT will wind up, but this should be clarified in the formal announcement.
What is quite clear in this shuffle is that Queen’s Park has decided to build something, anything on Eglinton as long as they can get shovels in the ground. That the line will now cost billions more than the original subway-surface LRT scheme seems to be of little concern even though “Benefits Case Analysis” was supposed to be at the heart of the Metrolinx Big Move. As usual, the political benefit outweighs all others.
What we have lost, at least for the coming decade, is any hope of a Finch west line, or a line to the airport (other than the premium fare GO-ARL link from Union), or a line to Malvern or UofT’s Scarborough campus.
Beyond that, Metrolinx and Queen’s Park must wrestle with the “Investment Strategy”, a fancy word for whatever new taxes or revenue generation mechanisms will be used to build the rest of The Big Move. Major expansions of GO, the proposed Richmond Hill subway extension (and all of its follow-on projects to relieve subway capacity limits), and a host of projects in the 905 are all queued up waiting for money.
As for Sheppard, the real problem is to make the numbers work out. I have already commented at length on this, and won’t belabour the point. In brief, $4.2b is a lot to raise from development charges or other similar schemes, and much greater densities will be needed on Sheppard than on traditional suburban arterials to pay for this scheme.
While everyone celebrates this new era in transit, let us not forget the TTC’s operating and capital budget crunch which I detailed in previous articles. None of this money addresses the needs of the existing system for ongoing repairs and renovation, nor does it provide money to relieve the pressure on service capacity. Later this year, we will doubtless see another proposal to cut marginal services “for the greater good”, but they will have to be much more substantial given the expected shortfall in TTC funding. A fare increase, probably a big one, will be needed to make up for the lack of a smaller jump in 2011.
In that context, it’s hard to get excited about $12b going to two very overpriced projects. For years, “transit” in Toronto hasn’t been about providing service, it has been about stimulating the construction industry and generating profits for property developers. These are laudable goals, but they must be balanced against the basic need citizens have to get around the whole city.
Postscript: As a side-deal to this agreement, the TTC will abandon its attempt to implement a separate Smart Card system, and will proceed with the Presto scheme developed by Queen’s Park. It is unclear who will pay for the rollout of Presto as the estimated implementation costs are considerably higher than the funding already committed by various governments. Maybe we will hear about that in Thursday’s announcement too.
Finch West riders lose out, of course, as detailed in The Star.
Steve Munro 
So McGuinty caves to Ford’s plan but gets TTC buy in on Presto. Living in interesting times for sure.
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You mention that Toronto is overbuilding with subways to stimulate construction and development. But I think the main reasons (valid or not) are to allow more space on the surface for cars, to avoid St.Clair-style project management woes, to obtain a faster ride (speed 20 KM/hr for surface LRT vs 30+ KM/hr for underground), to address people who would not take transit unless it’s a subway.
However, I don’t see why a private partner would want to invest in the building the Sheppard line extensions without the city offering some guarantee of profit. And wouldn’t that be a debt in disguise?
Steve: My reference to subway construction goes back over two decades. Governments love to build subways because they soak up lots of money and employ lots of people in the construction business. Never mind if they are cost effective as part of the transit system. This goes back at least to the days of David Peterson as Premier.
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Nothings going to happen on Finch West until after Mayor Ford leaves office OR when crude oil goes over $200 a barrel, whichever comes first.
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Let’s just hope that Eglinton survives the Provincial election, although given that the TBM’s are ordered, and the Scarborough RT desperately needs a complete renovation, it must go ahead as planned.
Do you think the Eglinton LRT yard in Black Creek be able to store that many vehicles for the line or would McCowan yard be used as well? This is a huge line, and it definetly needs a big storage yard/maintenance facility.
Steve: There’s a fair amount of redesign to be done in general as the underground alignment west of Black Creek and east of Laird has not been engineered yet. They will also have to redo part of the EA because the new structures will have different neighbourhood effects. All that said, by the time they get to actually building the outer parts of the line, they may reactivate the extension of the SRT further north and that gets you into range of the proposed new RT yard east of McCowan. All this is so far in the future, who knows what we will actually see.
