Toronto Council’s agenda for today, February 10, 2015, contains a series of “Administrative Inquiries” by Councillor Josh Matlow regarding various aspects of transit plans for Scarborough. The City Manager’s response appeared late yesterday, but it was not exactly packed with revelations.
In theory, the inquiry process provides a way for questions to flow directly from a Councillor to City staff bypassing the usual mechanism of committee reports where administration majorities might strangle debate. In practice, the information released might or might not fully address the question.
Mayor Tory’s position is quite clear: the subway debate is over, and Matlow’s questions are simply attempts to reopen the question on matters that are already known and decided. Would that it were so simple. Subway champions should pause in their dismissal of Matlow’s position because the report shows how much we don’t know, or at least are not being told, about the subway project.
1. “Sunk Costs” for the Scarborough LRT
When Council approved the switch from LRT to subway technology in October 2013, part of the agreement with Metrolinx was that Toronto would absorb the cost of work-to-date on the discarded LRT plan, subject to an audit to validate an estimated $85 million pricetag. Matlow asked two simple questions:
- Has the City Manager executed an agreement with Metrolinx to pay the sunk costs?
- What monies are allocated in the City’s 10-year capital plan for this expense?
Recent discussion through the media on these points has been rather odd. On one hand, the City Manager repeatedly declined to put a specific number to the costs; on the other, Councillor Pasternak (he of the “North York Relief” subway, aka Sheppard West from Yonge to Downsview) mused that Toronto should not have to pay for the LRT work even though Council agreed to this.
In the City Manager’s report, we learn that the audit is complete, and that staff are finalizing an agreement regarding provincial funding of the subway extension which will take into account the amount agreed as an offset for the sunk costs. However, as the Star revealed yesterday, on December 30, 2014, Bruce McCuaig, President and CEO of Metrolinx, wrote to the City Manager formally accepting an offer of settlement in the amount of $74.8 million. The City Manager agreed to this in a reply dated January 9, 2015. Given this exchange of letters, we know that the settlement has been finalized, subject to Council approval, for over a month.
2. Operating and Capital Maintenance Costs
With the change from a provincial LRT project to a municipal subway line, responsibility for operating and maintenance costs falls to the City and TTC budgets. However, Toronto seeks an offsetting credit from Ontario equal to the amount it would have paid were the line a Metrolinx operation. Capital Maintenance (major repairs and replacement of assets such as vehicles) is estimated at $30-40 million annually, although this is a cost that starts low for a new line and builds over its lifetime.
However, there will also be operating costs on the TTC’s budget related to day-to-day service and maintenance, and these have not been provided, net of any new fare revenue, in reports to Council. (In fairness, such an estimate was not provided for the LRT option either.)
Matlow’s questions are:
- What are the estimated operating costs?
- How much of a property tax increase would be needed to cover the capital and operating costs due to the subway?
- What is the status of negotiations with the province over these costs, and when will the results be reported to Council?
On the first two questions, the City Manager replies:
TTC will be undertaking an estimate of annual operating and maintenance costs for the SSE, following Council determination of alignment and service levels noted above.
Council approved the subway option in late 2013 and, at the time, only two alignments (the “City” one via McCowan and the “Glen Murray” version via the SRT corridor) were on the table. Additional possibilities have arisen quite recently thanks to issues with competition from the SmartTrack scheme, but one might hope that the TTC would already have a ballpark estimate of operating costs if only for planning purposes. They know how much it costs to operate subway lines and stations, and they could roughly estimate the amount of bus service the subway would trigger.
If the line does go to Sheppard, some bus routes that now cross south of the 401 to STC might be shortened, but this could be offset by increased demand and the need for greater service to feed the subway. The TTC might not have the detailed network drawn out, but one might reasonably ask whether they had any sense of comparative costs going into the LRT/subway debate in the first place.
Now we are told that such an estimate will not be available until Council chooses an alignment for the new subway. That’s right — Toronto must decide where it wants the subway and only then will we learn how much it will cost. This is a continuation of an ass-backward pattern where “assessment” of transit projects ignores basic questions that could inform decisions. Indeed, “affordability” is supposed to be a criterion, and yet critical information will not be available.
Needless to say, negotiations with the province re cost sharing are still underway, and there is no indication that Queen’s Park even accepts the premise of an offset between Metrolinx LRT and City subway costs. A challenge for any agreement on this account will be a time and/or dollar value limit on provincial contributions, and quite obviously such an agreement would require firm estimates of the comparative costs for both schemes. However, if the process described by the City Manager is to be believed, this information would not be available until after Council has selected a subway option.
3. Extension of the Scarborough Subway Study Area
Matlow asks three questions:
- Why does the study area exclude Agincourt GO Station?
- Will ridership estimates for the subway extension take into account the effect of SmartTrack?
- If the subway is shifted east to McCowan, would riders further west be more likely to use SmartTrack than the subway?
The City Manager replies that the subway study will examine whether a more easterly alignment would better serve a larger part of Scarborough. His reply is interesting because of the equal role it presumes for both subway and GO/SmartTrack services:
The study area has been broadened to the east (i.e. Markham Road) to explore alignments which would complement the SmartTrack proposal and potentially bring rapid transit service to a larger proportion of Scarborough residents.With that approach in mind, given that the Agincourt GO area is planned to be served by both SmartTrack and enhanced GO service, it is considered more appropriate that the subway serve other areas, further to the east on Sheppard Avenue.
This reply, of course, assumes that services on the GO line can be considered as equivalent to the subway, but that is a huge stretch on three counts.
First is the question of fares. We know that GO Transit’s pricing is considerably higher than the TTC’s and there is, as yet, no “co-fare” arrangement for a discounted through trip from a TTC bus feeder onto a GO train. Although SmartTrack has been touted as “integrated” with the TTC, it is not certain whether this means it would operate as a TTC fare service with no premium. Obviously, SmartTrack itself will bring added net costs notwithstanding claims by its proponents that its ridership would cover its cost of operation. That claim is based on demand estimates wildly in excess of the likely capacity of the service to be offered.
This brings us to the second question, the level of services on GO/SmartTrack and on the subway extension. We know already that the TTC only plans to operate half of the peak service beyond Kennedy Station (a headway of 4’40” on current schedules). GO’s RER will at best provide a train every 15 minutes, and SmartTrack will be something under 15 minutes, but at a level yet to be determined. Both services in the rail corridor are constrained by capacity of that corridor, of the Lake Shore East corridor and of Union Station.
