So much has been going on with the gradual disintegration of the SmartTrack plan and its replacement, at least in part, with elements from the Transit City network that it has been hard to keep up. I will write about this in more detail as reports and other information become available.
Meanwhile, there has been an interest on Twitter in the original EA documents for Scarborough-Malvern which vanished from view years ago in the anti-Transit City years.
I have created a repository for these files on my site.
Happy reading!
Steve Munro 
SmartTrack was too close to the Scarborough Subway extension. If Scarborough was downtown Toronto, maybe, but it isn’t. So 2 of the 3 stations on the Scarborough extension would be funneled into SmartTrack. If they accept TTC fares on SmartTrack.
With the savings, the Malvern LRT lives again, with 17 stops/stations. Maybe as a Crosstown LRT extension, short-turn, or on it’s own. Better than before.
Steve: The big problem remains whether ST can actually be operated on the headways needed to carry its projected demand and be regarded as a reasonable RT replacement.
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That’s great news!
Extend the subway to STC, build the SMLRT, hopefully figure out how to integrate Sheppard & Scarborough is officially part of Toronto.
Tory has a long way to go. But seems to be slithering through the polarizing chaos from both sides & the polarizing Politicians like Josh Matlow’s and Glenn D’s at City Hall.
I will continue to watch this unfold with cautious optimism. The Province is famous for cutting back funding & the City is never safe from extreme Political agendas.
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Pearson to UTSC would be a long route to run from 1 carhouse. Conlins may live again too.
Steve: But as plans now stand, nothing goes north of Highway 401. The UTSC line ends at the campus, there is no Scarborough LRT past Centennial College east and north to Malvern, and the status of Sheppard is uncertain.
It is also quite clear that between the route’s length and varying demands along it, there will not be one through train from one end to the other. Transfers will be required, likely at Kennedy. The world may end.
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Your loyal readership eagerly awaits your commentary! Whenever it’s ready, it won’t be a minute too soon. We’re counting on you! (And thanks for your tremendous services to this city.)
Steve: I have already written about the western leg for Torontoist, and will turn my attention to the east leg after the report comes out on January 21, also on that website. At some point after the dust settles (there is also a TTC board meeting to cover), I will look at pulling together thoughts on SmartTrack as a whole here.
And thanks to you and my loyal readership.
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The “Notice to Proceed” was issued by the Minister of the Environment in December 2009, just over 6 years ago. Is there an expiry date on this notice? Would there have to be a cursory review because of changes that may have occurred in the interim? (An example from the west end would be not allowing for the sale on lands along the Eglinton Avenue corridor in Etobicoke.)
Steve: There will likely have to be an amendment to cover some changes on Eglinton that have been proposed to intersection treatments, but this is not as bad as a full-on start from scratch report. As for the “Scarborough-Malvern” line which, to be clear, does not actually go to Malvern, there is a ten-year stale-date on approvals, and so we have a few years (not to mention a few elections) to go. See Ontario Regulation 231/08 at section 16.
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There definitely needs to be a station at Lawrence to serve Scarborough General hospital and the Lawrence 54 bus.
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From your lips to God’s ears!
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So we’re now paying a 150% markup over the LRT replacement of the SRT for something that provides less service to Scarborough. At least Ontario got a net gain in hydro production out of the gas plant scandal.
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Political double talk that not spending as much on an unnecessary subway extension “frees up” money to build a Transit City line. I wonder how much more of Transit City could be realized by freeing up all the money. Enough for the Waterfront East LRT? Or more?
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Smart Track vs. Scarborough Subway Extension — They have it backwards. There should be more stations on the subway line and fewer on the Smart Track line. Smart Track at with 15 minute wait times would have passengers falling off the platforms with the crush of rush hour ridership.
Steve: SmartTrack only works in a larger sense, as the demand studies showed, with short headways that may not be feasible. So far, nobody is talking abut a “Plan B” if that doesn’t work out.
