Updated October 9, 2013 at 1:20am:
Toronto Council, by a vote of 24-20, has approved proceeding with the Scarborough Subway project including a three-stage property tax increase totalling 1.6% to finance the City of Toronto’s share of the budget.
There is little new to add at this point on the technical issues all of which were covered on this site before.
My personal reaction is disappointment, but more strongly, disgust at the behaviour of some Councillors and a few City Officials. The outright hatred and slander against “downtowners” and their motives in “pushing” LRT does not bode well for cordial relations on Council, not to mention sowing equivalent feelings among the electorate. There are arguments to be made for the subway option (many of them have appeared here in the comment threads), but this should be done in a civil manner relatively free of distortion.
Instead, we got warped versions of the truth about both the subway and LRT options, and not a few outright lies. TTC CEO Andy Byford, one who trotted out the “100 year subway” myth was forced to backtrack on two counts by questions at Council. He admitted that the tunnels last for 100 years, but much of what is in them does not. Meanwhile, he talked about LRT lasting 50 years, not the 30 year figure that has been bandied around of late. The obvious issue is that a tunnel may very well last 100 years, but if you don’t have to build one in the first place, and can save the expense, what does it matter?
We will have to wait a decade to see whether the suddenly much rosier projections of demand for a rapid transit line in Scarborough come from the same well-cooked land-use and population assumptions that brought us the vastly overstated estimates for the Sheppard Subway (and for growth at Scarborough Town Centre).
In any event, the vote is taken, and barring a discovery of a major extra cost for the City appearing during detailed design, the decision is as final as we can expect to see from this Council and the provincial government.
How the rest of the LRT network will fare really depends on the 2014 municipal and provincial elections. Mayor Ford has already declared that subways on Sheppard and Finch are goals for his next term.
The half-hearted advocacy for LRT from Metrolinx and Queen’s Park plays a big part in this situation, but I never thought their hearts were in it going right back to the early days of Metrolinx when I was persona non grata for asking their newly-minted Chair if they would consider this mode as an option in their grand plan.
How many more ridings will the Liberals feel the need to buy off with a subway promise?
The original article from October 4 follows the break.
[In a previous posts, I have been tracking the debate over the proposed Scarborough Subway including the provincial scheme announced by Minister Glen Murray, the City’s plan for a subway via McCowan and, of course, the original LRT line from Kennedy to Sheppard. With the Toronto Council debate coming up on October 8, it’s time to start a new thread (with apologies to those who want to see an even longer comment string on one article).]
Toronto Council will debate, again, the fate of rapid transit for Scarborough at its meeting starting on Tuesday, October 8. Back in July, Council voted to support a subway scheme with various provisos that some thought would act as a “poison pill” because all conditions would not be met. Critical among these were requests for federal funding and for additional money from Queen’s Park. Since then:
- The Ontario government announced (through Minister Glen Murray) that it would support a subway on the existing Scarborough RT alignment, but that the available funding would take it only to Scarborough Town Centre. This alignment and no other would be acceptable for provincial support.
- Metrolinx published a feasibility study supporting the subway-via-SRT option.
- The federal government announced (through Prime Minister Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty) that it would contribute up to $660-million toward the city’s subway proposal.
- The TTC published a report critical of the provincial alignment, but with only superficial comments on the technical aspects of the route pending further detailed study.
- Metrolinx, originally strongly supportive of the government’s subway proposal, retreated to a more generic support for rapid transit with a preference for the LRT plan, but a willingness to support a subway on any alignment, subject to an Environmental Assessment including analysis of competing proposals.
The City Manager has issued a report for Council recapping the issues and updating the cost and tax implications. An appendix to the report includes copies of the correspondence between the parties showing the evolution of their positions.
Going into the debate, we now have more details about the funding for the Scarborough line that has been transferred to the Eglinton-Crosstown project. $320m was originally described as the cost of restructuring Kennedy Station to accommodate the new Scarborough LRT, the Crosstown and provision for the future LRT line east on Eglinton. With the subway option, provision for an SLRT station is eliminated and the cost of rebuilding Kennedy for the McCowan subway alignment plus the Crosstown LRT should be less than the original budget.
However, Metrolinx is also working on improvements to the design of the Crosstown line’s interchange with the Yonge Subway, and wants to keep the full amount in the project budget to help pay for these improvements. Only when the final cost of the Eglinton-Crosstown line is known would money be released from the Crosstown budget for additional funding of the subway scheme.
The budget for the subway extension includes a provision for additional trains and storage at a cost of about $400m although the current fleet is actually large enough to handle the future requirements. However, the TTC’s fleet plan (published as part of the 2013 budget) shows the gradual addition of trains on the BD line over the coming decade to bring the peak period headway down from 141 to just under 120 seconds (roughly an 18% increase in capacity with 51 rather than 43 trains on the line).
If this is implemented (previous plans for subway service improvements such as an extension of the Spadina line’s short turn beyond St. Clair West Station have never materialized), it would soak up all now-surplus equipment and yard space. It is unclear whether the amount of extra service planned is dictated by the available fleet, the minimum headway possible with existing technology, or actual planning for demand growth.