Finally, it will be difficult to design a feeder bus network to serve both the subway and SmartTrack unless Scarborough’s routes are gerrymandered even more than today (with the focus on STC Station) to force-feed one or both routes. Should the TTC’s grid arrangement of routes be torn apart to funnel riders into a subway station at Sheppard (whose exact east-west location remains unknown) or into, say, a Finch SmartTrack station?
All of these factors affect all of the network options. As for the effect of SmartTrack on a Markham Road subway alignment, the question is premature because nobody has studied this configuration. That work will be done as part of the SmartTrack assessment which is a separate, but parallel, undertaking by Metrolinx, TTC and City staff.
4. Does the Proposed Subway Budget Include Enough Trains?
Matlow notes that the subway budget includes $125 million for 7 subway trains including one spare. The City Manager confirms that the budget assumed a service design of sending alternate trains beyond Kennedy Station to Sheppard much as service now turns back at St. Clair West in the am peak on the 1 Yonge-University line. The actual equipment requirement for the extension will be determined once the alignment (and hence both demand and running time) is settled.
As I have already noted in discussing TTC fleet plans, there is currently a surplus of T-1 subway trains, and the TTC’s plans show six of these being assigned to the 2 Bloor-Danforth line when the extension opens. No new train purchases for BD are included in the fleet plan until 2026. This is an example of a cost (replacement of the T-1 trains earmarked for Scarborough) that could be pushed beyond the initial extension project’s budget into a future capital maintenance expense early in the life of the extension. The TTC owes Council a fleet plan that clearly shows provision for additional trains for the Scarborough extension and which budget line (subway extension or fleet replacement) they will be charged to.
Is this a budgetary dodge to free up money that would have been spent on trains to pay for additional project costs elsewhere?
5. Ridership Estimates
Matlow poses five questions about ridership on the subway extension:
- Will more detailed estimates be presented to Council before it moves further with the extension project?
- What modelling system produced the increased demand estimate for the subway option of 9,500-14,000 peak passengers in comparison with the LRT option?
- Was this model consistent with that used for previous (i.e. LRT) projections?
- Will SmartTrack effects be factored into projections for the subway extension?
- Have the erroneous projections for the Sheppard Subway (and by implication the validity of the demand model) been taken into account?
With respect to the next Council approval, the City Manager states:
Detailed ridership forecasts will be reported through the required approvals process for the SSE’s Transit Project Assessment Process (TPAP).
Once again, the idea that Council might make an informed choice regarding the subway option and its alignment is missing. Instead, they will be expected to choose a subway route without knowing how it might perform or how the larger network might behave.
The original 9,500 riders per hour estimate for the “LRT” option presumed that the STC was its terminus when the model was run in 2006 by the TTC. In fact, at that point Transit City did not exist, and the project under study was a replacement of the SRT with upgraded RT trains, but no extension. The model used provided a 2021 estimate and this was extrapolated to 2031.
The 14,000 riders per hour estimate for the subway option presumed that it would run north to Sheppard, and it was based on the City’s 2031 modelling for the Official Plan Review.
Timing constraints did not allow for the results to be refined using the TTC’s transit assignment model. The study terminus was assumed to be Sheppard Avenue rather than Scarborough City Centre. Other modelling assumptions that differ include frequency of service on the subway extension and other lines assumed in the future transit network.
Yes, most certainly there were differences in the City model notably that the projected demand would require better service than the SSE plan actually includes. At 14k/hour, the demand would completely fill an alternate train service running north from Kennedy to Sheppard.
As for the “future transit network” it is unclear just what this might entail, but almost certainly this would not include frequent GO/RER service nor SmartTrack, neither of which had been proposed when the subway modelling and Council’s decision occurred. This is a common problem in “regional” modelling for TTC projects — the absence of the commuter rail network as an option for long-haul trips from the 905 and outer 416 into downtown. If frequent service, especially at a TTC fare, will be available in the GO corridor, what will happen to that extra subway demand? Indeed where in the modelled universe does that demand originate? Are we building a subway to serve Scarborough, or to serve commuters from Markham?
Finally, on the question of the mismatch between Sheppard Subway forecasts and actual ridership, the City Manager reports:
The current ridership on the Sheppard subway is not directly comparable to the estimates in the environmental assessment. The extent of the subway as built is much shorter than that considered in the environmental assessment. The ridership forecast in the environmental assessment considered an alignment linking the North York and Scarborough City Centres. The first phase of the line was initially planned to extend from Yonge Street to the Consumers Business Park, but was subsequently truncated at Don Mills Road due to funding contraints.
The land use as projected at the time of the environmental assessment, particularly employment, has not materialized, though residential development has occurred in a manner that is consistent with the subway investment. Employment uses, particularly office development, generates significantly more transit ridership than residential development.
The difficulty, of course, is that the employment node in Scarborough was supposed to be STC, but this has been slow to mature and more recent development has been residential, not for employment, a form that moved elsewhere, notably to the 905. A major problem with any suburban non-residential development is that employees will come from all over the GTHA and most will not originate in the catchment area of a transit system, especially if the development is expected at an outer terminus. By contrast, downtown is fed by many lines connecting with a wide range of residential neighbourhoods. This directly affects how a development might be structured — around transit or around a large parking lot with easy access to an expressway.
There has always been much talk of making the area around STC into a major node, and recent planning efforts now focus on the McCowan Precinct, an area immediately east of STC. How this area will relate to or be served by the transit network, including services reaching beyond the 416 boundary, is something of a mystery. The precinct is large enough that a single rapid transit station, especially one at the western edge, cannot serve the entire area.
Any ridership projections for the Scarborough Subway must explain how workers destined for jobs it might serve will actually make their “last mile” connections between rapid transit stations and job locations.
Conclusion
The City Manager’s report is not outright evasive, but it demonstrates the amount of information Toronto Council does not yet have about rapid transit options for Scarborough. If Council chooses to commit to multi-billion dollar projects without fully understanding the implications, that’s a political decision.
Between the Scarborough Subway and SmartTrack, we see two projects that have an air of inevitability, that brook no questions about their validity or even the degree to which they duplicate each other’s function.
The great irony here is that absent SmartTrack, Toronto would be discussing regional transit improvements on GO and a local improvement with the subway. SmartTrack is a hybrid, welcome in the sense that it accepts the possibilities of the commuter rail network for travel within Toronto, but oversold as a near-subway service when that is not physically possible.
