Subways

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What Will the Spadina Subway Cost?

Next week’s TTC agenda contains a report on potential ridership, costs and revenues for the Spadina Subway extension.

This is fascinating reading because we now begin to see vaguely real numbers about this project.  Contrary to claims in an earlier report to Council, the line will not recover 80% of its costs from opening day and a special subsidy will be needed. 

One particular observation notes that York University students now ride in from the 905 on a single York Region fare.  They will not be willing to pay an extra fare for a “TTC” fare zone on the subway, and therefore won’t contribute much revenue to it.  They are the single most important part of the revenue projections for the new line, but the marginal revenue they will actually generate is small.

The City of Toronto has been asked, through the operating agreement for the new line, to shoulder all of the future costs and losses despite the considerable benefits for both York Region and Queen’s Park.  The TTC holds that this should justify a special operating subsidy.

The Toronto portion of the subway is projected to open with a 62% cost recovery for operations.  This is quite respectable, but below average for the system and operating dollars will have to be found (or diverted) to run this line.  On Sheppard, we got no special subsidy and absorbed the extra operating cost into the base budget.  Remember that the next time the TTC says it cannot afford to run better service on your bus route.

The TTC is quite clear in saying that subways require a density of 100 persons and/or jobs per hectare, and that:

… the Spadina Subway Extension, especially the portion north of Steeles Avenue, is not expected to reach this density threshold for some time after the commencement of revenue service …

Revenue service is almost a decade away, and “some time after” even further in the future.  Meanwhile, we have many pressing transportation requirements in the GTA that will go unfunded.  The report ends by stating:

A substantial operating cost contribution from the Province of Ontario to the estimated $14.2-million in net operating costs for the entire line should be pursued to offset the City’s financial risk.

I’m sure further study of this problem will magically reduce the projected losses to politically acceptable levels.  The Emperor’s tailor will be visiting any day now.

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The Tyranny of Old Plans

Some months ago, John Sewell gave a series of talks about the origins of suburbia.  Among the fascinating background materials were several maps showing the expressway network in what we now call the GTA and beyond.

Some of these maps are now 70 years old, but they clearly show the precursors of many of the 400 series highways.  Many decisions about future land use and development turned on alignments that Ontario identified and protected years before they were needed.  Long term planning has benefits, but it can also be an invisible hand directing the future.

Three long-lived transportation projects in Toronto come to mind.  All shared two common factors:

  • property development interests played a role in advocacy for these projects, and
  • all of the projects were “too expensive”, but they stayed on the books 

One project is already built albeit in shortened form, one is in early days of construction, and one refuses to die even though it’s little more than a billboard and a perfunctory website. Continue reading →

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The Spadina Subway: In For A Penny …

The Toronto Executive Committee Agenda for April 30 contains an intriguing report titled Spadina Subway Extension — Update.  This sets out details of the proposed agreement between the City of Toronto, the TTC and York Region for the construction and operation of the line to Vaughan Corporate Centre.

You can read the whole thing at your leisure, but here’s what caught my eye:

  • The subway line will be built, owned, operated and maintained by the TTC.  The land on or under which it sits will be owned by the TTC or on long-term lease.
  • Surface facilities including bus transfers and passenger pickup/dropoff areas will be built and maintained by York Region.
  • The TTC will set service and fare levels for the subway, will control retail leasing in the stations, will take all revenues and will be responsible for capital maintenance.

The estimated operating cost of the line in York Region is about $9-million per annum, and the TTC expects to recover “up to 80% from fares and other revenue”.  This is a very optimistic projection considering ridership levels claimed in York Region’s own Environmental Assessment report, and obviously it assumes an extra fare for service north of Steeles Avenue.  Alas, there report contains no material to support this claim.

The TTC seeks a Provincial startup subsidy “until such time as the subway reaches full ridership”.  Does this mean until the subway is literally full, or that it has met some projected level of riding, and if so what level?

What is extremely troubling here is that Toronto and the TTC propose to sign on to an arrangement whereby the TTC could wind up subsidizing the operation in York Region if revenue projections fall short and/or if Queen’s Park doesn’t cough up an operating grant.  The absence of any financial or ridership data in this report leaves me wondering just how this financial sleight-of-hand comes about.

