The TTC Board met on April 30, 2014. Items of interest on the agenda included:
In December 2013, the Neptis Foundation published a review of the Metrolinx Big Move plan authored by Michael Schabas. This review received prominent attention in the Toronto Star and is regularly cited in their coverage of transportation issues. Some elements also appear in recent comments by Transportation Minister Glen Murray, and it is reasonable to assume that his view of Metrolinx priorities has been influenced by the Neptis paper.
Since its publication, I have resisted writing a detailed critique in part because of the sheer size of the document and my disappointment with many claims made in it, and a hope that it would quietly fade from view. Recent Ministerial musings suggest that this will not happen.
The stated goals of the report arose from four basic questions posed shortly after The Big Move was released in 2008:
- What evidence suggests that the projects in the Big Move will double the number of transit riders and significantly reduce congestion in the region, as promised by Metrolinx?
- Does each project offer good value for money?
- Do all the projects add up to a substantial regional transit network or is the Big Move just an amalgam of projects put forward by diverse sponsors?
- How do the projects in the Big Move relate to the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, its land use equivalent? [Page 2]
The report itself addresses a somewhat different set of questions and notably omits the land use component.
- Will the Big Move projects achieve the Metrolinx objective of doubling transit ridership?
- Are these projects consistent with Metrolinx’s own “guiding principles”?
- Are they well-designed, consistent with international best practice, and integrated with other transport infrastructure?
- Will they support a shift of inter-regional travel onto transit?
- Are there alternative, more effective schemes that should be considered?
- What changes would help Metrolinx produce better results? [Page 14]
Schabas’ work is frustrating because on some points he is cogent, right on the mark.
Metrolinx has bumbled through its existence protected from significant criticism, swaddled in a cocoon of “good news” and the presumed excellence of its work. To be fair, the agency operates in a political environment where independent thought, especially in public, is rare, and years of planning can be overturned by governmental whim and the need to win votes.
That said, Metrolinx is a frustrating, secretive organization conducting much of its business in private, and tightly scripting public events. Schabas rightly exposes inconsistencies in Metrolinx work, although his own analysis and alternatives are, in places, flawed and blinkered.
This article is the second section of my critique of the December 2013 review of the Metrolinx Big Move Plan written by Michael Schabas for the Neptis Foundation. It should be read in conjunction with Part I and following sections.
Updated 2 April 13, 2014 at 2:50pm: Eric Miller, the author of the illustrations originally used for this article, has objected to their being taken out of context and has asked that they be removed.
Meanwhile, the information is available in a paper by Dr. Miller of February 24, 2012 which is available on the City of Toronto’s website. This is cited in a City Planning presentation at the Sheppard Transit Corridor Expert Panel on March 2, 2012.
I am hoping to obtain new information about Scarborough travel patterns from a regular reader. When this is available, I will update the article. Continue reading
I think people forget, for example, that we have to rebuild the LRT in 25 or 30 years, just like we have to with the Scarborough RT. With a subway we won’t have to do that. The Yonge Street subway just celebrated its 60th anniversary and it’s still in good shape.
[John Tory in an interview for Metro News, April 7, 2014, courtesy of Matt Elliott]
The false comparison of long-lasting subway with a comparatively short-lived LRT is the sort of comment I expect to hear from (former TTC Chair and Mayoral candidate) Karen Stintz, or from the subway-loving Brothers Ford. The number “100” is often bandied about as the longevity of a subway investment by analogy to the much older networks found in cities like New York, London and Paris.
I have written before about this and won’t belabour the details here, but now that a major candidate for the office of Mayor has taken up the line, it’s worth revisiting the topic.
Public meetings regarding the Metrolinx Yonge Corridor Relief Study and the City of Toronto/TTC Relief Line Project Assessment have been announced:
A new website has been created under the name regionalrelief.ca with links to various aspects of these studies. There are three main branches only one of which contains new content.
I will update this article if new material appears before the public meetings.
In all the debates about transit options, be they in Scarborough or elsewhere, one of the most abused and frequently misunderstood terms is “LRT”.
The term appears in various contexts over the years under both the guise “Light Rail Transit” and “Light Rapid Transit”. The difference can be more in local preference including marketing aims.
One can even find “LRRT” where a proposal tries to be all things to be all people. The Buffalo line, which incongruously runs on the surface downtown, but in a tunnel elsewhere, originally used this term, but was rebranded “Metro Rail”. The “LRRT” term, however, is still in current use as a Google search will demonstrate.
The term “Light” contrasts “LRT” with systems that require more substantial (or “heavy”) infrastructure such as:
Life gets very confusing because there are overlaps between technologies and their implementation. One of the oldest streetcar systems in North America, Boston’s, exhibits every conceivable type of operation with the same vehicles running in mixed traffic (little of this remains on the network), on reserved lanes in street medians, on private rights-of-way that run “cross country” relative to the road network, on elevated structures, and in tunnels just like a subway. (The “Blue Line” running under the Boston harbour was originally a streetcar tunnel, but was converted to “subway” operation in the 1920s.)
The Boston Green Line is the oldest subway on the continent, and it runs with “streetcars” that morph into “light rail vehicles” not because of magic performed where they leave the street pavement, but because of the way the vehicles are used. This is central to the concept of “LRT” – the ability to operate in many environments as appropriate to demand and local circumstance.
Unlike what Toronto calls a “subway”, an LRT network can adapt to its surroundings and this is a fundamental characteristic of the mode. The original Scarborough LRT would have run at grade with some road crossings enroute, and a Malvern extension was on the books, but never built.
With the emergence of two candidates for Mayor of Toronto who support the Scarborough LRT scheme, we are bound to hear much talk about how long construction would take, how long SRT riders would be forced to ride shuttle buses, and when the line might open. In this context, it’s worth looking back at Metrolinx plans before various politicians decided to buy votes in Scarborough with a subway line.
The TTC’s original plans were to rebuild the SRT before the Pan Am Games. That schedule went out the window when then-Premier McGuinty pushed out the delivery plans for the Transit City projects so that most of the spending would occur after the provincial deficit was under control if not eliminated.
Also lost in the shuffle was the idea that the Sheppard LRT would be in operation before the SRT shutdown as an alternate route for people from northern Scarborough to reach the subway system.
Metrolinx revised timelines were based on three overlapping stages of the project:
As momentum grew for the subway proposal, it suited proponents to treat the entire project timeline as the shutdown period for the SRT, and thus we began to hear of a four-year long period when riders would be taking bus shuttles. The situation was not helped by the fact that Queen’s Park and Metrolinx talked of the Scarborough LRT opening “by 2020” even though it could be finished far earlier.
Steve Munro 