If anything, the network studies for GO, SmartTrack and TTC subway options are more important than the Scarborough Subway option alone. The network study includes multiple agencies with overlapping, but certainly not identical, preferences and priorities, and there is a chance that it will give a clear understanding of how the many parts might fit together. Some proposals may change, some may fall off of the map completely, but at least there will be a framework for the decision.
Steve Munro 
That was the essence of Giorgio Mamolitti’s complaint last week when he said Finch W deserved better than an LRT line, and is more deserving of a subway than Scarborough.
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To be fair Joe, the subway was put on the table by a raucous push from Scarborough politicians. The same politicians could have just as easily pushed to get all of the Transit City concept for Scarborough, complete on the agenda. What is on the table is $3.8 billion for Scarborough! The question is whether now that this money has been secured, whether there will be a reflex to best transit planning or “subway subway subway”. I would agree that Big Move Wave 1 was not enough, although I think everybody knows (knew) that, even the Ontario Government. The question really was roll out and priority. There has been a singular fixation on subway in Toronto politics post Scarborough RT until Miller.
When the politics of exclusion was used to secure subway money, do not talk about what was on offer, as you have indicated yourself it has been more a question of what was extracted. The answer would appear to be $3.8 + billion. I personally always favored spending all of it in Scarborough. I have always favored the idea, of building enough L.R.T. in an area, in a single pass to truly transform that areas transit. It makes more sense to build a single car house, and then use it to greatest effect.
I would have pushed for the entire L.R.T. plan, or even an improved one in Scarborough. Toronto as a whole needs to see how transit should be planned. I still favor that approach. It is in the interest of all of Toronto, that Scarborough get a really high quality appropriate rapid transit plan.
In the longer term having all of Scarborough served properly will have a huge impact, and will improve ride quality and lifestyle for all of Scarborough, and show how the same could be easily done in Rexdale. It appears instead that we will see Mississauga, Kitchener-Waterloo and Ottawa do it, and make themselves a more attractive location for businesses to locate in. We will not see the development of walkable neighborhoods, but a deeper extension of bus to subway transit. Using 3.8-4.2 billion for best possible planning I would applaud, the same for subway will frankly just be sad, and leave Scarborough essentially where it is in terms of development, and yes perhaps shorten bus rides a little but frankly a tragedy for Scarborough transit. It will be a made in Scarborough planning mistake, like locating the STC away from transit was and the RT was.
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I am sure it has already started, however, we cannot yet hear them as the din of Scarborough is drowning them out. Mammoloti has a stronger voice, and well he has already said that is what is required on Finch West. I would suggest to you Robert, we likely need merely to turn up the gain on this particular channel to hear it coming from Etobicoke as well. Although I would not worry too much about your hearing yet as I suspect it is being held down lack of air in that group resulting from the uproarious (even injurious) laughter that they enjoyed (although not after it started to hurt) with regards to Tory’s Eglinton west proposal.
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There was a vocal minority in Waterloo Region that would have loved to kill our LRT project, including the mayor of Cambridge, who tried to play the “Cambridge is being left out” and ” Phase 2 will never happen” songs to whip up the opposition. He also tried to argue for Cambridge not having to chip in a share of the bill for phase 1 because he didn’t believe the extension to Cambridge would ever happen. The thing is, if Cambridge had been let off the hook now, then you could guarantee the extension would never be built because the rate payers in Cambridge would never have afforded to pay for it alone. And that would have set up the exact same kind of jealousy within the region that comes from many of the Scarborough commenters here.
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@ wtspman:
Did you really compare Scarborough to Cambridge? Cambridge is 1/6 of the population of Scarborough. Not even close in terms of population, long term neglect & proximity to Canada’s most populated City.
By your logic Scarborough should be getting a subway extensions because that is the same infrastructure they are connecting to. Just as Cambridge would get LRT to connect into Kitchener/Waterloo LRT
It’s not jealousy out here it’s necessity & neglect. We have paid to maintain, build & operate decent rapid transit to the fortunate areas of Toronto for a long time with very little of our own throughout Scarborough. Cambridge is a growing City, Scarborough has stagnated due to lack of investment in development planning & infrastructure.
It’s hard enough building a solid plan with the “haves’ in the City who are experiencing growth and want us to keep feeding them first. But being treated like Kitchener or worse Cambridge shows everything that’s wrong with building transit in this City & Province.
Go bother Vaughan. Because if there is any jealousy it the fact that no one has gone after them with transit pitchforks to even half the degree as Scarborough.
But Cambridge. Cmon guys
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The issue is this is essentially what has happened in Toronto. People complain that old Toronto has, but forget that the old city was built around having it. The city built demand using streetcar, then went to subway. It does not have road allowance for alternatives, and has far less road per resident than Scarborough etc. People frankly moved out of the core initially to be able to use their cars, have lawns and the like. Those roads are expensive to maintain, especially on a per resident basis, but we do not talk about that. Industries that are less sensitive to being co-located (than finance), need to situated so they have access to housing for their employees. If we want viable sub-centers, they will have to be created based on good access to usable highway (nowhere in 416, hence development ever further out in 905), or to real transit to a variety of areas beyond.
The subway plan for Scarborough is frankly better for downtown development than the LRT plan was, because it makes Toronto even more core centric, as long as there is enough capacity into the core. It makes it harder to locate a business in Scarborough where there will be a large enough pool of labour that will be coming from beyond where housing is cost effective and attractive to the full range of employees. It reinforces all the issues that already existed. If you look at what drew companies to the say Mississauga at Mississauga Rd & the 401 when it first bloomed in the 1980s, it was the fact that not far beyond was good housing for their junior employees, and the option to reside in Toronto for their more affluent ones (was privy to the selection criteria at the time for both DuPont of Canada and GE Canada). You could easily drive in either direction (not so easy now). The same was true for the STC and even North York City Center. Now inside Toronto, it would mean having a transit network, to a high service area that was walkable (for meetings and lunch) and was well served by transit that was seen to be permanent – to that location from a wide pool of desirable housing, and reasonable access for the periodic trip into the core.
If people want transit based development away from the core, they need to look at the matrix used by business to locate. It is slightly different based on the nature of each industry and the operation, but employee access to housing and cost of living are always there. If there was a broader rapid transit network in Scarborough and the STC was more walkable it might actually qualify for a longer list of corporate offices. If the network included superlative transit access into Markham and Pickering as well it certainly would. LRT to a decent transfer to the core would be more than enough in the other direction. All transit is designed to have origins and destinations. A real LRT network could have been designed to have real in Scarborough destinations, subway is likely to have Scarborough almost entirely as an origin.
