Updated July 7, 2014 at 9:10am: The table of project costs has been corrected to place some BRT project costs in the first wave, and to include their “next wave” spending that was omitted in error in the original version. Thanks to Divyesh Mistry for catching these errors.
Ontario’s budget will be re-introduced on July 14, and it is expected to include $15-billion for transit projects in the GTHA over the next ten years. What, exactly can we expect to see from this spending? Is there room for additional projects? Will projects once proposed by Queen’s Park or Metrolinx fall off of the table?
From the budget website’s description of the infrastructure plans:
Proceeds from the dedicated fund for the GTHA would be invested exclusively in public transit priorities that address congestion and improve mobility throughout the region. Proceeds would be used to build priority projects included in Metrolinx’s regional transportation plan, The Big Move, and for other potential projects that support economic development and improve mobility, such as the East Bayfront Light Rail Transit (LRT) project on Toronto’s waterfront. This would build on the first wave of projects, such as the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line and Union Pearson Express, and the Bloor-Danforth subway extension in Scarborough.
The government recognizes continued expansion towards two-way, all-day GO Transit rail service as a priority. GO Transit improvements on all corridors would include additional track, grade separations, improved signalling, station improvements and additional fleet, which are all building blocks towards two-way, all-day service. In addition, analysis is underway on a proposal to electrify the GO rail system to deliver service at intervals as frequent as 15 minutes.
The Big Move identifies additional GO service as critical to developing the regional rapid transit network, and all-day, two-way express rail service as part of the solution.
The Province has asked Metrolinx to begin work immediately to examine opportunities to move GO service towards a regional express rail, providing fast and frequent electrified service on all corridors at intervals as frequent as 15 minutes. This would represent a game-changer in how people move about the region, and enhance ridership and efficiency on GO Transit and other projects that connect to the network as well.
The Province will work with Metrolinx and municipalities on how best to prioritize transit investments through the use of rigorous business-case analyses. These analyses will help prioritize Next Wave projects that could be accommodated within the Province’s dedicated fund for the GTHA and provide the best value for Ontarians.
Beyond the existing GO network, priority projects within the GTHA would be drawn from the Next Wave of Metrolinx projects included in The Big Move.
Cost estimates for every project are not publicly available, but we can get a good sense of the financial situation by looking at the snapshots for major projects listed on the Metrolinx site.
20140702_BigMove_ProjectCostSummary
We have heard many times how Ontario has committed $16b to transit for the GTHA, and the “First Wave” contains the projects that money will fund. Published project cost estimates total $15.172b of which $12.766b comes from Queen’s Park.
The most important point about this list is that over half of the money has not yet been spent, and some projects have not even gone beyond the stages of preliminary design and Transit Project Assessment.
That unspent amount represents future spending that must be funded from somewhere, but there has been no discussion of exactly where or how this will be done beyond an assumption that it will come from general revenues.
Notable by its absence from the list is Presto for which a cost estimate has not been published. This project came in for criticism by the Provincial Auditor in 2012.
When we come to the Next Wave, the total estimated cost is $22.6-billion, although two major projects – the Relief Line and the Richmond Hill extension – will at best be started, but certainly not completed during the 10-year window for the next $15b commitment.
The Next Wave includes some electrification projects, but certainly not the complete GO network, nor a system-wide rollout of 15-minute service, a scheme well beyond Metrolinx ambitions when the Next Wave was announced. Note how the budget language refers “expansion towards” and “building blocks” that will lead to service “as frequent as 15 minutes”. This is not the same as quarter-hourly service on all lines, all day.
Regardless of what we actually get, the current “commitment”, one that was discussed quite clearly at the recent Metrolinx Board meeting, was to provide just that: a full buildout of an electrified frequent service network within ten years. This will require substantial additions to spending plans, and will inevitably elbow aside other projects.
Queen’s Park and Metrolinx owe us, the voters and the would-be riders on their network, a clear statement of just what they hope to build with the funds earmarked for the GTHA.
I wrote to Metrolinx seeking clarification on some issues. Here are my questions and their replies:
1. Of the First Wave projects, is the $16b all money that is separate from whatever might come from the IS (or whatever equivalent might be in the budget)?
Yes, the $16 billion worth of current transit projects referenced in our communications is separate and apart from recent provincial announcements.
2. Can you reconcile the $14.7b number with the $16b overall claim for the first wave, notably the missing amount for Presto?
