Subways

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Transit City Status Update

This month’s TTC agenda includes a long update on the status of the Transit City plans.  I will not attempt to précis this report, but will touch on points of particular interest.

Funding is in place to allow continued work on Environmental Assessments [sic] and other engineering work, but the real challenge comes later this year when construction is slated to begin on Sheppard.  The fog may clear a bit once the provincial budget is announced and we know just how much money will flow to Metrolinx and to transit in general.

A related problem, of course, is the question of new LRVs for the existing and future streetcar/LRT networks.  By the time the budget is out, the TTC should know what the bids for new cars look like, and Queen’s Park will have to decide whether they are serious about paying for them. Continue reading →

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Yonge Subway Tunnel Repairs Phase 2 Begins (Updated)

Effective Sunday, February 15, repairs on the subway tunnel liners between Eglinton and Finch will shift further south and the late-night turnback operation will move from Lawrence to Eglinton.

The 97 Yonge route will operate from Eglinton to Finch station stopping in Lawrence, York Mills and Sheppard stations enroute to make connections with east-west routes.  The late night extension of routes south to Lawrence Station will end, as will the 97F service via Yonge Boulevard.

Bus service will run every 3 minutes Monday to Friday, and every 4’30” on Sundays.  As in Phase 1 of this project, subway service will run through to Finch on Saturdays.

Updated:  An early plan to use the “special events” bay (the old surface terminal at the Duplex Avenue end of the station) has been changed.  Shuttle buses will use the regular terminal.

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Scarborough RT/LRT Benefits Case Analysis (Updated)

Updated February 3:  In a previous version of this post, I was using 4-car trains for the Base Case and therefore claimed that the fleet was undersized.  This has been corrected.

On January 16, the Metrolinx Board approved release of the Benefits Case Analysis (BCA) for the replacement and extension of the Scarborough RT.  This document is now available online.

The original TTC proposal, was simply to replace the current technology with Mark II RT cars on the existing alignment. This is now referred to as the “Base Case”.  Four alternatives, all considered superior to the base case, were evaluated in the BCA.

  • 1: Extend the RT 5.4 km to Malvern Town Centre using the current technology.
  • 2: Extend the RT to Markham & Sheppard where it would connect with the Sheppard East LRT including an LRT branch north to Malvern.
  • 3: Replace the RT over its entire length with LRT and extend to Malvern on approximately the same alignment as the first RT option, completely in an exclusive right-of-way.
  • 4: Replace the RT with LRT and extend to Malvern with a partially exclusive right-of-way east of McCowan.

Major Flaws in the BCA

To save readers from combing through the rest of the text, here are major points where the analysis does not hold up.

  • The peak demand for which the line is designed, 10K/hour, is substantially above the modelled peak demand of 6.4K/hour in The Big Move.  The Metrolinx regional plan includes frequent commuter rail services through the extended RT’s catchment area, and this likely attracts some riders away from the RT.  Designing for higher capacity than required inflates fleet, carhouse and operating costs.  It may also affect train lengths and the cost of retrofitting existing stations.
  • LRT options presume the construction of a dedicated carhouse for the Scarborough line even though, by the time an LRT would operate, the Sheppard line’s new carhouse would be operating and could act as the base for Scarborough trains.  This inflates the capital cost of LRT options.
  • The alleged cost-benefit ratios are highly sensitive to the presumed value of travellers’ time.  This value is orders of magnitude greater than the value of environmental effects (reduced car use) and dominates the calculations.  The model overall favours proposals that serve long trips at comparatively high speeds (e.g. with widely spaced stations) that may not be conducive to the type of neighbourhood preferred in the Official Plan.
  • The values assigned to savings from reduced automobile use are based on a much higher factor than in the VIVA Benefits Case report, 95 vs 23 cents per km (2031).  The effect is to grossly overstate the savings from reduced auto usage for all options.
  • Economic benefits include the money spent on labour during construction.  This value for all options is a disconcertingly low percentage of the total project cost (well under 20%).  This shows that a substantial portion of any scheme is consumed by planning and design, materials, vehicles and system component costs.  Moreover, the idea that spending more on one project is “good” because it generates more work is valid only if one ignores other projects that could be built with the same money and labour.  This will be an important factor when projects are weighed against each other.
  • Estimates for the length of time the RT would be closed for upgrade or restructuring are “at least 8 months” for RT and “up to 36 months” for LRT.  These figures need to be reviewed in detail to determine where the differences lie.  The numbers are taken from the original TTC study (which did not include the qualifiers) when the physical changes needed to handle Mark II RT cars were considered to be trivial.  This may no longer be true.
  • Overall the analysis looks at the RT in isolation from the surrounding network and ignores alternative ways that the demand might be served on the network, not just on the RT corridor.  Although the report shows LRT as the less expensive option, the difference versus RT options may actually be understated.

