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 
P.S. the other issue is of course, that the 52 trains into Union does not include any ST trains.
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Ivanhoe bought the Union Station bus terminal last September and plan twin 48-floor towers on either side of the rail corridor on the east side of Bay St. Estimated construction of phase two, north of the rail corridor, is 2018 to 2021. Part of this will be new PATH connections in the area.
Yes, any EMU you get will be along the lines of the UPX vehicles. They basically have reduced safety requirements on the assumption that operation in a mixed-freight environment only occurs in “emergency” situations and would reduce speeds under such conditions.
The issue is rapid service and local service don’t mix well. I’ve looked at where Tory proposed his stations and the spacing is: 2.5km, 1.2km, 1.0km, 3.9km, 5.4km, and 2.0km between Union and Kennedy. The USRC Capacity study assumed with electrification a maximum acceleration/deceleration of 4 km/s².
Union to Unilver is restricted by track operational speeds. Unilever to Queen only allows for a peak speed of 48kph and a travel time of 24 seconds. Queen to Gerrard only allows for a peak speed of 42kph and a travel time of 21 seconds. Gerrard to Main/Danforth and Main/Danforth to St. Clair/Scarborough allow for peak operational speed of 88kph and a travel time of 44 seconds and 53 seconds, respectively. Finally, St. Clair/Scarborough to Kennedy allows for a peak speed of 62kph and a travel time of 31 seconds. Total travel time: 173 seconds + time in USRC
In comparison, between the four GO stations: it is 63 seconds + time in USRC, 54 seconds, and 31 seconds for a total of 148 seconds + time in USRC.
Furthermore, looking at the Stouffville corridor, the existing at-grade crossings at Kennedy and Milliken Stations will be closed and replaced with tunnels, but the speed restrictions are 64 kph between Scarborough Junction and Agincourt and 80 kph between Agincourt and Unionville. Heaviest car permitted gross weight is 268 kip.
Looking at GO’s current schedule in comparison to ST proposed times, Union to Unionville takes 41 minutes with 4 intermediate stops, or 35 minutes if the Danforth stop is bypassed. ST assumes 42 minutes with 13 stops. The stop to stop breakdown is: Union to Danforth 11 GO, 18 ST; Union to Scarborough 17 GO, 22 ST; Danforth to Furthermore, looking at the Stouffville corridor, the existing at-grade crossings at Kennedy and Miliken Stations will be closed and replaced with tunnels, but the speed restrictions are 64 kph between Scarborough Junction and Agincourt and 80 kph between Agincourt and Unionville. Heaviest car permitted gross weight is 268 kip. Scarborough 11 GO, 5 ST; Scarborough to Agincourt 6 GO, 14 ST; Agincourt to Milliken 6 GO, 6 ST; Milliken to Unionville 5 GO, 4 ST.
Steve: Many quite ridiculous claims have been made for SmartTrack both from the fact that it is cobbled together from at least two separate plans, one of which would not have had so many stations, and from the fact that the idea that ST and RER would be two separate services was not part of the original scheme. The claimed headways for ST simply cannot be achieved, especially if it will share tracks throughout its route with other services. This affects the potential demand and the so-called profitability of the whole idea. Snake oil by the gallon.
Unfortunately, with John Tory’s name on it and an election behind it, it has an undeserved level of credibility.
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For clarification with regards to Giancarlo’s point into converting to rapid transit operations.
The problem with CN retaining rights is that the signals must continue to accommodate long and slow freight trains.
From TRB pub 5-83:
Hence, we run quickly into the limitations in the USRC.
If you go and look within this publication, you can see the operations for rapid transit allow for 2 minute headways, however, this requires correct signalling, limited train length and fairly good acceleration.
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Touché!
I didn’t realize SmartTrack would be so frequent. I had imagined it as a bi-directional somewhat more frequent and cheaper GO transit. I stand corrected.
Mainline and subway do coexist happily in the Washington-Baltimore area. You can spy some of the improvements necessary for conversion in this photo.
Steve: That’s not unlike the situation where the SRT runs parallel to the Uxbridge sub, or the west end of the Bloor subway runs alongside (although a bit further away from) the CPR. The problem lies in sharing trackage, not to mention the complexity of junctions where tracks must cross. Try to imagine Scarborough Junction with a mixture of modes in both the Stouffville and Lake Shore corridors.
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The issue in my mind at least is not that GO or ST is going to be that frequent, but for ST to do what is suggested for it. It was suggested that it would run 4 times per hour- and for that to be meaningful, it would need to be 4 more times per hour added to current GO that is 6 trains total- or to known 2 track service 8 trains per hour on these tracks. Remember Tory suggested carrying 200,000 passengers per day- well that is just below the total current GO rail system. Easy as rapid transit, but well that is that not at least 100 additional full 12 car trains per day? To achieve the impact how many of these need to in the peak hours?