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Hi Steve
I am resigned to the fact that Toronto will never have a good transit system. Between the subway crew at the TTC (whom Miller, Giambrone, or Gunn should have either fired or sent to someplace like Milwaukee where they could do no more harm) to right wing politicians buying the crap that they spew, we are doomed to over spend for our transit. Having said that, I am hopeful that Ford’s fund raising efforts for Sheppard will go nowhere fast and that we may have a chance to salvage something. It is going to be a long wait until the next municipal election.
Steve: The sad thing about Ford is that he loves to fire people, put would probably, given the chance, pick all the wrong ones at the TTC.
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What a joke this entire process has become. Instead of getting an LRT network we get nothing. I say that because these announcements all depend on whether or not the Provincial Liberals are re-elected in this fall’s election. My hunch is that they will lose as many people are frustrated with McGuinty. I highly doubt the Conservatives will spend $8 billion on the Eglinton line.
As I’ve argued many times in the comments section a stubway to Scarborough Town Centre makes absolutely no sense for Scarborough residents. What’s the point have having a subway when most people in Scarborough still have to travel 30 to 45 minutes by bus to the shopping mall to get on the subway? An LRT line across Sheppard to Meadowvale would have made much more sense as it is a line that truly stretches across Sheppard and will cut down commuting times.
Since Ford is so insistent that everything should be underground and since the projects are spending a ton of money anyways, why not extend the Sheppard subway to UTSC or the Zoo (preferably UTSC) and extend the Scarborough RT northeast to Markham and Sheppard to connect with the subway line? Scarborough ends up with a northern rapid transit line while there’s still a connection to STC.
Steve: There is the small problem of how to pay for it. The financing scheme even for the subway we will get on Sheppard is a wild fantasy. Imagine the development needed on the outer, low rise, end of Sheppard needed for a subway to the Zoo.
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How far along does the Eglinton line have to be before Hudak can’t fill it in?
Steve: By October, it won’t be far enough to prevent a repeat of Mike Harris’ stupidity, but I don’t think Hudak would get away with even thinking of that option.
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“Swept to power last fall on a promise of better connecting the suburbs with downtown, Mayor Rob Ford is now being accused by critics of abandoning the low-income, high-immigrant communities in the northwest corner of Toronto.” Was Tess Kalinowski watching the same election I watched? Or have I just forgotten this promise? All I remember is “Subways!”
Steve: You will be amused to know that people who have been canvassing out in Transit City territory on Sheppard found that residents (those who even knew anything about the transit plans) thought they were getting a subway all the way along Sheppard, in effect an LRT to subway swap. They voted for a subway, not nothing.
By the way, don’t forget that Ford’s election platform did NOT include the Eglinton line at all. He couldn’t afford it.
I am going to take particular delight watching over the next year or so as Ford’s apologists try to make his plan sound reasonable and feasible. It will almost make all the BS we Transit City supporters had to put up with worthwhile.
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One obvious objection: couldn’t the development levy be applied to Eglinton as well to generate more revenue? Getting $3 billion or so from Sheppard is totally unrealistic, getting that money from Eglinton as well is probably easier to achieve, especially given that Eglinton has more developable land e.g. Golden Mile.
Now the losses of Finch West, the western part of Eglinton to the airport and the eastern SRT extension to Malvern are disappointing. Fortunately these additions are pretty cheap and can easily be built at a later date when more funds are available. Also the Eglinton extension, SRT extension and part of the Finch LRT (using the hydro corridor) could be built both above ground and fully grade separated if so desired. This leaves only the Sheppard East LRT from Agincourt to UTSC which I think would be best replaced by BRT on Ellesmere for the time being.
Steve: The whole business about development charges is treated as if this is “free money”. Today, this charge is about $12K per unit, and this is intended to pay for a variety of things including improvements to local services required to handle the extra density new development brings. If we scoop that money to pay for subways, then we have to fund things like water and sewer upgrades separately, and in effect are subsidising the transit construction project through other funding mechanisms. If we increase the development charges, the development industry will howl that they can’t sell units that carry high embedded costs. Don’t forget that the charge is directly passed on to the buyer, is subject to HST and contributes to the total value in the mortgage.
If development charges vary from one part of the city to another, this will accentuate any price differential that also exists. Oddly enough, there is a proposal to drop these charges completely in neighbourhoods where the City wants to stimulate construction.