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Joe M:
Agreed a real LRT Network through all Scarborough would have great benefit . But if you are comparing only the Scarborough LRT to the Subway, there is no comparison.
Considering the the possibility that SmartTrack goes forward as is it will change the routing for either the LRT or Subway plan & now have possibly over a billion more in property taxes & Federal funding for the possibility of the Scarborough LRT to be re-routed on a more efficient path & the Sheppard LRT could be extended to Port Union or Morningside & loop around Kingston/rd & Eglinton.
if this type of plan never see the light of day. You’ll never sell enough support for the LRT patchwork over a subway.
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Then by your argument Steve, why are people from York, Peel, Durham, etc NOT getting a say in whether or not we wanted to spend billions of dollars on these extremely expensive new streetcars that are many years late and have been experiencing technical problems from day one and still no one has the decency to ask us whether or not we want to waste further money on 60 of these extremely expensive streetcars when only 3 of the old order have ever entered service and experiencing problems from day one? By your argument Steve, us in Markham and other people in Canada should also get a say in whether or not we want to waste our money on a Downtown Relief Line now being marketed to us as Toronto Regional Relief Line. The Downtown Relief Line will have the same catchment area as SmartTrack and so building one will render the other unnecessary and SmartTrack is the way to go since it will also help people outside of Downtown (unlike the DRL) and SmartTrack is also cheaper and can be built much faster.
Therefore, let us have a referendum on whether or not we want to keep the streetcars and us in York Region should also have a say as “Any time taxes are spent on boondoggles, it is everybody’s business”. Downtowners and Bramptoners like Robert Wightman are very quick to have their say on transit elsewhere (Scarborough, etc) but God forbid that they allow anyone else to have a say on Downtown transit and especially streetcars.
Steve: When I consider the amount of provincial tax revenue that is involved in supporting transit in Toronto, compared to the taxes we send to Queen’s Park, we are hardly a drain on the rest of the province. The provincial share of the streetcar project is about $400-million while Toronto is paying for twice that. I might start asking questions about the amount of money spent on GO, except that I know it’s in the best interest of Toronto if more people can come into the city by rail rather than trying to drive or pouring onto our overloaded subway system.
As for SmartTrack, there is the question of just what it is intended to serve. Why should Toronto taxpayers be footing the bill for a line which is intended to make business parks in Markham and Mississauga more accessible?
And dare I mention how much we will fork out to operate the Vaughan subway because York Region was too cheap to pay a share of the operating costs?
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The current Sheppard LRT plan is a joke. No wonder why province has put a hold on it. The Connection of BD line to any point North of STC is just wasting of money. It is possible to extend BD line and Sheppard line both to STC with the available budget. First using SRT corridor for extension of BD line just until STC. Second by extending the Sheppard line to Agincourt and then directly to STC. The loop will be closed with the cost of about $3.5b.
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As I said earlier, I do not understand the approach of spending the big bucks on a car house, and then building half a network, it makes no sense to me. I would have built to the foot of Morningside right out of the gate. I think something on Kingston Road has been undersold, and needs to be included (and should really be an extension of the Crosstown), and the Scarborough RT replacement as well as an extension are all basic requirements to making the thing work. I would also love to also add a BRT into Markham, and ideally one in the Gatineau corridor as a line haul type, that would speed people from beyond Morningside & 401 to Kennedy. The idea of stopping at Wave 1 projects was never on, although the way it was laid out begged political concerns.
I would rather see spending $3.8+ billion in Scarborough in properly planned transit. Build something that will transform, not pick at stuff. Picking at an area undermines confidence, and creates half built useless stubs, that can end up being that way for decades. Once the car house is built, just keep building until you are done (and start construction at multiple point simultaneously). Choose the right thing, and build enough to make a difference, or you end up being backed into doing something far less effective and spending even more dollars. The feds, province and city should commit the entire amount to a lock box and do the best possible Scarborough plan now.
Then we could really turn our attention to Rexdale, and do it right. Spadina extension should have ended near York U, and spawned 2 LRTs however, now we have a mess.
The reason the Wave 1 is a mess, and where we end up is so frustrating is that it is so politically predictable. We do not have the money to waste doing things badly, or a little at a time (given what that leads to). The province needs to solve the issues in an area not pick at them. Then use that area as a showcase, for the next area. Fix Scarborough, then move on, don’t sprinkle LRT (or anything) so thinly that it has no material effect. Build a real network, that will actually permit increased density, and fundamentally change the attractiveness of the area.
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Joe M:
Unfortunately it’s all political games & no one is really serious about Scarborough transit. We are allowed to choose between incomplete plans. If they actually built something efficient than they wouldn’t be able to bait us for votes in the future. And other Toronto residents who could care less if Scarborough obtains efficient transit only helps the Politicians as they serve as support in promoting these incomplete plans.
Like I said the LRT plan should never see the light of day if it doesn’t serve Scarborough as a whole. The only ones banging the drum for it to be built are a small minority along Sheppard East (My area) & the downtown transit “guru’s” trying to sell a stub line of a different technology as great thing for Scarborough.
Whether the political games continue and they extend it to UTSC it’s still a joke & continues to neglect many areas by selectively picking winners & losers. I guess that’s the Toronto model.
Unless a fully funded LRT network is proposed there is no argument between the benefits of LRT vs Subway. If the downtown Politicians, Toronto Star & Metroland Media etc… really had good intentions they would fight for a fully funded network throughout Toronto. But that’s not what they are after they just want the cheapest option for Scarborough. Period.
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Joe M:
This.
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What Joe are you saying?? You cannot possibly be indicating that we agree?? If we do, we will have to move onto something more divisive, say Hockey?
Steve: Careful. There are no NHL arenas in Scarborough, yet.
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Instead of spending billions on a subway, smart track etc., why not spend billions subsidizing GO transit for metro residents, essentially bringing all of the GO lines within Toronto into the TTC one-fare system. The TTC could then focus on important local projects. If the end goal is to bring people downtown, we have the infrastructure to do that. Let’s improve it and make it cheaper for Torontonians. (I may have missed this if it was brought up) Get Toronto some skin in the GO game, they we really might have a hope some more stations in the city and more local trains. Even if GO doesn’t want to play ball those billions could probably lease the tracks (that still belong to the railroads), buy a trainset, paint it TTC red and still have money to pay CN to run the extra trips and line the appropriate pockets. The trick here might be running the service through VIArail as an augmentation to existing services. If done correctly you might be able to avoid endless studies and discourse.
