Late in May, John Tory launched his “SmartTrack” transit line, the centrepiece of his “One Toronto” plan. Media reps gathered for a preview at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and the launch was handled almost entirely by Tory’s staff. All of the background papers are on the One Toronto website, and little has been added since that event.
Even then, in the early days of the campaign, there was good reason to distrust Tory’s grasp of his own proposal, let alone a willingness to engage in debate, when he made the briefest of appearances for a canned statement to give the media clips for the news broadcasts, but answered few questions.
I was modestly impressed that at least a Mayoral candidate was not just thinking at the ward level for a transit proposal, but felt the plan was rather threadbare — a single line to solve almost all of Toronto’s problems.
Wearing two hats that day – as both reporter and activist – I was scrummed by the media for comments, and the Tory campaign chose to lift one phrase out of context as an “endorsement” for SmartTrack that remains online.
Steve Munro, Toronto Transit Blogger, said, “This is very much a refocusing of what transit in Toronto should be.”
What I was talking about was the need to look at the region and at trips to points other than the corner of Bay & Front and times other than the traditional commuter peaks. As to the specifics of SmartTrack, I was rather less complimentary.
In brief, SmartTrack would see electric multiple unit (EMU) trains operating primarily on GO Transit corridors between Unionville on the Stouffville line and Mount Dennis on the Weston corridor (the Kitchener-Waterloo line). At Eglinton and Weston, the line would veer west along the former Richview Expressway lands to the Airport Corporate Centre, but not to the airport itself.
The route would charge regular TTC fares with free transfers to the existing system, and with frequent all-day service at peak levels of every 15 minutes. Over its 53km it would have 22 stations, and might, according to the campaign, carry over 200,000 passengers per day.
Financing
Although the total cost would be $8-billion, the cost/kilometre is about $150m, cheap by subway standards, but certainly not trivial. Tory expects that both Queen’s Park and Ottawa would chip in 1/3 each leaving Toronto to find only $2.7b on its own hook. This would be accomplished through the magic of Tax Increment Financing, basically a scheme to borrow against the taxes from future new development to pay for current improvements.
To fund the SmartTrack line, Tax Increment Financing revenue will be leveraged over 30 years as development activity and assessed values increase along a new transit route. It is estimated that $2.5 billion in present value dollars can be raised over that time. All revenue estimates are based only on projected new office development in three precincts within the following districts along the SmartTrack line: the Central Core; the East Don Lands site; and Liberty Village.
This rather presumptuously implies that SmartTrack would be responsible for much new development although these areas are already densely populated and more projects are in the approval and construction pipeline. The taxes they will bring are intended for general city building, not least of which is the considerable infrastructure required to serve the densification of downtown and its shoulder neighbourhoods.
A similar dodge was used when a variant on the eastern branch of SmartTrack was proposed in 2012 by Markham Councillor Jim Jones in his I-METRO-E scheme. His financing depended on the assumption that the entire waterfront east of downtown would generate tax revenue thanks to one new line that would be some distance from much of the development.
As for operating costs, nowhere does Tory address the question of what a massive new TTC-fare rapid transit line would add to the operating deficit, or what side effects this could have such as service cutbacks elsewhere in the network without increased subsidies.
Paying for transit proposals with Monopoly money is an old game in Toronto, but one might have hoped for better from a representative of the business class as a candidate.
Is There Room on GO’s Corridors?
Over much of its length, SmartTrack requires space in the GO corridors to operate, and at the planned frequency, that means two tracks. That’s two tracks GO does not have today, at least not sitting there just waiting for new trains.
The Stouffville corridor has to be double-tracked for the Metrolinx RER scheme, and the problem will remain of fitting both SmartTrack and frequent GO service to points beyond Unionville all on the same line. Scarborough Junction, the point where the Lake Shore East and Stouffville corridors diverge, will almost certainly have to be grade separated given the combined frequency of service. Fortunately for Tory, Metrolinx already considers this a possibility, but SmartTrack would certainly force the issue.
To the west, a new pair of tracks exists for the Union-Pearson Express service, but that goes to the airport via a different route through north Etobicoke. It is not clear whether SmartTrack could share the same infrastructure at least to Eglinton.
Within the Union Station Rail Corridor, SmartTrack shares capacity problems with RER. As the capacity on individual GO corridors grows, the combined effect at Union could overwhelm that station. This brings us to discussions of satellite stations or alternative alignments through downtown, not to mention fundamentally reconfiguring Union to improve platform operations and focus on through-routing.
The problem here is that Tory has, in effect, appropriated a chunk of the Metrolinx RER scheme as if it were his own line with no consideration for whether both services could co-exist.