Steve: The high ridership numbers for ST come from a proposal that assumed headways of 5-6 minutes with very strong bidirectional demand.
I also try to imagine where there would be space for enough rails in Lakeshore East. There is room for 4, which might mean 2 for Lakeshore, 2 for Stouffville, however, that means a very real max of near 10 trains per hour all services on those tracks.
Also Steve, to achieve that sort of service density, will not something need to be done at this junction so that say the north 2 tracks sets are essentially Stouffville and the south Lakeshore if that density of service is being run so that trains do not need to cross? We also still need to make an allowance for a periodic Via train on Lakeshore East and freight on either.
Steve: Another issue would be what to do with station platforms if the ability to stop at shared platforms is retained. Ideally, you want express trains on the inner tracks and locals on the outer tracks, an arrangement that is impossible if each corridor has a dedicated pair. While we’re on the subject, don’t forget that all those ST trains will also travel up the Weston corridor and have to stop at many proposed stations that must somehow be fitted into that crowded corridor.
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The issue in my mind becomes where you only have a pair of tracks. If your express service is running on the same pair, it needs to be scheduled so that it does not catch the local train, or the time separation requirements get much harder no? I see how this works where you have local stations operated from a siding, or even sidings along the way. If an express train takes 7 or 8 fewer minutes to make the run, without a siding, does that greatly restrict the number of trains that can be run, without forcing the express train to run at effectively local train speeds? The question becomes is there space to make this work?
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P.S. Just to be clear, I am a huge supporter of the RER concept, but wonder if the idea of overlaying ST on it will just make it a lot harder to make the level of service required work. Better service to the existing GO stations, (ie 4 trains per hour or better inside 416) better TTC service to/from those station and a good joint pass at a reasonable rate.
Also to be clear the eastern and northern side of Toronto within 416 will likely need additional support on the order of 22k+ per hour with a decent portion of this from the inner portions of the 416. Markham in my mind will also need a connection on the order of 8k+ peak hour to the core. If you could divert lots of traffic towards the Stouffville connection, and increased the Lakeshore East service by adding 2 trains per hour, you are still left with a very large residual requirement.
Steve: This is the major challenge for SmartTrack. It has created an expectation that we can operate a very frequent service on some of the GO corridors, far beyond what even RER contemplates.
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You’re quote was actually me, not Malcolm. I’ll play devil’s advocate and let’s look at east side service that terminates at the Unilever Site or what I’ll call Don Station after the yard it would replace. This is one of GO’s options studied for passing the 52 train limit of Union and would provide capacity for an additional 28 trains on the USRC and eastbound trains would increase by 16.5 trains to 31.5 per peak-hour (15 trains per two hours for Stouffville). The issue then becomes that 9 of those 16.5 trains are Richmond Hill trains going into Union Station, really only new 7.5 trains per hour are serviced by Don Station.
If you are only looking at travel on the Uxbridge subdivision, let’s assume that GO abandons the route in favour of ST and either a transfer at Scarborough Station. Assuming that a similar agreement as the O-Train in Ottawa, where freight only operates during the overnight period, the line could be serviced by smaller, lighter trainsets. Under these conditions, you could have 5 minute headways with 30 vehicles (60 minutes one-way Scarborough to Lincolnville, 25 minutes to Unionville).
Steve: This arrangement brings in its own problems. First off, a shuttle on the Uxbridge Sub creates the need for a transfer movement at Scarborough Junction of the entire peak capacity of that line. It might make sense operationally in the off peak, but it’s peak capacity we are discussing here. That transfer, aside from being a pain in the butt for riders, would require station facilities (platforms, stairs, elevators etc) to handle traffic that would otherwise just sit on trains. Finally, of course, breaking the lines apart does not get rid of the riders west of Scarborough Junction, and service to carry them has to materialize somehow on the Lake Shore corridor. I think that this idea is a non-starter.
Using the Kingston Subdivion as a basis, Metrolinx has been re-building and re-signaling to 500m or 1km signal blocks, where the smaller number is for cross-over sections. At 90kph track design speed, that’s a lower limit of 3 minute headways. The restriction of CN trains to night movements makes everyone happier (except probably CN).
Steve: Yes, definitely CN. The issue is not one of moving the occasional freight switching operations to overnight, but what happens when CN loses another corridor and wants to reroute all of its trains via GO trackage?