The $16 billion figure refers to an estimated investment in capital projects completed or underway since 2008. Projects included in the $16 billion figure are primarily construction projects with shovels in the ground and as such, PRESTO, Smart Commute and other non-construction programs were not included. While many of the 200 construction projects completed or underway are part of the $16 billion figure, our website only features fact sheets for major projects. The figure also includes many supporting GO Transit projects, such as platform extensions and station upgrades, which play a transformative role in forming a solid foundation upon which to expand GO service across the GTHA.
3. For the Next Wave projects, how much of the total spend is expected to be within the 10-year window of the budget’s $29b?
A significant portion of the anticipated provincial spending will be spent within the next 10 years. Environmental assessments, planning work and an examination of operational needs will more precisely determine the timing of cashflow. We will be reporting our anticipated timelines for new projects at our September board meeting.
4. For financial planning, is there any intent that Metrolinx would produce a project-level projection that will show capital requirements and the degree to which funding has been committed (and from what pool)?
This is part of our 10-year financial planning process, which represents confidential advice to the government and is not available to the public.
This statement confirms that the two pools of funding (first and next waves) are actually separate, and important distinction especially if future budgets attempt to pay for “first wave” work out of revenues nominally earmarked for the “next wave”. That next wave will include some money from the “outside of GTHA” pool of $13.9b (portions of the GO network beyond the Metrolinx planning area), but the lion’s share of that funding should go to other parts of Ontario.
In general, the budget page slips back and forth between projects that are in the first and next wave pools, and projects that have been independently funded such as the Waterloo and Ottawa LRTs and the provincial share of the Toronto streetcar project. Figuring out just how much is to be spent on transit, when and from which funding pool, can be quite a challenge.
The absence of a consolidated list even for Metrolinx – something they consider as confidential information for the government – is troubling. By contrast, the 10-year capital project list including annual cash flows and funding sources is part of the public record for the TTC and informs much debate about the budget shortfall and the growing backlog of work.
Missing from the proposed budget is any mention of the 25% municipal share in the “Investment Strategy” proposed by Metrolinx. Queen’s Park seems content to repeat over and over the support via gas tax revenue:
Ontario provides significant ongoing funding for municipal transit systems across the province by sharing two cents per litre of provincial gas tax revenues. Since 2004, the Province has committed more than $2.7 billion in gas tax funding. This program is now a guaranteed source of funding for eligible municipalities to improve and expand their transit services.
It is now 2014, and that $2.7b doesn’t amount to much on an annual basis spread over the entire province for a decade. Moreover, the revenue stream is not indexed, and that two cents is worth less and less each year with growth, if any, coming from increased consumption that is no longer a sure thing.
Transit infrastructure will be a centrepiece in the coming budget, one that will almost certainly pass the now-majority Liberal legislature. The level of support is worth celebrating, but the party should be restrained, not wild jubilation that Santa Claus has arrived with an overflowing bag of goodies.
$15-billion sounds like a big number, but it is only $1.5b per year over 10 years, still less than the $2b/year spend proposed in the original 2008 Big Move. Metrolinx always quotes projects for a base year with inflation to come, but it is not clear whether the budget will do the same. That $15b could be a hard number that will buy considerably less than the uninflated prices in the Metrolinx catalog.
Queen’s Park owes us many answers on transit funding and financing, not least of which is transparency in their plans rather than assertions of confidentiality.
Steve Munro 
The budget explicitly mentions the East Bayfront Light Rail Transit as part of the next wave of projects. Shouldn’t it then also be in the table?
Steve: The budget mentions it as the kind of project that could be funded, but it is not in the Metrolinx Next Wave list for the simple reason that it has always been viewed as a “local” project, and Ontario doesn’t do that sort of thing … except when it suits them such as KW and Ottawa.
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You’ve been criticizing Presto for long before the Auditor got around to it. Too bad the media didn’t pick up on it and get themselves a scoop.
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The biggest hole in the province’s plan is the anticipated federal contribution through the Building Canada Plan. We already know that a large portion of Ontario’s share will be dedicated to the Scarborough Subway (even though applications have not been made). Take this, and other municipal/provincial projects out of it (roads and bridges, water, wastewater, etc.) and we certainly wont have enough to pay for it all.
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I hope this means that they will be using a more robust and accurate figure in their modeling to account for the cost of time, the existing figure of $13.52/hour is nowhere near the real cost, and as a result is negatively skewing their analysis.
Steve: You have to remember that everyone riding transit is not in a position to earn (or not) $20 or $30 per hour. Putting an unduly high value on “time” inflates the importance of speed, especially when applied only to a link under study, not to the overall trip. I will start accepting that their analyses are “rigourous” when they apply the same criteria to every project.
