May 2013 saw Toronto Council, in a fit of almost unprecedented irresponsibility, reverse its previous support for a Master Agreement with Metrolinx for the construction of four LRT lines. Instead, Council decided that it preferred that a subway replace the Scarborough RT rather than a new LRT line.
The primary reasons given for this change of heart were:
- The subway is “only” $500m more expensive than the LRT option.
- The LRT option would require a four year shutdown of service on the SRT corridor while conversion was underway.
- The transfer between modes at Kennedy Station is an unpopular factor that would be eliminated with through subway service.
- Greater future demand is projected for the subway option.
Without rehashing the details at length:
- The difference in cost to the City of Toronto between the subway and LRT options is now known to be roughly $1b, although the exact components differ depending on the assumptions in the calculation.
- The shutdown period would be at most three years, although this is still a very substantial service outage.
- The revised transfer arrangements at Kennedy would place the LRT platform much closer to the subway platform and in a weather protected area.
- Although subway demand is projected to be higher than for the LRT, the subway will serve a smaller walk-in market and will be more dependent on the bus feeder network.
- Extension of the subway is highly unlikely.
Political Fallout
Metrolinx is rather perturbed that a sudden change of policy will affect procurements now in progress for the Eglinton-Crosstown project (which includes the SRT to LRT conversion) and the planned carhouse on Sheppard at Conlins Road where cars for the new Scarborough LRT would be based. Metrolinx has asked for clarification of Council’s position by August 2, 2013.
That is one day after the coming by-elections which have thrown any reasoned consideration of the issues out the window. All political parties and Councillors supporting the subway option blatantly pander to Scarborough voters. At Queen’s Park, statements by Metrolinx can be contradicted by the Minister of Transportation, if only by his absence of a definitive position. Vote-counting for both the by-election and the 2014 general election(s) has politicians falling over each other to prove their deep concern for Scarborough’s welfare.
Some of these pols held directly opposite, pro-LRT positions within 2013, but that is of little matter in the bid to give Scarborough only the best possible rapid transit money can buy.
Premier Wynne has been silent and absent from this debate, a marked contrast to her hands-on approach to her “new government” agenda. The opposition parties are no better preferring to bash the Liberal government rather than addressing the fundamental issues of the form, cost and funding of transit expansion.
The City Manager & TTC CEO Report
The City Manager and TTC CEO submitted a joint report to the upcoming Council meeting setting out many of the issues for debate.
Reactions from Councillors and the Mayor have been mixed. In particular the amount of new debt the City would have to take on, the means by which it would be repaid, and the degree to which this would crowd out other City projects have been discussed in local media, on Twitter and on Facebook by many parties. I will not attempt to summarize the various positions, claims and counterclaims here. The Council debate will almost certainly bring out even more creative interpretations of the available information, and a lot of misinformation as well.
The report is clear that the LRT option is much better understood because of previous approvals. Its design and effect on the network are reasonably well known. The subway, by contrast, requires more study both in terms of the land use changes it would require to justify the extra cost, and the effect of projected higher demand on other parts of the network including the existing subway system.
The report proposes that Council take one of two courses:
- Approve the original LRT plan, or
- Authorize the City Manager to renegotiate the Master Agreement with Metrolinx subject to various conditions, and embark on a program of funding through property tax increases, development charges, and whatever contribution might be obtained from the Federal Government.
Cost Estimates
On the cost side, the City/TTC estimates presume that the entire proposed Scarborough LRT budget of $1.8b will be available for a subway alternative. However, Metrolinx has already been quite clear that part of this budget includes the reconstruction of Kennedy Station to handle the Eglinton-Crosstown line and only roughly $1.48b would be available for a subway.
These numbers, and other costs related to each option, have yet to be agreed to by the TTC and Metrolinx. It is unclear, based on some comments from Metrolinx, who is doing the detailed estimates for each party considering that the TTC still provides some technical services to the Metrolinx project.
Estimates are further complicated by the need to include inflation from a base year of 2010$ to the presumed date of construction and debt service costs for the City’s share of the subway option if this not covered on a pay-as-you-play basis. There are far too many variables and unknowns for a fully informed debate, but we will go through one anyhow because the urgency is to vote for a subway, no matter what.
If the project goes forward, construction would not start for four years given the need for detailed design and a Transit Project Assessment (the simplified version of an Environmental Assessment). The opening date is projected in 2023, ten years away.
The TTC estimates the cost of a subway at $2.3b before inflation, and specifies that this is to be confirmed once the project reaches 30% design (which has not even started). The estimate is considered accurate ±30% giving a potential range of $1.61b to $2.99b in 2010$. When inflation is added, the $2.3b figure rises to $3.283b. This gives a potential upper bound of over $4b including inflation.
Queen’s Park has guaranteed LRT project funding including inflation. The proposed revisions to the agreement presume that the $1.8b (or whatever amount would come from the cancelled SLRT project) will also be inflated.
The City report calculates that the value of the provincial monies would be (billions of dollars):
Original Budget Kennedy Adjustment
2010 Inflated 2010 Inflated
SLRT Budget $1.800 $1.480
Sunk Costs .085 .085
Available for Transfer $1.715 $2.448 $1.395 $1.991
It is unclear whether this would actually happen, or if Queen’s Park would simply make a block transfer in current dollars to a trust account as they did for the Spadina Subway. Inflation protection would then depend on investment returns of the trust funds. Equally, Queen’s Park might chose not to include inflation at all leaving this as an exposure to the city. According to the report, the Metrolinx payments might be stretched over a period of time leaving the City with financing costs to bridge the project.