And for all those who wish Scarborough go away and be part of Durham. Shame! This is hardly the time for divisiveness. Our city is being eclipsed from the transit renaissance happening elsewhere in North America. To keep pace we need everyone’s help. You’ve seen the price tag.
Steve: A few points here. First off, Metrolinx already owns all of the track it uses within Toronto except for the Milton line from the point it branches off at West Toronto. It’s not a case of paying CN for more trips, but of having the track capacity (and station capacity) to handle the trains.
Second, there was a time when Queen’s Park clawed back some of the TTC subsidy by way of a charge to Toronto for the benefit of running GO Transit — it kept cars off of the roads — but Toronto had no say in how this money was spent. That arrangement (which also applied, but much less so, to 905 municipalities) is now in the past, but it was a very sore point while it lasted. Growth in GO service, especially for riders within the 416, has been constrained by GO’s funding and by QP’s attitude that GO is primarily to serve the vote-rich 905.
Third, don’t even think of having VIA run the service — they have no spare equipment and what they do operate, they do poorly on a shoestring budget.
Finally, as to wishing Scarborough would join Durham, that’s more a wish out of frustration with the divisive statements made by some in Scarborough who imply that anyone west of Victoria Park is out to screw their burg out of the transit it deserves.
Some of the comments made at Toronto Council by Scarborough members about the motives of downtowners are very insulting. They treat anyone who doesn’t agree with the subway proposal as a pariah deserving only of contempt, but still valid marks for a transit tax to build that subway. These comments are repeated in various forms by some comments on this blog, and the worst of them I simply delete. I let others through in the interest of debate, if only to demonstrate how insulting people utterly undermines what might in another context be a conversation worth having.
So to all you Scarborough folks: stop blaming all of your ills on those nasty downtowners who have prevented what used to be a township full of farms from becoming a booming metropolis. Start accepting that all parts of Toronto and the GTHA beyond evolved for a variety of reasons — political and economic forces of the day. Talk about what is needed to improve the city as a whole, and Scarborough within that, not about imagined slights that make you somehow deserving of special treatment.
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Joe M:
@Steve NHL arena? Scarborough has to fight tooth & nail to get an equal amount of outdoor rinks to attempt to move in line the rest of the City. But hey maybe the great Province will step in to offer to build half rinks for us & then slowly cut back before construction? At least we’d have something & it’ll be cheaper for you.
Steve: You can’t let up even when I’m pulling your leg. Dare I remind you that the number of recreational facilities in all parts of the city is largely a function of pre-amalgamation policies? It’s not as if post-1998, a city barely recovering from a recession launched a downtown rink-building program.
@Malcolm. I agree with 99% of your points. Only thing I argue is that common sense is never going to factor into any political decisions. Therefore with all the butchering of Scarborough development in the past & present from Municipal (past & present), Provincial, & Federal Politicians. And not to mention all the ever growing political negative slant & lazy reporting from our main media outlets. I as well as many others feel no shame in accepting the subway as a more effective albeit more expensive option over LRT hack plan which would only create greater unequal class divisions within Scarborough alone. That’s not what we want.
Build it right the first time or don’t build it at all.
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Joe M: I was being sarcastic as well. As you can read I also laid blame on past municipal council. But that should be no means be grounds to not move forward in a positive direction.
You need to look at the bigger picture today & get over the historical political decision of yesterday. Some where poor & other quite frankly need to be changed to evolve with today’s challenges.
We either need to close down services in other parts of Toronto or build a more equal City which doesn’t base recreation facilities & transit based on race & income. It’s time to move forward.
Look at the maps below & these are just a couple examples. Is the City you want or is it time to make some changes?
Income map
Ice rink map
Steve: I have no doubt that the distribution of facilities varies with race and income. This has been the conclusion of numerous reports on the subject. However, it is a practice that should not (and in some cases cannot) be fixed simply by rearranging existing facilities. You can’t move a pool or a rink from Leaside to Rexdale.
We have a council that is filled with members, many from the suburbs, for whom building new facilities (let alone funding their operation) runs counter to their tax-fighting program. They were elected locally, not by downtowners.
I think we agree on the broad outlines of the issue that transit needs to serve an entire area’s travel, and hope that the discussion can focus on that goal without the rhetorical overlay.
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@Joe I think that it might also make sense to look at other facilities. I have noted participation rates vary between sports based on national origin, or more likely sports mom & dad played. I would need to see facilities for outdoor & indoor soccer etc also laid out. I suspect that the region’s indoor soccer facilities would be in more recently built up areas. Again, need to look at local demand, because like it or not Toronto has areas of high concentration of varied national origin, and I suspect that interest in cricket will be high in areas on west Indian and Indian origin hockey in areas dominated by those of western Canadian origin, or northern Ontario or Quebec etc. Think we need to look at what makes most sense for the local community. Why force a hockey arena when an indoor soccer facility or cricket pitch makes more sense.
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Joe M:
OK Now we disagree big time:)
We are all Canadian & should have equal opportunity. It’s not the race that make people play a sport It’s past culture & new culture based on opportunity. Culture is always changing & we are only creating one of division.
The idea that Blacks can play basketball, Whites play hockey, East Asians play cricket,& so on are stereotypes based not only on past cultures but unequal opportunity we’re accepting these as the norm is narrow minded & unacceptable.
Based on this same logic where white and/or wealthier people live closer to quality transit must mean that less wealthy & darker skinned people must not like quality transit. Or maybe it’s culture & maybe the poor actually rely on public transit more.
On Sputtering Integartion in Toronto
U of T Urban Centre Visibile Minority Population Map
It’s also nice that the rich or middle class Forest Hill family can pay for their kids in indoor hockey. But we should not be publicly funding outdoor arenas only in these areas.
Europeans & British did not come from hockey families when they settled here. There culture changed & they became Canadians. Sure there are many other great sports that are beloved by many cultures & these facilities should be introduced & spread evenly over all areas again to change the culture.
Steve: OK. This conversation has gone way past a discussion of good transit planning. I am letting this comment through because it’s part of the conversation, but it ends here.