Is There Room on Eglinton?
The most laughable part of SmartTrack is the route it takes from Mount Dennis to the Airport Corporate Centre. Decades ago, land was reserved north of Eglinton for the Richview Expressway:
The Hamilton Expressway (also known as the Richview Expressway) was to have run from the Mount Dennis area (where it would connect to the Crosstown/400 Extension) westward to the junction of Highways 401 and 27. From there, it would be built by the provincial government to Hamilton. The Metro government began land assembly for the project along Richview Side Road (later Eglinton Avenue). The Ministry of Transportation, when upgrading the 401/427 interchange in the 1970s, designed the interchange to connect with the new freeway. This is why today there is a very wide right of way for Eglinton Avenue in Etobicoke and an elaborate connection from the 401 and 427 to Eglinton Avenue, as those were the ramps for the Hamilton Freeway. [From TransitToronto]
Over the years, transit proposals eyed this land, but the planning consensus going back into the 1980s was that any new line should be in the middle of Eglinton Avenue. A median LRT or BRT was proposed there long before Transit City came along to recycle the idea.
As Rob Salerno reported in NOW Toronto recently, Tory’s planners relied on outdated views of Eglinton Avenue to assume that there was room for a new rail corridor. In fact, Build Toronto has been selling off this land (reserving a small strip to allow for road widening in case an LRT or BRT project is undertaken), and chunks are already occupied by buildings.
Getting from the Weston rail corridor to Jane Street will require tunnelling below an existing residential neighbourhood, and constraints on the curve radius will make a shared station and convenient transfer with the Eglinton Crosstown LRT impossible.
Tory appears to have dodged around any debate re surface operation on Eglinton so that he can avoid the “war on the car” brigade of which the Fords are chief exponents. He also avoids directly challenging the Union Pearson Express for which a rail access into the airport already exists. Meanwhile, he condemns the Eglinton Crosstown line to a stub ending at Weston Road with an inconvenient transfer for through passengers headed not to downtown, but on a continuous east-west journey. As for the airport, that would require a separate shuttle from the corporate centre.
How this arrangement would serve the entire airport district, a major employment centre, is unclear.
Why Do We Need Two Lines in Scarborough?
In yet another dodge around controversial debate, Tory prefers to leave the Scarborough Subway scheme as is rather than reopening the LRT/subway battles and the blatant pandering to Scarborough’s need for recognition as a real city with its own subway line. In Tory’s plan, the three-station subway (Lawrence, STC and Sheppard) remains while SmartTrack operates only a few kilometres to the west with stations at Lawrence, Ellesmere, Sheppard, Finch and Steeles.
During the subway debate, subway-level riding from an updated demand model was claimed for that corridor. However, the new riders (over and above earlier projections for the LRT alternative) would be drawn from the same territory that SmartTrack serves in Markham.
If the GO corridors really can handle frequent service, then the expected subway demand may not materialize, and Toronto will have paid a high premium to finance infrastructure beyond what it actually needs.
Which Riders Would SmartTrack Serve?
Tory claims that SmartTrack would attract over 200,000 riders per day in part because of the diverse set of trips it would serve. Not only would the line funnel riders to the core area, it would provide new service to the lands south of the airport, as well as the developing business district in Markham.
Well, almost.
A map on page 8 of a backgrounder on Surface Subways shows employment clusters in the GTA including the large grouping around Highway 404 and Highway 7. That’s definitely a node worth shooting for, but the rail line is actually a few kilometres to the east in Unionville, the proposed northern terminus.
Similarly, the airport district is spread out over a large area that cannot be served by a route stopping only its southern edge.
An integral part of any new transit to these nodes will be frequent connecting bus services, a chunk notably absent from Tory’s plan. It is no secret that the “last mile” links to rapid transit are crucial and can affect a line’s attractiveness.
On its trip into downtown, SmartTrack would serve northern Etobicoke, but only with stations at Kipling and at Jane. These will be handy for folks living nearby, but good feeder services will be essential.
On the Weston corridor, there would be stops at Eglinton (albeit a difficult one to integrate with the Crosstown LRT), St. Clair, Bloor (Dundas West Station), Liberty Village and Spadina. These are all stations that could be served by Metrolinx service already operating or planned for the corridor, especially by an airport link rethought as a more local service.
A major problem in attracting riders, however, will be service frequency and station access time. The closer one gets to the core area, the time actually spent on a train becomes less important than the time required just to board it. A “Liberty Village” station would actually be on the northeastern edge of that neighbourhood, quite distant from many residents and businesses it might try to serve. A Spadina station would be very close to Union in an area already served by the Spadina/Harbourfront streetcar.
