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Toronto Transit Plan Punted From Executive Committee

On October 26, 2016, Toronto’s Executive Committee was supposed to receive a report dealing with a wide range of transit issues.

… the City Manager will be providing a report to Executive Committee with recommendations on the Transit Network Plan, including information on cost-sharing discussions with the Province of Ontario on a range of transit projects, as directed by City Council in July 2016 (EX16.1). This report will also include an update on the planning and technical analysis for SmartTrack, Relief Line, and Scarborough Transit. Additional time is required to ensure proper consultation and coordination with relevant stakeholders including the Toronto Transit Commission, Province of Ontario and Metrolinx. [Placeholder item in the agenda]

This report is not yet available as discussions with Queen’s Park are ongoing. A deadline facing Council is that Metrolinx wants a commitment to specifics of SmartTrack work that will be bundled with the RER construction contracts that will go to tender early in 2017.

Given the time constraints, it is possible that the report will go directly to Council at its November 8 meeting. In theory, materials for the Council Meeting should be posted in advance, and for November 8, the usual deadline is only days away. Whether the materials are actually available in advance remains to be seen. This would put a major debate before Council with almost no advance briefing or public debate.

SmartTrack is not the only time constrained project as an updated transit plan and cost estimate for the Scarborough projects, not to mention a financing scheme for the entire package, needs to be dealt with so that work can begin. Any spending commitments will also affect the City’s budget which will be formally unveiled at the start of December.

As material becomes available, I will provide updates and commentary.

 

16 thoughts on “Toronto Transit Plan Punted From Executive Committee”

  1. It’s good to FINALLY have a mayor who recognises that there is much more to running a city than just transit, transit, transit. Certainly transit is an important part of running a city but it’s only a small part of the overall responsibilities entrusted with our municipal government.

    P.S: I am from Scarborough and I would be willing to accept an LRT over the subway if we too get a Downtown like and Downtown size rail deck park described by Downtown councillors as “desperately needed”.

    This is NOT about Downtown vs Scarborough but about equality. All areas of the city deserve tax dollars to be spent on and not just the wealthy.

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  2. Thanks for this and much else Steve. So it seems that transit scheming actually is hard to keep up with, and if there’s a lack of clarity (to be polite) ahead of contract tender, thus we can get into the project creep that makes it all more costly. And project creeps are Bad, right? As are subway follies – and I wonder if the publicity by the Star in the last couple of days as to the tilt to the mathemagics of the Suspect Subway Extension have helped hide a report, or at least make some more revisions. To be really a good report, we should have a contrast between the LRTs and the Bad $pend (B$) of the SSE,done by someone other than the TTC (and maybe even Metrolinx, tho they seem to have had good sense in 2013-ish in a draft report to say this SSE “was not a worthwhile use of money”), but who wants to squeeze the billions??

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  3. So is today’s story on Duguid & De Baeremaeker one more contributor to the cluster-f*ck that is happening here? Besides trying to make Smart Track fit constraints & find $, now the Scarb wunder kids want to change the route of the subway so as not inconvenience a few home owners during construction.

    The crazy never stops.

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  5. Mark G said:

    Now the Scarb wunder kids want to change the route of the subway so as not inconvenience a few home owners during construction. The crazy never stops.

    So 2025 is definitely shot now. The $3.2B will creep up to $3.4-3.5B. Can we not just pay these 91 affected property owners $50K per year each for their ‘inconvenience with dust/noise/vibrations’ and save the other $277M?

    The biggest issue that I have with this design alternative is that it won’t be compared to the Brimley alignment, which was worse than the current McCowan alignment, but would score better against this crayon drawing.

    Steve: And of course that crayon drawing absolutely totally kills any hope of a subway to NE Scarborough, but revives BS idea that Sheppard will be “completed”. GDB is trolling for votes from the Sheppard Subway crowd.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. There is some excellent work from the Star just now on this Scamdolous Subway Extension…

    Also some marvelous hypocrisy from Mayor Tory on front page of paper Star today in article ‘Mayor calls for firings in wake of scathing medication fraud report’. “And I would suggest that termination (is) an appropriate kind of penalty for that sort of thing because we cannot, in a circumstance where we’re trustees of the public’s money, allow it to (be) abused, whether it’s for Viagra or any other drug or any other purpose whatsoever”. The excess referred to was only millions of dollars, not billions, so subways are a special kind of drug/Frod that are exempted from any termination, especially where buy-elections are involved.

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  7. I may have missed something in the barrage of document releases from a while back.

    During the Gardiner debate there was a yugely played up 100-year life cycle cost attached to each of the options on the table.

    To Steve or anyone, has there been a similar full 25, 50, or 100 year life cycle costing of the various options for the “Scarborough Transit” plan? Be that above ground LRT, subway via SRT, or McCowan?

    Steve: No, there has not been a similar analysis. Also, of course, a large chunk of the infrastructure does not last 100 years, and even the physical tunnel requires ongoing repairs. Surface LRT has no corresponding component.

