Now we come to what I must call “The Chong Dissent”, the reports prepared under the company “Toronto Transit Infrastructure Limited” (TTIL), a dormant TTC corporation resurrected for the purpose because it had $160k sitting in its bank account. All this and more was spent to argue the case for a Sheppard Subway.
Council has already opted for an LRT line on Sheppard, but arguments originating from the TTIL reports continue to haunt the debate. It’s time to expose their threadbare, self-serving nature.
Summary of The Subway Option, March 12, 2012
This is the allegedly omitted chapter in the Miller report. In fact, it appears in the appendices. We can argue forever about where it should have been and the slight, perceived or real, against the subway option this choice made. What is important is the content. If there were a strong case here for subways, the material would stand on its own.
The report begins with an argument for P3 financing as an alternative to the commitment by Queen’s Park of $8.4b to “street level transit”. Let me first observe that if the cost of the underground portion of the Eglinton line and the SRT replacement (which will be entirely grade separated) is removed, the amount is barely $3b. This is still a lot of money, but to claim that the province will spend the entire $8.4b on surface transit is simply wrong. That’s in the first paragraph, and it sets the tone for what will follow.
A few paragraphs later, we hear again the claim that the TTC’s cost structure is out of line with international experience. This is not true as demonstrated in other reports. Madrid, to which the TTC is so often compared, is an outlier in the data relative to everyone, not just Toronto.
LRT construction is claimed to hurt local businesses, but this appears to be based on the St. Clair model where streets are lined with shops, construction is botched and gerrymandered, and the degree of upheaval considerably more than what shop owners bargained for. A similar situation happened in Vancouver on the Canada Line where the private builder, after bidding on the basis of deep bore tunnel construction, elected to go cut-and-cover with considerable effect on local businesses. This is a question of project design and management, not of the specific technology used for the route.
BC is praised for “leveraging” a local investment of only $250m for the Canada line. What Chong neglects to mention is that this line received special funding as part of the federal contribution to the Olympics, a level of funding that is not generally available to transit projects in Canada.
Alberta is praised for funding transit by redirection of the education property tax. Bully for Alberta that they are so flush they can afford to give away education dollars like that. The situation in Ontario is much different. Indeed, part of the education taxes collected in Toronto and the larger cities goes to subsidize Boards in less urban communities who do not have the tax base to fund their local systems. Education tax revenue is not just “sitting there” waiting to be used for transit simply because another province has found a way to make this work.
LRT is claimed to have a higher cost per passenger mile than subway according to APTA (American Public Transit Association). This statement is doubtless true on a superficial level, but does not stand up to detailed review. Most subways in the USA have been around for a long time, and they serve very dense corridors. A low cost per passenger mile is inevitable from the high utilization of the infrastructure and of the manpower needed to keep it all running. LRT lines by their nature have less infrastructure, but generally carry more riders than bus lines. Their operating cost per passenger mile may be higher than on subways, but they are not burdened either by the high initial capital cost nor by the ongoing capital cost of major system repairs.
This is the very reason why cities build LRT lines — they trade off the much lower capital cost, the speed of implementation and the relatively low level of construction disruption. Indeed, most cities do not have corridors where a subway would achieve the average cost per passenger mile for the USA as a whole. The situation is the same on Sheppard — very low utilization of the existing subway generates a very high cost per passenger, and this would only be diluted, not eliminated, with the extension proposed to STC.
A blanket statement using average costs across all systems rather than a proper set of operating cost estimates for specific LRT and subway plans is a flagrantly unprofessional way to compare modes for a these proposals. Driving a car, on average, may be cheap, but I cannot expect to pay “average” costs if I go out and buy a fleet of SUVs.
Chong claims that there will be life cycle costs from attracted development around a subway option, and he uses the Spadina extension now under construction as an example. It is worth noting that the original Spadina line is remarkable for the lack of development around its stations. “Build it and they will come” has not worked in that corridor, and the major effect of the extension to Vaughan is to support an already-planned new development. It is unclear what portion of this development would occur even if there were no subway and, indeed, to what extent the public sector is “investing” in this development by funding a rapid transit line to it.
Now we come to a series of claims about the superiority of subway technology. Most of these are distorted or outright wrong.
- Vehicle costs. Subway cars cost $2.8m each while LRVs cost $5.3m. Subway cars cost less because they are built in trainsets where many subsystems are shared over the train. LRVs are intended for individual operation and have a higher unit cost. The offsetting saving is that one does not have to build dedicated infrastructure to use them. The LRV cost cited is higher than the value claimed by Metrolinx for the cars they are buying (roughly $4.4m each). This may arise from different bases of the quotations used. Chong’s claim is misleading.
- Design life. Chong claims that the design life of a subway car is 40-45 years while for LRVs it is 25-30. In fact, the typical life cycle for subway cars in Toronto and many other places is 30 years. The Yonge subway is now receiving its third completely new fleet a bit under 60 years after the line opened. The BD line is on its second fleet, and is not due for another until the mid 2020s. Chong’s claim is false.