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Oh my – the use of rigourous business case analyses will put all questions to rest eh? If we go by past experience, the business case analysis will be thoroughly buried in the operating budgets well after construction and the jobs for men and machines, where it will be really tricky to extricate the blight eg. Sheppard, the Spadina subway extension. Looming is another repeat of this after-the-fact oop$$ is the Scarborough subway switch, which seems to have no business case attached to it, and if there is any analysis being done, where is it? While buy-election transit projects are a deal for political planners, transit in this greenhouse century needs real progress done far sooner than the 20 years out, though it is also the slim majority of Clowncil as I now call it that deserves much mud for the switch away from LRT.
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Where is the money going to come from? Ontario seems to have abandoned transit taxes, and implementing this at the same time as the pension plan would be unpopular. Ontario has a massive budget deficit and it is about to get a credit downgrade, so going into massive amounts of debt to fund transit is a bad idea. I think that this plan will need to be scaled back, with most of the money going to GO and Eglinton and everything else canceled. At least the provincial government has finally clued in about GO expansion, something that Miller ignored, but it seems that the cost of GO expansion means that everything else needs to be canceled to keep the budget deficit down. I think that Wynne will be forced to implement more cuts (not just transit) than she wants due to the risk of severely increased borrowing costs, like Chretien in the 1990s.
Steve: Pardon me, but Miller didn’t ignore GO expansion. It was not in his power to obtain it, and the McGuinty government were being very parsimonious with their funding of GO, let alone any idea that it might be an alternative for within 416 travel and with a more attractive fare. Also, the last time I looked, very few Transit City routes duplicate GO corridors.
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“J” talks about federal contribution. Steve, can you tell us how much did the Federal Chretien government put towards the Sheppard subway.
I thought that federal funding for transit is a new thing and has never been higher than it currently is.
Steve: There is no federal money in the original Sheppard subway, but they do have money in the Spadina extension which has been underway for several years. It may be true to say that federal funding has never been higher than it currently is, but that’s not saying much. If it were not for the recession-fighting Build Canada fund, they would almost not be at the table at all.
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This could change after the upcoming municipal election. It is quite clear from the Ontario Budget website that the province’s contribution will be capped at $1.48 billion. There are certainly much better choices for use of the funds from the Building Canada plan and the City of Toronto property tax increase. It is telling that the TTC is being careful not to sink much money into a project that may be stillborn.
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If Miller had advocated strongly for GO expansion in 2007 the way John Tory is doing now then I’m sure that it would have happened. Technically it may not be municipal jurisdiction but that doesn’t mean that the mayor of Toronto can’t push hard for the province to fund it, lower fares to make it more competitive with the TTC, etc. Somehow cities in other countries seem to get around these jurisdictional issues but not Toronto. Miller obviously had no interest in GO expansion or somehow thought that CN/CP would make it impossible, I don’t ever remember him saying anything at all positive about it. Giambrone came up with strange proposals like running ferries that duplicate the Lakeshore GO line. Lack of funds ensures that if GO expansion had been proposed in 2007, neither Transit City nor subways would have gotten any money.
Steve: Remember that back in 2007, GO didn’t own most of the track it ran on. Also, as I have said before, Transit City and the GO network (even with inside 416 service) address different travel patterns. It’s not a case of advocating for GO in place of Transit City but as well as.
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Bloor Danforth subway extension to McCowan and Sheppard, complete burial of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT (i.e. burial of the on-street Scarborough portion of the LRT), Sheppard subway extension to McCowan and Sheppard to meet with the Bloor Danforth subway, and the 100% grade separated Scarborough LRT (follows different route and serves different areas than the Scarborough subway and so why not get both?), plus some pocket change left for improved bus services to provide relief to the Yonge subway line (if needed).
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Pardon me but you mean the Liberal government?
Steve: I am using the “McGuinty” government in the same vein as people refer to “Miller” at Toronto. McGuinty’s cold feet on transit and on taxes to pay for it are a terrible legacy.
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The real question is that of results control. If the transit model is to address the social and economic needs of our society to must accurately and honestly account for the real underlying costs. By incentivizing transit ridership only for those people with incomes slightly above the poverty line the current methodology not only fails to optimally shift users from their automobiles onto public transit, but it fails to optimally shift people into the primary economic regions, and it fails to address equality of opportunity issues across the region. By failing to address the social and economic needs the existing model does not represent an optimal stewardship of public assets.
Costs do not disappear just because the planner chooses to ignore them; they simply become internalized and manifest themselves in the form of poor economic growth, socio-economic polarization, and political tension. If the transit model is to be optimal it must be based on accurate measures of all relevant costs, there is no alternative.