Continue reading →

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Council Calls for Relief Line Study

Wednesday saw a long debate at Toronto Council on the Yonge Subway Richmond Hill extension.  As I write this (January 29, just after midnight), I do not have all of the details of Council’s final decision.

However, this much I know:

  • Council has requested a study of the Downtown Relief Line.
  • Some Councillors used the debate as a springboard for attacks on the TTC’s project management costs and proposals for private sector participation.
  • Council agreed that Transit City is the top priority for transit spending.

I find myself in the unusual position of being part of a wave of advocacy for the DRL, a line that will almost certainly be a conventional subway.  If this seems odd, my reasoning is that we must look at how the network operates as a whole.  The core of the network needs more capacity, and jamming more people into the existing Yonge line (getting more out of existing infrastructure as the TTC so delicately puts it) is irresponsible and possibly reckless.

If the studies that really need to be done emerge, we will look at both TTC and Metrolinx plans, and question what will work best for the core area, the outer 416 and the 905.  Both agencies have much to answer for in their shortsighted, misleading planning and their inadequate evaluation of alternatives to network structure and staging.

As details emerge, I will add to the information here.

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Yonge Subway Extension Additional Information Report (Updated)

[My apologies for the temporary absence of this item.  I have been updating it.]

A supplementary report on ridership projections and other impacts on the Yonge Subway is now available on the TTC’s report website.

While I do not agree with all of the report’s conclusions, this is a refreshing attempt to look at the growth and development of the transit system on a wholistic, networked basis, rather than as a single line.

The TTC persisted in using subway train capacities that do not match their own service design criteria, ignoring current over capacity problems and downplaying future growth.  This has changed between the December and January staff reports, and with that change come important new concerns about current and future available capacity. 

At this point we have no idea of the feasibility of the proposed Bloor-Yonge platform reconstruction project.  The TTC alternately treats this as something for the indefinite future or as a co-requisite of the extension’s construction, depending on which report one reads.  Cost, constructability and operational impact during the conversion are all unknowns.

I remain seriously concerned that the TTC is playing a dangerous game with capacity of the subway system and views the downtown relief line as a far-distant, last resort fix.  This will push more and more passengers into a single route and make the system even more vulnerable to delays and disruptions than it is today.

Today’s TTC meeting produced the expected result, the endorsement by the Commission of the project, but it is still subject to a long list of caveats.  The definitive list is in the recommendations of the Toronto Executive Committee from January 5, 2009 (item EX28.1).

However, after presentations by me, Karl Junkin and David Fisher, there was considerable debate.  Vice-Chair Mihevc wound up as the sole dissenting vote in the approval motion, but it was clear that the complexity of the issues related to the future of the Yonge Subway is now grasped by the Commission. 