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Steve,
How much do these lines have to be built up? Suppose the city wanted to run a competing service to GO Transit of the heavy rail type. (Think Skokie Swift in Chicago.) I think [this] would serve Scarborough commuters headed to downtown better than the subway extension … Call it Scarborough Swift. Having to build new stations I can imagine being costly but it seems to me that 3 billion could buy or repair a lot of track and put up a lot of drywall. Especially if you build in an existing rail corridor to minimize acquisition and demo. The suggestion to run it though another company active in the rail business such as via was to expedite construction and approval.
Steve: There are various problems here not the least of which is that we don’t have $3 billion to spend as we please. Queen’s Park and Ottawa agreed to let Toronto spend their former LRT funding on a subway. Setting up a competing service to GO is quite another matter. Also, anything that will really compete with GO necessarily must reach into the 905 where Toronto has no authority to build anything.
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Steve what are the odds that anybody who actually wanted to (Metrolinx or TTC) could actually get a Transport Canada exclusion, or abandon either of the lines in question and actually get a corridor all the way to Union to run that much service? Would not RER soon require a train every 7-8 minutes in Lakeshore, and every 10 in Stouffville? Even with total freedom would 5-6 minutes not basically be as close as you could run on a TC regulated line, meaning on Lakeshore East you could not run anything extra, and likely even is Stouffville would this not represent a serious track competition issue?
Are there any other reasonable corridors that could be used that would serve Scarborough, that are not already converted to other use (ie be a nightmare to get back)?
Steve: First off “abandon” implies that someone other than GO already owns the lines. GO owns all of the former CNR trackage within the 416. The issue is that CN retains running rights for limited remaining freight services and for emergency diversions. These lines are not going to be “abandoned” as operating railway corridors. Even with temporal exclusion, the problem of diversions and the effect they would have on GO/RER service remains. For the Lake Shore corridors, don’t forget that they are multi track, although there are pinch points. I am looking forward to the pending reports on RER service designs because these will have to address the physical layout of the rail system, rather than simply being exercises in drawing pretty lines on maps.
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Canadian Pacific has (had?) Tracks running from the junction through midtown to Morningside Heights with back in the day passenger stations at Leaside and Agincourt. Although I believe go has (had?) plans to introduce their own service on there at some point.
Steve: CP has no plans for passenger service. There was a scheme to run service up the Don Branch (now owned by Metrolinx) and out the CPR to Peterborough following the route of a long-defunct VIA service. This idea had strong support from the Finance Minister (who is no longer with us) and the former Parliamentary Assistant to the Prime Minister (who had to quit for election spending irregularities). This is CPR’s main freight line and it serves their yard in Scarborough. If a way could be found to operate a service on this corridor it would be wonderful (it does show up regularly on maps until people start doing research), but the likelihood of getting access to the corridor is extremely small, unfortunately. The railways do need their tracks for railway operations, after all.
Ah. I wasn’t aware that QP/Fed had such a say in how the money would be spent. It seems were between a rock and a hard place then. Bit of a shame really, I still think that you could do a lot more with 3 billion than tack on a few stops to the subway, but then again I’m no engineer.
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To me this is where it will be interesting. It appears to me that there are a couple of narrow points where you can just barely get a 4th track in Lakeshore East – west of the Scarborough Junction. Asserting that a 4th track can be run, it still leaves the issue however of limited service, as this in effect would mean – in an ideal world – that you would have 1 track in each direction for Stouffville, and 1 in each direction for Lakeshore, and would be limited by only the block length for operations in both, and then the finite amount of space in the Union Station Rail Corridor and at Union Station. Having said that would that not still in effect leave you limited to about 1 train ever 5-6 minutes in each corridor, without TC exclusion? (yes this is a lot more than current in Stouffville) but if we run 4 trains stopping in 416 on Lakeshore East by adding 2 trains (the 4 that do not stop are already full no?) does that not mean there is only 2 more trains possible?. Would we not fill the 2 added trains nearly immediately if they were offered at a TTC fare?
Steve: The number of trains/hour that can operate on each corridor is a major problem if too much added demand is placed on them. I don’t believe that the GO lines should operate at a TTC fare, but it is quite ridiculous that there is no co-fare arrangement between the two networks. After all, it is further from some outer points in Toronto to downtown than from Port Credit station where a co-fare is available.
The GO fare to Union from Port Credit is $5.72 (trips 1-35), plus $0.75 for a MiWay co-fare giving a total of $6.47. From Mimico, it’s $5.04 for GO plus $2.80 for a token. Alternately a Metropass user taking, say, 60 trips/month would pay about $2.16 presuming they get the MDP discounted rate. And so a TTC+GO user pays more than a MiWay+GO users even at the border between the two municipalities. From other outlying stations in the 416, the cost is higher. Something definitely has to be done about this because it is blatant discrimination in GO’s fare structure against riders within Toronto that a co-fare is not provided, on top of the higher cost/km of travel for short trips.
Going to the other extreme with TTC level fares, effectively treating GO as part of the TTC single fare system would (a) require considerable subsidy and (b) overload some existing GO services. This is a real challenge for SmartTrack planning. Why, after all, should someone whose trip happens to be conveniently located to SmartTrack pay a lower fare than someone who lives, say, along the Lake Shore corridor? It’s one thing to distinguish between TTC and GO/ST services on the basis that the TTC is a local puddle jumper, while GO/ST will speed riders to their destination as a premium fare service. However, if they are running on the same tracks, the argument comes apart.
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The other issue of course, is that if SmartTrack really is to offer substantive relief to the subway network, it would need to be able to absorb at least a decade or so of growth on Yonge, plus the pent up demand, while allowing RER to absorb core bound load from the 905. This would mean adding something like 8k++/hr trips of Yonge diversion to the growth from 905 plus current 905 trips. If you add this to say an extra couple of trains in Lakeshore East and West and Kitchener, and Richmond Hill (etc), does this not saturate Union Station sooner (as in when these services are added) as opposed to later?
Steve: Yes, it does. That is the reason why both the Relief Line and the expanded Union Station capacity (by whatever means) are not projects for the distant future, but for today’s planning.
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Regardless of any reasonable (and remarkably expensive and expansive) capacity increase at Union, running to the limits of GO lines (ie tight as possible as mainline rail) does this not still leave Yonge south of Bloor still 8-12 K overcapacity by say 2035? Should we not simply call a spade a spade, and say RER is required regionally, which means more GO capacity, and there will not be room on these lines for inner 416 capacity on the eastern side of Toronto, and get on with the business at hand? Is not calling Smart Track relief for Yonge simply deluding ourselves?