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Actually GO (Metrolinx) owns the section between Malton and the junction with the Halton Sub at Bramalea which means that with appropriate barriers between tracks they could dedicate 2 or 3 to rapid transit style service while retaining 2 or 1 for VIA, freights and Kitchener GO service beyond Bramalea. This would require some sort of segregation and improvements at Union.
GO also owns the CP line up the Don Valley to Leaside but getting CP to allow any useful service on the Belleville Sub from Leaside east would be difficult as there is not a lot of room to add tracks.
I hope you meant 4 km/h/s. An acceleration of 4 km/s² is over 400 times the acceleration of gravity, 400 g. It would be like entering the Star Gate on SG 1. Though it would probably be required for the SmartTrack service to reach its peak speed of 160 km/h.
And the tunnel would be in reclaimed land below the water table of Lake Ontario, not impossible but technically very difficult and expensive.
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Malcolm:
Don’t you mean “TCRP REPORT 100: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual”, section 5 page 83. There is no TRB Pub 5-83 that I can find but the section quoted is found where I mentioned it.
I believe that it is important to give accurate citations so others can find them for themselves. There are lots of useful, and some not so useful, publications at the Transportation Research Board website from the Transportation Co-operative Research Project sub site.
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Robert Wightman said:
Now the idea of running in well north of Union – like running near the north edge of the core. Somehow this makes more sense to me, assuming that growth eventually resumes going north not just to the south core. Spread the access points, and the flow of people. Unfortunately chances are all service for some lines will find itself here, so that it will not match the points of origin and destination as well as it might that way, but think such a line anywhere Queen or south would be more practical than tunneling in the muck.
I really think we would be better served building a DRL to Eglinton, RER on the Stouffville and Richmond Hill line at 15 minutes for now, and look at more service for transit inside Scarborough.
Trying to contort all this service to create a single line solution on GO is nuts. I think we are going to pull forward billions of spending to get GO lines to serve a demand where that capacity will soon be required for the outer 416 and 905 demand for riders who are core bound. This simply to avoid spending the money on a D.R.L. and leaving the GO lines to serve the demand it is better designed to serve.
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Yes, I do mean , I was making reference to the link which is TRB publication “TCRP Report 100 Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual—2nd Edition” section 5 page 83.
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Weston is a different kettle of fish. Ignoring the USRC under the assumption that GO converts Bathurst North Yard into a satellite station, you have 8 tracks between Strachan and Dundas and down to 4 tracks between St. Clair and Highway 427. The Liberty Village Station is a complete pipe dream. Dundas West could possibly have one track access if a station were built on the wedge between Weston and Newmarket subdivisions, but personally I’d just move this to Bloor. Mount Dennis Station would be at the Eglinton LRT interchange. So basically, ST here is just the existing GO stops.
Steve: But presenting an interesting fare collection challenge if trains with different fares stop on the same platform. This will be a general problem for any shared ST/GO stations. Doable, obviously, but not with the current rather simplistic GO/Presto implementation.
If you want to be exact, GO owns 2.1 miles beyond Malton and 0.5 miles before Bramalea. Likewise, CN still owns the 0.6 miles of corridor between Georgetown and Silver Junction. From the electrification study, GO plans on having 3 mainline tracks and one freight track between Highway 427 (Mile 13.50) and Halwest. Likewise, the Halton subdivision will have 3 tracks between Halwest and Silver Junctions.
Yes, this is correct, but I would add that due to the track geometry it’s limited to 24 kph.
Yes, the USRC capsity study just says “km/s”, and I just tacked on the missing time unit.
On a related note, I’ve put together a graphic of the Kingston subdivision out to Durham Junction. All switches are number 20 turnouts, which have an max speed of 72.4 kph.
Lakeshore East – Union to Rouge Hill
Lakeshore East – Union to Danforth
Lakeshore East – Danforth to Guildwood
Lakeshore East – Guildwood to Rouge Hill
If the DRL alignment is along Wellington, there isn’t much space for GO to move northward. I would suggest that extra peak-hour service would be best served by building the DRL and terminating the majority of Lakeshore East/Stouffville trains at Gerrard and Carlaw (northeast corner), where it could connect to the DRL. This would fulfill GO’s capacity issues to get to RER levels of service and possibly allow for some level of ST service.
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Further to my comment about “Don’t you mean “TCRP REPORT 100: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual”, section 5 page 83. There is no TRB Pub 5-83 that I can find but the section quoted is found where I mentioned it.”
The page reference is only good for the second edition. In the third edition it is in chapter 8 page 70. You will need to download each chapter separately. Be sure to also down load the power point presentations, they give a good quick overview, and the excel spread sheets so you can do your own calculations.