- Travel time. The subway is claimed to save 10 minutes in travel versus 4 for LRT. However, we don’t know the basis of comparison. Just to reach the subway from eastern Scarborough will require a bus trip either to STC or to Kennedy North station on the subway line. If to STC, how much time is consumed going out of the way to reach STC?
- Ridership. The subway is claimed to carry more people, but these are (a) riders who will materialize only if the expected development around STC actually happens and (b) not the riders who have been waiting for better service in eastern Scarborough. The subway proposal is an investment in upgrading the value of existing industrial lands near STC, not in serving the wider community in Scarborough north of the 401.
- Reliability & Collision. The subway will not have to deal with traffic at intersections or with events such as collisions that could block service. Point taken. Again, as with all LRT vs subway debates, this is a question of tradeoffs versus cost and overall benefit.
- Auto savings. With more riders on the subway, this takes more cars off roads and generates a better environmental return. Yes, but at what cost? Should we build the most expensive mode in the hope of capturing more riders at a high marginal cost, or should we spread the available funding around.
The list goes on, but I won’t because it is all a rehash of the claim that with a subway we will have more transit riders and, by implication fewer auto trips. Note that the “higher” ridership of the subway option only applies if we ignore the potential ridership on a Finch corridor that would be affordable in an all-LRT network.
Next up is a list of collisions in Calgary. The heading states that five vehicles were retired, when the list below clearly shows that two of these were later repaired for service. There is no info on the age of the vehicles involved. Vehicles nearing the end of their lives would not be repaired, but would be used as a source of spare parts.
Dare I mention the fact that buses and subway trains have collisions too? Quite recently, a bus was involved in a fatal collision on Lawrence East, and there is an infamous collision at Russell Hill in the Spadina Subway which killed three people and, by the way, exposed the shoddy state of TTC maintenance and training. Buses have killed people who fell under them at stops, and subways have a regular problem with suicides. Would I suggest that subway advocates are causing suicides by expanding the system? Of course not, and yet that is the level of cause-and-effect “analysis” we are offered by this report.
A quote from the Edmonton Journal talks about problems with the Edmonton LRT system. This is a controversy over design and alignment of an extension to a network that began in 1978 inspired, in part, by Toronto’s decision to keep its streetcar system. The debate in Edmonton is not whether to have LRT, but how to best co-ordinate it with the City’s plans and existing neighbourhoods.
Chong claims that LRT will have lower or even negative environmental effects as compared with a subway. First off, as I mentioned earlier, the population and location to be served by the LRT are different from those that would be served by the subway. Sheppard Avenue itself east of Kennedy North Station would receive little “environmental” benefit from a subway that ran along the other side of the 401 in the Progress / Highland Creek corridor.
LRT is supposed to be noisier, but it is unclear what reference Chong is using. We do know that the “old” style of track, notably still in operation on Spadina south of King and on Queen’s Quay, is very noisy because of how it was built, but this is not typical of modern streetcar track. The new LFLRVs have additional sound deadening features which will make them even quieter than the CLRVs we now have operating on the streetcar system.
Chong claims that LRT will reduce vehicle lanes, and this does not accord with the actual proposed designs. Yes, there will be changes in circulation for some left turns, but this is not forced out to the 1km spacing of major north-south intersections in Scarborough because of the mid-block LRT stops.
Chong claims that the LRT will displace 502 residential homes during construction. This is blantly untrue. Sheppard is not a street with houses built to the lot line, and in any event, the public road allowance is wide enough to accommodate planned expansion to hold the LRT right-of-way. Chong claims that 308 properties will have to be acquired in full for the LRT, and that is simply not credible given the actual built form on Sheppard. In a related claim, 200 jobs will be displaced during construction, but it is unclear how many of these are near the Agincourt grade separation project which is independent of the LRT scheme.
Let us assume that the average residential frontage on Sheppard is 35 feet. If we have to acquire 308 of these, that’s over 3 km worth of properties “fully acquired”. What would the TTC possibly do with all of this land?
The subway plan is touted as optimizing urban amenities through intensification. Unfortunately, it won’t do this on much of Sheppard Avenue.
At this point I am going to skip over much of the remainder of the document. There is such a pervasive air of misrepresentation and selective use of information that a point comes where the whole is discredited. One final section does need comment, however.
In the discussion of possible funding, the presumed cost of the Sheppard subway is $2.783b. We already know that this number is low-balled because of the way the estimate was done — it omits costs that are legitimately part of the TTC estimate including the net sales tax and understates the cost of storage for the additional subway car fleet.
Revenue from property sales as well as future TIF revenues that would finance various types of borrowing are drawn from a much wider geographic area than just the Sheppard subway (all of the Eglinton and SRT lines are included as well). The private sector is on tap for $914m in financing, but it is unclear how this will be paid back.
Also unclear is the actual agency through which the line would be built, not to mention how and with whom the “risk” of bringing it in on budget would be shared.