Well, almost all of them.  Commissioner Perruzza seems to think that York Region should be free to build whatever it wants, connect it to Toronto’s system, and let us worry about how to deal with the aftereffects.  Unfortunately, nobody has stepped forward, certainly not from York, offering to actually pay for it. Continue reading →

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The Scarborough LRT That Wasn’t (Updated)

Updated January 16:  The Metrolinx board has agreed to publish the Benefits Case Analysis for the SRT replacement project.  As I write this, they don’t have a working website, but once the report is available, I will review it here.

Updated January 11:  John F. Bromley has kindly supplied photos of CLRVs 4000 and 4001 showing the cars with pantographs.

My archives yield up interesting goodies from time to time.  In anticipation of the Benefits Case Analysis report at Metrolinx for the SRT replacement and extension project, I thought it worthwhile to revisit the original Scarborough LRT.

Here’s Progress Report No. 1.

 

Yes, it’s a streetcar!  That was the original plan, and the line was built for CLRVs.  That’s why there is a streetcar-radius curve at Kennedy, and if you look closely, the remnants of clearance markers on the original low platform at track level.  When the station opened, even though it was RT by then, the graphic over the up escalator was a streetcar.

Note the design for the station at STC where the streetcars are at the same level as the buses.  It didn’t take long for someone to hoodwink Scarborough Council into thinking that this simply would not do, and the streetcars needed their own level lest they isolate the land south of the station from development.  Anyone who knows the site knows that the bus roadway does quite a good job of that.

pr2pg5c

By Progress Report No. 2, which is otherwise quite similar to No. 1, the design has changed to an elevated structure.  Moves were already afoot to substitute RT technology, but the streetcar line took the political hit for imposing an elevated on Scarborough’s new Town Centre.

In time, the RT technology replaced the LRT scheme.

A few things worth noting here are that the estimated cost has gone from $108.7-million in the LRT plan to $181-million in the RT plan.  The final cost would actually be in excess of $220-million thanks to add-ons including extra cars.  The CLRV fleet was planned to be 22, and the RT fleet we wound up with is 28.

The RT promo also claims that because the wheels are not used for traction or braking, there will be lower vibration compared with conventional vehicles.  In those days, the CLRVs were still running with the original Bochum wheels, and streetcar track construction guaranteed lots of corrugations and noise.  The RT developed its own problems in time because those wheels do bounce, and they are also used for the final braking effort when they can (and do) slide producing flat spots.

Now, almost 30 years later, we are finally looking at extending the RT further north.  If this is done as LRT, it will be able to share a new carhouse and trackage with the Sheppard East LRT, and will also form the northern portion of the eventual Scarborough-Malvern line.

When the Metrolinx analysis comes out next week, we will see whether the lure of expensive, unnecessary high technology still rules the decision, or whether we can start to undo the damage of building that orphan RT line so many years ago.

Update:  Here is John F. Bromley’s photo of CLRV 4000 fitted with a pantograph at the SIG factory in Neuhausen, Switzerland on June 29, 1977.

clrvwithpantographjfb

Here is a photo of 4001 leaving Orbe, Switzerland on the Orbe Charvonay Railway on October 6, 1977.  This photo was taken by Ray Corley, and is provided by John F. Bromley.

clrvwithpantographrfc

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Who Will Ride the Yonge Subway?

Updated January 9:  The 2009 Subway Fleet Plan has been scanned and linked from this post.

Toronto’s Executive Committee voted on Monday to approve submission of the EA for the Richmond Hill extension to Queen’s Park, but added a number of riders on their support for the line.  This parallels actions taken at the last TTC meeting to strengthen the pre-requisites for City participation in this project.  The conditions include:

  • Full funding for construction and operation of the extension beyond Steeles Avenue at no cost to Toronto.
  • Full funding for any cost of an additional subway yard.
  • Completion of the Automatic Train Control system on the YUS line, including the Vaughan extension.
  • Any measures to relieve capacity problems at Bloor-Yonge would be funded as part of this project.

