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 
I think that is a very cynical attitude to take.
Despite the complaining (and we only complain because we care and know we can do even better), Toronto has a rich transit history, and made many good choices over the years.
It was these good choices and vision that transit could compete with the car, that has produced a metropolitan area where even in the suburbs, transit commands a respectable share of all trips.
There is no other city in North America, including NYC, that has the kind of suburban transit service Toronto has with the TTC.
Some of the reasons the TTC had great success, is because the TTC went against the wisdom of the day, and actually decided to extend frequent bus service and subways to the suburbs.
What I find worrisome, is that many people today are trying to go against what has made the TTC such a great system, and actually would never support what the TTC did decades ago, that has made transit such a success in Toronto.
People want a transit system that is there for them, that is frequent, and that is fast and competes with the car for travel time.
We have to work at designing a system that meets those goals.
In the case of Scarborough, the subway is the best answer to delivering what the STC area of Scarborough needs both now and in the future.
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At today’s council meeting, Rob Ford’s response to questions about Lisi was “subways, subways, subways”. Since he said it 3 times, could he be referring to the Scarborough subway, the DRL, and the Sheppard subway? What stunt will Ford pull to stop the Sheppard LRT and make it a subway?
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Is that 80km/h a measurement of average speed or top speed while the vehicle is actually moving? Correct me if I’m wrong but the speeds provided for Toronto’s subway and LRT lines are average measurements that include dwell time at stations.
There are sections of the subway where speeds are high … perhaps not 80 km/h but high enough. And CLRVs and PCCs could hit some pretty impressive top speeds too.
It would be interesting to compare projected boardings and alightings on the Crosstown and Confederation LRT lines … especially now that Ford has decided Sheppard East and Finch West are his next targets … perhaps allowing the Crosstown to squeak through unmolested.
Cheers, Moaz
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Well, Scarborough is indeed getting its subway, while the rest of us get higher property taxes, fewer buses in our neighborhoods, and worst of all, a likely second (and third) Ford term.
I will say something again that I said here a few years ago during the Sheppard extension debate: I don’t want to hear about any Scarborough Councillor or ratepayer association complaining about the height of condos or density of townhouses anywhere near this subway, because if you want to be part of the big city and get big city trains, you get the rest of it too. You get big buildings and the requisite increase in traffic (see: Sheppard Avenue between Don Mills and Yonge). You get property tax increases to pay for the infrastructure, and you get to wait longer or walk farther for the buses that you will still need to take to this line. Are you ready for that?
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It looks like the subway is proceeding – for now.
This was a clear example of the side that compromised won. The subway side considered alternate routes and increasing funding, while the LRT side refused to budge on the Transit City plan. Basically I think it is a good idea to see if we put in some additional funding, can we get a better product. Some may argue it was not worth it, but the fact is that the subway side was flexible enough to find an acceptable solution.
If the LRT could have eliminated the forced transfer at Kennedy, that probably would have been enough to maintain the LRT. For some others, it was the LRT’s inability to reduce the SRT closure to less than 3 years.
Steve: It is self-evident that the enforced transfer between the SLRT and BD lines at Kennedy could not be eliminated. I don’t think through running with Eglinton would have made a difference on this. The shutdown was the larger issue, compounded by the sense that this was being foisted on Scarborough by an uncaring, arrogant, subway-laden downtown elite. That may sound harsh, but some of the comments made at Council yesterday were deeply insulting, and if I had used them in speaking of Scarberians, I would have justly been reamed out for doing so.
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What I find the most amusing out of this farce is that this may turn out to be the biggest anti-car move the city has ever made. Simply put, where is the minimum $500 million that is needed to keep the Gardiner from crashing onto Lakeshore Road going to come from if the city hits its debt limit building “Subways! Subways! Subways!”?
Steve: There is still room within the City’s debt ceiling for the Gardiner. However, it will require another explicit Council vote for taxes to support that debt, or sidelining something else to make room in the operating budget.
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If I had to choose between paying $1B for breaking a gas plant contract or an upgrade from an LRT to subway, I’d pick the subway every time.