An extension east and north to Sheppard will certainly add to demand and crowding on the BD line over and above regular growth, and it is unclear how much reserve capacity is available even if the line moves to automatic train control and a moving block signal system. Constraints will remain at major interchanges and at terminals. Where a new yard would be placed has not been discussed in public.
The cost estimate presented by the City Manager is roughly the same in the July and October reports, although the presentation is slightly different (both estimates are on p7 of the respective reports). The capital cost of the subway project is now:
Subway construction, equipment, etc $2.300b 2010$ SRT life extension & demolition .170b Total 2.470b Inflation to completion (2023) 1.090b Total cost $3.560b
This is essentially the same as the number used in July.
The provincial budget for the SLRT project was $1.8b 2010$, but from this must be deducted $320m transferred to the Crosstown project leaving $1.48b for the subway project. With inflation, this amount would be $1.99b.
Funding for the project would come from:
Federal government $0.660b Provincial government 1.990b City development charges .165b City debt and tax reserves .745b Total $3.560b
A property tax increase of 1.6% spread over three years would be required to create a capital reserve (short term) and then fund debt that would be floated to pay the City’s share. Future increases in interest rates could have a substantial effect on costs and the taxes needed to cover them. Moreover, the headroom in the City’s overall debt and appetite for new taxes could crowd out many other necessary projects in future years.
Further deductions include $85m for SLRT sunk costs and the unknown penalty that will be imposed for reduction in the size of the LRV order to Bombardier. These amounts are not included in the City Manager’s estimate of total project costs, although they represent over 10% of the amount the city plans to finance through new taxes.
(Note: As a matter of City policy, the tax increase on non-residential property would be 1/3 of whatever is levied on residential. This would continue a multi-year practice of lowering the ratio of non-residential to residential tax rates that was in place well before the Ford era.)
The City would be entirely responsible for any cost overruns on the subway project. At this time we have only an order of magnitude cost estimate, and as the details are worked out, this number could rise. Obvious questions include the location and cost of the new Scarborough Town Centre station and whether a station should be provided somewhere on Eglinton before the line heads north up McCowan.
Capital improvements to the existing BD line (notably resignalling and a larger fleet) could also be triggered by this project. To be fair, the LRT plan would also have increased BD subway demand and the cost of handling this must be included in budgets for all proposals in any comparative evaluation.
There are many unknowns as Toronto faces the Scarborough subway debate, but we most definitely do know that subways are not “free” as was promised during the Ford campaign. Having created the expectation that subways would come at no cost and that they are the birthright of every Torontonian, subway advocates now must face the implications of a long-lasting city-wide tax hike to pay for one subway extension.
For too long, the true cost of expanding our transit system in capital and operating funding has been buried under rhetoric about cost efficiencies and the magic of private sector partnerships. Coming in to the budget debates, we now have TTC Chair Karen Stintz advocating increased support for TTC operations through municipal subsidies rather than the flat-lining she herself championed for the past two years.
Budget debates have always attempted to sequester capital financing from operating subsidies, but at last we are seeing how spending in capital and the inevitable demand for greater debt service will affect the headroom for spending on operations. Is subway building a replacement for providing better transit service that will rise to meet the growing travel demands of Torontonians? This is not an either-or choice, but a need to balance spending and to spend wisely where the money is needed.
Writing that, I cannot help recognizing a “conservative” voice, but one that recognizes public spending as a necessary part of city building, not as something to be avoided except when buying votes.
Steve Munro 
NO. The DRL is not what everyone in Central & Scarborough so badly wants or needs?? You are right it’s not just “downtowners” that want the DRL — it’s “fringe downtowners” looking to expand their bubble of where they think the world ends & couldn’t give a crap about the rest of their taxpaying partners in the City.
The relief line will come and I hope it does because its past due. In the meantime lets look at integrating the rest of the city’s high density area & future high density area properly for the future.
Steve: You harm your argument with gratuitous comments about people downtown and where their world ends. It is precisely this sort of line that provokes normally reserved, polite people like me to talk about spoiled suburban brats who want downtown to pay for their toys, and won’t let anyone else play. You talk about “taxpayer partners”, but I have not seen any proposals to raise taxes to pay for other transit services or infrastructure across the city. Indeed, we will likely hear a lot from some suburban councillors and the Mayor about how we have to rein in spending rather than increasing TTC subsidies in 2014. Some partnership.
If you can’t make your point without insulting people, please leave your comments elsewhere.
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Few people in Scarborough support LRT when they actually find out the kind of LRT we are getting.
When I talk to my fellow Scarborough residents about LRT, they usually think LRT will mean a fully grade separated elevated track with far spaced stations. Much like the current SRT. Or they think LRT means like Edmonton, with trains operating down railway corridors, again full transit priority and grade separated.
When they see that the LRT means running trains down the middle of the street, with stations almost as close as bus stops, and trains not getting full priority. Then they are against that, because it offers very little improvement over the existing bus service.