The Minister and Premier’s silence on such a basic issue does not help the debate one bit, but the City analysis contains critical assumptions about how Queen’s Park would calculate its contribution.
To the cost of the subway itself must be added the expense of keeping the SRT alive for eight years longer than anticipated, and eventually of demolishing the existing structures.
2010 Inflated Subway Cost $2.300 $3.283 SRT Life Extension .096 .132 SRT Decommissioning .075 .118 Total $2.471 $3.533
This leads to two outcomes (inflation included) depending on the presumed Metrolinx Kennedy budget transfer:
Original Adjusted
Budget Budget
Subway Option Cost $3.533 $3.533
Provincial Contribution 2.448 1.991
Net Cost to City $1.085 $1.542
Note: The figures shown here have been rearranged from the City report (Table 1) for clarity. The “Adjusted” figure is slightly different from the report which contains arithmetic errors.
These numbers are also subject to the caveat about ±30% in the accuracy of the subway cost estimates.
Finally, the TTC is concerned that the additional demand a subway extension would bring would trigger the need for Automatic Train Control (ATC) on the BD line. This project, with a $450m plus inflation pricetag, is not in the current 10-year capital plan. This raises, but does not answer, the obvious question of whether any new demand, regardless of technology used in Scarborough, will trigger problems with the BD subway’s capacity and with demand at Bloor-Yonge.
Given the comparatively close values for demand with either technology (as compared to the existing BD subway ridership), even the lower projected LRT demand could put the BD line dangerously close to being full. Why has this issue not been explored in the past?
Financing
The City’s share of the project can be funded in several ways:
- In the short term, a dedicated tax increase of 1.1% to 2.4% could go into a reserve fund that would initially be used to pay for the project. Once these funds were exhausted, the revenue from the new tax would be dedicated to paying off 30-year debentures.
- Development charges could be imposed. By Provincial Law, DCs can only be used to fund the cost of new infrastructure triggered by new development. Therefore, the full cost of the subway cannot be charged to this revenue stream. The projected revenue from DCs, depending on the scenario, ranges from $104m to $330m over the life of the project, possibly longer. Using DCs to fund 25% of the City’s share will require legislative changes.
- Federal Government contributions. For purposes of estimating, a contribution of $418m to $660m by Ottawa is assumed. It is unclear how these amounts are arrived at because they are not, as claimed in Table 2, 50% of the City’s share of the project.
- Potential transit oriented development rights (if any). It is unclear what development the subway might encourage or the timeframe in which anything will be built. Past experience shows that the City will have to carry financing costs for a considerable period before TOD rights start to pay dividends.
Property taxes are very controversial both in the general sense of many years in which “no new taxes” were the watchwords at City Hall, and in the specific sense that this increase would go to fund a project for Scarborough from city-wide revenue. Mayor Ford has proposed a new tax at a much lower level than any of the scenarios presented in the report. The effect would be to produce a much lower reserve going into the project, and a much lower revenue stream with which to pay down debt in the out years.
Development Charges are already a matter of concern for the real estate industry which faces a proposed doubling of these fees in 2014 even before the Scarborough Subway is added to the list of projects these would finance.
Future Cost Pressures
If the City extends the subway, the new asset will be owned by Toronto, and its future operating and maintenance costs will be on the City’s account. Some offset may come from Metrolinx, but this is by no means certain. We know already that the Spadina Extension to Vaughan will increase net operating costs for the TTC after it opens in 2016, and a similar change is likely in Scarborough. The subway will almost certainly not “make money” from net new riders.
Further out lies the problem of capital maintenance: station equipment, rolling stock, roadbed and signalling. These are all costs which we see on the aging YUS and BD lines, and they will begin to affect the Scarborough Subway some decades down the road.
The LRT network, as a Metrolinx asset, would be operated and maintained at its expense, possibly funded through some of the new provincial “revenue tools”.
Building “Excess Capacity”
In the LRT/Subway debate, the question of surplus subway capacity (or conversely “planning for future growth”) inevitably comes up. There is, however, a fundamental problem with any outlying part of the rapid transit system. It is impractical to fill it to capacity at outer stations if there is already substantial demand on the inner part of the line. In effect, the “free” capacity available at STC is dictated by how much room remains on trains westbound at Sherbourne.
The situation is slightly more complex if we can assume that a substantial chunk of Scarborough capacity would be used for local trips, or would be bled off by, say, the Eglinton-Crosstown and/or Relief Line. All the same, there is no way that a future 20k/hour peak demand could be handled in Scarborough if this completely saturated the Danforth subway east of Yonge. We already see a comparable problem on Yonge with demand originating north of Eglinton.
If, in fact, there is a future demand well beyond LRT capability in any of the suburban corridors, the problem is much more challenging that simply a technology choice — it is that the central subway will be completely overloaded. Careful study of evolving demands and of network travel behaviour is essential to avoid over committing network capacity.
City Debt Targets
For many years, Toronto has had a conservative approach to its capital and operating budgets. The total debt (and hence the annual cost of debt service) is kept low enough that the operating budget is not squeezed out by debt costs. This is the classic problem faced by anyone with a house that is more expensive than they can afford. Either they must cut back on day-to-day costs to fund their mortgage, or they must find a cheaper house, or the household income must be increased. In a municipal context, this translates into reduced services, increased user fees and higher taxes.
If the City takes on the Scarborough Subway project, this will crowd the capital budget which also includes a very substantial list of new, unfunded projects of at least equal importance to the subway line.