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This is pure speculation of course, but I wonder if terminating the SSE at STC and funding SM LRT means that the City is giving up on linking with Sheppard LRT, or even counting on provincial money currently earmarked for the Sheppard LRT to help fund SM LRT. So much seems in flux it’s hard to know where this all will land.
Not getting up to Sheppard has me worried about whether the whole house of cards will collapse. Although if we somehow end up with Transit City again, that would be deliciously ironic.
Also, I agree with Matt re: having a station to serve the hospital. At the very least build the box during the extension FFS, even if the station has to wait.
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So as I see it, there are an east and west lrt extension to Eglinton that will go ahead in short order (EAs and what not being in place) – the SmartTrack gets rolled into Go Transit, the Scarborough subway can still be “happening” but timelines, cost and practicality of it are all still TBD (but none of the councillors can complain that it’s not going to happen, and it’s hard to argue with an additional LRT in scarborough) … if we can get the shovels in the ground for Eglinton E+W by the end of Tory’s first term – and target to open around the same time as the crosstown (maybe by the same contractor) – then that can’t be reverted, and sometime early during Tories next term we “realize” a one stop subway in Scarborough is pointless and revert to the still fully funded and signed off Scarborough LRT…
Finch gets built, Shepherd doesn’t…
Basically it sounds like transit city + go train improvements…
But the big risk of taking this or anything similar to city council is that we re-open it all and will end up with a monorail on Eglinton to the airport, swan boats to Malvern, an elevated highway on Shepherd and an express Scarborough subway to downtown and the airport (with no funding for any of it).
Steve: I was intrigued by the long construction time mentioned for the Scarborough subway in some newspaper coverage. This begs the question of the interim status of the SRT, although it does resolve some of the fleet planning issues I mentioned in a recent article about the timing of an ATC conversion of the BD line.
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Off topic here but has anyone considered the enormous travel times if there is no stops between Kennedy and STC on the new subway extension? It’s going to be a 10-15 minute travel time at least between stops. I know by car between the two it’s 15 minutes give or take and they go slightly faster than a subway.
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Eagerly waiting for Steve’s overall thoughts on the current smorgasbord of east end transit. As I read it, the new prix fixe menu includes a one stop Subway sandwich for twice the price of a 7 stop ‘BLT’ with the Crosstown east extension on the desert table. It all starts to taste like chicken.
**Hey, and does the Crosslinx consortium’s Kennedy Hub design actually allow the LRT to run through to the east, or is this likely to be a massive contract change order cost?
Steve: I have been offline and/or preoccupied for a while with other matters and so have not been moderating comments. Sorry for the delay.
Kennedy Station will almost certainly require some redesign because it was “simplified” to take into account the absence of the Scarborough LRT.
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Though one clearly cannot build a subway line with ‘Potemkin Stations’ at every intersection that can (more easily) be made into real stations if demand or $$ are found. I wonder if you have any insights on the cost of building only the “station box” but not doing more as compared to just building a ‘regular tunnel’. I also wonder if fire regulations may require at least a fire exit from the tunnel between Kennedy and STC – which could, presumably, be the only ‘finished’ part of one of these ‘boxes’.
Steve: Building a box is the expensive part because it involves excavation, utility relocation, etc. The only “easy” provision up front is to leave a level section in the tunnel around which a future station could be built, more or less the way the Crosstown TBMs leave a tunnel around which the stations will be added later. Yes, there will have to be regular fire exits along the way, but they require a much smaller excavation and don’t need a long stretch of level track.
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Richard, I take the SRT everyday from Kennedy to McCowan. It’s a 12 minute trip with 5 stops. A direct subway ride should be no more than 8-9 minutes. I still think an RT to LRT conversion makes more sense, but I can live with this plan, as I’m sure most people can. And I think that’s the point here.
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@Joe M,
If this design change carries through, the SSE will now be a subway to a mall. $2.5B is a lot of money being spent in Scarborough to bolster development at the STC, especially when we look at how development has been slow along the Sheppard Subway. Look at Eglinton between Kennedy and Midland, and you can see the quantity of development spurred by being the end of the line in Scarborough.