To the east, the one station associated with new development lands would be at the Unilever site south of Queen and east of the Don River. This would do nothing for the large population planned in the new developments west of the river and mainly south of the Gardiner Expressway. Tory has been notably silent on transit service to the waterfront.
Continuing east to Scarborough Junction, there would be stops at Queen, Gerrard, and Main/Danforth. These could attract some transfer traffic, but again the extra time needed for that transfer, at least 10 minutes on average, will counteract the time saving of the faster trip to Union.
As for those 200,000 daily riders, this is a dubious claim. On a transit line with good all-day demand, typically half of the ridership comes during the peak periods, and half in the off-peak. Within the peaks, a line runs at or slightly above nominal capacity about 50% of the time at the peak point.
SmartTrack is really two lines (the west and east legs), and so the goal is really 100k on each side. (By analogy, the YUS subway serves the same central area with its peak demand divided between the two arms of the line.) 25k would be the am peak demand, much of which would be inbound to the core area. This would require a service capacity of about 10k per hour at the peak point, a real challenge for trains every 15 minutes.
The fundamental problem with SmartTrack is that it looks nice on a map, but the mechanics of actually operating the route and using it as a transit rider are more challenging.
SmartTrack and the Relief Line
Any service in the rail corridors such as the Metrolinx RER scheme will have the most benefit for trips originating in the outer 416 and the 905. Travel time savings and a 15-minute headway represent a real improvement over today’s offerings there. If the intent is relief of subway demand, it must come by diverting that type of rider away from the outer ends of the subway network, not by intercepting trips that are already on local TTC services closer to the core.
Tory’s position on the Relief Line (the formal “DRL” which many including me have advocated for years) has changed from the early days of his campaign.
Back in March 2014, Tory announced:
John Tory has a plan for a more affordable, functional and liveable Toronto. Job number one in that plan is building the Yonge Street relief line.
Only a few weeks later, he launched a broadside at the Olivia Chow campaign for treating the Yonge Relief line as a lower priority:
… you can get action on Yonge Street Relief Line from me now.
There was no doubt that the “Relief Line” in question was the DRL because SmartTrack’s announcement was still nearly two months away. Now that Tory’s scheme is the centrepiece of his campaign, the possibility of a new frequent-service subway providing local service in the areas close to downtown drifts off to the future in a Tory Toronto.
Toronto needs both better service on the GO network and additional local capacity linking the core, near-downtown areas and the wider network. A single line cannot perform both functions.
Missing From The Map
Notable by their absence on the SmartTrack map are three important new LRT/streetcar services: Sheppard East, Finch West and Waterfront. However, in August, Tory claimed continued support for the Finch and Sheppard as planned for 2020 and 2021 opening dates.
Tory makes no mention of transit to the Waterfront, a project mired in anti-downtown rhetoric, dreams of Ferris wheels in the Port Lands, and a lack of serious commitment by Council and the TTC to the “transit first” once touted for an area equal in size to the current downtown.
Tory falls into the trap of emphasizing construction, new lines that, someday, might improve the lot of some transit riders, while ignoring the basic day-to-day needs of the existing system.
In August, the TTC proposed a suite of changes to make the system more attractive to riders including improved transit service, replacement of transfers with a two-hour fare, and a system-wide move to proof-of-payment and all-door loading. Tory’s response? “Irresponsible” because there was no funding scheme.
In that one word, Tory not only displayed his ignorance of Council operations – an agency proposes how it might operate while Council decides how or if to fund the changes – but also his focus on throttling expenses and holding down taxes. There was no sense he understand the severity of the looming problem of system capacity.
The TTC operating subsidy for 2014 will be about $430m, of which Toronto provides $340m and Queen’s Park $90m from gas taxes. A further $100m is needed to run WheelTrans, and this is completely funded by Toronto. Service cuts under Rob Ford and Karen Stintz capped subsidy increases, but this cannot continue forever, and better transit service is a common demand across Toronto.
Even without inflation, Toronto’s current level of operating funding would amount to $8.5-billion over the next quarter century, more than the estimated price tag for SmartTrack. A ten percent bump in funding ($34m/year) could be focused on the surface network and on restructured fares with considerable benefits long before any rapid transit expansion will open for business. (New money would do less for the subway where physical constraints limit the scope for capacity expansion, and fixed costs for operations and maintenance dominate the overall budget.)
On the capital side, the TTC has $9-billion in capital needs for system maintenance and vehicle replacements over the next decade, but only about $6-billion in known funding. This does not include “below the line” projects Toronto needs, but does not include on the official list. An artificially small shortfall in funding is the result, but not one anyone talks about.