Ridership Estimates
The original projections for the LRT and Subway options date from a 2006 study. At that time, the expected annual demand on each technology was 31m and 36m riders respectively. These numbers corresponded to peak hour volumes of 8.0k and 9.5k respectively.
Recently, an updated transit network and land use model pegs the subway ridership at 14k peak. No comparable revised estimate is provided for the LRT option, and the report implies that all of the change would only accrue to the subway.
At the very least, any new demand projections must be performed for both modes and use the same underlying transit network (the subway projection includes the DRL which might also be responsible for attracting ridership depending on its configuration).
This part of the report verges on dishonesty and is saved only by a caveat that further study is needed. This study will not, however, occur before Council commits itself to a choice of technology.
In any event, such a large increase in SRT corridor ridership relative to the current level of about 4k peak would have a major effect on the BD subway further west. It is unclear whether the existing network can accommodate the demand. Even if more frequent service is operated on BD (thanks to new signalling), the interchange at Yonge may not be able to handle the higher arrival rate of transfer passengers.
City Planning Considerations
Beginning at Page 19, the report contains a section entitled “Planning Considerations” which discusses the “Feeling Congested” review now underway as part of the Official Plan update. The critical paragraphs state:
It emerges from this preliminary evaluation process that the LRT line and the subway proposal serve somewhat different travel markets. The LRT technology more appropriately reflects city building policy goals contained in the Official Plan, where-in transit capacity is matched to a range of potential future land use outcomes. Preliminary forecasting work suggests 10.2% of the LRT’s ridership would come from outside the City of Toronto. By comparison, 14.6% of the subway’s ridership would come from outside the City of Toronto. The LRT line focuses more on local travel needs, and provides opportunities for placemaking – creating complete communities within the city- whereas the subway offers a more express service that increases its appeal to regional riders.
…
The LRT line will operate in an established corridor of proven transit demand that is currently being under-served by the at-capacity RT line. In this sense, the LRT line puts new and improved transit capacity where it is most needed. Included in the improved service is a much more convenient transfer arrangement at the Kennedy Station. [P21]
Rather clearly, City Planning emphasizes that the proposed LRT line does a better job of serving Scarborough, but that does not appear to be the goal of the subway’s proponents.
The planning section goes on to note that the Scarborough corridor ranks lower than other priority transportation projects including service to the Waterfront and the eastern Relief Line both of which are integral to the ongoing development of transit capacity for a Toronto that claims to be building transit-oriented neighbourhoods.
Conclusion
I am under no illusion that Council will have a miraculous conversion and see the Scarborough LRT as its preferred option. Whether a decision to abandon the LRT option will have any effect beyond delaying the inevitable collapse of the SRT without advancing the subway scheme much beyond some preliminary engineering is quite another matter.
Too many people are too concerned to give the impression that only subways will do, and all the fine words from fiscal conservatives about responsible transit spending will be buried under fairy tales of private sector participation and federal contributions.
Nobody wants to be the advocate for LRT because it has been so badly represented here in Toronto, something for which the TTC must take a large share of the blame. For decades when other cities in North America and Europe built LRT, Toronto steadfastly maintained it would never work here. Options for LRT expansion were downplayed, excluded from alternatives assessments on the basis of specious if not dishonest analyses. While other cities could point to shining new lines, all Toronto gets to see is a streetcar system where the TTC can’t even provide reliable service and get “transit priority” that actually benefits transit vehicles. Is it any wonder people want subways?
Earlier, I used the word “pandering” and this implies a certain lack of wisdom in the electorate. Sadly, North Americans have a long history of listening to demagogues and voting for what they have been convinced is the “right” choice. Rob Ford, at least, has always been honest about his goals — subways everywhere and lots of room for cars on city streets. Others who purport to be friends of transit change their stripes to suit the situation, and for them I have special contempt.
A fearless prediction: Council will choose the subway option, but won’t commit significant funds to pay for it hoping that the Tooth Fairy will pay a visit soon. This will leave Queen’s Park in the delicate position of deciding whether Council has met provincial conditions for a technology change, or if the LRT project should still go ahead. Possibly by August 2, 2013, the political landscape will have shifted, and we will get a definitive answer. Meanwhile, the vacillation from Minister Glen Murray, and the silence from Premier Wynne, are a sad testament to business-as-usual in the so-called “new government” at Queen’s Park.
Steve Munro 
Once again your tone suggests that you are taking this very personal.
Steve: No, I actually worked rather hard to keep the personal comments sequestered to the end of the article. My fear is that Scarborough will get nothing, but it will take a few years of messing around with subway designs and financing plans for that to actually happen. Meanwhile, they will have to put up with the same bus service and no hope of improvement because there’s “no money” for better service.
It’s just a train of some sort! It all works … You are still getting your train down the middle of Eglinton Ave. and whatever we end up with it will be better than what we have now.
Steve: It’s not just a question of a train somewhere, and how a subway works will be quite different from how an LRT would work both from service territory and effect on the City’s overall transit budget.
This SRT may go to subway and then may go back to LRT … who knows?
The big question is what will happen to all transit plans after the next Prov. Election?
I have no sense of who may win this one?
Steve: If the Tories win, you can wave goodbye to just about everything in The Big Move and a lot of transit improvements generally. A few showcase projects, maybe, but remember that Hudak is a child of the Harris era when Queen’s Park walked away from transit funding.
If the Liberals win, or at least hold on to power, they may be emboldened to do more, especially with revenue tools which will certainly be an election issue.
Meanwhile, I seem to have the unhappy job of advancing a fiscally “conservative” position of spending money wisely on transit, and not overextending our reliance on one very expensive mode.