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Apologies!
I can see that it doesn’t free up much space. However a better analogy to the situation in Montreal would be having most rush hour Georgetown trains end service at Bloor. From Dundas West station to get downtown you’d have the choice of subway or streetcar. You might even get a seat on the 504.
But I digress!
Steve: I love the idea that, after a pitched battle over a relatively convenient connection between an LRT and subway at Kennedy Station, we are talking about terminating GO trains remote from the core and pitchforking all of that demand onto other routes. All because we can’t figure out how to get all of the trains into Union.
Did I hear the phrase “regional relief” floating around somewhere?
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The Patco Speedline (essentially a subway) and New Jersey transit’s Atlantic city line (a commuter train service) share a corridor for a small portion of their routes east of Philadelphia. One station common to both is Lindenwold. A Google satellite image shows the track layout. You can see in street view that the subway tracks are elevated relative to the commuter train tracks but do not bridge them. Most of the station building is contained under the subway tracks. With two platforms and three tracks, the station’s footprint is about the same as any stop [on] lakeshore west. Adding an additional outer track to the station would isolate it from the parking lot but shouldn’t take up that much room. It would probably make it the size of Mimico station.
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You might have. We’re through the looking glass now.
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My concern here, would be that you could then have fairly loaded GO train terminating at a subway stop, where the subway is already decently loaded. From what I recall of the ridership projections for a DRL subway Don Mills & Eglinton was on the order of 17,500 peak point/direction. If you assert a capacity similar to what is currently on Yonge you have available peak capacity core bound of approximately 10k. If you were to presume a reasonable improvement in turning capacity above Yonge and better signaling you could make the assertion of an overall capacity of say 36k, (using current Yonge trains and a headway of about 110 seconds). That means available capacity of about 18k.
However you still have trains arriving with loads of 1900 or so passengers loading onto subway trains about 1/2 full (say room for 540 passengers remaining). It would require 4 subway trains to move passengers from every GO train from this terminus to the core – unless a very substantial portion of these people worked very close to the terminus station. This is a service design which I have to admit I find troubling. If you assert only 14 full length GO trains per hour at this station I believe you have a substantial subway capacity issue (say 8 Lakeshore 6 Stouffville).
If we assume that we are going to need substantially more service for the east side, say 8-10 trains each eventually and a DRL on Wellington (which makes sense), one option might be to consider tunnel for tunnel for GO/RER/ST tracks at starting at a point where the DRL was south of the rail corridor. There have been a couple of papers that in effect suggest a tunnel well north of Union.
Vaguely like suggested in the map page 8 of the paper “Addressing the Risks and Opportunities at Union Station -The Transportation Heartbeat of Toronto” by Jack Thompson, Leah Russell, David Sajecki and Karen Woo, or in the Metrolinx “Union Station 2031 and Related Planning Studies Presentation to Board” November 23, 2011, where there is a look at a Queen Street GO tunnel option as option 5. If there were planned for a DRL to pass under an at surface rail alignment, and then the GO rail would enter a tunnel further west.
Steve: It is important to note that all of the GO tunnel options, regardless of where they might be located, run into severe problems in the location of portals and crossing of certain barriers, notably the Don River. Because of the depth to which the tunnel under Union must drop, for example, the portals would have to be located roughly at Bathurst to the west and the Don to the east. If the tunnel were to be shared with the DRL, either it would be too wide to fit between the foundations of buildings along, say, Queen Street, or it would have to be even deeper presenting more problems for portal locations.
To my mind the focus on ST is bringing forward a capacity issue at Union that should really be pushed back. Build the DRL to leave open the options of a north or south tunnel for the GO.
Incrementally increase capacity on Lakeshore East (to 8 trains), and increase to 4 trains per hour in each of Stouffville and Richmond Hill subs. We just need to ensure a DRL alignment makes allowance for future rail tunnels, north or south. The DRL would allow the BDL to increases its ridership, as will the new trains when they are transferred, and replacement signals etc. Eventually additional turn capacity may be required on the BDL, (which any extension will provide) but ST seems an expensive answer, especially if it does not avoid the need for a DRL (which in my mind it does not). If it is in addition to a Scarborough Subway Extension, I really struggle with its importance, and cost. The billions spent to make it work would be better spent improving a wider transit network.
Steve: This is the fundamental problem of SmartTrack: it has seriously screwed up other transit plans by assumptions about how easily it can be fitted in to the available network space, the capacity and speed it can provide, and the premise that it replaces all other plans for downtown capacity.