I will repeat the math. If you get $12k from each new unit, then it takes 1,000 units to generate $12m. A subway station costs about $120m, and so that’s 10,000 units. The entire railway lands is about 7,000 units. Do you honestly expect this kind of development along Sheppard?
Some of the money may come from tax increment financing — the premise that the development would not have happened without the subway, and the new taxes the development brings should be used to fund the rapid transit project. However, those taxes are intended to pay for other services like police, roads, social services and, oh yes, transit subsidies. You can’t spend the same money twice, although the economic boffins of the right would have you believe it’s true.
Finally, it’s really odd that we have a Mayor who wants to get rid of the Land Transfer Tax, but thinks it’s ok to slap a surcharge on new development to pay for his subway.
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I don’t believe that I have heard (so far) a good reason to have the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT underground from Jane to Kennedy.
I understand that having it underground from Jane (ok, between Jane & Weston) to Laird, with an open section over Black Creek, makes good sense – but building the entire line fully underground as LRT does not make economic sense.
(refreshing my memory, wasn’t Eglinton-Crosstown supposed to be underground again at Kennedy – and what was the Scarborough LRT supposed to be doing at Kennedy? Was it going to be underground or elevated?)
Steve: Yes, Eglinton would dip underground to get into Kennedy Station, and the SLRT would also move underground. The transfer arrangement between the lines and the subway is much improved.
Question: How much money would have been saved with surface running from Laird to just west of Kennedy? And where could this money be spent?
Steve: That’s a bit tricky. Normally, I would use a rule of thumb of about $200m/km. However, that section includes two river crossings (east and west branches of the Don) which would be pricy. Also, we don’t know how many stations will survive in the underground version (Don Mills was to be underground anyhow), and this would affect the cost.
Question: If the line is underground all the way to Kennedy how will they make the connection to the Scarborough LRT that is described in the article? Are they looking to make it one continuous line or have separate services terminating at Kennedy?
Steve: The redesign of Kennedy Station was such that a through link from Eglinton to the SRT is possible underground. There will be a ramp down in the SLRT right-of-way north of Kennedy Station.
Comment: You mentioned the option of extending the Eglinton-Crosstown line to the Airport and how this was now being pushed further into the future. As I recall there were some issues about the connection at Renforth and the link to the Airport – were they ever resolved?
Steve: There are several issues for the west end of the line including whether it should run side-of-road or in a trench, as well as the appropriate alignment to get to the airport lands. Although these were “settled” in the EA, the matter could well be reopened the next time someone looks at this project.
I’ve thought the setback of the extension of Eglinton-Crosstown to the Airport might have been a combination of three factors – not having the money in hand, not being able to resolve the connection issues at Renforth, and finally, not wanting to antagonize voters living in central Etobicoke in the leadup to two election campaigns (Toronto & Ontario).
Personally, I do believe that Ontario and Metrolinx want the Airport extension ‘eventually’ because it is “inter-modal” and “inter-regional” (connecting with GO & Mississauga’s BRT) and that is something that Metrolinx would love to be able to trumpet.
Regards, Moaz Yusuf Ahmad
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Did Transit City get full council approval or just parts of it?
Did Transit City’s LRT lines ever get full approval?
By the way, how is an LRT train any different from a streetcar? LRT is like an accessible streetcar.
I don’t remember Transit City ever being discussed fully in Council, from what I heard it was a TTC thing. If that is the case, Transit City is illegal.
Steve: No, the TTC has the right to propose transit lines all it likes. When they come asking for funding, or for planning changes, then Council must approve this. For example, all of the work on preliminary engineering and the EAs was approved by Council. Council also approved some Official Plan Amendments to bring the Plan into line with the TC layout. Yes, an LRT train is a bunch of streetcars running on a private right-of-way. That is more or less a textbook definition.
From all the open houses I attended, I felt like they were just smoke and mirror.
Essentially bending over and taking it.
Steve: Yup. The TTC mis-handled that big time and gave Transit City a lot of needless bad vibes in various communities. “We know what’s good for you” was the message. Those of us who tried to fix things behind the scenes were swatted aside, or told it would be fixed “later”. “Later” never arrived.
One thing I never liked about Transit City was something former TTC Vice-Chair Joe Mihevc told me at Forest Hill arena (Former Admiral Adam was on vacation), I asked him about why are we expanding if we can’t maintain the current system. He told me that the TTC will not expand until we (as in the TTC) can maintain our current system. WOW.