When we look under the covers, this is a project that would be largely financed with public dollars whether this be direct subsidy (the roughly $1b already in the pot for Sheppard from Queen’s Park and Ottawa), land sales (a municipal one-time resource), or borrowing (no matter how financed). The “private” opportunity is to develop land and, possibly, make money on a fixed price construction contract.
Some readers will view my writeup of this report as superficial and biased. I only wish there were some real meat in the report, something I could engage with as a debate about alternatives, rather than so much politically inspired bilge.
Advocates of subways, and more generally of “alternative procurement” schemes, do themselves no favours with superficial, blatantly biased reports. There may be a case to make for new ways of building transit, but this report fails miserably in its task.
Steve Munro 
I had to actually think in order to understand the problem with the “average cost per passenger mile” argument—sometimes it’s harder to see what is wrong with a really absurd argument than a slightly erroneous one. But now I realize that this is just the observation that almost anything can be done in bulk more cheaply than in smaller quantities.
By Chong’s argument, I should hire a caisson drill that can go down 20m to dig my postholes; I should buy my food directly from the Ontario Food Terminal; and I should have my lumber delivered off one of the centre-beam flat cars that go past my house every few days. All of those are cheaper per unit than using a post-hole digger, grocery store, and retail lumber yard.
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Don’t hold back now … I did not read the report but your summary fits my expectations from it. That said you are normally a little more ‘gentle’ in your criticism. In this case I assume it is warranted and I like the tone.
Steve: I get really angry when people are paid a lot of money for expertise and fail to deliver so spectacularly. I make no pretense about my own background which is simply the product of decades of watching and looking at transit, paying attention to the opinions of many, and arguing from as factual a point of view as I can muster, all without being paid for it. When someone takes money from the public purse and produces crap, they deserve to be called out, not treated as some sort of “expert” whose pearls of wisdom are ignored are our peril.
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I suspect that he may have glanced at the preliminary design maps, which show where the existing public right-of-way is inadequate to accommodate the proposed cross-section. These maps only show where private property might be needed, but it’s difficult to tell if these property expropriations involve taking a strip of lawn, taking a bit of parking-lot or private sidewalk, or outright building destruction.
Steve: His report is quite clear on how many properties are required in total (ie complete taking) or in part (ie a strip of land or an easement). Somewhere he counted them. There is no way that the maps from the preliminary design support the numbers cited in Chong’s report.
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Steve:
I disagree with your semi apology at the end. Your analysis was perfectly suited to the report as presented. (Which you also say.) The semi-truths and lies that have been spun to the people of Toronto – especially how Scarborough has been “shortchanged again” are where the true offense lies.
One point you allude to is private sector financing where the source of repayment is unclear needs further enforcement. Borrowing is Borrowing. There have been financings in the past where an entity – such as the public sector – can transfer some sort of tax write off to the private sector and therefore gets “below market” financing. This opportunity does not apply to building subways. Therefore, any private sector “investment” is actually just private sector “lending” which will bear a premium over the cost of money raised through public sector debentures. This will be caused by the fees paid to the “arrangers” and the premium that the supposed “risk takers” will command for investing in a project supposedly (though not really) less certain of repayment than investing in Municipal Debentures.
Steve: Another point about tax write offs is that unless we can arrange that they are borne by a foreign government, then it’s an expenditure of public funds by another name.
The example of Greece is very much overused. Ontario and Toronto are nowhere near a comparison to the over indebtedness of Greece except in the imagination of right wing commentators. However, a true fact about Greece is that the government “engaged” Wall Street/The City et al to provide “creative” financing solutions that were, in the end, nothing more or less than criminally hiding public sector debt in supposed innovative (and expensive) private sector vehicles. The only winners were the arrangers who “earned” their multi million dollar/euro fees.
MFP had cool plans for a “private sector” “solution” to City Hall computer needs…
Have we finished paying for that debacle?
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I read a funny comment in the twitterverse last week: Somewhere in Toronto, there are several people walking around with root canals instead of fillings.
Steve: And possibly an infestation of swans.
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Well done Steve with this effort to expose the erroneous arguments that would otherwise pass for professional.
Seems to me some considerable urgency should be given to getting an LRV, borrowed or otherwise, operating for 2 or 3 km somewhere, as Vancouver did for the games. Only then, with free Sunday rides, will minds change, and quickly, for as I found out in Nottingham UK, these things are delightful.
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It would have been more beneficial to see an expenses-only comparison between subway and LRT, and then paired with the separately calculated expected revenues from the different ridership projections. I know what those results would look like because I’ve done the expenses calculation myself with the blue books, and the difference in lifecycle costing is a real chasm.