For the same price tag, you could give Metropasses to every low-income individual in Scarborough for free for over 12 years.
Alternatively, we could scrap “SmartTrack Phase 2” and convert the SRT into the Eastern Terminus. I’d have to run some numbers, but a one-seat ride to Union is even better than a one-seat ride to Yonge-Bloor, right?
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The existing 6-km SRT only takes 9 minutes, with 3 stops in between!
The city has said the subway will take about 6 minutes with the stop at Lawrence, and about 5.5 minutes without it.
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@J. MacMillan,
SSE was funded by reallocating LRT funds, so the original LRT plan could be mostly paid for by cutting one station on the SSE.
@Exaybachay,
Actually, both plans are cutting a few HRT stations to provide many more LRT stations.
@Richard White,
I’d assume that the SSE opens with the next generation of subway cars. Thus, looking at the TR cars rather than T1, they have a max speed of 88 kph. If they use three mild turns along Danforth/McCowan, they could do the run in 6-8 minutes (5.7 km / 88kph * 1.5 or 2 for acceleration/deceleration and curve times).
One stop means less travel time (just more time between stations). It’d be equalivant to running all of Sheppard from Yonge to Don Mills without the intermediate stops.
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Steve,
This is the tin foil hat that I have on talking but, could it be possible that Tory’s actual plan was to get the entire Eglinton LRT “back on the books” (for lack of a better term) by over promising on Smart Track and hesitating on the SSE debate?
I don’t know whether to root for Tory or hate him, but he’s definitely frustrating!
Steve: I do not expect any subtle strategy from Tory or his advisors. The Eglinton LRT had fallen off of the first tier of projects in Metrolinx’ plans, and seemed to be a dead duck until this idea came along. It’s a way of getting service to UTSC which originally would have been the outer end of the Sheppard LRT. The strategy, if anything, is to allow the Sheppard project to languish and leave a faint hope for subway extension proponents that Line 4 will eventually reach STC.
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If SSE will terminate at STC, will they use the current SRT right-of-way to bring the trains above ground and then duck them under to curve eastward before reaching Ellesmere? or will they use that silly tunnel routing under McCowan which I still believe requires a stop at Lawrence East to connect with the 54/54E?
Steve: The SSE is going up McCowan, but without a stop at Lawrence. The SmartTrack service will use the rail corridor and will stop at Lawrence East Station.
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@Ross
There are only so many workers and companies that can actually work on multiple LRTs at a time. Here is another angle Eglinton East and West extensions could be delayed after the Finch, Sheppard, and Eglinton Crosstown are built. Even if the money money is there and more money are being allocated.
Steve: The Crosstown East and West extensions are almost entirely surface construction. There is no reason they cannot proceed concurrently with the main project. Also, Ottawa wants to spend money on “shovel ready” projects. It would be odd to be unable to proceed for lack of a work force needing employment.
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@ Richard – unless restricted due to sharper curves or track conditions (ie. old or damaged track) &/or line congestion during “rush” / tight headways, I believe the subway trains run 80kph, so considering this is with no stops in between and not encumbered by lights/etc., I fail to see how it could be slower.
Steve: TTC doesn’t get up to 80 km/h (50 mph) usually, and this can also be affected by curves. It’s the average speed, taking into account station effects, that is important, although in a long run such as Kennedy to STC, the peak speed will dominate.
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Matt you are thinking logically and there is not logical about any planning in Toronto. You can either ride the 54 to Morningstar and get on the SMLRT and ride it to Kennedy where you can transfer again or you can, perhaps, get on the SmartTrack at Lawrence Station where there is now an SRT station.
Build a station on a subway line where it crosses a major bus line next to a major hospital? What a strange idea. Welcome to transit planning in Toronto.