Someday in the future perhaps we’ll learn how to get better value for our money. For example, Madrid had a incredible expansion in their subway network in the last decade, at very reasonable cost. One of the leaders of the project has some very interesting insight to how they achieved it.
Steve: The two most important facets of Madrid’s success was that they had very generous funding from both the Spanish government and, through them, the EU. Madrid also had a plan for a network, not one line at a time. When you have lots of money, you can plan that way. However, when your funding runs out, the subway option requires a harder look, and LRT comes to the fore.
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Steve, do you ever get the feeling that all hope for sensible transit building and operation is lost in this City?
Steve: Yes, but then I also hope to see the defeats of Rob Ford, Tim Hudak and Stephen Harper. The future will depend on how long I have to wait, and how good the centre-left is at fielding credible candidates rather than fighting each other.
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While I happen to prefer the choice of subway for Scarborough (for this line), I have every sympathy with Steve and other transit advocates for the embarrassing and rather tortuous route to making this decision.
I equally have concern that its still not quite right, and has been made w/less than complete information (I can’t see building the line without a new station somewhere on or near Eglinton, that would be asinine, and obviously building it will increase costs and reduce travel times).
Steve: I think you mean “increase travel times” because a stop would be added, although for those who could actually use the added stop, they would be reduced.
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I think if I had 2 wishes coming out of this, one would be for many of my fellow transit advocates to continue backing evidence-based planning and rational investments, but do so while paying more attention to politics (the art of the do-able).
One must understand what does and doesn’t have appeal and why; and the need to offer a bit of sugar to help the medicine go down. No it’s not good for you; and yes it adds to the cost; but no sugar, no medicine.
It’s a reality that people needed to be persuaded to adopt certain positions; and that isn’t merely about making a plausible or even persuasive argument; its about making the other party feel they got what they wanted; that they won; or that you met them at least 1/2 way.
In this instance, irrespective of the merits of what mode was chosen to replace the SRT or what route; it had to be understood that residents felt they needed something better, something higher capacity and assured of no winter-related issues. It may well be that the LRT might have done all of that, though I still would argue for the alternate alignment … but something, some concession to people’s preconceived notions needed to be made.
Steve: I must say that the pro-subway forces did a superb job of convincing people that absolutely nothing but a subway was acceptable, and even the TTC played games with overemphasis on the possibilities of bad-weather performance of LRT. If that is their position, why do they back surface LRT elsewhere? My trust in Andy Byford is starting to crack, and I am seeing as much of a politician as a technocrat.
Much like bike lanes, placed into burbs w/very low cycling-modal-split, before the areas were ready, there was a need to bring more people into the transit and LRT tent; before a project like this would be sell-able.
If not, just like bike lanes on Pharmacy and Birchmount (which I thought were great ideas btw); they are cancelled before really having a chance.
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The other thing I would suggest is that transit advocates and urban planners often lack the very imagination they would accuse their opponents of lacking.
(not you Steve)
But … if there are people wrongly tied to mode (subway); there are people equally inclined to argue that place is unchangeable.
Granted, it’s not cheap, neither are subways; but why not move Centennial campus to Scarborough City Centre? It’s in an absurd spot, very isolated, and its cost of relocation wouldn’t be that high; maybe 5 buildings, I can almost guarantee moving the whole college is cheaper than building either LRT or Subway to serve the existing campus.
Moving all of Malvern may not make sense, though again the community is sited in a way that defies all logic in terms of where one would plunk down density.
Again if the cost of serving Malvern with higher-order transit were 400M independent of the cost of serving Centennial at its existing site; that does move a few buildings, some of which are in need of extensive work in any event.
I’m not saying that’s the right answer, but approaching these things with an open mind may offer more creative solutions amenable to all.
Steve: Well, one might reasonably argue that both Malvern and Centennial were built on planned future transit routes, and might legitimately be upset at people redrawing the map. The extension to Malvern from STC has existed in plans for at least 40 years.
It helps to know the history before making cavalier statements about buildings being in the “wrong” place. Don’t forget that the only reason STC is where it is was that Eaton’s owned a block of land and wanted to develop the shopping centre. City Hall followed along, as well as the transit route.