So people are not against LRT, if it means a true rapid transit LRT. But the kind we are getting, where it does little to improve commute times, requires people to still transfer, etc. Scarborough residents are not for that.
Steve: But we are having this debate in the context of the Scarborough Subway/LRT which would be completely grade separated including the extension to Sheppard or beyond to Malvern. You cannot mix opposition to on-street LRT with the LRT/subway debate generally and claim on the basis of one style of LRT that Scarborough would reject any LRT. That’s how this debate becomes so tangled.
Also, your statements about station spacing are wrong. The loss of some existing bus stops has been an issue at public meetings re the LRT. With a subway (under Sheppard, say), the stops would be even further apart.
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Kevin’s comment:
I agree. One of the major benefits of Transit City was that the Sheppard LRT through Scarborough was scheduled to open on September 11, 2013. Yes, that is last month. And the rest of the lines were scheduled to open in 2015 in time for the Pan-Am Games.
In other words, we would have a fully-functioning network of rapid transit that would transform the face of Toronto. Making Toronto a better city for all its people starting last month.
Instead we got ignorance, stupidity and a never-ending dysfunctional clown show presided over by a crack-smoking, drunk-driving, wife-beating, born-a-multi-millionaire chief clown.
Well, garbage in, garbage out. With that kind of garbage in, it is small wonder that the garbage that came out is a two-stop subway line that will not be built until 2023. And only if none of three levels of government has a change of regime with a change of funding commitment. Anyone want to place bets on that?
Steve: Some of the claims about said clown have yet to be proved in court. The ignorance and stupidity are manifest, but unfortunately not grounds for removal from office.
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I agree with you Michael.
As a Scarborough resident, I prefer a Bloor Danforth subway extension to Scarborough but I will accept a FULLY grade separated Scarborough LRT to Malvern if ALL Scarborough portions of BOTH the Eglinton Line and Sheppard Line are underground and/or otherwise grade separated. If Eglinton LRT or Sheppard LRT runs on surface in Scarborough like planned, then I insist on a Bloor Danforth subway extension to McCowan and Sheppard and I will never take the extremely slow on street Eglinton LRT and I will never take the extremely slow on street Sheppard LRT choosing instead to drive or take the Bloor Danforth subway extension to McCowan and Sheppard.
Steve: Well you can just drive. You have no way of knowing how slow the Eglinton or Sheppard lines will be because neither of them has been built yet.
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Is it possible that given the density along Eglinton east of Kennedy to about Bellamy tends to be quite large and the fact that the federal government has allocated money for a Scarborough subway and it seems this is a popular decision in Toronto, would it not make sense to instead of rip and replace the SRT, to instead go ahead with the LRT conversion and the additional federal and city funds be allocated to extend the Bloor line to Eglinton and Bellamy to create a 2-stop extension or possibly extend it further to Cedarbrae Mall from there (assuming the funds can extend it that far). Reason being is that it seems given the density and the poverty levels along that corridor you can at the very least avoid empty stations while subway worshippers can celebrate that their new monument. Would that not be a more sensible option which provides 2 lines versus just one in Scarborough for the same money?
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My bad — Arthur Erickson designed Yorkdale station. And, the Eglinton line will be “5”. Apparently, this jargon will be easier for tourists to understand …
Why don’t they just use letters like NYC does, so as not to conflict with existing bus numbers? I’d rather take the A train to Harlem.
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Yes but the LRT to STC is another can of worms. People don’t want LRT for that corridor, because if forces a transfer halfway through the trip, which really should not be there. In the case of the SRT corridor, it makes total sense to just extend the subway and offer a transfer free ride that competes with the car. So in that corridor, yes Scarborough residents realize a subway is a way better option.
Steve: Competes with the car? You may have noticed that a lot of folks in northeast Scarborough get to the RT and the future subway (or LRT) by feeder bus. Indeed, we are told by some pols that station location does not matter because nobody walks to the station, they all ride the bus. Please explain how a bus feeder competes with the car?
The current situation is akin to asking Yonge riders to transfer at Eglinton onto an LRT to continue up to Finch. It just does not make sense from a rider perspective, from current and future projected capacity perspectives, and from a ridership perspective.
Steve: The level of demand between Eglinton and Finch is considerably higher than what is projected for the SLRT, and the figure now quoted for the subway includes riders who are attracted to the line as an alternative to the infrequent service on GO Transit to Markham.
The loss of existing bus stops has been an issue, because the LRT is not rapid transit. It is a quasi local/limited stop service, and in this regard the loss of stops could be an issue.
If you are building a true rapid transit line like a subway under Sheppard, then you would just have a local bus service like we currently operate on Sheppard above the subway, and on Yonge above the subway.
It works very well, and almost every other world city does it that way as well.
Steve: It works very well? With infrequent and unreliable headways? The Sheppard East bus from Yonge to Don Mills runs at best every 15 minutes (AM peak), most commonly every 20 minutes, and at times every half hour. The Yonge bus north of Eglinton runs every 15 minutes to York Mills and every half hour to Steeles.