Steve: Your argument in effect says that saving money for well paid riders is more important and we should build our transit system around them. Fine, but don’t count as “riders” who justify large capital expenditures all those folks whose incomes fall below your target market. How many of the residents of Scarborough would meet your definition? Either we are building a cushy service for the well-off, or we are moving everyone around the city.
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Andrew does have a point. Where is the money going to come from? Unless Ontario suddenly enters an economic boom over the next couple of years, that’s a hell of a lot of new taxes and/or budget cuts that are headed our way. I don’t see how they are going to pull off their “Ontario Pension Plan,” eliminate the $12.5+ billion deficit AND fund these projects at the same time.
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IIRC, the Federales gave $1 million to the Sheppard line. Enough to get Collonette or some other Liberal pol a ride on the first train and a few seconds of speech time.
Some wag said it was enough to pay for the washrooms at Don Mills.
Steve: Something that has been happening lately is that the TTC “allocates” some of the Federal gas tax to various projects so that the feds can say they have money in the projects.
OK, then let’s be honest: Ottawa gives us about $150m a year in capital subsidies toward a $900m capital requirement, and nothing toward operating. Special subsidies for specific projects come along as and when they feel like currying favour somewhere.
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Who did you speak to at Metrolinx? What kind of GO hub is planned for 407 Station? Couldn’t they just offer Barrie, Bradford, and Newmarket Express services from there at a fraction of the cost of electrifying/double-tracking the Barrie train line? At the 407 station, there could be connections to new 407-based GO routes serving Mississauga, Markham, Pearson, and everything in between. We really need to do more with the GO bus network.
Steve: Although huge increases in GO Transit rail service are popular and clearly have political support, what is badly missing is a sense of interim stages that could have strong benefits quickly.
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Your assumption is incorrect. My argument is that the numbers used to account for an individual’s time should be determined by the underlying needs of society, the forces that define economic prosperity and social justice must form the basis on which we develop our analysis. We must use accurate and full cost accounting to guide and shape our analysis if it we actually intend to invest public resources optimally. Unfortunately, the current system skews the numbers to justify its preconceived notions of the ideal plan which constitutes an entirely regressive approach to planning.
Scarborough is a perfect example of what happens when a society does not use accurate cost accounting to reflect a changing macroeconomic environment. As you know Sir, Scarborough for the majority of its history was a middle class society with pockets of upper middle class communities. The problems faced by Scarborough today are the result of the municipality’s failure to adapt to post-NAFTA transformations of its economy. The regressive approach to planning simply reinforced structures that were designed for a system that no longer exists, which ultimately produced the socio-economic polarization that exists today.
Your assumption here is again incorrect. When cost accounting reflects the real needs of the underlying society the result is a system that not only treats people as equals, but it treats them with the necessary dignity and respect that is critical to the existence of social justice for all people.
The current system of cost accounting is critically flawed, this regressive model cannot provide the data needed to guide decision making, and therefore must be replaced.
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Aside from the ad hoc approach to transit funding, the federal government has provided the province with very powerful fiscal tools to more than meet the need for funding in the form of the HST. All the province has to do is raise the HST to its historic average of 15%, and put in place a tax reform package to mitigate the negative externalities, the increase in revenues will more than pay for all of the needed transit projects within a hand full of years.
At the heart of the transit debate is not the question of fiscal capacity, but that of political will.
Steve: In fact, when the HST was introduced, there was an explicit arrangement between Ottawa and Queen’s Park that Ontario would not increase the provincial tax to occupy the room left by the federal deduction. If Ontario had done this, several federal payment transfers would have been cut off. Even though this deal has expired, Ontario has been hostage to the “no new taxes” brigade of which the Harper conservatives are a prominent supporters. For you to claim that the feds have enabled Ontario to raise revenues to pay for things like transit is a rather creative interpretation of political history.
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The UPX is another situation where the rigourous financial analysis ie. it loses money, will come after the thing is built eg. behindsight. How can it be reformulated for more stops in a cost-effective way?
Also, an ace of sorts for transit, is that all the fuel used for the mobile furnaces (cars) is basically burnt up and leaves Ontario. At least the transit is far more efficient in both space and fuel if done well: the economic benefits then become real. Especially if we look at how cars are subsidized, something many aren’t willing to do.
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The key point in your statement is that,
This is what counts, the moratorium on raising the HST has no power to legally inhibit the province from raising the rate.