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In theory, should take 6-7 minutes but it takes up to 15 minutes sometimes to go from Warden to Kennedy when the trains are backed up during rush hour. Wonder what would happen when STC is the new terminus.
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Except when closing in on the terminal station, travel time should be pretty good. You are only looking at about 6 km of travel distance between Kennedy and STC for a subway alignment. If you assume an average speed of 50 km/h then travel time is 7.2 minutes. Trains will likely reach faster speeds, but combined with the slow approach, 50 km/h is a safe assumption.
Any ability of cars to go faster is negated by traffic lights, plus other traffic. Not just other traffic along the way, but other traffic when one has to stop for a red light. In my experience, each typical driver takes 3-4 seconds longer than necessary to get going. This may not seem like much, but if you are the eighth car in line, that adds 30 seconds before you even move, and in some cases means you will be waiting for another light cycle. Next thing you know, that trip easily takes you nearly 15 minutes.
Steve: As others have pointed out, the travel time will be affected by the padded running times and queues approaching the terminal station.
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In a hypothetical near-future where Crosstown East construction is well underway and SSE is still a line on a map, replacing the subway with an LRT branch up McCowan is going to be very tempting.
How well would at-grade median LRT along Eglinton and McCowan handle hypothetical SRT/SSE demand?
Steve: The problem here is that we don’t know what the demand would look like presuming frequent service on SmartTrack in the rail corridor. How many riders would continue to funnel into STC on buses rather than heading west to a ST station and thence directly downtown. In turn, this affects the level of service required by whatever links STC to Kennedy and the viability of on-street operation (especially if consolidated into an Eglinton service running to UTSC).
I don’t think a “Scarborough LRT” is viable unless it follows the existing RT corridor, a tricky proposition considering the desire to keep that line running until SSE opens, and the extra space needed in the rail corridor for SmartTrack.
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Will they at least build the subway with the ability to easily add stations in the future?
Steve: One would hope so, although the reports note that a station at Lawrence and McCowan will be complicated because of Highland Creek.
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Thank you, Steve, for this. I was confused. I had thought the Scarborough Malvern LRT was the extension of the LRT that was going to replace the SRT that goes up to the STC.
Steve: Nope. Two completely separate lines.
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The options as I see them
Option 1.
Build new railway from A to B one stop option.
Tear out existing railway from A to B
Total Price $3,500,000,000
Option 2.
Refurbish existing railway from A to B
Total Price $100,000,000
Savings if option 2 chosen $3,400,000,000.
Amounts are for purposes of example.
When all this started the wisdom was that the RT would have gasped it’s last by now.
Now, somehow, those naysayers tell us it will pass naturally a day after the new line starts, 10 or 12 years from now. And if that schedule does not hold, the unbeloved thing will no doubt toil on. The Mont Royal electrics lasted a hundred years, and there are examples all over of 50+ years. So lots of life yet.
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The Crosstown in Scarborough is surface because some Scarborough Councillors voted against burying it. The study of traffic circulation for the Crosstown was done in 2009. Since 2009, Markham has completed a huge apartment complex. Markham drivers use Eglinton to go east before turning north. Nowadays Eglinton is fully loaded. The Crosstown takes out the three center lanes of Eglinton. In August of 2014, Eglinton was blocked out east of Midland for watermain reconstruction. The backup on Lawrence and St. Clair was intolerable. The Traffic planning office was missing in action and the Crosstown is dominated by the Public Transit office in the Planning Department.
This will be a major blunder.
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Best thing to do is keep it patched up until no longer possible then scrap the whole thing (maybe keep one car and put it on display in a park as a monument to Toronto politicians!) and replace with a fleet of express buses.
Why is the new extension of the subway routed the way it is? Is a more direct route possible? Could it go on the existing SRT right-of-way? That would also solve problem of keeping the SRT running. See above re: fleet of express buses.