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Thank you Mayor Ford – you did it. The Scarborough line that will go into the North Eastern part of Scarborough (Sheppard/McCowan) will be called Line 2 as it will no longer be just the Bloor Danforth Line (wasting millions of dollars to change from nice descriptive line names to numbers almost makes sense now). I hope that the Downtown Relief Line construction begins as soon as the Scarborough Line is completed. Line numbers are typically used in cities with an extensive subway network unlike Toronto but I am okay with wasting millions of dollars to change all the signs, maps, etc unnecessarily as long as the funds for doing so does not come from the funds dedicated to the Scarborough subway line.
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Put the Sheppard LRT on hold until we see how the Eglinton LRT works out. Use the money saved from the Sheppard LRT to reduce the tax increase caused by the Scarborough subway. The DRL should be the next project we should focus on, not the Sheppard LRT.
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At yesterday’s Crosstown meeting, I asked a Metrolinx representative about transit priority on the surface portions of the Eglinton Crosstown. He said that the trams would sent a signal to trigger transit priority at traffic lights. I asked if the transit priority would be as good as for the Paris T3 tramway (which is not held up for red lights), he said it would be something like that.
Steve: I will believe this when I see it. We should be able to have this technology today in Toronto, not wait 10 years for the Eglinton line to open.
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City council did something sensible yesterday: raising property taxes to finance transit expansion. Since the financing model involves borrowing against a property tax increase for the next 30 years, the annual cost is only an average of $41/household.
Steve: It is $41 per household based on the average assessment of about $470k. People living in better-off neighbourhoods will pay more, in poorer neighbourhoods, less. The increase, combined with other inflationary pressures, could be used by landlords to apply for an extraordinary rent increase for tenants, or they might have to just eat the increased cost.
This type of funding, possibly in conjunction with provincial transit taxes, needs to be used for other transit expansion projects in Toronto like the Don Mills subway, elevating Eglinton East, building Eglinton West to the airport (elevated) and the Sheppard subway. It would not be at all unreasonable to have a larger tax hike of a few hundred dollars a year to pay for badly needed subway expansion. Compared to the average person’s expenditure on TTC passes or driving, this is fairly small. I do not think that relying exclusively on LRT expansion makes sense if there is willingness to implement necessary tax increases to fund the tens of billions of dollars in subway and other transit expansion that will likely be required over the next few decades.
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I am ready for that as long as we get an extensive network of subways in Scarborough (Eglinton Ave East, Sheppard East extension, and Bloor Danforth extension).
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As a daily user of the SRT, I too am disappointed that we are spending an extra billion dollars to upgrade one form of rapid transit for another. It is truly unbelievable that in a city so underserviced by rapid transit, we would waste so much money upgrading one line instead of building elsewhere. Anyway, maybe we could make lemonade out of this lemon and turn the old SRT guideway and ROW into a bikeway connecting STC to Kennedy/Eglinton, and the bike trails just south of there through Warden Woods, Taylor Creek and the Don. That would be fantastic indeed.
Steve: Council amended the approval motion to request a study of recycling the old elevated guideway in the manner of the West Side Highway in NYC. Whether this will ever extend through the tunnel and down the corridor to Kennedy is another matter.
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No, it’s apples to apples. 80km/h for LRT and 90km/h for BRT are maximum speeds, the speeds in the 30s for Toronto and Ottawa are average speeds including dwell times. That’s where volume also becomes important, because as volume increases, dwell times increase and average speeds decrease. You would expect the underground portion of the Crosstown line, with lower volume, to be faster than the Confederation line, all other things being equal, but clearly they’re not. Also, my personal experience is that at least with rapid transit, TTC overpromises compared to OCTranspo, although neither are angels.
Another point: I understand from elsewhere on this site that Crosstown headways are going to be 6 minutes during rush hour, which means that passengers are spending more time waiting in Toronto too.
I just wish we were aiming a little higher.
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No two cities or lines are exactly the same, but Crosstown (underground portion) bisecting Toronto midtown and Confederation running through downtown Ottawa have much more in common than they have differences. If you aren’t willing to use such readily comparable lines in comparisons, then you’re effectively asking to never permit comparison at all.