There is still even a debate about whether there will be a surface bus on Eglinton where stop spacings east of Yonge are 1km or more.
Truly world class service.
So amusing that we spend millions to make stations accessible, but don’t want to make it easy for people who don’t live at just the right spots to actually get to them.
Please try to make less of an ass of yourself with arguments that ignore the fact that the TTC runs lousy parallel service to its subway lines.
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Oh, so all those people in Scarborough who go to Finch station via Steeles and Finch or to Sheppard Yonge via the Sheppard line, or to York Mills via the Ellesmere or to Eglinton via the Eglinton bus are “fringe downtowners”?
Cause its them who will benefit most from a true relief line.
I get that it doesn’t fit into your own personal priority but a much larger group of Scarborough residents will see benefits from a RL then the extension of the BD to McCowan. You might want to reconsider that remark about not caring about your fellow taxpayers.
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There are a few comments on this thread about re-numbering and signage for subway/LRT. This is an important topic and I hope that you will move those postings (including this one) to a new thread.
For subway and LRT, the TTC should eliminate the words “southbound”, “northbound”, “westbound”, and “eastbound” from all signage. Directional signage should simply state the name of the destination station with the number of the line, in white or black letters on a unique background colour for the line. For example if you are at Wellesley station, then the southbound platform sign would be “1 Downsview” in black letters on a yellow background (since white letters would not show well on a yellow background, and the colour of that line is yellow). If you are on the BD line at Warden, with a centre platform, then the westbound side would have a sign saying “2 Kipling” and eastbound would say “2 Kennedy” on a green background.
The signs should be backlit and easily changeable since subway expansion plans mean “1 Downsview” will have to change soon to “1 Vaughan M.C.” and “2 Kennedy” will have to change to “2 Sheppard East”.
Montreal has an identical signage system without the numbers. The numbers are helpful for people who are colour blind.
Also every subway and LRT line should have a unique colour and number. Red can be reserved for all bus and streetcar routes.
Steve: The problem with describing a route’s direction by its terminal station is that all of the nomenclature would change when a line is modified as you note. Everyone who thought they knew all about “1 Finch” would have a hard time finding their train. The location of the north pole (the eventual destination of the Richmond Hill line, no doubt) is unlikely to change.
Also, someone at Richmond Hill Station looking at directions to the train to Vaughan Centre might be a tad mystified.
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Along with newer thinking about what a relief line might be placed, and how, we also need a newer label as this shows:
If it’s Yonge relief, why can’t we use the Spadina leg more? It’s close by and less used I believe.
Does anyone have figures on subsidy per ride of the Spadina leg and Sheppard subway? It is an important consideration, or should be.
Steve: Have you tried to board southbound at St. George in the AM peak recently? That branch is “less used” but only in the relative sense.
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Well, why not the Dundas-Wellington-Pape (DWP) Line, or just the ‘Downtown Line’? The line will travel downtown, even though it helps people in the suburbs.
Steve: If that’s what we build, it will be a huge waste. Downtown to Don Mills at a minimum. As for the west side, there is the UPX crying out to be repurposed as an urban service. We have spend enough on it already and don’t need to duplicate it.
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Surely the average speed of the non-grade-separated portions have been estimated and published. Anyone know what those numbers are? IIRC, grade-separated SLRT estimate was 36km/h.
Specifically what was the impact on travel time from Kennedy to Laird of grade-separated vs on-street configurations?
Steve: From the EA document for the Eglinton line:
It is approximately 8km from Laird to Kennedy, although the line remains underground to east of Brentcliffe, and will be underground at Don Mills. At 32km/h (underground speed), this is a 15 minute trip. At 22km/h (the slowest quoted surface speed), this is a 22 minute trip. Therefore the delta is about 7 minutes worst case, probably less. For trips originating on or destined for this segment, there would be a saving in reduced station access time for surface running.
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No coherent comment available at this time. I’ll just be in the corner, weeping over the whole situation.
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With all due respect, you are contradicting yourself Steve. If there is no way to know how slow something will be beffire it’s built, then surely you should not buy those numbers. Metrolinx, “Speed – average speeds of 30-32 kph reduce travel time between Kennedy and Black Creek by 25%” And how many people travel from Black Creek to Kennedy? The answer is not many and the vast majority (if not all) of trip time reductions come from the underground sections along the richer areas of Eglinton. Scarborough residents save nothing. That quote is from Metrolinx Update dated February 2012.
Steve: First off, I was asked if there were any published numbers about speed estimates, and replied with the info from the EA. Whether these speeds will be achieved depends on how well the “transit priority”, something Toronto is not very good at, is actually implemented. That was what I meant in saying that, to some extent, we will have to wait and see.
As to trips from Black Creek to Kennedy, of course most people don’t make that trip. However, Scarborough residents who now travel across Eglinton from Kennedy to Yonge do so at a scheduled speed of 17.1 km/h on the 34C bus, probably slower in real life. They will travel considerably faster than this on the LRT.