Steve: Yes it is, but many, many politicians are doing everything they can to play to the poor downtrodden suburbs with lines that ostensibly serve their needs while ignoring downtown. Even worse, looking at the big pot of money a DRL represents, and saying “that would look so much better in my ward”.
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Well as long as they think they can extract a little more, this is how you play the game. Problem is sooner of later you actually kill the goose.
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Joe M:
Laying blame on local politicians who are fighting through political measures is what the Province & Fed’s want. The majority of blame should fit squarely on the Province & Fed’s for not providing sufficient funding.
To fight over whose ward is more important. When clearly there are important separate issues at hand, it is utterly nonsense that the Political gamesmanship just gets escalated.
– Fund a complete LRT/BRT network in the outskirts of Toronto. Preferably extend BD subway to STC. If not, at least build a full network to avoid the creation of divisive politics internal within the suburbs.
– Fund and move forward the DRL & fund & move forward with RER.
Your issue is not Suburban politicians as that’s more noise & diversion. The same with the suburbs our main issue is not downtown politicians. Although both side are annoying, unproductive, & unreasonable they are not the main problem here.
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The 25-year Metrolinx Electrification Reference Case is pretty much the gold standard for what is expected to happen within the next foreseeable future and is used as the basis for comparison for all additional works, such as SmartTrack or new stations. There is definitely space for 4 mainline tracks and electrification infrastructure all the way to Durham Junction. However, 5 mainline tracks is out of the question. For block length, planned signal spacing is 530m for crossover areas and 1600m between special trackworks. From Union, Don Yard is 2.7km (possible future satellite station), Danforth is 4.7km past that (8.4km total), and Scarborough is 5.2km (13.9km). Your existing/planned signal blocks are: Union to Don 3 signals, Don to Danforth 5 signals, Danforth to Scarborough 4 signals.
From the 2011 AECOM USRC Capacity Study, Union Station and the USRC can handle 52 trains per hour, but with only 15 per hour assigned to the eastbound trains (8 Lakeshore East, 3 Richmond Hill, 4 Stouffville). In order to expand beyond the 52 trains per hour, there are two options, converting Bathurst North Yard and/or Don Yard into satellite stations with high-speed walkway connections to Union, or a multi-billion dollar tunnel under the USRC. These would increase USRC capacity to 81 or 90 (31 and 36 eastbound) trains per hour, respectively. If you pre-empt a portion of the better service for Richmond Hill and Stouffville (10 minute headways instead of 5 minute headways), you have a total capacity for ‘local’ service around 12 trains per hour.
Frankly, IMHO, unless SmartTrack comes up with $3B to $5B in funding for more USRC capacity, it isn’t going to result in any more trains, just different names. Metrolinx has been constrained for years by Union Station and is looking at everything under the sun to allow capacity to meet demand for GO trains.
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This kind of thing could be done with local/express service and the speeds by virtue of different trainsets will likely be different. Say GO doesn’t stop at all the stops but S/T or TTC service makes the milk run (within metro only) with a discounted price.
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Would this not make spacing on tracks even harder, and/or require sidings for the non GO stations? Is there actually room in the corridors for that type of service without their conversion to rapid transit corridors? (Would this not require CNs highly unlikely consent?)
I suspect that fundamentally there is an issue in the end with 2 things – not enough space on the tracks themselves to run enough service, and 2 – not enough space in a terminal station to run it to. I am under the impression these are not inexpensively or simply solved issues – are they?.
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Yes I am under the impression that 2 basic things are required however,
1. Toronto has to get some skin in the game to make it easier for the senior levels of government (or harder for them not to participate).
2. Fixing transit requires a longer term plan and committed funding. If Toronto were willing to cough up say 700 million per year (scaled to inflation), and could get the 2 senior governments to make a like commitment, these issues could be addressed in a much more systematic way. These type of commitments on top of fleet renewal, and fixing infrastructure.
So you could fund in a single year the Scarborough LRT including an extension, the next the Sheppard LRT to Morningside and back to through to Eglinton, the year after the Finch LRT Spadina through the airport grounds, then Eglinton to the Airport, then hey we are looking a the DRL, which would require 3 years or so of funding, East Bayfront and Don Mills LRT to Sheppard a single year.
This type of involved approach might actually attract the funding, and have a meaningful impact very quickly. Can Toronto increase taxes by $200-300 per resident to support this?
I would put to you it is really this last bit that is the sticking point – Who wants to go back and say we need to raise taxes?. I suspect the senior governments would be hard pressed politically to not match funding.
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I had read the 52 trains per hour before, however, does this not also include the allowance required for Via etc?
Also even if we say 50 trains per hour it is hard to imagine (as I have noted before) these actually flowing through Union – not from a rail perspective, but from a pedestrian one. This is in essence a GO train every 72 seconds or about 1650 people per minute flowing through Union Station if these trains become full length GO trains. It would be important this is in addition from the outflow of passengers from Union Station subway. Making full use of this capacity will make the current PATH network close to Union extremely busy, even with additional connectivity at the west end of Union.
I have always notionally like the tunnel idea, however, I have a hard time imagining the notion of 80 trains entering the core on an hourly basis. I do not have a hard time imagining the demand getting there, just the implied flows from a couple of stations operating service on the order of 40-45 trains per hour each, and how that interacts with the balance of downtown services.
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Moaz: I expect that under those circumstances we may see “GO” retained in the express train services that do not stop inside Toronto, and some kind of branded RER service running inside Toronto and perhaps some of the inner suburbs. GO already has (for example) made every station east of Clarkson on the Lakeshore West line into a “local” station with no peak hour express service. Given the level of demand out in the suburbs I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Hence the question really becomes where the high frequency “local” services (10 minutes or better) end and 20 minute services begin.
Cheers, Moaz
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This has to be discussed in the context of Metrolinx and city plans (proposed/approved/under construction) for pedestrian expansion and improvements in and around Union Station which include:
In Station
* The York Concourse which is 3 times the size of the old Bay Concourse
* Access to the PATH via York St.