Steve: There are big problems for the subway to follow the SRT corridor. First, Kennedy Station points east, not north, and a new station would be required. Next, a completely new structure would be required for the Ellesmere curve which would likely start further south and interfere with the Ellesmere Station location (assuming that survived the conversion). The elevated through STC cannot handle subway trains, and so a new structure would be needed there too (either above or below grade, with the latter made difficult by Highland Creek). Finally, the SRT would have to shut down for a few years to make room for construction.
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Will STC to Kennedy set the record for the world’s longest completely underground distance between 2 subway stations?
There needs to be a stop at Lawrence.
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It feels like this would be an unpopular move with UTSC. A line which terminates at the campus would presumably force them to house a terminal where local bus service would feed into the line, and where many local, non-student residents would be transferring, and their pickup/dropoff locations would be flooded with non-students being picked up or dropped off at the end of the LRT. If I recall correctly, didn’t York voice similar concerns over any version of a Spadina extension which terminated at their campus? Terminating the line at Sheppard instead would avoid that problem, provide for future connections with the currently-still-promised Sheppard LRT, and maybe could revive the Conlins carhouse, without adding an absurd cost (though I’m sure crossing the 401 wouldn’t be cheap).
Steve: Bruce Kidd, Principal of UTSC, was at the announcement, and he is ecstatic about the transit line. The intent is for that campus to be a major transit hub.
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So, has the EA already been completed for the extension of Crosstown to the airport? When can we expect Crosstown service at UTSC at the earliest? It’s a mistake to not include a subway stop at Lawrence as building it latter would be very disruptive and costly.
Steve: There is no word yet on construction timing for all of these plans, and some are dependent on others.
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I noticed that the map in the Star article show’s the line on Sheppard (and dipping south to STC and UTSC) as “Sheppard Rapid Transit”, not “Sheppard LRT”. I wonder what source they used for that label.
Steve: They are being deliberately vague showing both the proposed subway extension alignment that dips south to Progress, and the LRT line staying on Sheppard. That’s a fight for another day, but if Jennifer Keesmaat is to be believed, that day is far off in the future.
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It is nice if SMLRT (aka Crosstown East) suddenly gets funded by John Tory.
But the proposal to skip Lawrence station is really strange. If it is too expensive to build it at Lawrence and McCowan, then they should revisit the Brimley and Midland alignment options. A Lawrence station may be cheaper on one of those wrotes, and the whole tunnel would be shorter.
If the terminus was at Sheppard & McCowan, then the lengths of the McCowan, Brimley, and Midland routes would be almost same. But if the terminus is at STC, about 400 m west of McCowan, then the Brimley and Midland routes are obviously shorter.
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I am glad that subway is finally coming to Scarborough. Our mall has been losing sales and jobs to Downtown competitors as a result of the lack of subway. I am not concerned that it won’t go to Sheppard as we can lobby our governments after shovels are in the ground for the promised Scarbough subway and the promised Crosstown extension to Scarborough (so happy Crosstown finally coming to Scarborough). After those two projects are complete, I hope that we can convert the RT to LRT and extend it to Malvern via Centennial College but only after the subway and crosstown completion to minimise the disruption from closing the RT for a few years.
Steve: I wouldn’t hold your breath for some of this. The Scarborough LRT is not going to happen, especially if SmartTrack eats up two tracks worth of space in the rail corridor. As for an STC station helping the mall, be careful what you wish for. The alleged purpose is to stimulate office development, and there’s no guarantee the new station will be as convenient to the mall as the old one.
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The distance is 5.7 km, and the T1’s max speed is 88km/h. Assuming 80km/h, the travel time would be about 4 minutes and 30 seconds including time for accel and decel, unless the curves are designed too tight to handle speeds near the top of the T1 range. Suboptimal track configuration near the new terminus station might lead to additional time spent waiting for trains to clear.
But in any case, a lot faster than a car or bus trip.
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It’s probably going to be 9-10 minutes travel time, maybe even 25 during rush hour when the trains are backed up trying to get in to the station. Travel between Warden and Kennedy already takes 20 minutes sometimes because the trains are backed up.
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