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The 0.5 miles south from Bramalea probably allows CN to keep the wye there if they ever needed to use it. I doubt that GO would have any problem buying access to the south platform track at Bramalea if they wanted it. I would want to know how they are going to get three tracks between Kennedy Road and and the CP diamond on the line to Orangeville. They would have to take out an office building at the NW corner of Main and Nelson street and also Railroad Street to get a third track past Brampton Station and rebuild the south platform. That should have been done before they built the south platform at the station. The impact on downtown Brampton during construction of that third track would be devastating.
I was using Georgetown instead of Silver Jct. because more people know of it but technically it is Silver Jct.
I think that the speed limit was higher than that before the track fell into disuse except perhaps at the curve into the USCR. The other problem I believe is that the long railway bridge needs to be replaced
I believe that on the Halton subdivision there are two 15 mph (24 km/h) switches. Silver Junction and the one near Aldershot Yard where the VIA train derailed. Hopefully the switch at Silver will be converted into a number 20 turnout if it hasn’t been already to allow trains to accelerate out of Georgetown station though I doubt if they would get to 45 mph (72.4 km/h) unless they were high powered EMUs. I doubt that they would ever get a higher speed switch because it would need to have a moving frog as the crossing angle for number 22 or higher switches is too slight and would prevent a derailment risk.
While I am in favour of using the metric, Systeme International, units, the railways still use the imperial system so in order not to confuse the issue with speed limit signs on the railways and Transport Canada regulations, I will still use Imperial units when discussing them. There is no such unit as kph; it is km/h. I taught Physics for 35 years and cannot stand these bastardized American versions of metric units. It is a highly personal bias that I cannot overcome. I am sorry if my idiosyncrasies offend anyone. Perhaps I should use the term Idiot-synchrasies to describe this fetish of mine.
If they are complaining about the “unnecessary and inconvenient transfer” at Kennedy from the RT to the subway and at Don Mills from the buses to the stub-way to the Yonge subway I can’t wait to hear what they would say about this connection.
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This would be one of the reasons I would suggest that the DRL pass under it, and then it go into a tunnel. I cannot see how sharing a tunnel would work, or really save costs.
Nor do I believe that this sort of heroics should be approached yet. I do think something in the UPX corridor could be very useful, however, it should be looked at in its own light, and the core end will need to be examined very carefully.
The urgent issues in my mind for the city are a DRL and Transit City services. The region requires more rapid transit generally and RER.
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I love some of these ideas (not). Building a large capacity rail link into the CBD of a major city for the purposes of getting people to the CBD and stopping it 1 stop short of the actual CBD. Seriously where do you people come up with these harebrained ideas?
Then again Toronto did build its lone east-west subway line into the core without putting it through the actual core. That seems to have worked out well (not).
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It’s not ideal and certainly surface and subway routes into the core may not be able to handle the increased ridership (depending on how big these trains are). I don’t have the specifics, however I feel like the mix of transit projects that are currently on the table will force us into the position where we won’t be able to afford the upgrades necessary at Union to accommodate certain other ‘hairbrained’ schemes plus growing demand from existing lines. I gather as much by how much I see the word billions on this blog and in the news. So you may see measures such as some stopping trains outside the overloaded ‘core’ as the current governmental interest in transit lapses and we weather another cycle of transit divestment before investment perks up. Or perhaps you would prefer an accident, or a half dug tunnel under the ‘CBD’. That would be good (not). There will be some tough choices to be made soon. Tough because everyone is upset about their commute and someone is sure to feel slighted. We don’t have a blank cheque as has been stated previously. Might as well find a way to soften the blow for those commuters left out (or worse hampered) of the improvements. I don’t know if well ever be able to pull together on these improvements but we should at least try.
Steve: FYI “Harebrained” is the more common usage, although “hairbrained” is also valid but a later variant according to the OED. As in having no more brains than a hare.
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I often think of the way the rail link between Kuala Lumpur Sentral Station and Kuala Lumpur International Airport was run. There were 2 services, Express (8 trains) and Transit (4 trains). Transit made 3 intermediate stops and ran every 30 minutes. Express made no stops and ran every 15 mind (peak)/20 mins (off peak). Each intermediate stop had 2 platforms with the mainline in the middle and sidings on the outside. Express trains could use the mainline or the siding to run through the intermediate stations, depending on where the Transit train was.
Cheers, Moaz
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One needs to study multiple options during an EA. If you don’t include harebrained ideas with the only obvious solution, you might come up with something that someone will suggest we actually do, during the study process.
The Bathurst North station idea is brilliant! It would never happen, as it would flunk so many tests so clearly, so it’s safe to include as an option, as it only makes it clear and easy to spend the $billions to build a new underground station downtown.