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Except that Rob Ford has already declared that extending the Sheppard subway line is his next priority; not the DRL. After all, that’s what he promised and he keeps his promises.
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The statement was in no way cavalier. I am well aware of past proposals for high density development and extension of the SRT (at one point) as far as Markham & Sheppard. Though my memory is that the alignment beyond that was more a subject of debate (following Markham Rd vs Malvern vs Sheppard as terminus).
Steve: There was a proposal to take the line to what is now Malvern Centre as a second stage of the Scarborough LRT project in the 1970s.
Nor was I using the idea you could move the college campus as the basis for deciding what mode or alignment one must use for a transit line.
My point was that it is one (and one of many) legitimate ways to solve a problem.
If the problem is defined as transit should serve trip generator A (college, hospital or whatever else), it is not an unfair question to ask, is it cheaper to build the transit line to that location (irrespective of mode) or is it cheaper to move the trip generator?
In some cases the answer will be transit is cheaper, in others relocation maybe undesirable (say moving a hospital to a location that no longer serves its catchment area well and might drive up ambulance travel times)
Its also possible that the transit alignment in question is justified for other reasons.
It is equally plausible that moving the trip generator is the more cost-efficient choice.
The point is not ruling out a choice out of hand, particularly if it allows you to arrive at a consensus that ultimately achieves a greater public good.
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I would also note I am familiar w/the history of Scarborough Centre and the Eaton family as well. I also think building there was the wrong choice (though one made when I could barely walk).
This was a dubious decision to put it charitably, even worse due to the way the road grid was mangled. However, that really is a separate tangent.
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The city has chosen the subway. While I agree with the subway expansion in principle (connection to shopping, intercity services, GO), it was certainly the wrong way to go because it was the technology holding the RT back, not the alignment. The TTC had to run the 131E because the RT did not have enough trains to run proper service during rush hours. Had we run LRT instead, the RT could easily run at 2-3 minute headways, instead of the 5-6 due to the lack of cars. I think that the subway should be extended , and the RT alignment abandoned when Metrolinx decides to double track and run all day service on Stouffville.
I think that Metrolinx was all too happy that most of the cost overruns are shifted to the city rather than Metrolinx. All those councillors who shouted ” subways, subways, subways” and demanded that Scarborough get the extension are about to run the city off a fiscal cliff.
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Apparently the Gravy Train has not been stopped merely sent under McCowan.
It comes down to this: The city is spending about a billion dollars of property tax revenue, development charges and federal infrastructure money so that people can avoid taking an escalator one flight and changing trains at Kennedy?
In essence there already had been a subway approved for Scarborough — i.e the Scarborough LRT.
You may complain that it wasn’t really a subway since it wasn’t underground (just like the Spadina Subway north of Eglinton) or that it was going to run shorter trains (just like the Sheppard Subway).
Unlike the other proposed LRT lines this one would be completely separate from the roadway and not be subject to traffic signals (just like the YUS and BD lines)
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In a fit of poor judgement, I watched a fair bit of the Council debate yesterday. While I was disappointed by some factual lapses from some of the pro-LRT councillors, I was disgusted by the repeated ignorance, lack of thought, and occasional outright dishonesty from the anti-LRT group. Of course none of it was new.
I don’t understand the vote breakdown. I understand why a Scarborough councillor would vote for an overpriced subway concept for Scarborough (even though it won’t go near most of their wards), but I don’t understand why so many councillors from elsewhere in the city signed on.
Also, procedural question: what would have happened if two more councillors had found their minds and the vote had been 22-22 instead of 24-20?
Steve: I was doing vote counts all day sitting in the chamber and there were always a few I wasn’t certain of. If it has been a tie, the motion would have lost. The Speaker participates in all votes and does not have an extra vote to break ties. Why did people far from Scarborough vote for subways? Some really do believe in the subway, and they are entitled to their views. Some voted out of loyalty to Rob Ford, and some no doubt for hope of future favours. The interesting part will be how much blowback they get from constituents about the tax increase.
