A Grand Plan

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Who Will Ride?

Now that shovels are poised to start digging north into York Region, we need to take a hard look at just who this line is going to serve.  The information is this post is taken from:

The TTC’s own Environmental Assessment report of the line to Steeles at this link, and

The York Region Environmental Assessment report on its plans for Highway 7 and the Vaughan North-South Link at this link.

First we have the TTC study which assumes the line will end at Steeles Avenue.  In Appendix M, starting at page 13 in the PDF (page 22 of the source document), we have the travel forecasts, and the summary appears on page 15 (25).

Assuming that the land use assumptions are met, the extension is expected to carry about 17,000 AM peak passengers  southbound into Downsview Station.  No peak hour figure is given, but typically about half of the 3-hour peak load travels in the peak hour.  This translates to about 8,500 in the peak hour.

Northbound AM peak travel to York University is estimated at 5,500.   This gives us about 2,750 northbound riders to York University in the morning peak hour. Continue reading →

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Half a Loaf

According to this morning’s Toronto Star, Ottawa is about to announce its support for the Spadina Subway extension to Vaughan along with a bunch of other goodies for the 905.  Notable by their complete absence is any transit support for the 416 other than the subway extension.

I’m not going to debate the merits of that line again as everyone reading this site knows my position, but I have a very important question for Stephen Harper, Dalton McGuinty and David Miller:

Where’s the money coming from for the projects we really need to serve the whole city?

Are we facing the same situation we had with Mike Harris when he agreed to fund the Sheppard line, gave us a pot full of money, and then said, in effect, “bugger off, that’s all you’re getting”?  Will the Harper crowd think that this announcement is all they will ever have to do for the greater Toronto area?

As my readers know, I have always warned about the Spadina line crowding every other project out of the room for the next 8 years.  Will Ottawa and Queen’s Park say “we gave you what you asked for, don’t ask for more”, or the City say “we have over-extended our ability to write new debt, so that new bus you thought was coming next year is on hold”.

To all three levels of government:  Please prove me wrong.  Soon.

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Why Scarborough Will Never Have a Rapid Transit Network

This post has been updated by correcting a bad link to the TTC’s site, and by enabling comments. 

The TTC has finally delivered up a report in reply to my deputation last August on the question of why the RT should not be converted to LRT in the context of (a) a larger Scarborough LRT network and (b) the request from the Scarborough Caucus to extend the line into Malvern.  No big surprise.  The TTC really doesn’t want to convert the line.

The report can be found at:

http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comrpt/documents/report/f3085/_conv.htm

The argument in brief is that there is no customer benefit of a conversion, that it would require a prolonged closure of the line and that the Malvern extension cost would be equal no matter what technology was chosen. Continue reading →

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Spare Change for Etobicoke?

Two pieces of news caught my eye today, and somehow they seem to fit in the same post.

First up is a report in next week’s TTC agenda about the extension of the Bloor Subway.  At the January 31 meeting, there was a request that staff update information on the planned line in light of a proposed development near the East Mall.  The reply to this can be found on the TTC’s website here:

http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comrpt/documents/report/f3087/_conv.htm

In this report, we learn that an Environmental Assessment was already approved for this back in 1994, although it is somewhat out of date.   Blowing the dust off of the EA would set us back about $3-million.

The intriguing information is that the estimated cost of the extension in 2007 dollars is roughly $1-billion for 3.7 km to Queensway and The West Mall, and a further $500-million for 1.5 km to get to a Dixie Station in Mississauga.  This translates to $270-million/km to get to West Mall, and a staggering $333-million/km to get to Dixie.  Underground alignments are assumed in both cases, and the report is silent on whether this cost is just for construction or also includes additional subway cars to operate the extended line.

In other news, the Canadian Mint has announced that it will produce a new 100 kilogram gold coin at a face value of $1-million, but with an actual gold content (and price to buy one) over twice that.  There is an article on the Globe & Mail’s website about it here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070222.wrmint22/BNStory/Business/

although this may not last forever as the Globe tends to archive things fairly quickly.

For all of you who are saving up to build your very own subway line, this might be just the thing you need.  Imagine if people saw a pile of million-dollar coins.  At $270-million/km, or $270,000/metre, each coin would buy (at face value) not quite four metres of subway, or eight metres if you melted it down.

Who needs new tokens?

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TTC Capital Budget

On January 31, the TTC passed an amended version of its capital budget. There is a good PDF of the report including amendments on the city’s website as part of the Budget Committee agenda at:

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2007/bu/bgrd/backgroundfile-1646.pdf

Some noteworthy amendments:

  • Funding for various studies and Environmental Assessments in support of the Mayor’s transit plans.  This will allow some preliminary work to be done on the proposed network of LRT/Busway schemes.
  • A North Etobicoke rapid transit assessment for which Commissioner Hall (whose ward includes the study area) has indicated a preference for LRT.
  • A Finch hydro corridor study from Yonge to Dufferin (where it would meet up with the York U busway).
  • A study of extending the Bloor-Danforth subway to the East Mall.
  • Funding for the first stage of developing improved customer information systems.