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Even if the subway does get approved, does anyone seriously believe it will be built as planned, considering that it is not due to open until 2023?
At best, construction will start in four years from now. That’s one municipal election and at least one provincial election away. With this crowd of politicians, what will actually be built (if anything), is up to anyone’s imagination.
The worst part is that the Sheppard East LRT will likely get canned, and the folks on Sheppard and eastern Scarborough will continue to put up with crappy bus service indefinitely.
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I thought the province had to own the lines due to some accounting thing … how will this affect their books … can they even do it?
Steve: The ownership of lines allows the province to show them as an asset offsetting debt they would incur to pay for them. The City Manager’s report notes that the payment stream for whatever money comes from Queen’s Park may be extended, and this probably indicates the effect of changing to a direct subsidy (and hence “expenditure” for the province). Spreading it out over more time and/or delaying payment well into the future would minimize the accounting effect on the provincial deficit.
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On the other hand, there’s Doug Holiday campaigning for extending the subway to Sherway Gardens. Who knows, maybe this will save the LRT plan. If the province flip-flops on the LRT in Scarborough (and I personally think this is mostly the province’s fault since they are the ones funding and are ultimately in charged), then it’s easy to see Etobicoke, North York, etc all saying why not us too? Unless the province can afford to pay for subways on every suburban street, they will end up alienating one area, so they might figure it’s better to go back to LRT. Is buying a couple of seats in Scarborough worth risking losing seats in the rest of the GTA? There already was the gas plant scandal, where maybe the Liberals won a couple of seats but then saw their numbers drop in the rest of Ontario.
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That’s the scariest line in the whole document … Eglinton will be delayed … if they are smart they don’t sign a contract for the carhouse until they know that it will be used for one line or two … and that is four years away … crazy.
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While it seems this ship has sailed, I think that you understate the importance of the transfer, and intimately related to this, I think you underestimate ridership for the subway option. Just conjecture on my part.
But also, do you really think the walk-on ridership would be lower on the subway option on an apples to apples, Kennedy to STC basis? Starting from a low benchmark!
Thanks,
Peter
Steve: Walk on ridership is determined by a combination of the number of stations and what is adjacent to them. If there are only three subway stations — Lawrence, STC and Sheppard — then walk-on traffic (and its counterpart, walk-off trips headed to nearby destinations) will be lower for the subway.
I am fascinated by how the debate about “density” around subway stations swings back and forth. I have often pointed out that much of the subway system is full even though many stations have little nearby density because of the cumulative effect of both local demand and surface feeder routes that extend a station’s reach. Both Kennedy and Warden stations are prime examples of this.
However, if part of the subway’s intent is to stimulate development and to reinforce existing nodes, then density nearby becomes very important. In outlying areas, a further consideration is the future of the commuter rail network for trips bound to the core. If there were frequent service from northeastern Scarborough to downtown at an attractive price and with good connecting feeder routes, this could usurp part of the subway’s function.
For decades, there has been talk of subways as mechanisms to shift growth away from the core, but as the origin-destination study for Scarborough shows, the primary function is to assist commuters heading downtown. Those whose travel does not lie along the subway corridor must fend for themselves.
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On the operations side (especially the increased demand on the Bloor Line and talk about needing a new signalling system+ATC) … it’s clear that the politicians are unaware of the increased costs and how that will affect the other service in the network.
It also seems to me that the report is taking advantage of the proposed extension to move ahead with the resignalling … a project that might not be necessary now … but might be in 10 years if the Bloor-Danforth signalling system fails as the Yonge line (nearly 60 years old) has.
I do think that the subway extension can be built but at great sacrifice … higher density, higher taxes, higher development charges, higher operating costs (subway and buses), added unforeseen capital costs and possibly no stations between Ellesmere and Kennedy (as the report prioritizes going to McCowan and Sheppard).
I guess that we have finally found the ‘Gravy Train’ that Rob Ford was looking for … and ironically it was Stintz and de Baeremaeker who pointed him in the right direction.
As for predictions … if the money is removed from Sheppard East there will be an ‘opportunity’ to review the project, convert it to Subway and run it to, say, just east of Victoria Park and faster than you can say “PRESTO” (pun intended), we’ll be hearing about how Ford Nation ‘brought’ 2 subway lines to Scarborough (even though they won’t be built for another 10-15 years.
Cheers, Moaz
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Steve:
Your role is not really “unhappy” in the sense that most fiscal conservatives are not nice people. It does not make sense to build higher order transit for lower order volumes. This is not so much a defense involving “fiscal conservatism” as an exposure of populist waste.
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Thanks Steve for another terrific analysis. I believe you are right. Council will vote for a subway but with no money to pay for it. The LRT conversion will be delayed and nothing will happen as usual. I am particularly disappointed with Premier Wynne. I really thought we could possibly turn the corner on transit with an honest politician speaking some sense on transit and how to pay for it. Minister Murray is also a disappointment.
I am too very concerned about the city taking on debt to pay for this debacle and crowding out other priorities. All very depressing.
Andrew
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I don’t think building a Scarborough LRT will physically preclude a Bloor-Danforth subway extension if they ever want to build it again.
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So the design life of the SRT has it lasting until 2015 or so, correct?
There seems to have been talk about extending that lifespan for almost $100m. What would that entail? Would there still be a chance of it failing prematurely?
In essence, could we end up having to abandon the SRT with nothing to replace it at some point in time?