There was “we can upgrade to subways later”. Well…why not start from the beginning instead of wasting money?
I am sick and tired of people wanting their own way. Car drivers, Transit riders, pedestrians, and cyclists all use the road, we need to provide for all.
Steve: I am sick and tired of people wanting their own subway. We cannot provide for all if we spend every penny we have on one line.
I never liked that Transit City LRT stops were in the middle of the road. Accessibility would be an issue. Also the weather.
Enough is Enough. I asked Steve ages ago about things changing all over…hey look Steve it is happening.
The TC people (usually left-wingers) and the subway people (usually right-wingers) BOTH need to just shut up and get over it.
Every time transit plans are changed then we lose. Tuesday of last week was the 26th. anniversary of the last time Scarborough getting any transit upgrade.
Part of his plan is once the crosstown arrives at Kennedy then it goes north along the SRT and east to Scarborough Centre. I like that, Scarborough got robbed of a subway 26 years ago.
While both sides whine like babies, things don’t get built. The plan is a compromise.
WE CAN’T HAVE IT ONE WAY.
Steve: I beg your pardon. It’s not Ford’s plan to have the Eglinton line morph into the S(L)RT. Ford didn’t even include Eglinton in his plan, and he was going to extend the Danforth Subway. Meanwhile, the plans for Kennedy Station clearly showed that an option of through Eglinton/SLRT service was being preserved even in the TC version.
Meanwhile, Rob Ford can stand out on Sheppard and shill for spare change to get his subway built. We will see how many handouts he needs to make it a reality.
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The most amusing thing about this whole thing is that for weeks, there have been reports that the supply of new condominiums coming onto the market is starting to exceed demand and developers are becoming concerned. That said, can someone remind me of how many hundreds of new condo towers would have to be started by 2015 to fulfill Ford’s election promise of building the Sheppard subway?
Still, an all underground Eglinton LRT line is not all bad since it does have the potential for interlining the various proposed Transit City lines once saner heads get elected to office and Transit City hopefully gets resurrected. I just wish we didn’t have to leave a large number of transit riders stuck with buses for an unknown number of decades waiting for it to happen.
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We have a weak Premier who kowtows to a bully buffoon. No real transit planning has gone into this plan and there are no studies to show it is cost effective. What we get is simplistic populist buffoonery. What’s more it costs BILLIONS of dollars of the taxpayers money to accommodate the stupidity. I repeat my earlier comment. The Gravy Train has been derailed by a Tsunami of waste.
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We are all up in arms about this but how is it different from the VCC extension ?
A stronger case can be made for the Yonge extension, but up to where? Steeles only? I think a BRT would probably work great north of Steeles to Hi-way 7; expansion can take place later.
The point is, we see this over and over again. So at the end of the day we’ll get the ‘something’ on Eglinton, sure you can argue it’ll cost an outrageous amount compared to what is needed but either way we’ll have the something. Though note the connection on the west side isn’t there yet.
I’ve never bought into the Finch W LRT from day one, extending the Sheppard line to Downsview always seemed like a better choice. Yes I’ve heard all the arguments regarding Finch’s ridership and how this will not help many (I’ve ridden this bus for a good 4 years) – it’s true, it will not help all, but I think the demand will lower, enough so that an express bus route may do wonders.
Sheppard, yes I won’t touch that – Ford can promise to build anything with PPP, a subway to the moon anyone ? Effectively he has (and will) receive $0 toward it.
And I doubt we’ll hear anything regarding the waterfront LRT expansion plans (including those into East Bayfront) ? If that even has a future now.
Steve: Sheppard would be east of the Spadina Subway, Finch west of it. Two separate lines. As for an express bus route, the question is how much dedicated road space and transit priority will it get? Also, how much service will we actually see in the penny-pinching environment of our transit system? Lots of routes deserve better service now — there was even the “Transit City Bus Plan” to address this — but we don’t hear anything about them in Ford’s plan.
I hope that by the time we reach the point of actually committing to building the outer parts of Eglinton, sanity will prevail at City Hall and Ford will no longer be in control. At that point, surface alignments can be revisited, but, I hope with better design and less “we know what’s best for you” from the engineers at the TTC and the City.