The absence of a meaningful platform to address transit needs beyond a few rapid transit projects shows just how threadbare that platform really is.
Can John Tory Change?
Since its announcement, SmartTrack has been the John Tory campaign’s mantra, the centrepiece of his platform, and his solution to almost every problem. The fundamental problem is that SmartTrack cannot be built as proposed, and addresses only part of the overall transit challenge in Toronto.
Campaigns are an horrendous time to ask candidates to shift position. They are terrified of appearing weak, uncommitted, vacillating, unable to lead the city to a single, defined goal. But the mark of a good would-be mayor is the ability to grow beyond a simple slogan like “subways subways subways” and “the gravy train”.
Tory wants to be a mayor who will work with all sides of Council, and he will not achieve that by trotting out a single plan over and over at every meeting for every issue. As a leading candidate in the polls, Tory should have the headroom to embrace more options for transit, to show that he can see beyond his campaign literature.
Can John Tory move beyond a one-track platform and show he really understands the complexity of transit needs, or will he bull ahead with a shiny, but ultimately half-baked scheme that will short-change Toronto?
Steve Munro 
I can only shake my head at this comment. Reverse Ford comments are just as harmful to the future of transit building in this entire City.
There are pros and cons to all the proposals. But from an East Scarborough commuter the subway is much more convenient, effective & inclusive no matter where the stop resides.
Is it perfect? NO. Is it a million times better than what we have now. YES. And in this political transit nightmare it’s one of the best outcomes I can for see in the near or long term future.
Steve: It’s not just a RoFo comment, but the level of hyperbole used to support the Scarborough Subway by its advocates including continuous harping about the transfer at Kennedy and misrepresentation of the station configuration with the LRT line. Subway advocates invite ridicule by being so over-the-top about the subway’s role.
LikeLike
With regard to transit and rail lines intersecting in Mount Dennis, around Eglinton and Weston Road
The day digging on the first Crosstown tunnel I went up there and took a bunch of pictures.
* I took some of the street north of the current station that was saved from expropriation;
* I took some of the site of the station;
* I took some of where I thought the Mount Dennis Go station would go (it was overgrown with shrubs and small trees);
* I took of the last remaining building on the old Kodak grounds where the Crosstown vehicles will be stored and serviced;
* I then rode east and got off at every intersection where a crosstown station was planned, and took a dozen “before” pictures. (I plan to take “after” pictures when the line opens.)
One thing that surprised me about the three rail lines was that each one crossed Eglinton on its own bridge. They seemed to be about 10 meters apart.
Were all the railway rights of way in Toronto intended to be a standard width? If so what is the theoretical maximum number of line that can placed on one?
LikeLike
Transport Canada sets a minimum width requirement for railways. There is 10 feet for the track width plus 16 feet on either side or 42 foot minimum width for a single track. If there is more than one track you need an additional 13 feet per track so 2 tracks = 10 + 13 + 2×16 = 55 feet and a third track takes you to 68 feet. I wouldn’t doubt that there are places where there is less than 16 feet to the outside of the track allotment though. I do not have my copy of the Transport Canada regulations with me but I believe I have the correct numbers. I shall check when I get home.
LikeLike
I think Tory desperately wants to win. He has been told by his advisors that any flip flop is something that the Fords will seize on. Thus, this man is not for turning on the biggest plank of his election campaign.
Until after the election.
When, and I believe it is now only a matter of when, John Tory becomes mayor, the skill sets of his advisors that are required to get him elected will be a poor match for the role of advisors to the mayor to get stuff done in a consensual council setting. Kouvalis is not going to stick around. Nor are the PR honchos he has hired to be his point men (and they are mostly men) likely to want to sit around and help him deal with the various liminaries that are our city council. So, he’s likely to be brining in some people that are a bit more policy oriented – hopefully they understand the role of research, or at least the role city staff can provide in giving basic information like “Actually, there’s a condo there now Mr. Mayor.”
Tory wants to govern, he wants to do. I suspect that Tory’s desire to get things done will make him a bit more maleable by the technocrat persuasive staff leadership that the city has gained of late. He will enjoy any big idea that comes his way which allows him to be seen to be the bestest mayor ever. Tory does have a bit of a “I am the next David Crombie, can’t you tell?” vibe going. Pitch him the idea in a certain way, and Tory will probably at least show interest and be open to a discussion. I can’t see Tory going to war with the Chief City Planner, for example.