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One thing that raises questions is why there are so few stations on the proposed subway extension. The fact is this is by no means limited to the proposed Scarborough extension. Back as far as the extension of the Yonge line north of Eglinton there were fewer stations per km and this shows on any proposals of a line under Queen. For years it has been the stated policy that stations be further apart. I personally can think of a number of reasons as to why this might be but when questioned about it e.g. why couldn’t Queen have the same number of stations as Bloor I cannot cannot go beyond making an educated guess.
So what’s the reason?
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I suppose we will see on Tuesday how many councillors (and others) come out of this with any honour left. No doubt Adam Vaughan etc. will hang firm and Josh Matlow of the moderates has been putting up a good fight. I have a to say I’m disappointed in Kathleen Wynne who, I felt, was really taking this business to heart.
As for Karen Stintz, I will content myself with saying that the Ford boys seem to have her pegged. How much lower can you go than that?
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Great work. Thanks for this excellent article.
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1) I’m not sure about property value in Scarborough but removing several kilometers of track (On the surface) freeing up land for housing and businesses seems wise.
Steve: The land traversed by the Scarborough LRT is: (1) a rail/hydro corridor, (2) the edge of Highland Creek and a former rail corridor now used as a park. None of this land is suitable for redevelopment. Whatever happens will arise because of improve transit access. NONE of the Scarborough LRT uses street running, something that the anti-LRT claims by Rob Ford conveniently ignore.
2) I’m not sure if you have thought about this but the population of Scarborough is expected to increase and most of the traffic into and out of Toronto comes from commuters without more subways and high speed rail I doubt we will see fewer drivers on the road and it will be next to impossible to replace the Gardiner Expressway.
Steve: Population growth in Scarborough is factored into the demand model for the new transit lines. As for commuters, they will be better served by improved GO Transit service for long-haul trips to downtown. The Gardiner has almost nothing to do with the SRT debate, and in any event, nobody is proposing to replace it except for the less heavily-travelled section from Jarvis to the Don.
3) In the summer I find underground stations slightly cooler than outside and warmer in the winter.
Steve: This is true, and is part of the attractiveness of subways provided that they are actually built with little chance of natural air conditioning. Folks who use Vic Park, Warden, and Spadina line stations in the middle of the Allen are not so lucky. My home station at Broadview is underground, but the wintry gales blow in from the Prince Edward Viaduct.
Whether a “subway” is underground depends on where it goes and how much we are prepared to pay to bury it.
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To my knowledge, this situation is seen in many subway systems in the world. When the first subway lines are built in a city, they need all ridership they can get in order to justify their construction. Therefore, the stations are spaced closely.
Later on, the subway system expansion does not keep up with the city growth. Bringing rapid transit to the remote parts of the city, and handling the increasing demand in the core, become priorities. In order to address those priorities, potential minor stations on the new lines are skipped, and the actual stations are built further apart.
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I fear for the Crosstown. Its the only thing with a hole in the ground right now but I’m pretty darn sure most of council would fill it in for their own pet projects.
I’ve given up on expecting the Sheppard East to ever go. And as for the Finch West, that’s a stub waiting for ridicule.
I fear that we are going to get an expansion of the BD out to STC and a Yonge expansion to Richmond Hill…and nothing else. No LRT, no DRL. Nada.
I really hope the garbage workers are proud of what they have ultimately brought forth. Reminds me of the unions that worked against the NDP and brought us Harris. The inability of most parties involved in civic discussions and civic undertakings to see repercussions of their actions is just so sad.
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What I find really sad about the whole STC subway extension is that even if the subway gets built, the proposed route is the wrong one for Scarborough. The shortest route to STC only benefits those who commute downtown and will be of very limited benefit for those commuting in to Scarborough.
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It’s absolutely ridiculous that Scarborough has the luxury of being able to demand “subways or nothing!” while the people who live in areas like Finch West have to pray every day that their transit line won’t get axed.
Quite frankly, given that the rest of the city would like to see higher order transit built during our lifetimes, the city should seriously consider following Scarborough’s wishes. If they would rather have nothing than LRTs, then the city should take the funding for Sheppard and the RT conversion and put it towards projects that people will actually appreciate, like the Jane and Waterfront LRTs.
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They have been talking about replacing or rebuilding the Gardener expressway for years but the fear is traffic along other routes into the downtown core and I would suggest European style high speed rail from Hamilton to Union and Union to the Ottawa area. It takes 2 hours to get from Niagara to Union Station transferring from a bus at Burlington Go Station and 1-2 hours by Coach Canada or car depending on traffic from Burlington to Toronto.
Steve: I presume you mean “Oshawa” not “Ottawa”. High speed rail is not the correct technology for a commuter corridor where everyone isn’t going between a few widely spaced points. If Metrolinx/GO would get off its butt (and Queen’s Park provide funding), frequent GO service on the Lake Shore corridor planned for the medium to distant future could be brought forward.
Scarborough LRT is not a Horrible option and I would be annoyed with 3-4 years without service but I would still rather see a subway and eventually see that expanded further into Scarborough perhaps extending all the way to the Toronto zoo or into Markham.
Steve: The subway isn’t going anywhere near the zoo, and Markham is in a completely different direction relative to the proposed subway terminal at Sheppard.
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Off-topic, but I would be interested to see a post from Steve on flooding, flood prevention, and stuff like that. It just can’t be good to have Union Station flooding every year. We seem to be in an era of more flash floods, and someone should be thinking about that.
Steve: Some of the recent flooding at Union is a direct result of the station and surrounding utilities being torn apart for reconstruction. But, yes, the issue of disaster prevention and recovery does not get the attention it deserves.
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Tyler, of course we thought about this. We’re not stupid, and I’m rather insulted by the assumption that LRT-advocates ignore population growth. If anything, I find that our opponents neglect more factors when making arguments.