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Very, very sad news for this transit fan on a few different levels. Ford has not done anything great here- I read the other articles in the other papers about what just happened and I am quite disgusted in both Ford and McGuinty for this. This isn’t new funding that Ford has landed for transit here in Toronto, rather it is funding already secured by Toronto for other transit projects in other areas and is going to be used instead to unnecessarily bury the entire Eglinton LRT even where density’s don’t warrant it. This whole thing was just a costly ‘shell game’ by Ford, and it is an incredible disservice to many residents and needed areas of Toronto that were going to get improved funding for Transit.
Steve you stated “None of this money addresses the needs of the existing system for ongoing repairs and renovation”; what I read into this is that the ‘Station Modernization Program’ is not going to get any funding. I have two young children, one still in a stroller and one just out but a little wobbly on stairs, and the Station Modernization Program was really making the TTC a lot more accessible to me when I am with my children! I have an older friend as well who doesn’t drive and is very dependent on the TTC but he can’t do stairs because of his heart surgeries and the more stations that are made accessible the better. Like I said earlier Ford has just done a very big disservice to many many Torontonian to placate his own ego.
Steve, is the Scarborough RT still being converted to LRT, and being extended to Sheppard (and hopefully Malvern TC one day!) or has the funding for that dissappeared now as well with the Sheppard East LRT and Finch West LRT? All in all it is a very sad day for transit here in Toronto. I really think Ford should go to LA and see how LRT is working in that city- commutes are now worse in TO then LA thanks to all the investment California has done for transit in the greater LA area since 1984. I think a tour like that might change his mind about LRT.
Steve: The SRT will become an LRT line as a continuation of the Eglinton route. As for extension further north and east, that’s not in this version of the project, but would at least be technically possible.
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As I’ve written before, Rob Ford’s Sheppard subway financing plan is based upon the principle that 2+2=7. It can only work if some kind of Magic Subway Fairy (AKA Ottawa) comes down from the sky and sprinkles down a wad of cash.
However, I’m an optimist, so here is my optimistic view of what could happen in the future:
1. To try to make his plan work, Rob Ford has to run roughshod over all neighbourhood objections and get City approval of oodles of applications for ultra-high-density development along Sheppard. This approval costs zero so I predict this will happen. This makes higher-order transit inevitable because all the roads in the area (eg 401) are already congested to the maximum with cars. This high density is in itself A Good Thing, because it provides opportunities to create liveable urban neighbourhoods to replace the existing sterile suburban sprawl.
2. Ford’s financing plan will fail and have to be bailed out by Queen’s Park or Ottawa. I write “have to be” because otherwise there are now a gazillion unhappy voters in the new high-density development that are now stuck and cannot get anywhere.
3. After the next Toronto election, Ford will be history and a new, saner administration can build Transit City.
4. There will be some crisis (revolution in Saudi Arabia, peak oil, etc) that brings to an abrupt end our crazy car culture. Surface LRT and bicycle infrastructure can be build quickly and cheaply so that’s what will happen.
That’s what my optimistic crystal ball reveals for the future. We’ll see what happens.
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Cheer up Steve … at least they’re not using ICTS along the entire Eglinton route … YET.
Steve: Considering that was Metrolinx’ original scheme, I’m waiting for yet another announcement. I don’t trust them.
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Steve, On CBC today you mentioned the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) as an initiative in Brampton. I understand that this also requires space on the raodway – extending the so-called ‘war on the car.’
Steve: York region, not Brampton. Although there is some express service in Brampton now, it does not have a dedicated right-of-way like what is being built for VIVA.
I have been saying for years that the TTC should look into the use of hydro corridors for BRT which could then morph to LRT. My experience of living in Ottawa showed me the flexibility of BRT as OC Transpo buses zipped on and off rights-of-way.
The corridor just North of Finch would be well suited, would intersect with existing north-south bus routes, would intersect with the existing GO train station at Finch and Leslie and deliver customers to the Finch subway station.
Steve: The problem with the hydro corridor is that it is far away from a lot of existing development, and of course building in the corridor is impossible. The debate is over whether we want to build a long-haul route to take people across the width of the city, or serve local demand, or some combination of these. That corridor also runs into problems with valleys in places, and the corridor itself does not extend all the way to the west side of Etobicoke.
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“My recollection was that the original Transit City proposal never went to council, either,” he said.
I thought TC was voted upon multiple times by council??