The key in all this ultimately comes down to how much councillors, who have now tasted the freedom of not having a strong mayor’s whip, will want to dance for the joy of being on the exec. If Tory can get a governing whipped majority on council, he will be able to pretty much do whatever he wants within the bounds of his own sense of purpose (much like Miller). Given the likely change in advisors and the likely influence of the technocratic staff leadership the city has gained of late, what that “whatever he wants” will end up being is likely to be quite different from what we are hearing today.
If however, he does not compromise on Smart Track, I suspect this will be another 4 years wasted.
Steve: Even worse, if his friends at Queen’s Park do another of their flip-flops (and this after the Minister has stated repeatedly that it’s time to stop changing plans) to support SmartTrack, then we will see just how useful that “senior” level of government is. This is precisely the context in which I laugh riotously whenever someone talks about Metrolinx taking over the TTC.
LikeLike
There are a number of problems as I see it with this assumption:
1) The province is not going to abandon the concept on which they are running the UP express line any time soon as that would be to admit an error was made.
2) The traffic coming in on the Kitchener and Stouffville line will eat up a lot of the capacity in the 15 minute service for RER leaving little room for Tory’s 200,000 potential passengers. Current signalling rules will not get a sustained headway under 10 minutes.
3) As you say there is not the platform capacity at Union to handle 2000 passengers of a 12 car GO train in much under 6 minutes. If you have ever been caught in the crowd on a platform that used to be an old baggage platform (the really narrow ones) when a train enters on the other side it can be very dangerous.
4) If Tory is counting on the building being done by Metrolinx for part of his SmartTrack then he is not being honest in his pricing or realistic in his plan. I believe that the current Minister of Transportation said not to count on RER being a replacement for the DRL. Tory is probably using this plan to get elected mayor because it has a simple to understand base that has no hope of happening because of Transport Canada regulations and competing provincial plans. After the province says NO he can blame them for failure to gt his plan implemented then fall back onto the DRL.
5) You still have to count the expense of buying the extra EMUs and building the maintenance and storage facilities.
LikeLike
I am of the mind that John Tory’s current transit position like of some of your previous commentators is essentially a puff political position. Steve is the current SRT not at least in part in the same rail corridor as the Stouffville GO, and in effect right on top of where the subway will be? The proposed subway corridor is under 2km from where the Stouffville RER will run correct? How could, once GO is operating in RER mode and running every 6-10 minutes at peak, anybody justify having both? Would this not be especially true given the RER route will in effect intercept both B-D and YUS lines? Would not the primary remaining justifications for even an LRT under these circumstances have to be that it hits specific destinations, and offers more local stops? Would not a truly good implementation of RER in Stouffville mean that even the LRT should be modelled again? Does not the proximity of the lines, their similar stop spacing, and the declared purposes of them not put RER in Stouffville /SmartTracks and subway in direction competition?
Steve: Yes, and I have already said that. The idea that SmartTrack would convert the RER into a very local service within Scarborough is pure pandering for stop count (amusing, considering that the subway advocates consider an absence of stops to be a virtue, provided that there is one just outside of their door). The LRT line would provide the local service at Lawrence and at points east and north to Malvern. The subway, a few km to the east under McCowan, will directly compete for customers in Markham (on which its inflated demand projections depend) with the RER.
I would say you are correct, that no using UPX no way (needs a line that isolation). I believe that Tory is being basically dishonest in this, and I do not think that in SmartTrack plus RER, he is going to end up claiming RER is SmartTrack after he is elected. I believe the province is expecting to replace the signals which should permit 6 minutes, except major additional renovations at Union (no more using the small platforms), and I would be stunned if prospective RER passengers from Unionville/Markham and Brampton are not counted in his 200K. I think his ridership probably goes something like 2 hours at 10 trains per hour from 2 directions at peak generating something on the order of 80k capacity, morning and night (160k total), the balance coming from the rest of the day. All ridership in the 2 corridors would thus be counted, as it would all arrive on electrified frequent trains in the same corridors. The bottom line Robert is I would argue he has a great plan, piggy backed on somebody else’s work. The province’s plan to deliver still requires new platforms at Union, the use of the UPX tracks (politically the hardest part) the and TC exclusion.
Steve: Frankly, it is not all that hard to conceive of a repurposing of UPX that could be sold as an improvement, or RER integration, or some such, once the line has been open for a few years.
Also bottom line, you either have to be running for office and selling puff pieces or not paying attention to believe that SmartTrack/RER does anything more than maybe buy a little time for a DRL as long as the city itself continues to intensify. SmartTracs I am presuming (hoping?) is a puff piece. Because it appears to be RER in on a couple of lines, plus a goofy squiggle at the end, that they realized goes down Eglinton. The beauty of the plan, and why it is good, is that it is purely a political piece without substance.
