A Grand Plan

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Spadina Subway Financing

A report on the Policy and Finance Committee’s agenda for Tuesday, July 18 goes into the rather dry business of setting up a trustee for the Move Ontario Trust.  This creature will be used to hold the moneys contributed by various governments to the Spadina Subway project.

The current project cost estimate, all the way to Vaughan Corporate Centre Station, is $2.1-billion (2006).  To date, the Province has contributed $670-million, slightly less than one-third and with no provision for inflation, in the fund.  York Region’s share is yet to be determined, and everyone looks with hope on Ottawa for a matching contribution.  We shall see. Continue reading →

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Flights to Nowhere Revisited (Updated)

A staff response to the Commission’s queries about escalator reliability appears as item 35b in the agenda for the July 19th meeting.  You can read the report here.

The report proposes a system that will alert Collectors and the central escalator maintenance office at Ossington Station when a problem occurs.  The basic problem is that most units are not wired back to the Collector’s booth and the way station staff find out about stoppages is that someone complains.

I might be understanding about this situation at, say, King Station where the Melinda escalator, often stopped, is old and miles from the booth.  However, the guinea-pig station for this project is Bayview on the Sheppard line.  It’s so nice to learn that our $1-billion bought us some tolerably interesting architecture, but no system to alert staff when an escalator is stopped.

Assuming the trial at Bayview is successful, all escalators and elevators on the Sheppard line will be hooked up by the end of 2010, and the rest of the network will follow by 2012.  Then, finally, mechanics can be dispatched to the scene.

Maybe while they’re putting in all of the new communications gear for this project and station security upgrades, they can snap a photo of all those teenagers who are alleged to be stopping the escalators.  Run mug shots on the platform video screens.  Catch those villains!

Meanwhile, the report is silent on the simple question of why route supervisors at major stations like Kennedy or Finch don’t report escalator problems and, where possible, deal with them as a basic part of their job.

My original post on this subject follows below. Continue reading →

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Waterfront East and Scarborough RT Updates

The draft Terms of Reference for the Environmental Assessment of the eastern waterfront transit plans goes to the TTC for approval next Wednesday.

This draft is the product by much work in full public meetings as well as a community consultation group.  I must commend the team who worked on the draft for their openness to changes, expansion in scope and generally inclusive approach.  The stage of building a ToR can be extremely tedious, but it is vital to ensure that all of the alternatives are considered in the EA itself.  This is a refreshing change from the St. Clair project.

Assuming that the TTC approves the draft, it will go to the Ministry of the Environment for review over the next few months.  While that is underway, some preliminary work will continue collecting information needed for the study and also presenting some technical workshops so that the community can better understand the work behind transportation planning and design.

Meanwhile, the Scarborough RT study is not included on this week’s TTC agenda although it was originally planned for a June presentation.  I suspect that recent events at the TTC coupled with the relatively tighter timelines on the Waterfront studies have pushed the SRT report off into the summer.

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Everything Old Is New Again

My friend Ed Drass just sent me a puff piece from the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) about the impending opening of their new inter-terminal shuttle.  Read all about it here.  [This link is no longer active.]

What amuses me immensely is the propulsion technology.  The cars are pulled along by a “rope” to which they are attached.  There is only one unit on each of two tracks and so collisions are impossible.

We technically savvy railfan types will recognize this as a blend of elevator and cablecar technology.  Just think of the tourism potential if they hadn’t built an automated system!  In my mind’s eye, I see GTAA staff, in a period conductor’s uniform with the title “gripman” (or maybe “gripperson” to be more 21st century about it).  The cars could have lovely wooden trim, bench seats, and running-boards for the adventurous riders.

Might be a bit chilly for those interterminal transfers in February, but maybe we could have a summer and a winter fleet.

Hmmm … this sounds like the sort of high-tech transit the Urban Transportation Development Corporation would lap up.  A new world-beating technology!  Just in time to replace the Scarborough RT!

[We will return to our regular, curmudgeonly programming later this week with a look at next Wednesday’s TTC meeting.]

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Old Wine in Old Bottles

Today the Feds were on hand to announce funding of the Union Station expansion.  Shhh.  It’s a secret.  This contract was awarded at the TTC meeting in April and tendered much earlier.  You were not supposed to notice.  Ottawa is trying to convince Toronto that they love us.

Earlier today, I was on CBC’s Ontario Today show talking about this announcement and its implications for transit in Toronto and surrounding communities.  Here is a precis of my position. Continue reading →

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Christoper Hume and Jeff Gray Write About Transit

The Sunday Star had an article by Christopher Hume called The Error of Our Subways.

While the rest of the world embraced the importance of transit, Toronto wasted time and money on momuments to egotistical politicians and technology boondoggles.

There are a few glitches in Hume’s article, but it’s good to see this whole debate getting an airing.  If we are going to spend money on transit, let’s spend it in the right place.

Meanwhile, Jeff Gray writing in today’s Globe reports that the number crunchers at Queen’s Park have combed through recent Federal Budget papers, and have found not one penny to pay for the Spadina subway extension to York University. 

How long will it take for someone at Queen’s Park to wake up to the fact that they could build a really great LRT network focussed on York U with the $1.3-billion represented by the provincial and municipal shares of the Spadina subway proposal? 

The fact that York U and their supporters have wasted so much time and effort on a subway proposal shows how badly understood the real alternatives are.  That’s the legacy of those wasted decades and the thinking that brought us the Sheppard subway.

I remember former mega-mayor Mel Lastman saying that “real cities don’t use streetcars”.  Sorry Mel, but real cities built transit systems while Toronto argued where to put a few miles of track.

Can Dalton McGuinty and David Miller save us from this folly?  Do we have to wait until both are safely re-elected before we start considering alternatives?