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The fly under south of the Bathurst Yard starts just east of Bathurst and it often leaves me wondering if an extension under Unoon Station and east to the Don River or Don Yard is a possibility.
If Metrolinx does have a serious interest in using the Bathurst Yard perhaps the solution will end up being 2 tunnels…one under the USRC for the Lakeshore Line and one that runs from Bathurst Yard to the Don Yard (via Front & Wellington) for the “Big U” aka (Smart Track).
The DRL (planning for which we will find out more next week) could then be run further north to take pressure of both King and Queen Streets and build that east-west connection that Toronto city planning thinks is best (as compared to the Metrolinx idea of a DRL running to Bathurst North Yard).
A few billion here and a few billion there but instead of thinking about the cost alone, think of four times that in direct economic return.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: Don’t forget that the Bathurst flyunder only has to duck one level down underneath a track at surface level. Getting under Union Station is much more complex going down below the foundations of the station. The length of the portals is not just me making stuff up, but the info in the Metrolinx study of this option.
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With respect to plans to build (a) satellite station(s) at Bathurst and/or Cherry St. this would add another transfer or long walk to those who wanted to go to a lot of the current north financial district. I doubt that all those who walk from Union Station would be thrilled with the prospect of paying an extra TTC fare to ride the DRL subway two stops nor would the TTC be thrilled with the idea of carrying them for free. With the use of Presto and the requirement to tap on AND off there could be a reduced fare for those who only went as far as Union. People would soon learn to tap off after they got nailed for a lot of full fare rides when they forgot.
I cannot see a line being build under Queen Street then curving down to meet a Bathurst GO station. IIRC there are a lot of deep tunnels under Queen for Path, Parking and a couple of subway lines. Digging out the stations would also cause major problems. Plus curving down to the rail corridor would run into a few basements.
As you have said Steve, Wellington is probably the only option that might work to connect with Bathurst GO but they had better put some restrictions on what can go up where they want the subway to go before they lose that option. I see all these lovely lines drawn by supposedly informed planners and wonder if they have checked to see what is under the streets where they plan to put the lines.
Steve: Yes, the potential right-of-way to get diagonally from Wellington to Front appears about to vanish under a new condo development on the NE corner of Spadina and Front. The fact that this route has not been protected speaks to the degree of disinterest in the DRL connection to a Bathurst North Station even though it is a Metrolinx proposal.
I want to see the size of tunnels and stations for option 5A-2 in “Addressing the Risks and Opportunities at Union Station – The Transportation Heartbeat of Toronto”. Would they run 85 foot or 75 foot cars and would they run off 25 kV ac overhead because that would require rather large diameter tunnels and large curve radii. The junction near the Don would be interesting to build if the keep it grade separated.
It seems as if the planners are just as guilty of drawing pretty lines on maps was we, the uninformed general public, are. Perhaps they need “Hares” to dig exploratory tunnels for them; that is if hares can tunnel. It would then be a truly “Harebrained” scheme.
Steve: A big problem is that many of the “planners” work for politicians who, like the Mayor, don’t want to be burdened with details and who paint those who say “but you can’t build that” as naysayers who just can’t get with the program.
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Metrolinx is currently studying the ideas because there is the choice between providing no additional service or providing “close as possible” service. A station at Bathurst North Yard is only 750m from Union and Don Yard is 1.5km, but both are technically in the CBD. As for other ideas about stopping shy of the area, it’s a question of the cost-to-benefit ratio. If you are going to spend $3B+ on a new tunnel, you’d better consider all the options of where it could be better spent. Do you have any better suggestions?
Metrolinx was investigating tunnels and satellite stations for their own growth without adding ST into the mix.
Steve: An important point about a Bathurst north station (which would really be for practical purposes at Spadina) is that the commercial centre of downtown is mainly to the west, not to the east, and so much more is close to a “Bathurst” rail station than to one at the Don.
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That is really the point with all this. ST in effect assumes that they will either completely take over 2 tracks from Stouffville to Eglinton in the west, and somehow be able to run the service freely (as though GO does not exist in the corridor) or as if there are not huge issues crushing more trains into Union.
Drop kick ST out of the picture, and actually build services required anyway to support future options. The medium term need to support 46 trains at Union for GO (regional use) is fairly clear, and even this creates issues with space for VIA. I can see a tunnel with station for smaller trains by passing Union, or even in a tunnel under Lakeshore, although that to me creates a lot of other issues. A Bathurst station east of Bathurst has the advantage as Steve has noted that it is closer to the core, and also if an Eglinton-through-core subway was built it could be at a point where a subway core bound would arrive nearly empty, easing operational issues (GO trains would fill 2 subway trains which given how long a GO trains takes to empty works anyway). A link to this station could reasonably support 15 trains per hour, assuming that virtually all riders boarded a subway (given proximity likely only 1/2 or fewer would).