LikeLike
Hi Steve,
From the moment Tory proposed his SmartTrack scheme, it was easy to poke holes in the plan given Metrolinx’s mandate for future RER service. Commenters such as yourself only solidify the general skepticism around Tory’s grandiose transit agenda, yet he still leads in the polls.
Does this say more about the deceiver (Tory) or the deceived (voting public)?
Steve: Tory sounds good, and he has a bigger PR team that I do. The Fords proved that you can tell the public anything and get their votes (or at least enough votes to win) whether it makes sense or not.
LikeLike
Metrolinx has just installed CTC, signals, on the Barrie and Stouffville lines that are identical to CN’s and CP’s existing CTC. I don’t think that they can get to a 6 minute headway without an extensive rebuild, i.e. new signal system and exemption from TC regulations and even then they would be restricted by other factors, train length, starting and stopping time, and dwell time at the busiest station (Union); remember that 12 car trains are over 1000′ long, not 450′ as in TTC subways.
The real problem would be on the Lakeshore from Scarborough Junction to the Halton Sub and Bramalea because CN retains the rights to use them and the Newmarket Sub (Barrie Line) and the Bala Sub (Richmond Hill) for emergency detours and to serve potential freight customers. This is what will keep those line from getting under 10 minute headways any time soon.
Metrolinx just rebuilt Union without changing the platforms so to do so now would be admitting to wasting a lot of money on a stupid decision. No one wants to admit that they made a mistake. They would rather waste a lot more money building satellite stations.
Me thinks that you are giving too much credit to Tory’s brilliance. I believe SmartTrack is an attempt to use something that the Province is building to claim credit for the good parts and then to blame them when they won’t (can’t) build what he wants.
LikeLike
I do not know Steve’s position, but who chooses the song the singer or the audience? The billboard top 40 is picked by the audience!!! It is not hard to ascertain that some of what was proposed was unbuildable, those who do not know made a choice not to.
Steve: I also think that Tory is badly advised.
LikeLike
Moaz: There’s a small problem there, in that UPEx is running high-platform and Stouffville and other GO trains run low platforms. A mixed height platform such as what is being placed in Weston and Bloor GO stations is not going to make things easier at Union.
Moaz: With Bruce McQuaig talking about “protecting for” stations at Woodbine, Eglinton and St. Clair, perhaps UPEx is going to have a new sister service (a semi-express “transit” train to go along with the express). Maybe that will be tested out next year once the Georgetown Southern project is finished and GO trains can run on the railway sub up to Bramalea hourly in both directions.
Who knows, perhaps we’ll end up with an UPEx (for Union-Pickering) East … then someone will have the bright idea of connecting the lines … so baggage can accidentally go to one airport while the passengers go to the other.
If UPEx is really re-purposed, the first thing that will need to go will be the trains … ok, if not the trains then either the platform location at Union or the junction between the airport spur and the main railway line … one of those is going to have to change otherwise the delays from trains switching from the west side of the corridor (at Woodbine) to the east side (approaching Union) are going to cause significant problems.
Cheers, Moaz
LikeLike
Robert I think we are singing from the same song sheet, in terms of Tory’s proposal. I agree also in terms of Lakeshore, although I wonder, whether they could make 3 east side dedicated transit track sets work (TC exclusing for 2 in 1 out, perhaps reverse afternoon) and leave CN the fourth. The reason that Tory’s piece is good, is that it is a purely political play. It is, in essence nothing but the provinces plan with an unbuildable pieces. It is a piece designed for political sale not transit. Where I disagree with Steve, I think Tory’s advice is quite good {just has no transit content} as it is meant to win an election not result in concrete action. I guess I am a little more cynical than you or Steve. I am suggesting that once in office, he will try to work with the province, to get some actual transit expertise on board, and try to get a very high frequency RER built.
Steve if he wins, are you ready for a knock on the door, between the election and when he takes office? At present what he has is at best a sketch, he will need to develop an honest to god plan, which will mean engaging a set of advisors for Transit and not just the TTC.
Moaz, I am also suggesting that one way or another the UPX platforms or Stouffville will change. However, you are quite correct that it will involve some moderate egg. However, if they only do 1 platform initially at Union, I do not think it will be too bad. If they start using UPX as is to Brampton, then as Steve suggests “make improvements” they can likely find a way to navigate that water.
LikeLike
Actually, I’ve begun to wonder if SmartTrack is a backdoor ploy to ultimately kill the BD Scarborough extension.
Steve: That is a degree of Machiavellian plotting I have not seen in any politician hearabouts. It requires a degree of guile and the presumption that one can “manage” public opinion well into the future.