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On a related note to accidents is the issue of fires and associated infrastructure. When subway fires start the implications are dire. Just a few incidents of note:
– The Union Station pocket track
– The Garbage Train at Old Mill Station
– The rubber mats fire at Greenwood Wye
The risks from underground fires are greatly multiplied. Safe egress and emergency services access can be difficult, damage to structures and electrical systems can be major, and the containment of heat and smoke amplifies these. We’ve now reached the point where paranoia about even the “possible smell of smoke” results in major delays and inconvenience to thousands of riders. Due to the extensive risks, the Fire Code has been altered to require vastly more infrastructure at underground stations to create multiple separated exits. New lines incur the full cost of these updates. Fire alarm and sprinkler systems as well as portable extinguishers and hoses require regular inspections also.
I realise that all of this applies to underground LRT stations, but the costs and risks are virtually ZERO for any street-level portions of an LRT line.
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Neil said,
I think it is worse than that: there must be people who only needed a cleaning and surface polishing, but got root canals! 😉
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Hi Steve and Kristian:-
Two more to add to your list, Christie EB. (1976?) and south of Sheppard SB.
Christie closed the line for days, the station for many more and there was a real concern that the heat from the melting aluminum had damaged the integrity of the ceiling of the station’s structure. That kept the engineers busy for a while until they deemed that it would survive until it was epoxied over. Heat from the fire spalled the wall tiles, melted plastic appliances upstairs and blackened almost everything inside the three levels, besides destroying three of the four 10 year old cars of the train.
It was a mess!
Sheppard was not as long a delay. A temporary resolution reopened the line when the heat in the tunnel allowed Workers and Supervisors in to survey the problem and the fix was in by the next night, but meanwhile there were many commuters seriously late in their morning trip to the City! This is one where Gary Webster came up with a solution to eliminate the problem which caused the fire with an elegantly simple fix. It works well even now.
Fortunately and thankfully these two incidents saw no fatalities.
And then there was the time that there was an automobile on the tracks just south of Davisville NB. That closed the line for a few hours midday.
Naw, it’s all smoke (yuckity yuck yuck) and mirrors from the pro LRT folks isn’t it, as subways are traffic and delay free, correct Mr. Chong?
Dennis Rankin
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Steve,
thank you so much for wading through reams of “official” reports and giving us both their essence and your informed critique. Do you have a life? I am retired and it takes me too much time to even deal with the Star on a daily basis!
With regard to the “debate” over LRT or subway, I was still employed in the City’s Transportation Planning section, managing the Scarborough office, when all the EA studies were done. I know the ridership forecasts, the design compromises made to squeeze all the elements into the existing 36 m right-of-way to minimize property takings, and the extensive public consultation done for the projects.
I was also there when the new post-amalgamation Official Plan was created, with massive public input, and many years at the OMB. The public at large, in places like Scarborough and North York, were very averse to development and wanted the 75% no change areas we have in the Plan. There is simply no appetite for intensification along the Shepaprd corridor, for example. Even the Consumers Road employment area is under threat of redevelopment for residential uses, as upheld by the OMB more than once, which further reduces the ridership potential there. In fact, when Transit City came out, with the line going to Meadowvale, I was concerned that the low density housing out there would be ripe for redevelopment. This could still happen. The rewards for builders like Mattamy are so great they dug out all the fly ash from the old landfill east of Conlins to put up new higher density housing.
Anyway, finally Council has made the right decision and with luck we can soon get an agreement with Metrolinx and move forward. Keep up the good work.
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Piling on. They only got a root canal in one tooth, leaving what to do with the other cavities for some later date.
Steve: Probably waiting for a P3 grant from the Feds.
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Hi Steve:-
I’m enjoying the novel Mr. Chong wrote. I like murder mysteries generally and this one’s killing me!
His statement that LRT ignores, not meets the Province’s and City’s desire to have ‘Centres’ served but the subway would. Well at last count, the subway was not going to reach the Town Centre for many many years. But too, unless I’m mistaken, doesn’t the Scarborough RT go to the Scarborough Town Centre? I thought I’d taken it there recently and understand that you used to ride it daily? Isn’t the RT slated to be upgraded as true and reliable LRT with the LRT Scarborough proposal?
Isn’t the line intended to be extended to Sheppard Avenue, thus giving networkability with the Sheppard East line? Something else Mr. Chong said would be lost with his ‘Subway better’ scenario! Will it no longer connect with those many bus routes that now serve or terminate at the TC stn.? Isn’t there a GO bus that uses this site too? Isn’t that GO and LRT connectivity? I’m shaking my head!
Seems Mr. Chong has left out a lot of information and has placed loads of misleading info in its place!
And as for employment centres, I thought when I went to Google satellite that I saw many employment centres along the part of Sheppard that the subway was not proposed to go to.
Too, the ‘subway better’ will serve the GO Scarborough connections when the LRT won’t? Huh? Doesn’t both the BD and RT serve That stn just S of Eglinton on the Unionville line? Won’t the LRT make it within a few paces of the Agincourt Stn. at Sheppard and Midland whereas the subway stn would be quite a hike in comparison?
Wow, talk about murder mysteries. New York Times should be looking at this one for a review for its best seller list!