The bottom line is Toronto, has to now plan to be a region of 9 million and a city proper of 4+. That means another subway that actually comes into the core. That route needs to be established now, while it still can be. It also means much more in the way of widely dispersed medium capacity transit now (LRT). It also means preserving rail corridors for regional use.
My problem with ST is it politically undermines a DRL, and further delays study, on a project that will be hard to deliver soon enough anyway. It also complicates the idea of GO-TTC integration for RER and how LRT projects could be made to increase the importance of GO for better bi-directional use. Growth regionally is going to very hard to accommodate on the rails as it is without making it harder (and it is a non starter on the roads).
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I’m not a fan of the “Bathurst North” idea but a station near Spadina would be literally minutes away from the heart of the commercial district. There are plans for several more office towers around Spadina. Cherry Street? Don’t make me laugh.
You may even be able to dig a short tunnel to join the hypothetical station to the new Well development and the Clarence Square development to Metro Hall or a future redevelopment of Oxford’s 315/325 Front complex, providing a fully protected PATH corridor to the other nearby areas of the CBD.
That’s certainly more realistic than your high speed transporters from Cherry Street to Yonge Street.
Steve: In honour of a recent passing, we will imagine transporter sound effects here.
I’m sure the Ontario Government has a development proposal and a willing private sector “partner” who could spend billions on this, whether it actually worked or not.
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I think ST pushes two very important ideas, GO-TTC fare integration and the disproportionate cost of GO/TTC fares with Toronto. My best case “political win” scenario is a premium TTC-fare, local, off-peak service run by GO with a couple of peak-hour trains. It doesn’t actually help the rush hour, but it does make better use of spare capacity at other times of the day.
I’ll assume then you aren’t familiar with the USRC then. “Bathurst North” is the name of the layover yard between Bathurst St. and Blue Jays Way. This is where trains are stored between the morning and afternoon rush hours for trains heading west. At the other end of the corridor is the Don yard, which serves the same purpose for eastbound trains and the westbound overflow. The premise behind the suggestion of building stations at these locations is that they are owned by Metrolinx, they are redundant with two-way service, and they are the closest available chucks of land.
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I certainly agree with the idea that there is a very real need for better fare integration. There is also a need to serve the outer 416 stations much better. I would really like to see 4 trains per hour stop at each of the inside 416 GO stations. However, I think the idea of adding a large number of stations undermines the goal of providing more express service.
I have no issue with the Bathurst remote station if it is really required, except in that it leaves riders with a moderate (but not unreasonable walk) to their previous starting point. I am more concerned that this options leaves a lot of traffic still in the USRC. The east side option however, is too far away from the core. I just really believe that all the planning around Union needs to take a very long view, and needs to be done with the route of a new subway known, and underway.
The other thing that needs to be looked at to make the options more workable, is another route to support CN emergency traffic, so that there is a some opportunity to actually run the type of headways you had mentioned for Kingston sub with equipment that could actually support a rate of boarding and alighting that made this work.
The CrossRail proposal works both because they are using substantial 200 meter trains, and short headways, along with stations that can actually manage the headways on their platforms.
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This name will cause a lot of confusion since it south of Bathurst Subway Station. What will Metrolinx/TTC call the LRT Station at Bathurst and Eglinton. Will it follow the TTC tradition which might have it called Bathurst North or will Metrolinx just call it Bathurst?
What ever name is used for the proposed GO/RER station, it should be the same as the DRL station if and when either or both are built. Imagine the confusion if the TTC called the southern most station on the original subway “Front” instead of Union. O. K. there probably would not have been that much confusion but the way it is, is better.
Steve: In the best tradition of naming stations after historical sites that are vaguely nearby, we could call it “Fort York”.
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Apparently there is now an 11th alignment for Scarborough.
As expected Royson James is shilling for this latest idea while lamenting how we never get anything done because there are too many ideas and too many “experts” these days.
Here is the proposed alignment (the red line).
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: I cannot begin to enumerate the problems with that “11th route”. One more contribution to the “map + crayon” planning school.
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Re: Metro News: Scarborough Subway Advocates Are Like Anti-Vaxxers
Not going to get much support from the “downtown” crowd here & don’t get me wrong the political narratives on both sides of the debate are ridiculous But atleast you don’t have to wake up to the propaganda machine every week. Scarborough needs support to grow. This nonsense does nothing good
These outlets only discuss the narratives on the political “other side” of the debate & people buy this crap. If the downtown left wing media machine spent less time trying to divide & more time fighting for funds to grow together we would have a better City.