LikeLike
I suspect, that John Tory’s train will never leave the station. The proposal is too vague and does not include and/or refer to points of congestion or conflict, whether they be physical (ROW/corridor width),contractual (GO vis-a-vis CN/CP) or legal (Transport Canada). I have found one point of congestion, which is quite obscure and surprising – Scrb. GO station btw. 1600 hrs. and 1700 hrs. (4PM and 5PM). What about further east – Guildwood to Pickering GO? I have visited Port Credit a few years ago and the gravel/sand from widened ROW was already in someone’s backyard. All these or similar transpo-mega projects, that have been built elsewhere, usually required material/property sacrifice of local citizens and took years to negotiate and plan. for. The last one I know of is New Main railway station in Vienna, where quite a big chunk of historical buildings was demolished – fortunately nowhere near Opera or Schonbrunn castle.
LikeLike
True. However, Nick Kouvalis is on John Tory’s team.
LikeLike
In the Toronto mayoralty race, the latest poll puts John Tory at a commanding 49% support, including undecided voters. Olivia Chow is trailing in 3rd place, well behind Doug Ford. The biggest election issue by far is transit & gridlock.
I do not see much support for John Tory’s SmartTrack transit plan on this blog. Eglinton West is not feasible, questionable feasibilty elsewhere while the rest is already on Metrolinx’s agenda, a questionable funding plan, and questionable passenger loads. One blogger defended it as merely a trial balloon to be tweaked and corrections made. Another blogger said that Tory will become pragmatic after the election, dropping any silly ideas, but right now he cannot be seen as flip-flopping. Most importantly, this scheme does nothing to address the bulk of transit woes in the Toronto area. Calling this a “surface subway” does nothing regarding the question of the need for real underground subways, particularly the DMS. What about the crush on the King car?
Yet the latest poll of voters yet puts Tory far in the lead. Why is this? A good chunk of Tory’s support is both “anybody but a Ford” and also “anybody but Chow”. I have actually heard both being expressed in conversation. That would mean that transit is hardly anyone’s main motivation for supporting Tory. It looks like SmartTrack is only to attract and/or appease Rob Ford supporters who want “subways, subways, subways”.
It is obvious that if a voter wants good transit, the best choice is Olivia Chow – doable plans, timing, funding. She says that all her cards are on the table, so to speak, that hers is a truthful candidacy. However, her NDP background is her biggest perceived liability. Her other major “liabilities” are very unfair: that she is a woman, she is ethnic, and she has a speech impediment. Is this why she has such poor poll numbers? Is there a communications problem or voters misunderstanding her?
Doug Ford will start serious campaigning tomorrow by participating in candidates debates, but I doubt that he has anything useful to offer on transit. His brother did indeed have the prettiest fantasy transit map of all the candidates. Readers of this blog should note that the Ford map drew in the DMS extending all the way to meet the Eglinton Crosstown. Today’s Toronto Star has an article that predicts that Doug Ford can win this election if Tory & Chow split the anti-Ford vote evenly.
But, other than strategic voting, what is it that motivates John Tory’s support? Is he perceived as middle-of-the-road? Fiscally conservative? The poll numbers do not answer this question. Did I answer my own question? Btw, I am not a Toronto resident, so I am not voting for any of them. I care because this affects my commute.
It should also be noted that the polls in the recent Scottish independence referendum were quite off, as were the polls in the Ontario and Quebec provincial elections this year.
They say that only the last poll (the election) really counts.
They say that you have no right to complain if you did not vote.
It is also said that the electorate gets the government that they deserve.
LikeLike
The problem I have is that even Olivia is not being really truly honest about the costs of adding 10% to bus service. Also this is really not enough to make the system work well. She is being a realist politically, which frankly is required, and hopefully if she wins she will follow the 10% increase not her funding promise. Realistically as Steve has pointed out there is the straight up costs of buses themselves which would be more like 120 million, plus storage and maintenance facilities. I would argue to be a bus plan that worked and be fully honest you would be looking at more like 175 million for additional buses (250), plus about the same for storage and then operations costs. However, this is at least a transit plan, as opposed to well politically designed puff piece, which is what I believe SmartTrack to be.
The problem is that the voter does not want to hear the bad news, but a sweet little lie. Mr. Tory has clearly figured that out. There is a time to campaign, and a time to govern, and lord forbid you be honest with the voter, because if you are you are likely never to govern.
LikeLike
I used this station last November and found it to be very isolated from the surrounding community. It seemed to have no physical or emotional connect to it. It was a very nice station from a functional point of view but very cold from an emotional point of view.