The report details the funding issues and the shortfalls between what is committed by various governments and programs and what is required.  Almost at the end is a chart showing the combined funding requirements of various programs.  Note that it still includes a future Sheppard Subway project because the TTC has not (yet) formally changed their mind on the technology to be used for this.

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Crowding at Bloor Yonge Station

I received the following note from James McArthur:

I  was just curious to hear your take on the need to significantly expand the capacity of Bloor/Yonge Stn. particularly because of the bottlenecks in the mezzanine and stair/escalator areas (these are really bad even outside rush hour).

I saw that Adam Giambrone mentioned renovating the lower level (for aethetic reasons I gather), but has any consideration been given to this problem?  How can you solve it w/o spending hundred’s of millions?ill the TTC even try?   Can the system carry more riders if they don’t?

Steve:  Years ago, the TTC had a plan for expanding the capacity of Bloor Yonge that was breathtaking in its scope.  Fortunately, the only part they actually built was the widened platforms on the upper level and the removal of the central pillars.  The whole scheme involved moving the Yonge line tracks further apart and adding a centre platform.  Vertical access was a real problem, not to mention construction at the north end where the station is physically inside of the Bay.

The scheme also involved new platforms outside of the existing tracks on the Bloor level.  Access between all of the platforms was complex, and construction issues, were very, very difficult.  The station sits in an old stream bed and much work would have to be done by hand in a pressurized environment. 

Oh yes — the station would close for at least six months.  Trains would run through without stopping and bus shuttles would take people from Rosedale to Wellesley.

Adding capacity to the Bloor line’s platform is very difficult because the station is inside of the Bay building including some of the structural columns that hold it up.  This is a major issue in any move to increase capacity on the Yonge line through resignalling.  If the Bloor line cannot take passengers away as fast as the Yonge line delivers them, then congestion will be worse than it is today.

Headways, as we have discussed here before, are constrained on the Bloor line by turnaround times at terminals.  Even if we had more platforms, escalators and stairways, we would not be able to have more trains.

The real issue with Bloor-Yonge is the number of people coming through it who could be taken to the core via an alternate route be that GO Transit or a “downtown relief line” of some flavour.  It may be cheaper and provide better service in a network sense to look at new capacity into the core rather than trying to pack more people through the Bloor-Yonge interchange.

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See The Ghost Subway Station! [Updated]

Trips through the little-used legs of the Wye between Bay, St. George and Museum Stations will be standard operation for six weekends from February 24 to March 31, 2007.  Thank to Tim Bryant for pointing out the change in the planned start date.  The TTC page on this event is here:

www.toronto.ca/ttc/bloor_danforth_weekend_tunnel_construction.htm

This unusual operation is required to permit work on the tunnel west of Upper Bay Station where the Bloor line passes under the Park Plaza Hotel.  This can only be achieved by closing the line for a few days at a time.  Conveniently, the wye is in just the right location to permit a subway “diversion”, not the sort of thing you see every day. Continue reading →

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The Queen Street Subway Debate

I have been truly astounded that the post on the new streetcar plan has turned into a pitched battle between the pro and anti LRT/subway forces on this blog.  Frankly I am getting a little tired of it because, after all, this is my blog and I happen to believe that LRT is going to rule the day.

This will happen for three reasons:

  • We cannot afford a subway network,
  • We do not need a subway network, and
  • We must not put off transit improvement in the vain hope that someday the tooth fairy will give us the money to build one.

All of the pro and anti subway comments have been edited into this separate thread and I am closing the debate on this issue.  Several comments that were sitting in moderation are included here.

If you want to talk about the streetcar plan, fine, I will continue adding to that thread and commenting on it.  If you want to tell me how the manifest destiny of downtown Toronto is to have a network of new subway lines, please start your own blog. Continue reading →

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GTTA On the Web?

One of my correspondents, Tom B., wrote:

Does Mr. MacIssac have an email address?  You should email your posting to him!

The Great and Powerful Greater Toronto Transit Authority does not seem to have a web presence yet.  Type in GTTA to Google, and you will get the Guernsey Table Tennis Association.  It shows just how important this agency is when the Government of Ontario can’t be bothered to ensure it has a web presence from day 1.  Other than a few press releases, the agency might as well not exist.  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

Meanwhile, the domain gtta.ca is owned by someone in Quebec (although the registration mistakenly has “ON” for a Quebec postal code), and the technical contact is an outfit called “ID Theft Protection” in the Cayman Islands.

The amateurs at Queen’s Park might want to think about protecting domain names before they create agencies.

I trust that someone at the GTTA owns a computer and is already monitoring this website.