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Thanks for sharing analysis and a good forum for comments Steve. I also hope that the commenters and readers will share opinions with councillors too; it’s one thing to be on the right side of angels and transit, but we can’t presume the politicians can be troubled to read nice blogs and truthiness, as it were, and I do tend to trust these columns and comments for the Better Way.
So sadly, it does seem that there is a distinct chance of again selling out the general good for a vague specific (yes, a contradiction). The Council aka Clowncil avoided the right thing with its reversal of the Vehicle Registration Tax, but also with very limited actions to endorse revenue tools to help pay for the subways and other transit things.
It is disturbing that we might short out much of the rest of the City and Scarborough too while pursuing a subway, though, yes, sure, in an ideal world, it makes some sense to link things up, but we haven’t been in an ideal world for decades, including with Mr. Miller etc., but it was more realistic than the current “c(a)rowd”.
This batch can’t spend $500,000 on a study to see about alleviating the crowding on the Bloor/Danforth now with a proper bikeway, instead spending that sum on the compensation to Mr. Webster for telling truths based on figures. But we could expand the B/D subway for the price of paint; hopefully sooner than later.
I’m also noting that there’s basic maintenance on the Viaduct being ignored for a few years eg. the seam between concrete curb and asphalt holds water, it doesn’t shed. So that’s a recipe for costly repairs, but it’s only a bridge/subway link…
Sigh.
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I’m waiting to see if Milczyn will bring back his proposal to extend the subway to Cloverdale Mall. The West Six Points/Cloverdale/Eatonville area has a lot of density and ‘development potential,’, more than Sherway Gardens does. In fact the long-dead Honeydale Mall is going to see some redevelopment soon. Too bad it’s not exactly in “Etobicoke-Lakeshore” but STC isn’t exactly in “Scarborough-Guildwood”, is it?
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What is your preferred route? Between Kennedy Stn and Scarborough Centre, a route via Danforth and McCowan can support more development than the existing SRT route along the Uxbridge sub. On the existing route, only the Lawrence East station attracts decent ridership. The new route will have a new Lawrence station near the hospital, and if they do not get ultra-cheap, they will build another station at Danforth and Brimley that can have good ridership.
East of STC is another matter; the loss of the Centennial College station is a disadvantage of the subway plan.
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Mike you say you realize that the population will increase but have you watched CP24 recently and noticed the traffic on the DVP, Lakeshore or Gardiner? If the trends continue the population in the GTHA will add more than 400,000 people and many of them will have cars.
Steve: And most of them will not be commuting to downtown Toronto. This is a major challenge for Metrolinx because it is playing catch-up on core area capacity while the harder-to-serve suburb-to-suburb travel continues to grow, but with comparatively little transit support.
“EGLINTON AND FINCH LRVS (OWNED BY METROLINX)
Speed: Averages 22 km/h in its own lane, or 30-32 km/h in a tunnel
Capacity: 280 passengers per car. Depending on demand, up to three will be linked together, for a total of 840 passengers per train. “
“SUBWAYS
Speed: Average 32 km/h
Capacity: 1,100 passengers per train; 30,000 passengers per hour at peak frequency”
From The Star.
Steve: That’s all very well, but you neglect to mention that the projected demand, even the most optimistic one, is nowhere near 30k/hour. Indeed, if we had to handle that many people just in Scarborough, there would be no room for anyone west of Kennedy Station.
You also have the wrong figures for LRT capacity. The design capacity would be 150 per car with crush loads to about 200. This gives a service design capacity of 450 per train times 30 trains per hour, or 13,500. Peak loads could be higher. The demand on the SLRT/subway corridor is expected to be just under 10k/hour.
In effect, you want to build a 16-lane highway when an 8 lane arterial is more than enough.
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I may be totally off base here, but it seeems that this whole ‘Scarborough-deserves-a-subway’ kerfuffle by Karen & Glenn are simply an intelligent political manoeuvre to buy the necessary votes in Scarborough and sideline Rob Ford in the 2014 election.
After all, it was Karen Stintz who orchestrated the revival of Transit City LRT plan a year ago. So it is quite clear that she is open to compromise, unlike the Mayor. But as it became clear that most of the electorate is simply undecated (or uninformed, to put it politely) as to what true LRT is – a situation made worse by the mayor’s office who managed to portray the LRT as devil incarnate – she is handing them out a promise of a subway, which in any event will not even begin construction until 2017.
If recent history is any indication, there is plenty of time to change the plans again in the meantime, especially if we do elect a more sensible Mayor next year (Remember how excited everyone was at the new LRT’s back in 2009 and 2010, and what happened on December 1 that year). And in worst case scenario, if it takes a subway to Scarborough to get rid of our current anti-transit mayor, and hopefully start making real progress on the transit file after that, then so be it.
Steve: You are giving Karen and Glenn credit for much more subtle strategy than I would. Yes, there is time to rescue the LRT plan after the 2014 elections, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Once Council gives Scarborough a subway, it will be hard to take it away again.
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I think the only way to solve this LRT vs. subway debate is to find a compromise satisfactory to both sides.
The subway people do not want a transfer for the Scarberians. The LRT people like the greater coverage to the farther parts of Scarborough and the lower cost. If we suggested a continuous SRT / ECLRT, this would solve one major concern. Of course, with the higher ridership, it would have to be grade-separated, but this could be elevated instead of underground as in the first Ford-McGuinty agreement.