On the plus side, nobody has mentioned it but the vote was fairly close and I think those who are for good transit everywhere should not view this as a done deal. It’s not just anti-LRT ideologues who can play that game. Now that Rob Ford has voted to increase taxes to pay for transit, the next Council can vote to re-instate the SRT replacement and the Eglinton/Morningside (Malvern) LRT route (of course the province will presumably no longer be bound by the existing agreement so the overall deal might not be as good as what was thrown out yesterday). While normally I don’t believe in re-opening plans once voted in, this subway is sufficiently ill-considered and poor value for the money that I think this is a reasonable approach.
After the 2014 municipal election, I don’t believe the EA will even be done, so it’s not like the project will be under construction, or even close to it. Also, remember that the amount of money spent so far is irrelevant when determining whether to cancel; what matters is whether the amount that remains to be spent is a reasonable cost for what will be gained. In the case of this subway, the City could probably spent hundreds of millions of dollars and the remaining cost would still be too much to pay. So except for the fact that most people don’t understand the sunk cost fallacy, even after the 2018 election it would probably still be reasonable to cancel as long as an LRT plan could be built quickly.
Steve: Queen’s Park has made its support conditional on a proper alternatives assessment, and that process won’t be finished during the current term of Council. However, I think it will take something like discovering another half a billion or so in unexpected costs to really derail the project. Those would be 100-cent Toronto dollars with no hope of subsidy, and would have a big effect on the borrowing and taxes needed.
Note, too, that Rob Ford is not satisfied with destroying one LRT project: he explicitly set his sights on the Finch and Sheppard ones. I believe he promised to build subways, but even this short low-utility extension is causing a 1.6% increase, city-wide, to pay for only about a third of the cost. Finch and Sheppard will either be much shorter than the corresponding LRT lines would have been or much, much, more expensive, so the only possible “progress” that could be made, absent a very large and irresponsibly spendthrift contribution from senior government, would be to cancel the LRT lines permanently.
So I will be very interested to see the results of the 2014 election.
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Ford placing extending the Sheppard as a higher priority then the RL is just so much wind now. Support for that prioritization is next to nil. I await the missives from the apologists (on other sites) as to what the reasoning behind that one is.
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If a professional’s personal opinion isn’t asked for, then it shouldn’t be volunteered. Byford is out of line every time he says “I would have preferred a [subway, etc.]”
Steve: There were also cases where he chose to dismiss LRT supportive information even when it came from his own staff, and where he made no attempt to dissuade Councillors from equating the winter weather problems of the SRT with those of LRT. Any mode will have problems in the winter if it’s out of doors. The question is how often, and how serious a storm is necessary to cripple a line. At no point was the severity (or not) of the proposed improved transfer connection mentioned, nor the basic cost benefit analysis one might make of the value of the extra investment.
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I think this mess is just beginning. When the EA is published, it will dawn on people that the TTC station at STC will be closed down, and replaced with a station across the road on McCowan. That will cause outrage. Even more outrage than walking upstairs at Kennedy Station. That will cause one costly amendment to the alignment.
Then the businesses on Eglinton at Danforth will demand a station. It is a pretty active area that could use transit connections.
Since our politicians want to say yes to everyone, the costs will escalate, and the problem will now belong to the City and TTC rather than to Metrolinx. City councillors will not be happy.
Then the YUS shutdown in 2014 will cause public awareness of the need for ongoing maintenance, together with the related costs. And the continuing overcrowding will escalate the need for some “Relief Line”. Metrolinx has put that in its “next wave”, but the city has been unwilling to support revenue sources, leaving that priority in limbo. As the City completes the EA for the Scarborough Subway, these points will come home to roost. Probably at the time when the civic election is underway, and voters will question whether transit planning is more complex than yelling “Subways, Subways, Subways”.
I fear there will be lots more talk, and lots more indecision.
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This is not fair for Etobicoke. Why does Scarborough get a subway and not Etobicoke? Are Etobicoke citizens second class? Where is our Mayor Ford? We need a subway asap from Kipling to the Airport, and an LRT north-south on Royal York-Weston .