Dennis Rankin
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One bit of information I’ve been waiting to hear from anyone (Chong, Ford, etc) is how they feel that a subway to STC benefits Scarborough as a whole. Has anyone said so and I missed it in the media? Has anyone floated any pies in the sky about extending the subway past STC to serve other parts of Scarborough? I really want to know the rationale for this.
I can wrap my head around the preference for grade-separated over mixed RT, but not how terminating the route at STC benefits the wider area.
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I still am unclear why any private sector company would assist in the finance of such an infrastructure development. There is already a subway going to Vaughan that has plenty of building space in the north end for development without the developer investing in a subway plan up there. It is also an area to me which is more desirable than Scarborough due to its proximity to downtown via (subway once completed — one seat trip, more uptodate infrastructure) and closeness to two highways. In addition, I do not think that a lot of employers value public transit outside the core as believed by the Ford gang. Look at companies like Honda and Stat Farm who use to have offices in Scarborough but are now located off off the 404. Nowhere near any form of public transit but easily accessible by auto. Also, Why has not one private sector representative ever spoke about this plan in public?
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The whole Sheppard LRT proposal is seriously flawed and needs a whole rethink. The major problems I see with it are:
– The transfer at Don Mills. My impression is that a large percentage of the passengers who currently use the Sheppard subway transfer to bus route 85/190, and take it to destinations further east on Sheppard, largely between Don Mills and McCowan. Having this transfer discourages ridership and wastes riders’ time. If there is a subway-bus transfer further east I think this is much less of an issue since far fewer people are going east of Scarborough Centre. Also if the LRT does not connect to Scarborough Centre then a trip from Yonge/Sheppard to STC will take longer than it currently does. Eliminating the 190 will probably force people going to STC to use the York Mills bus instead. Also why is there no serious thought of the problem of having Scarborough’s main bus transfer point at Scarborough Centre but having the Sheppard LRT connect to it? If a LRT is built on Sheppard not going to STC then a new bus terminal needs to be built at Sheppard/Markham for TTC, GO and possibly YRT and DRT buses but this was never taken seriously.
– Capacity problems on the west end of the LRT. I have a strong suspicion that the west end of the LRT (particularly between Don Mills and Victoria Park, though Victoria Park to Kennedy is likely to be an issue as well).
– The idea of a parallel LRT on Finch East is a non starter. If we need several parallel LRT lines to handle the demand then we would be better off building subways. It would cost a billion dollars to build LRT on Finch East, so building a couple of parallel lines to handle demand costs as much a subway. Hardly any other city I can think of has recently built multiple parallel LRT lines because of this.
I am willing to support light rail on Finch West, and could be convinced to support LRT on Eglinton if the outer sections (where east of Don Mills, there is much less density than Sheppard E) are designed to be high capacity like the Calgary/Edmonton/Ottawa systems, but putting LRT on Sheppard is a terrible idea.
Building two incompatible types of rail (subway and light rail) on one corridor is bad planning and makes absolutely no sense. If there is no money to do Sheppard properly then leave it alone, and reallocate the funding to bus lanes+articulated buses for Sheppard East and parallel routes like Finch East which is a cheap temporary solution that can be replaced with subways at a later date. The Sheppard LRT is a bad politically motivated proposal intended to make it impossible to extend the Sheppard subway at a later date, proposed by the same government that wanted to close the Sheppard subway at one point (which would require a huge number of shuttle buses) even though the Sheppard subway carries as many people as the overcrowded Scarborough RT.
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Has anyone seen the traffic congestion on Yonge Street, Bloor Street, Danforth Avenue or even Allen Road? Why are there still cars on those streets? There’s a subway underneath them, but they still drive. Will the traffic on Allen Road disappear after the Spadina extension? I don’t think so.
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I’m not sure what “local” means, but here’s the breakdown of funding from Wikipedia:
Note that for the Evergreen Line, there is a similar amount of Federal funding (without the Olympics):
Steve: Yes, I am unsure where Chong got that $250m figure, and I was just quoting what was in his report. As for the Evergreen line and Ottawa, I suspect this is a left over commitment from the days Ottawa was till handing out money for projects like this (e.g. the money for the Sheppard LRT). There is no transit funding in the federal budget available across Canada beyond the dedicated gas tax that is sent to all municipalities. I doubt this will change with tomorrow’s budget announcements.
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Just one point. Design life of the vehicles does not necessarily equate to the TTC’s life cycle. The TTC does sell its vehicles and they continue to be used for many years after their days in Toronto. The fact that they can sell them means that they certainly have a useful life in them that provides a residual value. So prima facie, it could well be true that subway cars have a longer design life. (I’m not sure what the typical design life is for LRVs). This does need to be looked at. It might not necessarily tip the balance. But it would certainly help put forward a more informed picture.
Steve: Be careful here. The cars will not be used “as is” in their new homes. If I wanted to get picky, I could note that the TTC shipped streetcars built around 1940 to Alexandria Egypt after they were retired from service in Toronto. The issue with vehicle lifespan is not specific to subways or LRT (which are essentially the same technology packaged in different boxes), but a question of how much one wants to spend to keep old vehicles running.