You have such a chip on your shoulder that you simply prefer to treat the underground portion of the line as part of “rich” Eglinton. No, it’s the old narrower part of Eglinton where there is no room for a surface right-of-way. By the way the part of Eglinton west from about the Allen Road to Black Creek is not exactly Forest Hill.
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You mean like how it was before the North Yonge Subway Extension was built? The Yonge subway wasn’t built from Union to Finch in one shot and transfers and “future capacity” weren’t the motivation behind extending the line north of Eglinton.
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The Relief Line will mostly benefit long-range commuters from east of Yonge, who will get a faster and less crowded route into downtown.
Some downtowners will benefit as well, but this new line is far less critical for them as they already have relatively good transit options.
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Cool, now we all get to insist on stuff. Well, I insist that my tax dollars be spent responsibly, which in the transit area means, among other things, using appropriate technology for the expected ridership, which means, until somebody does a credible study with a different conclusion from any existing credible study, LRT in Scarborough, not heavy rail transit.
Except for my house. I get a swan boat station in the basement.
Steve: I live in a high rise, so my swan boat will be the advanced version that can fly up to my balcony. Don’t tell Porter Air about this.
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I understand politics have hurt all residents of Toronto for years & I’m sorry you have to hear the people from Scarborough complain. But when people from Scarborough hear people telling them “what’s best” again & again. Its like listening to a petulant rich child who not only wants more they are also too self absorbed to care others.
Since capital projects historically start from Metro and End in the East. Central & Eastern Scarborough has been neglected far worse than than anywhere else in the City.
Scarborough residents are not narrow minded about the DRL. It’ll be great for Toronto too. But it will do little for the many Toronto residents in Central, North & East Scarborough. Although it will be great for those who are already lucky enough to ride the subway though or will be close to a new station.
This should not be a DRL vs. Scarborough subway debate and if we make it that then we are really not going to anywhere.
Steve: Precisely my point.
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Thanks for this. Does anyone else think that 32km/h is terribly slow for a straight underground line? Do these LRTs accelerate really poorly compared to subway? I thought they’d be better at that than heavy rail. With 850m station spacing, it’s hardly that much closer than subway (about 2 extra stations over the entire underground section, roughly).
Steve: The station spacing is closer on the west side of Yonge and that affects the overall speed. The average can be misleading. For example, on the Yonge line, the station spacing north of Eglinton if far wider than to the south, but you can’t just look at Finch-to-Union as a single run with an average speed. The AM peak scheduled speeds of the four rapid transit lines are: BD (31.2km/h), SRT (28.5), Sheppard (29.8), YUS (30.9). However, if we only look at Finch-to-Eglinton, the trip takes about 12 minutes for 8km, or an average of 40km/h.
Worse, I wonder if TTC can achieve Metrolinx’s 22km/h estimate in the at-grade sections, based on Steve’s reporting of TTC streetcar operations. If the St. Clair streetcar is the closest relative to LRT that TTC operates, how close does TTC come to original speed estimates? Did Metrolinx include the ‘TTC factor’ in sub-optimal performance?
A 22km/h section is depressing for a line that costs $5B. And an extra 7 minutes (maybe 6 with better station access for surface), is a lot of time, considering the line will carry 100 million people by 2031 (not on that section, admittedly).
Steve: The stop spacing on St. Clair is much, much closer than on Eglinton, and there is little by way of useful priority signalling. Fares are collected on board and this affects loading times at busy stops. There are 16 stops from Keele to Bathurst, a distance of 4km. That’s no 850m spacing which if duplicated on the west end of St. Clair would mean only 6 stops over the same distance (assuming the first and last stops are at the extreme ends). Imagine a St. Clair car that stopped at, say, Keele, Caledonia/Lansdowne, Dufferin, Oakwood, Christie and St. Clair West. Not the same animal. On Spadina, the layout would be something like King, Dundas, Hoskin/Harbord, Bloor.
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Does Metrolinx not have a opinion on signal priority at intersections for the middle-of-the-street LRT lines? I asked about this at a public meeting and was told that signal priority for trams would be more acceptable on suburban streets where intersections are more widely spaced than on inner city streets.
On a ride of the Paris T3 LRT line which runs on reserved lanes in the middle of a street, I observed that the tram never stopped for a red light at intersections; it always had the right-of-way.
Steve: That sounds like a non-answer to me. The basic problem is that the priority for road signalling in Toronto is to keep traffic moving. If an LRT runs on a 3 minute headway (e.g. a train either way every 90 seconds on average), there will always be a train at any signal for every cycle, and there’s a chance that it will arrive “out of phase” with the other traffic because of time taken loading passengers at the previous stop. If Metrolinx wants more aggressive signalling, then they will have to fight for it.
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It would be nice if Metrolinx had changed tge ‘Downtown Relief Line’ to the ‘Toronto Relief Line’ for their study (instead of of the ‘Relief Line’ which sounds scary … almost as scary as Sarah Sarah Thompson calling it the “Downtown (+Suburban) Relief Line”).