City and TTC staff have been requested to report directly to the January 27 Council meeting on various potential ancilliary costs including:

  • Bloor-Yonge station expansion
  • Fleet expansion and subway yard costs
  • Second entrances to other downtown stations
  • Need for an eastern Downtown Relief Line
  • Need for extending the Sheppard line west to Downsview
  • Sequencing of these options relative to the Richmond Hill line’s construction

Notable by its absence from this list is any reference to GO Transit’s Richmond Hill service.  This must be included because the level of GO service has a big impact on the modelled ridership for any future TTC network.

Karl Junkin, who comments here regularly, presented a deputation on this item which is supposed to be linked from the City’s site.  However, that link is currently not working.

Karl Junkin Yonge Analysis

Karl covers a lot of the ground that was in my own report on TTC fleet planning and other posts about the Richmond Hill extension.   Staff have been directed to meet with Karl and provide comments on his concerns in a report to Council.

Much of this turns on hte question of how many people will actually be riding the subway in 2017 when the Richmond Hill extension is planned to open.  TTC staff have, to their considerable discredit, played fast and loose with teh relevant data depending on the argument of the moment.

When it suits their purpose to conjure up a need for vastly more trains on the line and increased capacity at Bloor-Yonge, then the estimates can be stratospheric.  When the goal is to pretend that the Richmond Hill extension can be accommodated with no increase in service, then — Presto! Chango! — more riders but no more service.  The word “bamboozle” comes to mind here, although somewhat less Parliamentary language might be more appropriate.

Let’s review the estimates we have seen recently. Continue reading →

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Where Would a Queen Subway Go?

This post is intended to continue the thread of historical background to the problem of threading a Downtown Relief Line from the Danforth Subway into downtown Toronto.  It is not intended to endorse a specific alignment, but to show the sort of problems that existed 40 years ago and which remain today.

Back in June 1968, the TTC considered a report about an interim Queen Street streetcar subway and a later subway line.  (The linked version of this report has been scanned as text and formatted by me rather than leaving it as page images, but the content is identical.) This contains a number of observations of interest.

  • At this point, the alignment from Queen north was designed to connect with Greenwood Yard as a full subway.  This would be changed many years later to a Pape alignment south to Eastern for a possible ICTS/RT yard.
  • An interim arrangement with a streetcar subway from roughly Sherbourne to Spadina was examined, but it was thought that in the long term, the demand in the Queen and King Street corridors would exceed the capability of streetcar operations.  In hindsight, this is a rather large case of overestimation of future demand.
  • Construction of the Sherbourne Portal would be possible because the buildings on the north side of Queen had recently been demolished to make way for Moss Park.
  • Conversion of a streetcar subway to a full high-platform rapid transit line was considered to be difficult.
  • An alignment south of Queen Street was considered impractical because of the buildings that would have to be underpinned or demolished.
  • An alignment directly under Queen Street would probably require cut-and-cover construction with associated disruption due to soil conditions.  The possibility of more advanced tunneling methods is mentioned.
  • Widening Queen Street is considered an option because, in the good old days, tearing down buildings was the thing to do.  This would not play out quite so favourably as an option today.  The buildings are part of a vital streetscape.
  • An alignment behind the north side properties was considered, although it would still involve considerable building acquisition and demolition.
  • A study by the Metro Planning Department suggested that in the west, the line might travel northwest via the CN corridor to the vicinity of Islington Avenue.
  • The projected cost of the line is in the range of $25-million per mile, or $16-million per km.
  • The report confirms that structural provision exists at Osgoode Station for an east-west subway line.

I have also included here a scan of a drawing showing a possible alignment from Donlands Station south and west to the Broadview (this is labelled “north alignment”, but this portion is substantially the same for all variants).

donlandslegcSeveral points are worth noting from this drawing.