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This is absolutely wrong. Many parallel lines, each with medium capacity, can provide much better service than one line with higher capacity. First, the service is spread out so it serves more people conveniently thus eliminating some bus trips to get to the rapid transit (“one seat ride”, anybody?); second, in the event of a failure the immediate impact is less and there is more opportunity to work around it by re-routing the service. And, because LRT is enormously cheaper than subway, we can get the benefit of the parallel lines for less money than putting in just a few subway lines.
Ok, I was going to spare Steve my fantasy transit plan, but it’s too relevant and I can’t resist, so here is my list of proposed future Transit City lines:
East-West: Eglinton: extend to airport; Lawrence/Dixon/Airport: Port Union to Brampton; Ellesmere/York Mills/Wilson/Albion: Meadowvale to Steeles; Finch: Morningside to Steeles; Steeles: Markham to Hurontario.
North-South: Kipling: Lake Shore to Steeles; Islington: Lake Shore to Steeles; Royal York/St. Phillips/Weston: Lake Shore to Steeles; Jane: Bloor to Steeles; Parkside/Keele: Lake Shore to Steeles; Dufferin: Lake Shore to Steeles; Bathurst: Lake Shore to Steeles; Victoria Park: Queen to Steeles; Warden: Kingston to Steeles; Kennedy: Kingston to Steeles; Brimley: Kingston to Steeles; Markham: Kingston to Steeles; Morningside: Kingston to Steeles.
Plus Front/Eastern/Kingston, from Bathurst to Kingston (the city, not the road, because this is a fantasy and I say LRT should provide a one seat ride all the way to Kingston).
Plus lots more, and ignoring the fact the before all the above gets built York Region and Durham Region are going to want to get in on the act.
Now, unlike some subway advocates, I’m aware that I’ve just spent about $40 billion (ignoring the LRT to Kingston, which is just silly and not really a legitimate City of Toronto project). But now you can get within about a kilometer of anywhere in the city on rapid transit; the network can handle traffic levels that would absolutely choke the existing system; and almost any service interruption can be avoided by an appropriate alternate routing. Obviously, this is not a project to build in the immediate future; but eventually I fully expect that a properly-planned network of this magnitude will be exactly what the city needs. To do it all with subways would cost much more — how much? Who knows? $120 billion?
Sorry, drivers, you need to get used to sharing the road. Fortunately, the road will be much less congested than projections would suggest due to the amount of traffic being carried by transit.
Steve: There are some great places to eat in Kingston, but I think we may have to divert the line south through Prince Edward County to get full support. Maybe if we put in a mall and a monorail …
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Andrew wrote,
Unless there is a need for subway capacity now or in the next ten years, absolutely not!
Parallel LRTs can be built over a much longer period of time, adding wider-spread capacity on line as it becomes needed, while providing the necessary lower capacity much sooner when it it needed. Suburban capacity needs will NEVER build to the point that justifies a subway, unless you are planning on increasing urban sprawl. People who live in the suburbs do so because they don’t want to live in an area that needs subway capacity. Increase the density to need that capacity on one corridor, instead of providing that same capacity on two or three parallel corridors, and urban sprawl spreads further and further out.
Best of all, a network of parallel LRT lines provides alternate paths for people to get from one place to another when a problem shuts down a line for several hours. Of course, if one really prefers the amazing fun of cramming onto a few dozen shuttle buses when a subway line is shut down for a few hours, then maybe the single subway line would be the better idea.
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Andrew,
1) The SRT connects with the Sheppard LRT and goes to Scarborough Town Centre.
2) As my math teacher said, ‘show your work.’ There is a lot of headroom on the Sheppard LRT. Extension to 3-car trains, for example. Gut feelings have no place in planning.
3) A parallel LRT on Finch serves the people who live near Finch. A subway that actually served people on Sheppard east of Kennedy would cost ~4 billion to build, or approximately $3 billion that we don’t have.
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@Calvin Henry-Cotnam
People, what are we trying to build here? A streetcar network so dense that LRT diversions are possible in the suburbs?
Steve: It’s a fantasy map, after all. I want to see the equivalent subway fantasy map complete with junctions allowing the same sort of wandering trains underground. After all, we want maximum flexibility and the ability to provide one seat riders for everyone, don’t we?
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What the subway supporters seem to ignore is that in cities with well-established subway networks the suburban portions of the lines are rarely underground. Very little of London’s outer reaches has underground trackage because many of the lines were born as private standard railways and later absorbed and converted. There’s even one rural stub reminiscent of Thomas the Tank Engine-era with a tiny single station (Chesham) that has only recently been upgraded to handle the new 8-car Bombardier unit-trains. This was for fleet compatibility only, as the older trains operated as a rush-hour four-car shuttle on the branch – yes, folks, a transfer! This station is the furthest away from London on the entire network (40.2km), has the lowest ridership (460,000 annually) and also is reached by the longest distance between stations (6.26km).