Every week same crap. We get tired of the constant Scarborough beat down but the left wing media who believe downtown Transit infrastructure grew from Mother Earth. Look a map & tell me how fair you think the City is in terms of service and equality. What a joke.
Steve: I will agree that the debate is not helped by the Scarborough Subway “bad”, Downtown Relief Line “good” presentation. The situation is more complicated, but it is not helped by articles that put down one side by analogy to a group whose position is indefensible.
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Is this not just a ridiculously expensive thing to contemplate? These tunnels will require very expensive special cabling and shielding in order to ensure we do not have inductive losses etc.
Yes the land is publicly owned, but would it not make just as much sense given likely loads and the need to provide a highly dispersed initial service to just build a BRT and fix the transfer situation. Build an end of line yard to massively expand the turn capacity, provide a really nice line haul opportunity and give a direct path for the buses to the subway, but give me a break. Build whatever to the load, serve what is there, and the most logical existing points of development.
If we are going to take over the Gatineau Power corridor for this heavy type of service, it should be as part of a substantial plan that serves the region as a whole, and provides a far reaching solution for the entire eastern end of the region. I can see running a BRT or LRT in the corridor eventually, however, not one that only runs to a subway line that is already very long and heavily loaded that primarily transfers to another that is already badly overloaded. I can see doing this for a line that ran to a subway with its own direct path into the core, or a line that ran itself directly into the core (or both eventually).
This could be a way around Lakeshore East and the Scarborough Junction, as well as the Yonge subway for much of the current commuter traffic as part of an extremely long term plan for transit for the eastern half of the region, but this would need to be part of a massive extremely carefully considered plan to make it make sense. However, in my mind this is not something that we should be contemplating now.
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P.S. My previous rant is not a question of pro or anti Scarborough subway, but rather expending the Gatineau for it.
Steve: Which is fine, except that I think your chance of getting the Gatineau corridor for transit is very, very small. For BRT maybe, but for a subway, no.
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If we have to build the Scarborough extension to BD then I like the last line. We could use open cut to save money until it gets to Brimley. I like the fact that the line goes up the east side of Brimley but this could be because the Crayola crayons were to thick too put the line on Brimley. We could expropriate and tear down all the houses from Lawrence until the line curves off to Scarborough Centre. This could be in open cut also.
It was good enough for Toronto in the 50s so it should be good enough for Scarborough. Think of the money it would save and then the open cut along Brimley could be built over for high density development that would magically pay for the construction. All in all it is a win win plan. Who could possible complain?
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The very first time I used the TTC, I’d come on the Greyhound bus to get a visa at the Indian embassy. On my way back I wanted to go to Dundas Station, but I ended up going to Dundas West Station, so I know how confusing directional names can be. I would argue Exhibition Station is easier to get than Fort York, but it is a possible name. Others that come to mind would be Blue Jays Station (especially if Rogers kicks in a corporate payment), Entertainment Station, Commons Station (after the original label in the Town of York), or Trinity Station (after the Ward).
Steve: My reference to Fort York was a joke, an analogy to what used to be called “Steeles West” station, but is now “Pioneer Village” (shortened from “Black Creek Pioneer Village”) despite the fact the village is a few km west of the station.
Fair has nothing to do with transit planning. It’s mostly a mix of historical fixtures and poltical compromises. The SRT was a pilot project that killed a technology. Network 2011 planned a Sheppard Phase 2 extension to Dufferin, but Phase 1 was a bad enough idea and Harris killed the overall plan. Then we had TransitCity, which had two BRT, 3 LRT, and an SRT/LRT conversion. Also we had MoveOntario2020, which became The Big Move. Scarborough wasn’t getting everything proposed at first, but it was getting a proportional amount to fix a historical lack.
Instead, we threw the plans out the window and Rob Ford said only a subway was fair. So now, we have a subway shoehorned into an LRT budget with the spillover swept under the carpet (for example Metrolinx would have paid operating costs for LRT, but TTC will pay $30M a year on a subway). Scarborough councillors complain about raising taxes more than the City average, but then also complain about not getting the best service possible.
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I would hope that if you actually managed to get Hydro to put the power in tunnels etc – you might perhaps stand a chance perhaps of getting an LRT in it. However, how you would convince Hydro to put that much power in tunnels is beyond me. If you did get it, please we would need to make sure we treated it like the gold it is.
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… once these “downtowners” get their DRL funding and quit trying jeopardize Scarborough’s future for their own gain …
Steve: Once you stop littering your remarks with this sort of statement, I will start publishing them again.
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