The subway people do not want a 3 or 4 year shutdown. The LRT people think that buses will be satisfactory for the shutdown and do not like a full new EA being required to delay the project. If we consider Bombardier Skytrain vehicles the shutdown could be shortened, the LRT vehicle purchase could be substituted with Skytrain and the alignment would still be along the EA approved route so only a minor EA revision is required.
Together with a DRL to Don Mills and Eglinton, I think the people of Scarborough, and all of Toronto could see huge benefits of the elevated LRT option compared to subway. I would guess most B-D subway extension supporters are only supporting it because they prefer it to the current LRT plan. Show them something else and they may be willing to change their minds. The thing to fear in not finding a compromise and following through with either the subway or current LRT plan is that the political forces will again regroup for the next municipal and provincial elections and there are still many opportunities for things to be changes again – with more time and money being lost.
Steve: Substituting Skytrain cars would forever prevent the construction of true LRT in Toronto where the option of street running is available for sections where full grade-separation is not needed. Your “compromise” effectively kills the possibility of an LRT network and commits Toronto to higher-cost rapid transit construction, the very thing LRT advocates are trying to avoid.
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Jaye Robinson, my Ward 25 Councillor, apparently is willing to support LRT provided it is not acting as an extension of a subway line. Thus, she accepted the original Transit City design for the Finch and Eglinton LRT lines but rejected the 12 km Sheppard LRT. Instead she felt the city should use the $1 billion for Sheppard on a 2 km subway extension from Don Mills to Victoria Park plus a temporary BRT to the east. The BRT would be scrapped once money was found to extend the subway further eastwards. She said that a transfer at Don Mills between subway and LRT would be too arduous for senior citizens and parents with baby carriages. Of course, all she is doing is moving the transfer 1 station east. I wrote to her office to point out that the Don Mills transfer would be on the same level. Her office assistant denied that was the case. The councilor was willing to eventually spend billions to eliminate 1 transfer. Thus, I expect her to vote for the Scarborough subway extension as this transfer costs only $1 billion extra to eliminate.
At one Metrolinx meeting I met one elderly couple who lived near Sheppard & Kennedy wanted the Sheppard subway completed to avoid the transfer at Don Mills as each transfer seemed to add about 10-15 minutes to the commute. Thus, this seems to confirm my councilor’s stand.
My councilor said she consulted constituents on her mailing list about subways versus LRT. She said that the majority who responded wanted more subways and therefore we should be building subways – anywhere presumably – in Toronto. This seems to be a popular wish – and it seems that these people don’t seem to care where the subways are located. Perhaps chanting “Build it and they will come” is the only cost/benefit study they need.
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How many will have cars?
The whole point of plans in The Big Move, flawed though it may be, is to absorb as much of the new travel demand caused by rising population with transit as possible. However, this demand will not be concentrated in a few corridors where we would throw every penny we have at subway lines, but all over the GTHA. LRT, BRT and commuter rail improvements are all appropriate in various places.
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A few items after quickly reading the staff report:
1) I did not see any explicit reference (although it is implied in the map) to the fact that the STC station will be gone. Isn’t that the station with the most existing walk-in traffic? Closing STC station results in an extra 400-metre walk, each way, for everyone currently using the station. So you trade off a 5-minute transfer at one end for a 5-minute walk at the other end.
2) The report mentions population and employment within walking distance of the stations. This would not include customers at STC, or visitors to the Scarborough Civic Centre. It may not include students at Centennial College. (On the flip side, it may not include patients or visitors to Scarborough Hospital.)
3) The last item in the comparison table (Table 3) is a comparison of travel time between Kennedy and Sheppard, showing that the subway would make the trip in 10 minutes compared to 15 for LRT. In fact, a big part of that difference is because the LRT route travels about 2 km farther east and is therefore longer, so of course it takes longer to go end to end. A better measure would be travel time from Kennedy to McCowan, which is a better point of reference for existing riders anyway. If the travel speeds in the table are correct, we have about 11 minutes for LRT and 9 for subway. The subway would shave about 2 minutes off the trip; about half of this is because the subway route has two less stops, and about half is because the subway route would be more direct (about 600 metres shorter). Of course, then go back to (1) above.
Also, the travel time difference doesn’t account for the shorter access time for passengers transferring from buses from the northeast. If you’re coming in from Malvern, for example, it’s easily an extra 3 minutes each way in bus travel time (6 minutes along Sheppard from Progress to McCowan via bus, vs. 3 minutes on LRT).
I would love to hear these raised at Council. A billion dollars (or more) is a lot of money to avoid the inconvenience of maybe a 5-minute transfer at Kennedy, particularly when you consider that any time savings would be pretty much offset by extra walking time at the other end because of a more inconvenient station at STC (not to mention the loss of the other stations).
Steve: It will be interesting to see what sort of feeder bus arrangements are planned for Sheppard/McCowan and new STC stations. The big effect at STC will be that all that transferring won’t happen next door to the mall.
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Politics trumps rational planning when it comes to public transit. Otherwise we would have the DRL instead of the Greg Sorbara express. So I will endevour to examine public transit from a purely political perspective. I will not be fooled into thinking that rational planning matters.
If Ford can close the Scarborough Subway deal, he’s guaranteed reelection. He will have 90% of the suburbs; the downtown vote will be split between Chow, Colle, and Stintz. He will be emboldened to cancel the Sheppard LRT, a line that Scarborough doesn’t want. Next he’ll promise to “close the loop” that is, to turn the BD line westward at Sheppard/McCowan and extend it to Don Mills, with further extension from Yonge to Downsview. That, combined with the Finch west LRT, will give him the North York vote. No DRL. Downtown votes don’t matter to Ford.