Steve: Council voted for various Official Plan amendments as well as for funding for the preliminary engineering and EAs. However, the scheme was formally launched through the TTC which has the right to propose such things.
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“Nothings going to happen on Finch West until after Mayor Ford leaves office OR when crude oil goes over $200 a barrel, whichever comes first.”
Nothing is going to happen on Sheppard either.
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With notably rare exceptions, Toronto only undertakes well thought out transit projects.
Steve: And spends so much time thinking and arguing that nothing gets built.
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It’s a fairly bleak day for transit and a few hundred thousand people in TO. Sure, it’s a LOT better here than other places in the world, but like the nuclear power plant issue, the $opping of massive amounts of ever-scarcer dollars and energy for the less-wise projects that fail to deliver an equitable degree of somewhat effective mobility for some vast swaths of TO, is far too short-term to be described as real “planning”, though a subway on Eglinton does at least being to make some relative sense.
But it’s getting to a tradition in TO that we build our subways in less-wise places. I ran across a late 1960s piece that had a TO subway designer suggesting that Dufferin St. was needing a subway extension under it far more than Spadina – but guess what got built? And to a shopping mall!!
Thank you Steve for continuing to care, share info, grrrrump, and post about all the stupidities here in Caronto, Ontcario. it’s a full-time gig, with no pay, and it’s also very frustrating. Thanks also to folks at TEA and Pembina, and other good people like the commenters here who’ve been working for better transit for all of us. It isn’t over, but it’s pretty annoying to have a reasonably good transit plan finally underway get side-swiped by looking-in-the-rearview unilateralism….
Here’s a fave cartoon. Thanks Brett Lamb!!!
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All this just further emphasizes the point that Canadians, not just Torontonians, do not get that their transit services are falling way behind the rest of the world. And I don’t even think $200-a-barrel oil will change our driving habits. But we are driving closer to the precipice of national gridlock. So maybe the best individual investment would be in a number of pairs of comfortable walking shoes.
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Is this really so bad? Eglinton gets built. Though it’ll be more expensive than necessary, it’ll at least be faster in the new tunnel sections (that were originally intended to be above ground), albeit at the expense of fewer stops. Private sector financing of the Sheppard subway is obviously a fantasy and will never happen. This will be abundantly clear by the time Ford’s gone and we can go back to realizing the vision of a real network. Maybe the subway focus will have a silver lining in that it’ll get people seriously talking about the downtown relief line.
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Will Eglinton’s mid-block stations survive? I recall that the TTC had planned to add stations at least every kilometre, for example in between Yonge and Bathurst at Avenue Road AND Chaplin Crescent or something like that; seems like those might bite the dust in order to cut costs, which would really kill what is already a vibrant, mid-rise stretch of development. And given the available right of way west of Jane, would west-ward extensions be a bit cheaper than the rest of this whole mess?
Steve: I will be very interested to see where the stations wind up over the entire line. We are, in effect, back to what Metrolinx wanted to build almost 4 years ago. If local stations start to disappear, there political fallout will get interesting.
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How can an underground station be accessible, if I constantly see escalators and elevators out-of-service due to maintenance, upgrades, or mischief? At least with a surface rapid transit, the low-floor vehicles are accessible most if not all the time.
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Scarborough and Eglinton are the same colour on the official map. Will we see ICTS trains trundle their way under Eglinton?
Steve: No, we will see LRT trains trundle out to STC where they should have gone 30 years ago.
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I don’t really think all is lost here in terms of Toronto’s transit future. We’re getting the Eglinton LRT, and although it does look more expensive than need be, if there’s anything I know about Toronto Transit is that plans change often! There aren’t any details about phasing of either design or construction, but I would assume the project would be phases and that Jane to Don Mills (or Laird if you prefer) underground will be designed/built first. I’m holding out hope that by the time this happens, the decision makers will listen to the us transit advocates and see the sense and cost savings of building the Don Mills to Kennedy potion above ground, freeing up money for other projects (i.e Finch West)
Here are my two cents on Sheppard. Yes I agree that the entire Sheppard line from Downsview to SRT (or your preferred Eastern Terminal) should have been built as an LRT. But guess what, someone has already stuck a subway halfway in there! I would justify the extra cost (one way or another, taxpayers are footing the bill) to go full subway now on the basis a single line should always be transfer free.