Although I understand and respect the political limitations imposed by fiscal conservatism, last time I checked the province had the legal authority to raise tax within the jurisdiction of its control. Frankly, a well structured tax package that properly deals with the negative externalities associated with a rise in the HST would be reasonable. If you don’t believe me there is a great deal of scholarship on the matter that is publicly available that should allay the fears of a reasonable unbiased person.
Steve: I am not saying we cannot raise taxes, but the government has been petrified to do this. Indeed, I would not expect any movement on that front until after Harper is out of office to avoid giving the Tories a campaign plank about tax-and-spend Liberals going into the federal campaign in 2015. In any event, this discussion started because you claimed that the feds made a “contribution” by opening up the tax room, when in fact they were adamant that this not be exploited because they wanted credit for “tax cutting”. I believe you have been reading my site long enough to know that I support a sales tax increase province wide with the revenue divided regionally so that there is no claim that “Thunder Bay is paying for Toronto”.
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The saddest thing about this is that we’ve had the lowest interest rates in decades but instead of spending the money on the projects already planned and approved (from the first wave) we’ve spent less than half the money, accepted unnecessary delays, and spent too much time arguing. It’s no wonder that something like “SmartTrack” looks good to the public.
Cheers, Moaz
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The relief line will have to wait since it was foolishly delayed for decades and has not started the EA. To contrast, the Hurontario LRT and UPX electrification are near the stage for the 35 day Minister of Environment review. So that LRT and UPX electrifying has funding priority since they are the closest of the next wave projects that are shovel ready.
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Although I am aware of your opinion and in many respects agree with you, my hope however is to direct the attention of the reader to the methodological and structural limitations within the current system that are inhibiting progress. The current methodology cannot without doubt claim that it will invest public resources optimally because it is based on critically flawed data that does not represent the true underlying cost to both society and the economy. Because of this critical failure the current model cannot justify any tax increases.
If the government is being genuine about building transit they must base their plans on a full cost model with a progressive approach, if they do this they will be able to build consensus across a much broader base.
If history is any guide it is rare to have both federal and provincial governments of the same persuasion at the same time. So my suggestion would be to figure out how to make the system work within the existing arrangement. Both sides of the political spectrum have very predictable beliefs and behaviors, a well planned and well justified transit plan with a reasonable tax package going to general revenue is possible and realistic.
You must separate fear from will. If the government has enough will power they will both overcome their fear and real/perceived opposition. The government must move beyond the paradigms of the past 30 years because the economic and social realities that defined them no longer exist. It is a struggle to move into the unknown, but when they base their planning on rational, accurate criteria they will likely have a reasonable future.
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So nice of you to ignore the rest of Toronto plus all of the 905. Scarborough is indeed the centre of the known universe.
Steve: The list you have both quoted was posted as a joke originally, I think, to make exactly this point.
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The sad thing here is that GO Transit bus services can accomplish a great deal for interregional and intra regional rapid transit, but Metrolinx and GO are doing very little to promote their buses, describe how they are moving passengers throughout the GTHA (and connecting to outside communities) or calling on municipalities to make using GO Transit buses easier.
Examples:
1. 3 years later and we have no data on how bus frequency and reliability on the QEW route has improved with the addition of HOV lanes … but data is provided on the increase in demand for Lakeshore trains after the first summer.
2. GO Transit will not run buses on the Mississauga Transitway corridor until the entire project is completed from Winston Churchill to Erin Mills and from Hurontario to Renforth … despite the fact that running some Milton Corridor routes on the segment from Hurontario to Dixie that will open later this year could shave time off bus trips.
3. GO is not looking at opportunities to run interregional service along RR 5 in Halton and Dundas St in Mississauga despite the widening of RR5 to 6 lanes throughout Halton from the 403 to Waterdown (with peak hour HOV Lanes coming soon-ish), raising further questions about the case for the proposed Dundas BRT.
4. No talk about the Highway 407 Busway.
5. No talk about HOV Lanes on the 401, despite the obvious benefits for GO buses.
6. GO’s system map does not show bus route numbers … so a person planning a journey sees specific train routes and vague bus options … unless they look at specific corridor maps (which give route numbers but vague information about bus services).
Cheers, Moaz
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A subway to Mississauga City Centre plus all day 2 way fully electric GO train service on all corridors.
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Professor and Malcom N:
Honestly, the only thing that may get built is the Crosstown. But in reality, there is a good chance the Finch and Sheppard LRT’s may get canceled. If so, I would like to see the Crosstown finished to the Airport.
If Toronto actually got off its butt and pay[ed] taxes, I would support Sheppard East if the area was rezoned. I would like to see the DRL end at Mount Dennis and Fairview Mall.