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I have no problem with people who are pro-LRT being upset at the vote.
But I really wish people would stop spewing incorrect information.
Whether you like it or not, the STC subway will not be under utilized, etc, as people in posts above have mentioned. A subway carrying over 100,000 riders a day on just the eastern portion of a line, is not under utilized in the least.
Do you guys even understand that if you apply the logic you are trying to apply to Toronto, that half the NYC subway would not be operating according to your way too high standards for ridership, etc.
It is fine to have your opinion. But lets get serious here, that LRT or subway, either one is not going to be under utilized in the least.
Pro-LRT people also have to stop acting like the LRT plan was this great project planned out by professional planners who weighted all the option.
The entire LRT plans for Toronto were basically drawn up on a napkin by Adam Giambrone and David Miller. The LRT plan itself never went through the proper process. They basically picked priority neighbourhoods, and drew lines on a map, and we had an LRT plan.
So both sides of this debate have done things that should not have been done, and it is about time we started noticing that.
On the issue of taxes, Toronto residents time and time again have said they support tax increases to improve transit. There are people out there that understand we need to increase taxes to pay for needed projects to make our city a better place to live.
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The bottom line is that the subway decision was based on pure emotion. One of the major causes of subway fever was the YUS extension into Vaughan. People in Scarborough justifiably asked, “Why not us?”. The answer given was never satisfying. When compared to Vaughan, Scarboughites felt their “city” deserved the subway more.
Secondly, there was the sense that Scarborough was the victim of a bad decision made 30 years ago. This was the time to make things right, and not get screwed again.
People are always willing to pay more for something, if they think that it is worth it. Why do we buy expensive cars, jeans and TV’s when there are other sensible alternatives available? It enhances our self-esteem. Is the iphone really worth the money that you paid for it?
Scarboroughites also saw how the Ontario government cavalierly flushed away $585 million to close a gas plant, while at the same time were “penny pinching” Scarborough. And lastly, there was the mistrust of the two worlds, Downtown versus the Suburbs.
At the end of the day, is this the worst thing that can happen? Not at all. If the public is willing and able to overspend their own money, then it might as well be on subways!
The good news is that the Bloor-Danforth Line will now be complete. (No more debates in council unless its to add a new station). This will accelerate the building of the Don Mills Subway (I like that name). I think that the Ontario and Federal governments will HAVE to show us the money since this is the universally accepted next transit priority.
The Sheppard and Finch LRT routes will surely be built because there’s already an initial order of 182 LRT’s that need to be absorbed.
All in all, the transit future for Toronto looks bright. The city is funding transit with a dedicated property tax. As the tax base expands, due in part to the Scarborough and ahem Sheppard subways, there will be a bigger pool of money to reduce long-term debt and expand transit even more.
Frankly I am exhausted by the endless debates, so a final decision at least feels like we’ve made progress. 🙂
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I dream of a day years from now when enough time has passed that fewer will remember one part of the current city from another, when memory of this city prior to amalgamation will really be forgotten, just as the annex was lumped in with the old city and the private and public streetcar companies were taken over and turned into the then dubbed Toronto Transportation Commission.
Extending the Spadina subway line to York region I imagine could spur the potential for further governance integration of the “416” with the “905”. The downtown core will continue to grow no doubt with the ever escalating cost of owning and maintaining a private automobile. I am sure that the decades of indecision on transit expansion is the big reason why so many people are willing to pay a fortune to live in the city core in condominium housing units that are fairly smaller than even some of the not that much older affordable city housing also provided in the downtown. I am sure that some light rail will still get built however..
Although, what the pro subway crowd fails to realize is the kind of revolutionary urban environment and desperately needed urban renewal light rail would bring to the suburbs of this megacity. Such an urban affairs enthusiast’s fantasy it would be to have grand avenues all across the megacity and even the GTA, and perhaps dare I say return life in this city region closer to where it was a century ago, when most of everything was moved by rail and most people lived in more village like settings close to a streetcar or radial/interurban line. Suburbia never worked, a failed dream of the modernist era, right up there with Frank Lloyd Wright’s failed modernist dream of a mile high skyscraper. All the while the oil supply continues to shrink.