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I’m having trouble understanding the press release. It says the Eglinton LRT is going to be underground from Black Creek Drive to Kennedy and then continue on to replace the Scarborough RT. Right now, does it mean that what they’re committing to build starts at Black Creek, underground, and continue east with nothing west of Black Creek Dr, or starts further west of Black Creek Dr. as surface LRT and then go underground and continue east from there? It sounds like what they’ve committed to do is build the Eglinton LRT halfway through the west end and then stop.
Steve: There is conflicting language in the agreement talking about Jane/Black Creek as if they were the same place. The map shows the line ending at the rail corridor, and so the section through and west of Weston isn’t an issue in this scheme.
What was needed four years ago from the city, Ontario and TTC and Metrolinx respectively was to get one reasonable, well thought out, well designed, well placed LRT line using off the shelf equipment where it would fulfill a need under construction and open on time, on budget as a proof of concept line. This would have served to demonstrate what LRT is, what it can do and why more of it should be built where it makes sense to.
Instead, everybody dropped the ball bigtime. TTC and City of Toronto built that fiasco of a construction saga on St. Clair. Ontario and Metrolinx spent years drawing lines of maps, dreaming of ICTS fantasies, and holding open houses to gather public input to ignore later when they weren’t busy indulging themselves in the land of make believe alternative technology for Go train electrification like that hydrogen powered locomotive nonsense they were entertaining a few years ago. The reason why it’s so easy for people like Rob Ford to go around and trash LRT in disjointed phrases without any facts, because there is no working example of light rail nearby because everybody involved has been dropping the ball at every opportunity going back at least as far as substituting ICTS on the Scarborough RT if not further. The total inability to deliver on any kind of transit improvement in a competent manner appears to have turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Eglinton survives the provincial election given that Dalton McGuinty’s being re-elected is far from a sure thing and who knows how close Tim Hudak plans to follow the Harris playbook and fill in the construction. I remember joking here about collecting all three types of abandoned Eglinton projects. We got trolleybus, we got subway, will we get LRT too? Stay tuned…
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So. When Ford realizes he can’t get the money for Sheppard, and when Hudak is premier, does Eglinton get cancelled or trimmed down to fulfill the conservatives plans? For Ford it is not a promise, and Hudak can say Eglinton was a goal of the previous admin. I foresee Sheppard becoming the only line to get built. Unfortunately.
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Metrolinx appears to have got everything it always wanted from before they made the deal with Miller. They always wanted Eglinton as grade-separated. They never wanted to be involved with the other LRT lines. And they had little interest in extending the SRT east of Scarborough Centre. Miller strong-armed them into Sheppard East, Finch, and the SRT extension to Malvern.
Metrolinx basically got Ford to give into the the original position Metrolinx wanted all along, have Toronto pay for the cancellations, AND take on Presto.
Ford doesn’t seem to have gotten a single concession from the Province. If Nick Kouvalis negotiated this, as was rumoured, he has to be the worst negotiator ever!
Metrolinx must be laughing themselves silly!
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Steve: I will be very interested to see where the stations wind up over the entire line. We are, in effect, back to what Metrolinx wanted to build almost 4 years ago. If local stations start to disappear, there political fallout will get interesting.
Indeed, this is interesting. And it is probably just a matter of time before someone says “well, if you are connecting Scarborough RT and Eglinton together, why not use the SRT technology?” and that whole issue gets revisited. My bet is that this could happen sometime during the provincial election campaign (or afterwards, especially if the Tories are elected).
If only the current Minister of Transport would come out and clearly say that they want the extension of Eglinton-Crosstown-Scarborough to the Airport by X year (to connect with GO and Mississauga’s BRT) and make it clear that they will do it as LRT.
But I think we will not be hearing anything like that until after the election when all the dust settles. Promising the Union Pearson Air-Rail Link is more ‘appealing’ to the voters that the Liberals need, while the Eglinton line appeals to voters they want to secure.
Hamish Wilson: But it’s getting to a tradition in TO that we build our subways in less-wise places. I ran across a late 1960s piece that had a TO subway designer suggesting that Dufferin St. was needing a subway extension under it far more than Spadina – but guess what got built? And to a shopping mall!!