Even today outlying subway routes are generally expanded via surface construction because the cost of serving these areas does not justify tunnelling. If Toronto had been fortunate enough to have more surviving railway corridors to take advantage of and precedent for service over them then we might have seen more subway line expansion in this manner.
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Jacob Louy directed this at me:
I never said anything about a network that would allow LRT diversions. I was talking about PEOPLE being able to divert more easily than having to squeeze onto a shuttle bus. If future needs required a parallel line on Finch East, that is still about 2 km away from Sheppard. A customer half way between the two who might usually take a bus down to Sheppard could go the other way if they heard there was a problem on Sheppard. A subway line would need such a wide catchment area in the suburbs that this option is not likely. Case in point: if you were at Don Mills and Overlea and heard that there was a signaling problem on BD resulting in no service between Broadview and St. George, would you go north to the Sheppard line?
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Carolyn Johnson wrote:
So good to see you are still following the goings on at the City post-retirement. I still remember your helpful assistances many years ago as a friend and I were working on a proposal for a bike route in Scarborough. I would agree that local residents here in Scarborough would not welcome the kind of massive development required to support a subway along Sheppard. Moreover, such development might actually increase car use. I agree that Council has made the best decision but it seems the Mayor and a few others seem determined to reverse that decision. And I still worry over the $8.4 billion that has been allocated. The proposed Provincial budget has preserved it, but what if the Government is defeated? Could all these current transit plans be once again trashed?
One a more positive note, the debate over subway vs LRT brought to mind a documentary I saw (and recorded for later viewing) quite some time ago: “Trolley: the Car that Built America”. The first section covered the early history and heyday of streetcars and interurbans, showcasing many examples in North America (Ottawa and Montreal the only cities mentioned in Canada). The second section covered the decline as many cities abandoned streetcars. There was of course the mention of “a great conspiracy between the automobile manufacturers, oil companies, and tire makers killed the trolley car”, but mostly attributed the decline to the growing popularity of the car. Most interesting for me was the last section on the revival of the “trolley” showcasing a number of transit systems that implemented light rail, including mention of Calgary. While somewhat dated (it was made in 1991) the last section of the this doc might have been worth showing at one of the Council meetings.
Phil
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To Phil Piltch,
Fancy meeting up on Steve’s blog site. I am glad to [no?] longer be part of the City staff team trying to work under this administration, but frustrated as a citizen to see tax money being wasted and opportunities possibly lost through this wrangling.
Fortunately, there are many transit advocates like Steve and the Rocket Riders keeping the facts at the forefront.
Carolyn
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@Calvin Henry-Cotnam
Just to clarify, I was never against the idea of multiple LRT lines, just so long as it’s justifiable.
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Now that the Sheppard East LRT is approved, is there any chance they will be able to convert the rest of the Sheppard subway to LRT so there can be a one seat ride and no transfer on Sheppard? The subway portion seems to be pointless now, so why can’t it be converted to LRT? Or is there a chance they want to eventually expand it westward to connect with the University-Spadina portion of the YUS line?
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There is a mention of the Sheppard LRT with regards to networks in the latest Human Transit blog post. Because I am not a Torontonian I learned some things I did not know about the Sheppard LRT and wonder what people think. There was a link to the EA and it looked to me like the assumptions did not include all door boarding. Any reason not? Also seems to me the short stop spacing is more Streetcar like than LRT, any hope of increasing stop spacing?
Steve: All door loading has always been part of the plan. As for the stop spacing, this ties in with the goals of the Official Plan to encourage development at moderate scale along the corridor rather than only high rises at major intersections. The tradeoff for more stops does not add much to the overall running time. This is discussed in the EA.
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Can someone do Tim Hudak a favour and explain this has already been decided so he can stop spending his heavily-indebted party’s money on pieces of garbage like this.
Also, wasn’t part of the whole farce of Ford delaying the Sheppard vote that he expected manna to fall from the provincial and federal governments to pay for his subway fantasy? Well, I don’t see anything coming, does anyone else? 2014 can’t come soon enough, and as far as slates of candidates are concerned, I’m hoping that anti-Ford groups can coalesce around candidates that represent their neighbourhoods and not the delusions of a couple of smug, entitled rich boys. They can start with Cesar Palacio, the only downtown councillor still supporting this failed regime.
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I’m curious to know how Dr. Chong, a dentist, managed in the first place to involve himself in “transit planning and analysis,” if that’s how you’d describe his “expertise”?
One would think that transit in all but its most superficial aspects would fall well outside his area of schooling and practical knowledge. I’m intrigued at how such a man could sink his “teeth” into this subject sufficiently far to be invited to author a major transit “study” on the preferability of subways over surface transit?
Seems to me he may have been attempting to do a “route canal” on Sheppard – that would have been his major life’s accomplishment had he succeeded! I could just see it written up in all the major medical and dental journals.