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I like the idea of extending the BD line west to Sherway. It can stay above ground most of the way, parallel to the train tracks, thus saving tunnelling costs.. Possibly it can link up to the Hurontario LRT.
Now I’m curious about the western terminus of the Eglinton LRT. It appears to end at the UP Express, but there is no station planned here. For some reason it’s north at Lawrence. Any idea if there will be a future transfer opportunity here?
Steve: Actually, the BD west extension is planned to be underground. As for the Eglinton line, there is a station planned on the UPX eventually to connect with Eglinton. What is uncertain is the continued existence of the stop at Lawrence (Weston Station) or if the new Mount Dennis station would replace it.
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I’ve been an avid streetcar crusader all my life, but in the debate about whether to replace the Scarborough RT by an LRT line seems to miss the point. It makes a lot more sense to entend the east end of TTC service by subway. I wouldn’t expect that the conversion would be terribly difficult as the roadbed for the subway is already exposed and should be a lot easier to install. In this one instance I’m way for subway and NOT LRT.
Steve: The subway extension is via a completely different route and will cost at least $1-billion more than the LRT option.
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@Tyler
I didn’t read your comments regarding more traffic, more population, and more cars in detail, because it’s been brought up and addressed before.
But I fight the overly-simplistic logic that population growth = WE NEED SUBWAYS = LRT NO GOOD! Population growth will demand for higher capacity transit, in particular rail transit be it streetcars, LRT, or subways.
Frankly, settling for such simple logic is a really big insult to the analysis and work that professional planners and engineers perform for us. The public is within their rights to question the analysis if something is missing, but don’t waste our time bringing up issues that have long been publicly addressed (that you can simply read up on your own).
You’ve missed the verdict of the LRT-versus-subway debate by over a year. You’d improve your position in this debate if you do your required readings first (search the term “LRT” on http://www.toronto.ca website to find technical info).
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32 X 6 (days) =192 192 X 4 =768 768 X 12 =9216 or 153 Hours and 36 Minutes! Per year of wasted productivity and There is no plan to address this.
My average commute from Niagara to Union station is 2 hours!
EXCLUSIVE: Gridlock is costing Toronto up to $11 billion yearly—here’s how to fix it [Canadian Business]
Now if we add 2.8 Million more people?
Steve: We are not going to solve the gridlock problem by saying that subways must be built everywhere. You are taking the generic problem of growth and congestion which is at the heart of The Big Move and claiming that the SRT should be come a subway. That approach simply won’t work because most corridors can be served by a mode with less capacity and less capital-intensive infrastructure.
You say there is no plan to address your long commute? Well for starters, I have little sympathy for someone who commutes from as far away as Niagara and complains about the long drive. That said, GO plans to upgrade its service to Hamilton with very frequent service, eventually electrified. There will likely be some trains running through to St. Catharines. There are millions of people living much closer to Toronto who need improved commuter service (and local transit service too).
The Canadian Business article you linked argues for big transit improvements, but NOT for subways everywhere. I don’t understand how you wind up implying that your long drive from a distant home somehow justifies a subway in Scarborough.
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Just when I thought things couldn’t get more bizarre, this happens. The next thing you know, an ICTS upgrade will be back on the table. Even if they ATC the Bloor-Danforth line, the Einsteins at the TTC will quickly realize that the stairway and escalator capacity at St. George and Bloor-Yonge won’t be able to handle what a BD extension to Sheppard combined with the Spadina extension could bring in. Then what? DRL first? … wye with ATC? … B-Y expansion? This change will open up a whole new can of worms and cannot be looked at in isolation.
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If there’s a difference, it is hardly noticeable on the lower U of the YUS.
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I guess she hasn’t looked at the transfer plan at all. The transfer between LRT and Subway at Don Mills will be as complicated as exiting one vehicle, walking along the platform, and entering the other vehicle. There might be a slightly inconvenient 5 minute wait before the train leaves.
In contrast a transfer between subway and a (temporary) BRT would require heading up/down at least one level if not more (probably more since the (temporary) BRT would probably be at street level not at concourse level).
So in short…she’s wrong and should probably recuse herself from the vote for not knowing what she’s voting about.
I wonder how many other councillors have failed to be schooled properly on transit but still consider themselves qualified to vote.
What’s the bet that he doesn’t wait for the election campaign to start talking about cancelling the Sheppard East LRT and bringing the Sheppard subway east to Victoria Park (with the tail-tracks in Scarborough making it a second “Scarborough” Subway)?
He might even get Coun. Robinson’s support despite their differences. If this Scarborough Subway plan goes through watch Ford campaign on the promise of 2 Scarborough subways … Bloor-Danforth and Sheppard extensions.
Of course the actual plans, finances, details etc. are trivial. Remember, Ford campaigned in 2010 on extending the Bloor-Danforth line via the SRT alignment (to be fair, I don’t think he was the only one though … which perhaps says more than it needs to about the quality of our political ‘leadership’ in Toronto).
Cheers, Moaz
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One question I’d like Byford to answer is why the report seems to say nothing about the operating costs for the LRT and subway/bus options. All the focus seems to be on the capital side.
There is going to have to be a fare hike to cover the operating costs of the (Sorbara) subway extension to York U and Vaughan…but Byford hasn’t said much about that…let alone the costs of this new line. Frankly those data should also be in the report … along with more than a few disclaimers and points of caution about some of the wonky numbers.
Never mind … fare hikes and inconvenient buses only hit the actual users of public transit … not the people who drive but just want more subways for the sake of it.
Cheers, Moaz
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