I’ll call it the ‘Toronto Relief Line’ because Toronto will be relieved when (if?) it is finally built…in any configuration.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: I have said it before and will keep repeating it: “Don Mills” is the name you are looking for. The western branch, if it is ever build, will not necessarily be the same line operationally.
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Sorry, I was not trying to compare St. Clair to Eglinton, I was trying to find out the original TTC estimate for speed on St. Clair vs. actual observed speed. Then use that difference to get an idea of what we might actually get on Eglinton vs. what Metrolinx is estimating.
Steve: The primary claim for the right-of-way was that service would be more reliable because it would less subject to interference from other traffic. Both transit and auto traffic were expected to rise in future decades requiring more transit service and exposing that service to more congestion (a similar argument is made for the Transit City network).
Here are some pre and post round trip scheduled running times in minutes for the line (shown as travel time + recovery time).
Apr 2007 Sept 2013 AM Peak 68+4 56+7 Midday 64+6 56+7 PM Peak 70+6 58+5 Sat PM 76+8 58+6 Sat Eve 58+4 54+5 Sun PM 67+5 58+6 Sun Eve 58+2 54+2Note how consistent the times are now compared to pre-construction schedules. Also the greatest improvement is on weekend afternoons when the combination of off-peak traffic regulations and traffic volume created the most delay for the streetcars. Headways have been improved too, especially in the off peak when there was no constraint on fleet size.
Let me get this straight – Metrolinx is contemplating building a $5B partial at-grade line without traffic priority? This is preposterous. Are these people mad?
Even with 4 lanes full of traffic moving at 60km/h (good luck), a 3 minute LRT moving at 25km/h will have a much higher throughput. – there’s no rationale for leaving out transit priority.
Steve: I didn’t say “no” transit priority, but a lot depends on how it is installed and managed. Metrolinx may build the line, but the City runs the traffic signals. Depending on political priorities at City Hall, how the signals actually behave may be more or less pro-transit.
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According to The Star the TTC is going to call the proposed DRL the “5 Subway”.
Steve: Assuming that’s the next one built!
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@Ross Trusler:
Traffic doesn’t move at 60km/h in a 60 zone. Just like the LRT doesn’t travel at 60, the cars are traveling at a lower average speed due to traffic signals and, during peak for cars, congestion. At rush hours, cars may be going only 25km/h themselves, less if traffic is worse. Even when traffic is good, cars are probably going only 40 on average due to signals. The only reason the LRT is slower is because, like the subway, it has to service stops, even if it is segregated from congestion.
To All:
Don’t forget that the Yonge line between Bloor and Union is about 25km/h average speed. So 25km/h is in fact subway speed. LRT stop spacing is about the same as the station spacing along Yonge between Bloor and Union.
If people are looking for transit service at a 50km/h average speed, GO trains provide that kind of service. Subways will never offer speeds that high, simply because GO trains have a top speed almost twice as high as what subway trains are designed for.
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The scheduled speed on The Queensway is 21.75km/h (8 minutes over 2.9km). The Queensway doesn’t have signal priority, but does share the generous green time the The Queensway gets and there are two grade-separated intersections (Parkside and South Kingsway). The stop spacing is similar to the Bloor subway. The Queensway has only one more stop between Roncesvalles and Humber loop then there is between Dundas West and Old Mill.
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I think the real idea is to keep putting off a decision until the next election, then the next council will come up with a brand new set of ideas, and they will put off a decision until the next election, then the next council, this will continue for decades until there is nothing left of the SRT….
What we need is for city council to get off their collective duff, and get some shovels in the ground and get something built, it does not matter what gets built. Extending the BD is what should have been done in the first place.
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Hence why I said:
The point is that vehicular traffic is not going to average over 60km/h, so that no matter what in comparing throughput, I’m not underestimating the throughput of the regular traffic lanes. FWIW, back in the mists of time I used to commute along that stretch of Eglinton, and in rush hour I definitely averaged more than 25km/h, usually just over 40km/h. It’s likely slower now, but by eliminating the worst left turns and removing buses, I’d bet it’ll be back near or even over 40km/h, in which case the Eglinton LRT, at 22-25km/h, will be noticeably slower than the cars in the at-grade section.
Meanwhile, the underground section of Eglinton is painfully slow to drive and the LRT will blow away any vehicle trying to cross Yonge. Which at least offers some hope of getting people to switch to transit.
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This highlights (again), the folly of having 2 transit agencies for one project. Given how Metrolinx seems to gloss over local issues, I don’t have a lot of confidence that they’ll ensure that LRT gets enough priority.
My experience is anecdotal, but my impression is that transit priority in Toronto is nearly nonexistent compared to virtually any other city I’ve visited, including some much smaller and less dense. So I don’t trust the TTC on this either, particularly if politicians will ultimately determine whether LRT gets traffic priority.