Steve: Dr. Chong has made a political career, not a dental one. Among other posts, he has run the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (e.g. GO Transit) and been Vice-Chair of the TTC. Both were political sinecures. He was defeated in an attempt to get on City Council many years ago by Jack Layton.
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Isn’t a route canal part of the necessary infrastructure for the swan fleet?
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I think the past has demonstrated that these ‘leadership’ positions are about general familiarity at best, not expertise. Dr. Chong knows the rules of the ‘game’, but that’s not enough to make him a transit/urban development guru.
Here’s an idea for the subway gang – make a public plea for donation of all those soon-to-be-retired pennies to pay for subway expansion. Then we can also use the steel cores for the train frames and tracks and copper-clad the bodies. Not quite ‘gold-plated’, but certainly unique. When they darken and green with age they can then call it a “feature” (rather than from infrequent cleaning).
These cents represent what little cash anyone was going to give Ford anyway, and in the tradition of good government and gravy probably would cost the same 1.5 cents per penny to process as it did to mint them.
P.S. The first person to photoshop a copper-clad TR is my hero! Bonus points for a copper-clad swan boat so long as it doesn’t become too heavy and sink or topple.
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Kristian, yours is the most “Centsible” suggestion for funding subways yet brought forward! Sure beats anything the Fords and their cohorts have been able to come up with.
To the Ford Mayors – your two-cents’ worth?
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Oh, yes, Brent, a route canal is an absolutely essential part of any successful swanboat line, be it on the surface or underground.
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Regarding conversion of the Sheppard Subway to LRT usage, the platform height problem is the first one. I doubt the tunnels are tall enough to simply raise the tracks in the stations, without having the LRT vehicles hit the ceiling. (If the stations are tall enough, then this is exactly what should be done.)
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Kristian:
Mayor Miller did have a 1 cent for Toronto campaign in the past. There have also been campaigns encouraging school children (won’t someone think of the children and their subway-less future) to save their pennies & collect recyclables for the war effort, during the depression, etc. So yes, it’s time to bring back the posters and protect the young people of Scarborough from being raised without subways.
One thought that has been running through my head is that all of these pro-subway campaigns, calls to extend Sheppard, spurious reports justifying the extension, as well as calls to “fix” Sheppard, calls to interline Sheppard, etc. are all avoiding the giant (white) elephant in the room.
To wit, Sheppard as a subway has become a failure of sorts – the white elephant that some people feared back in the mid-1990s. And since no one is willing to admit that failure, the campaigns and the histrionics and the anger and the discussions will continue, unabated, even after the LRT is launched and the first LRV runs into Don Mills station.
Maybe we need former mayor Mel Lastman to lead the healing? To hear Lastman admit (even vaguely admit) that, had the option been available, perhaps it would have been better to build an LRT network across North York and Scarborough rather than a stub-way under Sheppard, well, it might just jumpstart the healing process and allow Toronto to move on.
Cheers, Moaz
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Anyone who doesn’t think subway construction has any impact on business should drive along Keele St. from Sheppard to Steeles then go west on Steeles. Keele is ripped up from 1 block south to Finch to north of the busway. It is 1 lane in each direction except there is no north bound traffic from Finch to the busway. Traffic access to business is severely limited and this street will be like this for quite a while. Steeles has lost a lane in each direction where the subway crosses it.
I also went east on Eglinton from Erin Mills Parkway to Bathurst. There were signs of the Mississauga busway construction and it is a lot more involved than the Sheppard or Finch LRT line. It has a lot of grade separated road crossings and large station structures.
Eglinton is down to 1 lane in each direction east of the Black Creek for the TBM entrance. There a number of places were Eglinton was down to 1 lane in each direction for soil sampling. A number of business were boarded up but I don’t know if these were for the LRT subway or just a general down turn in business. They did not seem to be in prosperous looking stretches.
I saw 1 Mississauga bus in my whole trip in Hazelville and about 1 TTC bus every 2 blocks in Toronto.
For those who have forgotten the mess created by North Yonge or Sheppard subway construction drive up Keele Street from Sheppard to Steeles and tell me it isn’t bad.
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Robert Wightman wrote,
Conversely, one should also take a look at the construction on Highway 7 from Bayview to the 404. This is where the first part of VIVA’s rapidway is well under construction, which is perhaps the closest thing in the GTHA to what median LRT construction should be like, though median bus lanes do require a bit more width.
All along this stretch, they have maintained the same THREE lanes of traffic in both directions, not to mention the left and right turns at intersections. To be sure, traffic must move a little slower as these lanes have to shift left and right along the construction, but they are all still maintained most of the time. When they have had to close a lane or two for adjustments, they have mainly limited this to evenings or overnight to minimize traffic disruption.
Entrances to properties have been either maintained or temporarily relocated with suitable signage. They have also put up electronic display boards indicating traffic conditions showing current estimated time and ‘normal’ estimated time to the other end of construction to give drivers a heads up.
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