I’m guessing (but let Steve confirm this) that the suggestion to build on Dufferin predated the period where the Province got themselves ‘involved’ in public transit (to the extent that they started doing the planning themselves and telling the TTC how to do things).
And one of those things was the ‘cool’ idea of integrating transportation corridors (Yes! We’ll put a subway inside an expressway so people can see and consider the advantages & disadvantages of each!)
That period of “Ontario knows best” probably had its lowest point with the SRT – but make no mistake, it’s not over. The Ontario Government is still heavily involved in telling Toronto how to build public transit.
Regards, Moaz Yusuf Ahmad
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National Post actually printed something sorta, kinda, critical of Shepherd.
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This announcement is a relief, it could have been much worse. At least the Eglinton central tunnel is safe. I think the situation will get better with time because the government will have second thoughts about spending so much money. At some point (probably when Ford leaves) they will look at the cost-benefit ratio and realize that they don’t need as much tunnel on Eglinton east and that the Sheppard Subway is completely nonsensical.
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A lot of attention has focused on Finch and the impact of losing the LRT. Has TTC mentioned how the current 36 route is to be reconfigured once the Finch West station comes on line? Has TTC avoided a direct route from Downsview along Finch west of the Allen in the past to avoid swamping the peak trains which make it all the way to Downsview?
For Eglinton, the staging is going to be interesting. The botched Sheppard East LRT project had two major failures, the Don Mills terminal platform I’ve mentioned before but also the announcement that phase 1 would not terminate at the subway, leading to an immediate backlash from residents who realized their street was going to be torn up but they’d still have to transfer to get to Don Mills. It will be interesting to see which parts of Eglinton are proposed to be built first.
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I just wanted to say THANK YOU so much for all your hard work on this. It takes a lot of energy to be an activist. Your commitment is inspiring.
I was reading about community bonds the other day. I don’t know much about them, but wouldn’t it be great if somehow community bonds could be used for a capital project like the transit system people want and need. People would only invest in it if it made sense!
My husband had a thought too. What if there was a line on every citizen’s taxes (heck make 3 lines – one for each level of government), where each of us could designate a certain percentage of our taxes towards a program or service we value. That would certainly be one way of letting governments know what projects and programs make their citizens happy, while building a pool of funds to pay for them.
Maybe I should go back to bed. It’s perhaps a better place to dream than Toronto today.
Steve: I would like to see the “community” that would undertake a $4-billion project. There’s a reason that governments build things — they have access to a much greater range of revenues than people like you and me.
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Funny. I remember when the powers that be, came to UofT pushing the Pan AM games using the fact that proper transit was coming to UTSC. The city and province have once again let down students and staff. But UTSC students will still be paying the fees for these facilities for decades with still no proper transit.
Speaking of the games. Looking forward to seeing already packed buses/RT from Kennedy to the campus filled with students, staff and anyone bothering to check out the games.
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The National Post has an interesting transcript from the scrum at Wilson Carhouse. The Mayor “doesn’t know” where the money exactly will come from, but apparently there’s enough money somewhere to build both Sheppard East and Finch West subways… hmmm…
Steve: First lie in the article was the claim that in the first 100 days, Ford’s administration saved $67m. Almost all of that was the foregone revenue from the Vehicle Registration Tax. That is not a “saving”. And shortly later, Ford misrepresents the budget and final cost of the St. Clair project. As for his claim that there will be a subway on Finch in ten years, I really want to know what they put in the Mayor’s coffee. He really does not seem to understand that subways don’t just appear out of thin air because some developer wants to build them.
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Looks like I’m not the only one who forecasts a bailout for the insane Sheppard line. From the Ontario government website Steve linked to:
“Metrolinx may contribute up to $650 million to the costs of the Sheppard project.”
Normally it takes a little longer than a few minutes for my prophecies to come true…
🙂
Steve: The premise is that they may build Eglinton for less than estimated, and up to $650m in leftovers will go to Sheppard. Any above that amount will be funelled to other Toronto transit projects.
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“Will Eglinton’s mid-block stations survive?”
Not all of them. The press release says “up to 26 stations” from Black Creek to Scarborough Centre. That means at a minimum we’re going to lose three stops on Eglinton. If I was a betting man I’d say Ferrand, Lebovic, and Ionview.
Steve: Interesting that this is in the press release but not in the Memorandum of Understanding (which I will post shortly).
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