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But there are no political parties at the municipal level and so people say Miller administration / government but the failures of McGuinty government are the failures of the Liberal government he led and the Liberal government you support.
Steve: I “support” the Liberals as the best among the available choices. The Tories are insufferably anti-city and naive beyond belief in their economic policies. The NDP has been highjacked, and until they do some very serious housecleaning, I cannot take them seriously. FYI I voted NDP because I am in a strong NDP riding and the member is a personal friend from his days as a member of Toronto Council.
You forgot to complete that sentence. Let me help you by correcting it below. McGuinty’s cold feet on transit and on taxes to pay for it are a terrible legacy OF THE LIBERAL GOVERNMENT WHOSE TRANSPORTATION MINISTER WAS KATHLEEN WYNNE.
Steve: My sense is that Wynne would have done more without the millstone of McGuinty’s no new taxes promise, but I agree that she still has not broken free into the land of new revenue. As I have already written, that is probably unlikely as long as Harper is in office and could use new taxes in Ontario to bash a federal Liberal campaign. As for the federal NDP, I don’t have the faintest idea if they have a coherent program, and recent reports that they are headed down the same path as Andrea’s crew is disheartening.
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In fairness a very large chunk of all provincial taxes come from the GTA, and resolving GTA issues requires resolving Toronto proper issues. I understand the feeling that transit should be paid from local taxes, but roads are used elsewhere to fill the same role and in many cases these are provincial (QEW, 401, 403, 400, 402, hwy 5 …) the fact that Toronto does not have this in the centre of the city, and has to carry its own expressways (DVP, Gardiner). Also some of its transit and highway is used as a through route for others.
Capital spending has long been helped by the province. Toronto, also needs help, and should not be bringing in substantial special taxes that make it a higher tax jurisdiction than the rest of the province. I am of the opinion that this is a way to deeply damage the city economy.
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You are probably right; however I would like to add that the business rationale for both these lines is too dependent on the concept of the Avenues as growth zones. Problem is that the Avenues approach to planning is fundamentally unsound and widely discredited. It reflects the underlying reality that poor cost accounting and weak methodology has been used to create the plan in the first place.
Steve: One thing about the “Avenues” is that they are (were?) yet another attempt for the suburbs to be remade in a form other than the one that has evolved since the 1950s. Whether this was a misguided downtown plot or not, suburban pols have dreamed (often deliriously) about how their burgs will become new centres of the universe to somehow challenge downtown T.O. It does not matter whether we look at LRT or subway plans, there always seems to be some sort of idea that the suburbs will develop in their own right whether this is credible or not.
The problem, of course, is that the classic “suburb” is not a built form that suits many of the inhabitants, but how we change this and what we might aim at are difficult and fundamental questions.
There is a chicken/egg (or maybe a cart/horse) relationship between the transportation plans like Transit City, the Avenues concept, and various schemes for improvements in suburban areas. We have seen how rapid transit in itself does not generate development in areas where it is not already naturally occurring, or which are unattractive for the market. Even the Sheppard Avenue development owes as much to the presence of the 401/DVP as it does to the subway.
In the LRT/subway/GO debates, it is rather amusing to see calls for GO to adapt to a lighter form of vehicle on a more frequent headway and shorter trains. Sounds a lot like high end LRT to me, whatever we may actually call it. But don’t ever talk about GO lines that way, or the whole plan will be doomed.
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It’s good to see some concrete funding on the table although they have cut the Big Move budget by half without saying so. A reset I would say, realizing what is possible in current political environment.
It would be much better if they do the electrification one line at a time and see the results, rather than committing the whole budget for this purpose. Not sufficient ridership for some GO lines exists at this time. Some trains in off-peak hours get around 200-250 riders a train. A two-way all day 30-60 min service will be enough.
Alternatively, they can bring shorter trains to run frequent service. I’m not sure if shorter trains would save much money, but running 1800 capacity train every 15 min. would be a waste. A 500-600 capacity train every 15 min. should work, but the question is whether Metrolinx can do it, given the demand is much higher during the peak hours. This might need multiple detachable set of EMUs (in case such system exists or is a possibility)
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I would say that you are spot on in terms of electrification. Also incremental growth is the way to go in my opinion. However, I think that a 60 minute gap between trains will mean that people with risk of having to leave late, will not ride, as 1 hour is a long wait, however, 20-30 minutes is not too bad, and this should really be the minimum service. If I know I will be delayed past my usual train, having to wait 15 or so minutes to catch an alternative is not the end of the world.