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Anyone who says that has never seen a photo of the Scarborough Town Centre area around the time the RT was being built. Hint: the tallest building in the area of Scarborough Town Centre back then was Scarborough City Hall.
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If it weren’t for the fact that the LRT has to stop periodically to pickup/unload passengers at stops, it would travel as least as fast as auto traffic. However, if there is traffic congestion in the auto lanes, then the LRT would outperform the car because of its reserved lanes. I understand that if you increase auto capacity on a street (by removing buses), then auto demand would quickly expand to use up that capacity resulting in no improvement in congestion. Three of the 10 worst intersections are along the Sheppard subway at Yonge, Bayview and Leslie; so it seems that removing the buses didn’t help much. (I suspect the widely spaced station stops and limited parallel bus service may be limiting subway demand.)
I remember an article soon after the Bloor-Danforth line opened about a “race” where one reporter took the subway and the other drove by auto. Both reporters took about the same time to cross the same route but I think the auto was slightly faster. Again station stops limited subway average speed.
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I’m wondering if that ‘race’ included time spent looking for parking 🙂
Certainly if it were run today the results might well be different and well in the subway’s favour. And indeed, if GO services were part of the mix perhaps it would be be even faster.
Perhaps it is because I grew up with the Milton Line trains nearly in my backyard (they’re about 1km away where I live now) that I cannot stop wishing that Milton line trains stopped at Bloor GO so I could bypass everything between Kipling and Dundas West.
I’m hoping that GO will run special trains on the Richmond Hill line between Oriole and Union during the period when the Yonge subway is closed for track bed maintenance (which might be next year). It won’t make a huge difference but it might open eyes up to the possibilities that the rail lines offer … and that could be applied to the Stouffville corridor, the Weston corridor etc.
I mean, we all know it, we’re all talking about it … it’s time for something to happen.
Cheers, Moaz
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With regards to auto demand quickly expanding to fill the space left by buses, this is known as induced demand, and is generally poorly understood. The induced auto demand factor (IDF) along Eglinton will not be 1, that is, cars will not automatically appear to fill all space. The vacant auto capacity will translate into both more auto use AND shorter travel times, although the latter will gradually subside. Absent employment growth however, those cars are rerouting off of smaller, slower, generally less-safe routes, and making them move faster.
Most LRTs I’ve been on with their own right of way outperform surrounding auto traffic by at least some margin, sometimes substantially. This helps immensely with inducing transit demand, and higher transit IDF values (the higher the value, the closer the LRT will run at capacity). A low IDF along Eglinton in Scarborough is a real pity. It’s an indication that too many stops are being built for the amount of auto congestion present on the route, Metrolinx is planning to continue to collect fares on board, or something else is hindering the line, I don’t know what.
Steve: Fare collection will be by Presto card with all-door loading. Major stops will have fare machines on the platforms so that boarding riders can tap in before the car arrives. The number of stops is a compromise between speed and distance of access.
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Kevin’s comment:
Except at stops, faster. There is a good video here.
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Some have a hard time making the right decision for the future when there is a cheaper solution in front of their nose.
Steve: Actually, the history is a bit more complicated. At the time the Scarborough LRT was first proposed (mid 1960s), northeastern Scarborough was mainly farmland and STC did not yet exist. The line would have followed the old rail corridor northeast from Warden Station (the same one the subway uses to get to Kennedy) (and, oh yes, the idea of extending the subway to Kennedy wasn’t on the books yet either) all the way out to Malvern, then turned northwest to hook up with another LRT line in the hydro corridor parallel to Finch.
The idea at the time was to build a network of suburban lines in then little-populated areas and develop around them. The TTC was working with Hawker Siddeley (whose Thunder Bay plant is now owned by Bombardier) on a design for a modern streetcar/LRV for these lines. However, Queen’s Park had a better idea claiming that there was nothing in between buses and subways, and that we had to invent a mode. This killed the LRT plans, but took roughly 15 years to beget the RT technology, one that proved almost as expensive as the subway for which it was to be the “low cost” replacement. The RT was built, but the idea of building a network of lines died because we couldn’t afford it. So much for building for the future, something we were going to do over 40 years ago with LRT, the solution that was right in front of our nose.
The right decision then should have been LRT, and we would have built an extensive network by now of lines, some on exclusive rights-of-way, others in road medians, still others underground. Instead, we got roads and subdivisions designed around auto travel, and an orphan technology that never even saw its planned extension, let alone a wider network.
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The right decision at that time could have been LRT. One thing we can both agree is that the right decision has never been made in Toronto’s transit planning. We no longer have the farmland and we are stuck with ever growing congested roadways. The right decision is to provide the most integrated, convenient, & reliable (although you will argue this somehow) form of transit into the City Center of Scarborough keeping the future growth in mind. It’s no longer 1980 and this Eastern City that was developed from chaotic planning does not require a standalone LRT network. We need to get to the “lands of opportunity” faster. Not to be riding some show piece that integrates our priority areas when a single bus could get us quickly on our way to a line that meshes with the rest of Toronto from those same areas.