Scarborough and other sub urban developments of the world can either learn to adapt or face failure. It does not matter how much one hates the “downtown”, when many of those supporting more subways in the suburbs will still drive most places. Perish the thought that the many struggling low income people of the city could be deprived the chance to live in a more convienient and dense urban setting, where even walking to most places in the suburban neighbourhoods could make sense. I live downtown and can walk and bike to most places I have to and have little need for a car or subway ride.
Take a walk along the Esplanade in the St. Lawrence neighbourhood to see true urban vitality, all that the street is really missing as the crowning touch is an LRT. To the east of St. Lawrence in Ataratiri/the West Don Lands, they are getting a streetcar right of way/LRT, and the downtown east side could very well turn out even better in the coming years than the downtown west side with its out of control high rise condo construction.
I’ve probably said too much at this point, thank you for reading this far if you have, and I am sure that not that long from now the Cadillac Escalades and Lincoln Navigators out there along with the sub urban McMansions on a corner lot in a tucked away cul de sac will become as bizarre a museum artifact as land yachts with tail fins and nuclear powered toothbrushes.
Steve: Many people living in the suburbs are not living in McMansions, nor can they afford to drive Escalades. They just want to get around the city with better transit while trapped in a built form that is overwhelmingly auto-oriented.
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I think they understand it just fine, and realize that if one substantial surface median LRT line gets built, it will be successful and their rhetoric will be revealed even to casual observers as being misleading. At that point, it will no longer be possible to fool the large population of people who aren’t transit enthusiasts and who also are not committed transit opponents into opposing LRT expansion.
In other words, right now is the last opportunity to stop the coming LRT revolution.
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It will also be interesting to see if there is more reaction to the shutdown of the SRT stations between Kennedy and STC. I’ve mentioned before that this subway proposal has only a single station on it that serves an area that would not have been served under the LRT plan. So effectively the cost of the station at Lawrence plus eliminating the transfer at Kennedy is $1000000000 plus the closure of three or four existing stations plus the increased maintenance costs associated with subway. That’s one expensive transit station.
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That didn’t take long.
Steve: Well, if the line actually manages to get 36m riders per year, that’s about 100k per day. Big “if” considering demand model may have been torqued to give pro-subway results.
I suspect that it will be something along the lines of “Promises made; promises kept”. During the last election, he promised a subway replacement for the RT, a “completed” Sheppard line and off the cuff remark about wanting a Finch subway but never anything about the relief line. It doesn’t matter how financially irresponsible such a plan is and whether it would cripple the rest of the network because his supporters are more interested in him “winning” and sticking it to those people downtown.
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I have an iPhone and other Apple products and am aware of the giant mark ups that Apple charges to those of us who think it is “worth it” The difference is that I made these purchase decision on my own with my own resources. I didn’t engage in a fit of self pity and expect others to contribute. There is a different between “prestige” purchases which we make for ourselves and “prestige” purchases made with public dollars from elsewhere.
The difference is that the TA is supported by tax investment at about 50% while the TTC receives about 30%. The point is that we live in an era where transit has been starved of support due to penny pinching. Areas with overflowing buses and people left behind do not receive the service they need and deserve because the budget is frozen for political reasons. Meanwhile a billion dollars (minimum) is squandered on a line that will require tax support to operate at a rate higher than the rest of the system.
If the political climate changes and the TTC operating support from tax dollars is increased to 50% and invested in service improvements, it may make sense to build an underused subway. In the present climate the money spent to satisfy Scarborough’s sense of entitlement is nothing less than selfish. (Before anyone replies with comparison’s about my bus service frequency and elsewhere, please remember that my priority for immediate service improvement would be the overcrowded suburban routes that receive dubious service.)
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Compare Scarborough to Etobicoke is size & the amount of transit infrastructure Etobicoke already has. You know the projects Scarborough helped pay for. Scarborough is a much large land mass than Etobicoke. I get the feeling from some of you know nothing about Scarborough and could care less too.