* The expanded and much improved Bay Concourse
* Movement of VIA trains to the south end of the trainshed (with proposed Platform 28/29)
* Removal of some tracks formerly occupied by VIA trains to allow widened platforms
Around the station
* A more pedestrian friendly Front St in front of Union Station
* Possible pedestrian scramble intersections at Bay/Wellington, Bay/Front and York/Front
* Future east end exits tied into the new Bay Concourse, Bay East Teamway and development over the railway corridor connecting 45 Bay (new bus terminal and development) and the current site of the bus terminal
* Reconstruction of buildings on Station Street (the entrance to the Skywalk) including condo/office construction
If these projects are built in a timely fashion, by the time GO RER is in place people will be leaving Union Station and the platforms in all directions, with the ability to exit the platforms to concourse level under the trainshed and above the tracks to the east of Bay Street and west of York Street.
Unknowns right now are the path of the DRL and whether there will be a tunnel under the rail corridor. It seems to me that if the VIA platforms are shifted south, then Metrolinx might use that opportunity to excavate the tunnel (perhaps an extension of the current fly under?) then replace the space above with wider platforms as planned.
The question would then be what service runs through the tunnel and what stays up at trainshed level.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: My money is on Wellington Street for the DRL. There is no room in the already crowded rail corridor, and Front Street is already occupied by the subway station.
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“Conversion” to rapid transit might not be such a big deal. Supposing we buy a trainset that is powered by a third rail (or diesel) and is standard gauge the only thing I can see hampering freight service is the sheer amount of traffic. My guess they will wind up buying mainline-ready EMUs for SmartTrack, or DMUs if the airport shuttle is any indication. If you start stringing catenary all over the place, then you begin to restrict operations and that I could see would get a CN/Metrolinx veto.
Spacing/Room on the corridor, yes is a problem and is probably only solved with triple or quadruple tracking. But I don’t see how GO, SmartTrack and CN’s occasional freights are going to share the Uxbridge sub otherwise.
Steve: The basic problem is that there is only so much room in the Uxbridge subdivision, especially at some pinch points further north than the section shared with the SRT. Even if there are three or four tracks on that line, the traffic from it still has to merge into the Lake Shore corridor.
When we talk about service designs for ST, it is important to remember that the authors of the original papers behind it had the delusional idea that they could run headways as low as 5 minutes. We are dealing with the fallout from a deeply flawed proposal that was sold on the basis of a service level it cannot deliver.
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What if you moved Via to north station altogether? With CP’s blessing of course. Oh wait, it’s a liquor store now. It’s a shame our national carrier is being edged out of Union, but Via customers might appreciate a station of their own (I would). It would also make room for more GO/ST trains from Scarborough and beyond.
Steve: Big problems — the tracks on the North Toronto subdivision do not easily connect to the CN corridors Via serves. Also, North Toronto is a line station, not a terminal, and has no facilities for trains with long boarding times. This has nothing to do with the liquor store. The only reason the station exists was as CP’s short-lived response to the problems of getting the “new” Union Station opened.
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@Moaz – with regards to the changes at and surrounding Union
Moaz, the concern I would have is based on 2 basic issues:
1. In less than ideal weather people will want to be underground.
2. The actual space away from Union will not be growing enough to absorb that type of foot traffic.
RBC Plaza will still be a constriction to northbound traffic, although a York Street exit will help. More capacity underground on the Bay street end is required. Are there plans to connect more around RBC at the North East corner.
Southbound, yes the current connection to the Skywalk is particularly awkward, but is the Skywalk itself capacious enough?
I am hoping that there will be more development in terms of connections across Lakeshore etc, that will link the South Core and north core at more points as volume to Union increases.
The more pertinent part for this thread however is the effective limit discussed above by Matthew Phillips, “of the 52 spaces only 15 assigned to eastbound trains (8 Lakeshore East, 3 Richmond Hill, 4 Stouffville)”.
That breakdown clearly is being changed if there are higher service levels in Richmond Hill – however, 8 in Lakeshore East and 4 in Stouffville represents a very tight limit if it is correct.
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I believe there is an issue in having rapid transit style operations on any line that is shared with mainline railway. I do not believe that the 2 are allowed to coexist without following Mainline railway rules, which requires substantial time separation between trains. If you have a set of local and express trains operating on the same tracks, it will be hard to maintain express speeds and separation from local trains, if the trains are frequent there will need to be a mechanism for the express trains to pass the locals, and that will mean holding the locals, and having sidings, or additional rails.
CN having retained operating rights, is unlikely to want to give those up, and would therefore possibly object to conversion to rapid transit operations. I do not believe it is just a question of how the trains are powered, but signaling and rules of the rail.
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No GO owns the tracks out to Durham Junction. In fact, GO owns everything they use except for Oakville to Hamilton Junction (Lakeshore West), Doncaster Junction to Richmond Hill, Kipling to Milton, and Malton to Georgetown (Kitchener). CN/CP retain freight rights, but GO takes priority.
As you say, the biggest problem is terminal station capacity, which is going to be a multi-billion dollar fix, either a tunnel from the Don to Fort York, or building a new station in one of the current yards.
2015 has 32 trains per peak hour at Union: 4 Barrie, 3 Kitchener, 4 Milton, 2 Stouffville, 2 Richmond Hill, 6 Lakeshore West, 6 Lakeshore East, and 5 VIA. The max 52 comes from 4 Barrie (+0), 6 Kitchener (+3), 5 Milton (+1), 4 Stouffville (+2), 3 Richmond Hill (+1), 11 Lakeshore West (+5), 8 Lakeshore East (+2), 7 VIA (+2), and 4 UPX (+4).
11 of the 52 trains are not ‘full length GO trains’, so the increase in pedestrian flow is around half as much again as what we currently see. In theory, there are other PATH connection improvements in the pipeline to handle everything.
For the tunnel idea, the notion would be to reconnect Lakeshore East and West with through running. However, all the piling for Union Station would prohibit cut-and-cover methods, so you’d be looking at a deep bored tunnel.
CN is fine with electrification, so long as it doesn’t restrict them, which it wouldn’t. Metrolinx is already planning on electrifying everything, but Richmond Hill and Stouffville are on the bottom half of the list. This could get bumped up, but the issue is USRC capacity, not the outlying subdivisions, unless you don’t run trains into the core and just provide “local” service.
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The problem in terms of rapid transit use, however, is that CN retains rights. That makes it impossible to convert to rapid transit.
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This is done in Montreal, with the trains to Blainville and St Jerome. Some only go as far as Du Parc Station, in part to avoid a big dogleg around the mountain to get downtown. In this case, Parc is adjacent to the subway and there is also an express bus run by the city that brings passengers downtown.
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