Transfer City looks great on a piece of paper. Who cares what the majority of riders who would actually have to use it think. It’s cheaper and the City can claim to have “served” Scarborough finally.
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That works out to about a 29 minute one way trip in the PM peak. Just for reference, the Sheppard Subway which is about the same length as the St Clair Streetcar, does almost the same distance in about 6 minutes.
Probably why the Sheppard subway attracts 15,000 more daily passengers than the 512.
The TTC really dropped the ball with the St. Clair project. If they removed some of the stops and spaced the stops more like the BD line, the 512 could really have achieved some time savings that commuters would notice. Sort of like a streetcar version of VIVA.
Steve: Two errors here. First, the running time from Don Mills to Yonge is 9 minutes or so, not 6. Obviously still faster than the St. Clair car over a comparable length. Second, the Sheppard Subway is fed by many bus routes at Don Mills Station. The St. Clair car has almost no feeder routes because most riders are travelling south to the BD subway, unless their destination lies conveniently along St. Clair. What the streetcar does have, however, is strong demand along the line on an all-day basis including weekends. Some of that demand exists because of the fine-grained level of service with many stops.
As an FYI, a few of the more closely-spaced stops exist because of political pressure — Northcliffe and Wychwood.
These are two completely separate types of service, and it does the Transit City LRT lines a disservice to have St. Clair and Spadina (also with many stops) used as points of comparison.
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I recently drove along St. Clair around noon and I gotta tell ya, I was surprised to discover that the streetcar in its own RoW was actually competitive with my car. We both left Yonge St. together. It would pass me. Then I would pass it. We both got tripped up by the lights. At the end, I beat the streetcar by maybe 2 minutes, and that was only because of the St. Clair W. subway loop. So, I honestly think that light rail can compete with cars on suburban streets, but I’m sick and tired of this argument. Let’s talk about something else. Don’t you guys ever get sick of arguing the same facts over and over?
PS — I did Bloor by car also a few times. The subway is always faster if there’s traffic along Bloor, otherwise it’s a tie. But, the subway line cut travel times in half vs. the streetcars that plowed the route way back when.
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Some of us have not been debating this forever, and just started. My concern is that Toronto’s not making the most of LRT. Even if we look only within Ontario, the other city with BRT and LRT (Ottawa) operates much faster than Metrolinx’s LRT or TTC’s subways, for that matter.
Ottawa is replacing a BRT that is designed to travel up to 90km/h between stations* with an LRT that travels up to 80km/h between stations. The BRT has an at-grade section downtown which is overcapacity and travels slowly, but otherwise the BRT and future LRT operate well north of the TTC’s 40km/h outside of that stretch. Station spacing is about 900m on the new LRT, by the way, fairly comparable to the underground portion of the Crosstown, which is pegged at 32km/h by Metrolinx. Ottawa’s new LRT is estimated to travel about 35km/h overall, but this includes Ottawa’s downtown stretch, where a lot more people will be boarding and alighting than on the Crosstown.
In short, Ontario’s other LRT project will be operating at least 10% faster with up to twice the volume of the fastest section of Crosstown.
* 90km/h is the official speed limit of Ottawa’s BRT, but it sometimes operates *faster*. I discovered this less than a minute after my first trip to Ottawa, as I was thrown against the side of a curving bus. I have since been on Ottawa BRT buses traveling up to 110km/h according to the speedometer.
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Ottawa is a completely different beast than Toronto. Its transitway is designed to get suburban residents downtown as fast as possible, and while it stops along the way, it was never designed to serve the inner city very well. In fact, when first built, the buses completely by-passed the dense west inner city in order to get downtown, before a slightly different route was built with intermediate stations. Even today, because Ottawa lacks a GO-Transit style suburban transit agency (in part because it also lacks the municipal separation of city and suburb like Toronto has). The city is wrestling with how to integrate the need for extremely long distance peak commutes with the growing demand for inner-city travel, and how to pedestrianize a network designed mostly around existing highway corridors.
The downtown stretch of Ottawa’s LRT comprises four stations. It is hard to draw a comparison, when the scale of Ottawa’s core is so different. I also find it hard to believe that the LRT will actually make that average speed given the sharp turns en route and the relatively close station spacing along the central portion.
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In Ross Trusler’s post comparing Ottawa RT speeds to Toronto RT speeds, I suspect an apples & oranges comparison of maximum speed to average speed where the latter takes into account station/stop dwell time but the former does not.
The maximum speed of the Toronto LRT vehicles is 80 km/hour. For the Toronto subway, it is 90 km/hour; however, it seems that the subway can achieve that speed only if the stations are widely spaced (eg. between Eglinton and Lawrence stations) .
I understand that the Montreal subway has a maximum speed of 80 km/hour but has a higher average speed than the Toronto subway because the Montreal trains have rubber tires allowing them to accelerate and decelerate more quickly.
Steve: Generally the speed restrictions on the subway have been lower than 80km/h (50m/h) in part due to concerns about the condition to which track must be maintained to sustain higher operating speeds.
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