LikeLike
The biggest issue I have with SmartTracks is that it feels far too much like a cross between an overly grand plan, and a sleight of hand. I do not see any sort of proposals as too how the balance of transit would link in. I do not see anything that indicates how this would alter bus routes (let alone LRT routes), that anyone has done any sort of look at the origins and destinations of travel, or their sensitivity to time. If all of the buses on Steeles, Finch, the Sheppard LRT, all connect well, I can easily see this service unable to keep up.
LikeLike
What is up with Metrolinx at Dundas West Station? Were they trying to make an early connection from the subway to Tory’s SmartTrack?
Steve: A really, really important example of why the utilities have the motto “call before you dig”.
LikeLike
Tory’s election posters have “SmartTrack” prominently displayed, as prominently as (some) Ford’s “Repect for Taxpayers”. This plan’s not for turning, it seems.
LikeLike
Is it worth mentioning that both front runners in the Mississauga mayoral race support Smart Track and Steve Mahoney has even proposed that it be extended from the Airport Corporate Centre to the Meadowvale Corporate Centre (along the 401 corridor)
Mahoney’s Mississauga Rail Link.
On another note, Oliver Moore did some calculations in the Globe & Mail which said that the SmartTrack, if going underground at Mt. Dennis, would have to surface around Martin Grove.
Except that it would really have to go underground at the West Toronto Diamond (or thereabouts) in order to tunnel under both Mount Dennis and the Eglinton Flats area to the west.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: Actually one does not have to start that far south, but it’s certainly not a transition than can be made in a few hundred metres south of Eglinton.
This is an example of the danger of a political transit plan that starts to breed add-ons as if it were a credible proposal. We will spend years just getting to the point where everyone, including John Tory and his merry band of advisors, actually agrees that SmartTrack is not workable.
LikeLike
Hmm … I’m just thinking of the low bridge over St. Clair and the high bridge over the Black Creek Valley. I suppose the underpass could start somewhere in between?
In any case it is definitely not something that the Tory camp has factored in.
Here is Oliver Moore’s interesting analysis of the topographic and geographic challenges.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: Oliver Moore talked to me as part of his background work on that article, but I really must commend his “field work” in going to actually look at the site, something Tory’s folks have quite clearly never done.
I was looking at the detailed elevation info in both the Eglinton LRT’s EA and in the Georgetown South EA. It would be possible, just barely, to get down from the railway elevation just north of Black Creek to an underground station on Eglinton west of Weston Road, but that presumes that the entire north-south distance is available for the grade change. Unfortunately there are buildings west of the rail corridor, and so the entire grade change must occur before the start of the curve into Eglinton. The radius of that curve is, in turn, determined by the type of equipment to be operated, and full-sized GO trains (the sort that Tory claims would be used) simply would not fit. As you say a tunnel could start much further south, but it would have to go under Black Creek and this would make the station at Eglinton quite deep.
LikeLike
How far west of Weston would that station have to be? How deep would it have to be to allow the station to be completely flat? Oliver Moore told me that he saw/measured the elevation of Mount Dennis (presumably as compared to the Eglinton Flats area) at 18 m … so it would be very challenging for the line to be underground in Mount Dennis and stay underground (as Tory proposes) further west … and that is assuming lighter “subway train sized” EMUs like the ones in his brochure, rather than bi-level GO Trains with 10 cars (or 20 cars, as Oliver Moore calculated would be necessary to meet the ridership projections offered by Tory).
I wish someone could render this in a graphic mapping the turn radius and elevation … I’m sure the Mount Dennis Resident’s Association would love to see it too.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: I am working on an article with these details for publication later this week.
LikeLike
Count me as excited. Looking forward to seeing the overhead and elevation graphics.
Cheers, Moaz
ps. I was quite disappointed by Eric Miller’s “build it anyways” commentary in the Star today, but quite pleased with Ed Keenan’s comparison of the Chow and Tory transit plans.
LikeLike
Having line 2 (Danforth) subway extension only one mile away and parallel with proposed SmartTrack doesn’t make sense. If Scarborough needs a subway it should be the Sheppard line extension to Agincourt and the loop would be closed with combination of Sheppard subway, SmartTrack and line 2 (Danforth). Tory must scrap the line 2 extension plan and focus on Union to Markham Go electrification. It can be done in less than 5 years and during that period new studies about western part of SmartTrack should be done. Sheppard Ave. East is a very congested area specially between Consumers and Kennedy, and any LRT on surface in this section would be a suicide. Instead the line 2 subway extension budget can be used to extend the Sheppard subway to Kennedy/Agincourt.
LikeLike