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Steve, I think this is why we really need to base investment on existing travel patterns. Build the network to support the existing patterns, and when that network is created you hope that at the points of intersection you will see further growth. It does make some sense to create these hubs where you want to see growth, but it is more likely to work where you are reinforcing an existing point of desired concentration. I think that by and large the old plans (very old 40++ years) that the TTC had actually were pretty good forecasts. I believe one version was called transit 1980 (what transit needed to look like by 1980) would even now be a good start. Subway to Don Mills, transitway all the way across the city at Eglinton, LRT to beyond in Scarborough. I should actually go to a Government Docs library and re-read this plan. It seems to me that it laid the essential groundwork as to what is now required in Toronto.
I believe it would be useful to go back and look at how they did this planning, and maybe follow suit. Look at demand and its growth, and build accordingly. You will get development where you want it if you build the network to support growth where it wants to happen anyway.
Steve: I’m not sure it is quite that straightforward. Even though we talked about “transit oriented development” back when much of Scarborough and the 905 beyond was pasture, that is not what we actually built. There is a difference between reinforcing what is already in place in a comparatively mature urban area and dealing with empty fields. The problem is compounded by developers who want cheap land, and suburban pols who want lots of assessment growth and to hell with the consequences. The ability to keep taxes artificially low through development charges and the relatively low cost of maintaining brand new infrastructure made sprawl possible politically while roads and cars made commuting long distances acceptable, at least for a time.
Now we have a very dispersed travel pattern that will be hard to rein in with transit, and with the capacity crunch on what was once a free-flowing road network bringing demands for fast-fast-fast travel over immense distances, the pressure is on for a network that we probably cannot realistically provide.
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That you are able to say this legitimately, as you have, points to problems with the definition and problems with how it has been applied to planning. I agree with you that this is a precarious model that creates excessive centrifugal dynamics that makes governance unwieldy.
I am well aware of the “humorously irrational” debate between LRT and Subway, and I respect that you must be tired of it, but this debate has developed this way because the technology issue has become a proxy for the real underlying issues that have been skewed by poor cost accounting and methodology as I have mentioned in the past. If you actually want to resolve the debate you have to properly deal with the underlying social and economic issues in an optimal way.
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Well said Steve.
I live in one of early 1950’s inner suburbs in Scarborough that was built on a grid pattern with lots of local amenities within walking distance (transit, shopping, schools, parks, rec centre, and public library). Most of these were added within the first few years after the neighbourhood was built and the area is considered medium-high walkability on Toronto’s scoring system.
When I see the outer suburbs they’re building today, I don’t see how anyone can manage without a personal car for every member of the household over 17. It’s often needed just to drive to the local GO station! It seems the planning situation is still deteriorating outside of the downtown core despite the influence of the ‘Places to Grow’ act.
With more offices being built in this sprawling suburban environment there is little chance that transit will be a solution for suburban congestion as both the origin and destination of most trips are now too dispersed to make it viable. Once the basic skeleton of an urban/suburban neighbourhood is in place it is not likely to change significantly for 75-100 years.
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However, the core of the then proposed additions remain ie Queen-Don Mills Subway, and Eglinton transitway. These proposals require changes that are natural with time (small relative change in location of the south end of the subway, and finally a decision on the nature of an Eglinton Transitway).
The approach, of supporting existing travel patterns, at least as a start is still likely the best. It may make it harder to build a high capacity network, however, I believe that there is still a strong argument for building transit to the sources and destinations of highest intensity travel. Justify the network with demand that exists, and then rezone based on that network. If you have the demand for high capacity brt or low capacity lrt choose lrt, and retain the option to expand.
I do agree that we have created an issue for justifying large subway type expansion, and created a higher need for commuter train style transit, and local bus network to these nodes. I would dearly hope that intensity can be raised, however, it should be just as easily raised around a network designed to support existing demand with reasonable ability left to expand.
I think that the nature of this type of intensification is reflected in the substantial growth around existing streetcar routes in the shoulder areas of downtown. I also think this will become one of the logics for constructing the waterfront lrts, both to extend the area that can be intensified and to relieve the overload on these streetcar routes.
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Yes it is hard to imagine making an effective transit system support large areas of Markham, Brampton etc. There are large areas where the built form requires large areas between routes that could respectably support a basic bus route, let alone higher orders of transit.
There are areas where it seems to be miles to the closest reasonable commercial street and where the walk to the store from within its parking lot, is similar to the walk to the store from the residence in some core areas. These areas seem to discourage walking and cycling as local alternatives, as the major roads seem too large to be used other than by automobile, and the “convenience” store is on a distant corner. They are built on a machine not human scale.