Steve: Etobicoke has precisely four subway stations: Kipling, Islington, Royal York and Old Mill. Stop feeling so hard done by. Their taxpayers helped pay for your subway, and the old city’s taxpayers helped build the infrastructure — sewers, roads, water — that allowed Scarborough to grow to the density it is today.
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I am surpised as how no pro-LRT councillor stressed the definition of ‘prerequisite’, as it was used in the letter from city manager regarding the DRL: ‘if you build this Scarborough subway, you must build this Downtown relief line’; this is what the pro-LRT councillors should have been making their argument about. Can you imagine the debt that could be accumulated if both these subways were to be built? Toronto will be paying tens, if not hundreds, of millions a year in interest rates alone, and that’s not including the O&M of these lines. And if faced with any opposition regarding the DRL, it should have been up to Pennachetti and Byford to stress the importance of a DRL.
Now, a little math. Please note me if I’m wrong, but I believe the interest payments that were stated during the debate were $40 million/year over 30 years. Even though the DRL line will be longer and have more stops, let’s assume for a best case scenario that the DRL will put the city of Toronto at the same amount of debt as the Scarborough Subway, thus doubling the interest payments for the next 30, 40, or 50 years. We are looking at $80 million/year, but most likely $100+ million/year on interest payments alone. Including O&M, close to $200 million/year.
But, coming back to reality, Ford will most likely dissuade and delay the construction of the DRL, as he seems to have no interest in it, and would rather fight for subways at Sheppard and Finch that will never happen. If that is his platform and he gets re-elected, I will not feel sorry for Toronto and their transit and debt woes.
As for now, it looks as though the EA for a Scarborough Subway will be done; in the two years that it will take, all the undercover costs should be apparent, and the city manager will have to announce an increase in the taxes on top of the 1.6%; another debate will ensue, and hopefully council will have the fiscal sense of not doing the subway and redirect the federal funds to the DRL (not really sure on the terms on this federal money, but I hope Toronto can use it for the DRL; also, hopefully they go back to the Scarborough LRT and make sure they add a 4th car just to ease the minds of the councillors worried about capacity in 2031, though it most likely won’t reach 14k pplph). Also, kudos to the provincial government on reaffirming and accelerating the LRT lines; let’s hope those get started soon to the point of no return.
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It looks like the Sheppard East and Finch LRT construction could be bumped up. I am most likely getting ahead of myself, and this is about the LRT, but I am interested in if the LRT is completed in 2020/2021, how is the subway construction at McCowan/Sheppard going to impact the operation of the line? There is going to be a big hole in the intersection for years.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the line will be managed while the subway is being built.
Steve: The easiest approach would be to prebuild enough of the station to avoid interference with the LRT line, just as provision for the Finch line is built into the Finch/Keele station on the Spadina extension.
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Ok, that makes sense. But then the other motion, to re-affirm LRT support, which became redundant, presumably would also have resulted in a tie vote. That would have been interesting.
Steve: The City Clerk in conversation with some Councillors had already stated that if both motions lost, then the original Council direction defaulting to LRT if various conditions were not met, would still be in force and would operate.
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Not to mention the fact that the new STC station will be about 500m east of the existing one. For some, that will be more of a pain than the LRT to subway transfer would have been at Kennedy. And of course you have people living in the condos and apartments next to the existing Lawrence E station who will now be 2km away from rapid transit, and who will have to either take a bus in the opposite direction of where they are ultimately going just to get to the subway, or take a southbound bus all the way down to Kennedy. No doubt they would have preferred the LRT to subway transfer at Kennedy as well. Too bad for them, I guess.
Steve: By the time the line opens in 2023, they will all have moved downtown. 😉
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I do not know the exact reason why Byford supported Scarborough subway but who wants to be that he would be fired by Rob Ford (just like Gary Webster was fired) if he supported Scarborough LRT?
The chief planner has supported the LRT for Scarborough. So the City of Toronto has hired a chief planner to take planning out of politics and yet councillers don’t listen….
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I don’t think that’s actually true. In a recent Forum Research poll, residents supported the Scarborough subway extension (barely) until they were told it had fewer stops and cost a lot more money.
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