  • The tunnel would pass under Eastern High School and through an existing residential neighbourhood.
  • The alignment would require the demolition of a large number of vintage buildings along Queen Street.
  • The curve south to west begins at Dundas and Alton and ends at Queen and Jones.  This gives an indication of the swath that any subway curve will cut through a neighbourhood, and I commend this to those readers who propose lines with hairpin turns.
  • A curve from Pape onto the rail corridor would be less severe, although not without impacts, because it would not be a full 90 degree turn.  (Pape is the north-south street just to the right of the obscured part of the street grid at the top of the page.)

As I said at the outset, I am publishing this to provide context for the discussion on this site.  The planned construction of the Richmond Hill subway extension and the demand it will add to the Yonge line has side-effects that must be addressed.  None of the options is simple, but we need to understand what they all are and how elements of them might be chosen or omitted from the solution.

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Where Would a Don Mills Subway Go?

There has been a lot of discussion here about potential alignments for the eastern leg of a downtown relief line.  On occasion I have mentioned a route rather different from the commonly discussed one via Pape, the Leaside Bridge and Overlea, and I am sure this has caused some confusion.

One advantage of having been at this transit advocacy business for a long time is that I have a long memory and archives to match.  For your delectation, here is a proposed route from Don Mills and Eglinton to downtown.  It is a TTC Subway Construction Department drawing dated December 12, 1973.

donmillsalignmentdec73c

A few things worth noting about this drawing:

The route north from Danforth is via Donlands, not Pape.  This provides access to Greenwood yard via the connection shown.  It also aligns the route further east to simplify the valley crossing north of O’Connor.

The route passes through the middle of Thorncliffe Park and proceeds north to Eglinton.  This is more or less the sort of alignment I have been talking about for the east leg of a DRL (or, for that matter, for the Don Mills LRT if it came south of Eglinton).

Two alternative alignments from the CNR line to Queen are shown.  One goes straight south while the other runs along the rail corridor.  Going west along Queen brings its own problems, and these were discussed in an earlier, 1968 report that I will present in a separate post.  (Please don’t clutter up the comments thread here with questions about that part of the alignment.  You will get your chance.)

I present this information mainly so that people can see that the idea of a subway to Eglinton and Don Mills is hardly new, and it’s not even mine — I simply resurrected an old TTC concept.  When we discuss transit plans, it is useful to know some of the history.

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A Question of Station Capacity (Update 1)

Update 1:  December 28, 5:15 pm:

I have received a note pointing out that a second entrance program is in progress for various stations regardless of the building code requirement for a “trigger” condition (the addition of substantial load to the demand in the station).

The reports in question are from 2004 and 2005.  The 2005 report deals with College, Wellesley, Museum and Castle Frank.  The work at Castle Frank is underway now.  Museum was to get a second exit through the vent shaft at the south end of the station, but this work was put on hold because it was to be funded as part of the condo project on the Planetarium site that was cancalled.

Original post follows with amendments:

“James” sent in a comment in the Richmond Hill subway thread that deserves to start a discussion of its own.

Steve,

Perhaps this comment belongs back in your thread on Bloor-Yonge renovations….

But since that seems to be the dominant line of discussion here….

Your arguments are persuasive on the need to build a DRL (something I already supported); but further, to build it prior to either a major Yonge line extension, or a massive Bloor-Yonge overhaul.

However, I think everyone can accept that Bloor-Yonge, as it is today, requires more space, and improved passenger flows just to cope with existing traffic; and it will likely need that even if a DRL is built. Though, one hopes a less drastic solution might be feasible.

Which brings me to the Steve question of the day. Given the need for capacity/flow improvements and for the renovation for aesthetic and state-of-good-repair reasons of the Yonge portion of Bloor-Yonge…. What if any improvements could the TTC make to this station that would be of moderate expense, and less disruption, in the immediate future?

This post deals primarily with the south end of the Yonge line, but the topic is a generic one for both existing and future stations:  providing the ability for passengers to move around within the stations.  Stations exist to move people, not just trains. Continue reading →