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@Malcolm and Jon Johnson
I agree on both points. Espscially about the avenues. I really think what has hurt the outer 416 centres as desirability. No one wants to be stuck at at McCowan and Ellesmere from 9 to 5. I do think Toronto has to pay more though. Relying on the province has brought nothing but frustration for Toronto.
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Yes, there has been some truth (far too much) to that, in that the province seems to either want to impose industrial policy, or backs away from funding about the time Toronto figures out what it needs. However, in the current period, the issue is not at Queen’s Park but at city hall.
I do not believe that things have been skewed by real cost accounting. I do not think that adjusting the wage rate to an effectively modeled wage rate to 20 or 30 per hour will reasonably address the transit issues. It is not that the dollars are wrong (although I think based on them having to be after tax dollars the 30 is high) but rather that is not the basis on which the decisions are being made. The other thing that you do not discuss is the two speed discount rate that is used in the decision.
The decisions are not really based on any real business model, but instead based on a political return basis, with the business case frequently being driven to the desired outcome.
I think when you discuss the LRT only crowd, you assume that these people want only LRT for the entire city. I believe that by and large they are actually looking at it from a network perspective. Some do not believe that the DRL will actually be built. Therefore when you assert that they should be not concerned about diverting traffic from a GO system, your position is not really being appreciated, as they do not see this actually getting onto the actual list of projects being championed until too late.
Too much of the critical voting base sees this as more subway for the downtown, not as something actually required to permit the subway system to absorb more traffic. The Transit City proposal was not designed to address all needs, but to provide broad coverage to more of the city. I do not believe it was seen as relieving the need for more parallel capacity.
The frustration I think for LRT backers is that areas that are appropriate for LRT believe that subway is more applicable, and I suspect do not want to be part of what they perceive to be an experiment (especially in a city with such a poor record on managing signal priority). The idea that there should be no transfers, means that there will not be enough transit, because there are real political limits to what can be allocated to transit.
LRT makes sense in the outer reaches of the 416, and some areas of the 905, although there are areas where the density and transit system would not support an LRT and would be lucky to justify BRT. I think the real issue is one of politics and management (or perceived lack thereof), where people are afraid of being stuck on a system waiting on traffic lights every couple of hundred metres.
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I would argue that regardless of additional development the current 44K per day load on the Finch West bus, and the fact that the road gets so congested that these riders are generally stuck on an overloaded bus for extended periods is enough justification for an LRT. This route can probably reasonably support an LRT without needing the Avenues tax base to justify it. If this route was well designed and implemented to ensure a smooth and consistent movement of the LRT, it would likely attract considerable ridership at peak, especially if it is extended to the airport, and provided a good link from the Spadina subway to the airport.
I do not think that the model that relies too heavily on additional development is the way to go, however, building improvements to service on very high demand routes that are very long and experience considerable delays to due to congestion makes sense. I am reasonably sure that there is currently a considerable latent demand on this and a few other routes. As to Sheppard, I too suspect that this route is more questionable, given that the ridership on the Finch East bus is so much higher. However somebody went and built a subway there and now it seems to be where the pressure is to build an extension. The Don Mills LRT in my mind makes more sense than the Sheppard LRT, however to make this one really work it needs to have a DRL to Don Mills and Eglinton.
To my mind the projects that are really required to address congestion are improvements to GO frequency and pricing especially on the Stouffville and Richmond Hill lines, a Don Mills Subway, Don Mills LRT and Finch West LRT (to the airport) and extending the Crosstown to the airport, and the conversion of the UPX to a Brampton to Union high frequency commuter service that would include stops at the Finch LRT, Crosstown, and Bloor subway amongst others. The SRT is required to make sure that things do not get worse and better basic service is extended in Scarborough, and of course Kennedy station needs to be basically fixed.
Additional transitways ideally would then also extend from Kennedy including possible BRT and LRT, and the SRT should be extended in an exclusive right of way well beyond the STC. There also needs to be improved service too and from the GO stations.
I believe that existing travel patterns and ridership would likely support most of these projects reasonably well, without requiring a large projected growth based on changes to existing use and intensification. However, I suspect that these areas, that already have overloaded transit and roads will likely see moderate intensification due to the availability of additional transit.
I do not think that this notional intensification should be used in the analysis, as it is not a sure thing, just that the possibility should be allowed for in the provision of capacity. That plan should not however include skipping over a reasonable mode. The argument on Sheppard should reasonably between BRT and LRT not between subway and LRT. I think Finch West is already in the LRT range, however, there is not a decent argument to build beyond that.
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