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  8. Wow! I hadn’t realized the Star’s Jennifer Pagliaro’s had asked the same thing as documented on her city hall blog today!

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  9. Cross referencing hamish wilson to the Toronto Star
    There is this article

    The highlight for me was this section

    “Before a vote in October 2013 that sealed council’s decision to flip-flop on the LRT plan and build a then three-stop subway instead, the province had evidence the subway was not a sound plan.
    Metrolinx staff prepared a cost-benefit analysis comparing the subway and the LRT, a draft of which was dated September 2013. The detailed 16-page report concluded the additional cost to build the subway was “not a worthwhile use of money.

    That report was never finalized, and Metrolinx never published it. The Star obtained the draft copy through a freedom of information request.”

    Steve has on occasion referred to those at Metrolinx as bozos. The bozos concluded the subway was “not a worthwhile use of money.”

    What does that make the Mayor and majority of councillors?

    Steve: My reference to Metrolinx is to the blinkered viewpoint that is strongly influenced by the origins in GO Transit, a 905 to downtown commuter focussed system, to the detriment of understanding the changes needed to adapt to a carrier of a wide range of trips on an all-day basis. The political influence, interference and limitations on what Metrolinx can do, coupled with the comparative secrecy in which its plans are developed, does not help either.

    The fact that the staff report (which makes many cogent arguments about the subway’s shortcomings) remains unpublished is symptomatic of an environment where unwelcome news is suppressed.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Steve said: The fact that the staff report (which makes many cogent arguments about the subway’s shortcomings) remains unpublished is symptomatic of an environment where unwelcome news is suppressed.

    I’d put this one down as “a day late and a dollar short”. It doesn’t really matter if the staff report had cogent arguments against the subway, if the decision to build a subway had been decided three years before and the province caved to the idea that they would “respect the will of council”.

    Steve: Yes, although it is clear from Duguid’s involvement that the province had a hand in this decision too, and the idea that a provincial agency might publish a contrary view would simply not be allowed.

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  12. Bill r asked “What does that make the Mayor and majority of councillors?”

    The enduring of the sub-braying in I think the summer of 2013 debate inspired the terms “Clowncillors” and thus “Clowncil”. And that majority are NOT fiscal conservatives.

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  13. Hamish:

    I think your reply to Bill R is a terrible insult to clowns everywhere. They are getting enough bad publicity from the creepy clown syndrome, but comparing them to Toronto council is hitting below the belt. You should apologize to the clowns, not the councillors.

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  14. bill r: What does that make the Mayor and majority of councillors?

    hamish wilson: The enduring of the sub-braying in I think the summer of 2013 debate inspired the terms “Clowncillors” and thus “Clowncil”. And that majority are NOT fiscal conservatives.

    I think that ‘bill r’ and ‘hamish wilson’ are the same person so that hamish can answer his own question plus they always keep referencing each other plus the same writing style. Do you know what the word ‘clown’ even means? There is little clowns and councillors have in common.

    Robert Wightman stated “Hamish: I think your reply to Bill R is a terrible insult to clowns everywhere.”

    I don’t think it’s an insult but it’s just bizarre.

    Steve: I have met both Hamish and Bill. I have even seen them at the same event at the same time, and so they are not swapping disguises. They are quite separate people with very different outlooks on many issues.

    As for clowns, among the definitions available in Merriam-Webster are a rude or stupid or ill-bred person with “boor” offered as a synonym. The Oxford offers “A foolish or incompetent person” with the example ‘we need a serious government, not a bunch of clowns’. There is also an archaic use meaning “an unsophisticated country person; a rustic”, but I wouldn’t want to accuse Scarborough pols of being hayseeds.

    Most Councillors aspire well above this level and many achieve it, but some fit the definition perfectly.

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  15. Would anyone know whether SmartTrack, as currently planned, would serve Unionville GO Station? A Star article had a map showing SmartTrack running only between Mount Dennis and Milliken. A Metrolinx PDF mentions Unionville in the section ”Recommended SmartTrack/ GO RER integration” as an existing GO station “outside jurisdiction” (term unexplained in PDF). The PDF has a map suggesting SmartTrack continues north of Milliken. Of course, I understand that all plans are subject to change. Thanks.

    Steve: The important thing to remember is that SmartTrack is now nothing more than a few extra GO stations within the 416. It is not a physically separate service. The service levels on various parts of the GO network have been published before (the map for the Stouffville and Weston corridors is in the Metrolinx document at page 8). What is not yet absolutely certain is what proportion of the GO RER service will make all local stops and which trains will skip them. This is a timing problem because the expresses can catch up to the locals. Unionville isn’t part of “SmartTrack”. It was part of the original scheme for the “big U” that Tory’s advisors sold him during the election campaign, but that has morphed almost beyond recognition.

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  16. @Mikey re clowns:

    I think you need to study a little literature: not everything that is written is meant to be taken literally. Also if you have read any of Hamish’s previous post you would know that he often combines two words to make up knew ones to express a point of view: Caronto, moronto, etc.

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