This is an ideal arrangement for York Region who don’t risk ongoing costs of subsidizing the subway if it doesn’t meet expectations.  They get the benefit of the development, such as that may be, without chancing a raid on their budget to pay for empty subway trains.

By the time the VCC line opens, there will no doubt be some kind of fare union, if not an amalagamation between the Toronto and York Region transit systems.  Will there still be separate fares north of Steeles?  Will the TTC’s revenue projections be realistic in that sort of environment?

These are serious questions, but I doubt we will see much from our Executive Committee on Monday.  Despite recent moves to snatch a few dollars from the Spadina Subway trust fund, I doubt anyone at City Hall wants to dig too deeply into the financial assumptions of this project. 

How does the TTC expect to recover 80% of operating costs, let alone pay for future capital maintenance?  How much service will be cut in Toronto to run trains to the fields of Vaughan?  Does anyone know?  Does anyone care?

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Taking A Bite Out Of Spadina

The City of Toronto Budget Committee fired back at Queen’s Park in their ongoing battle over proper funding of provincial obligations under legislated shared-cost programs.  Ontario’s underpayment for 2007 is $71-million.

Councillor Mihevc, who also sits on the TTC as vice-Chair, moved that the city withdraw $30-million of its contribution to the Spadina Subway Extension trust fund.  The remaining $41-million shortfall will be taken from City reserve funds.

Councillor Rae moved that the City Solicitor be instructed to apply for a judicial interpretation of provincial cost sharing obligations for various social services.

Both motions carried unanimously.  The motion regarding the Spadina funds will go to Council as part of the final budget debates, while the motion about the legal situation for shared cost programs can be approved at Executive Committee next week.

There is already budgetary pressure on the Spadina extension project because final approval has been delayed beyond the date originally anticipated by the TTC (there is a passing reference to this on next week’s TTC agenda without any specific numbers).  Inflation will push up the final project cost if the line is not built on the planned schedule.

The Budget Chief, Councillor Carroll, as well as Councillors Mihevc and Rae, indicated that the Spadina Subway extension is a Provincial priority, not a City priority.

Queen’s Park wants Toronto to spend on a Provincial pet project, but won’t pay their share of social programs forcing Toronto to pick up the tab.

As of midday April 12, Queen’s Park has not responded to this situation.

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Expanding Bloor-Yonge Station

[Comments are now closed on this item.  I am getting tired of repeating myself about the physical possibilities at Bloor/Yonge and the fact that this is not the only place we would need to look at expanding if we substantially increase subway capacity.  There is nothing more to add to this discussion.] 

Several people have left comments or sent emails on the subject of capacity at Bloor-Yonge.  Mark Dowling’s was the latest, and I thought it would be a good place to start a new thread.  (The poor-man’s diagram below has been corrected to match the actual station layout.  Thanks to Miroslav Glavic for pointing out this howler of an error.)

A letter writer to the Star this morning mentions the 1 Bloor East project as a way of expanding Bloor Line capacity – I am concerned about the possible effect of this building on peak crowding. Would it be possible to “stagger” a second platform so that it would be under the 1BE site? I guess the connection to the Yonge line would be tricky but this might be an opportunity we won’t get again.

====================   existing WB track
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX   existing centre platform
====================   existing EB track
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX   new EB platform

On the Bloor line, it is important to understand where the station sits physically.  All of the station is north of the 1 Bloor East site.  The west end of the station is inside the structure of the Hudson’s Bay Building at 2 Bloor East and is roughly under the east side of Yonge Street.  You can tell where it is quite easily from the location of the western exit from Yonge Station which comes up to street level between the Bay and Starbuck’s (formerly Britnell’s Book Shop).

The silver columns at Bloor Station on the Yonge line are directly under Bloor Street.  This used to be the entrance to the stairs up to the Bloor streetcar transferway.   Note that these columns lie south of the mezzanine area and the stairs down to the Bloor Subway.

The east end of Yonge Station lies under Bloor, and the turn into the tunnel is roughly under the intersection of Park Road and Bloor Street at the east end of 2 Bloor East.  The round tunnel runs east under Bloor to Sherbourne where the line turns south and runs parallel to Bloor east of Sherbourne before turning back to the north to cross the Rosedale Valley Road.

Many years ago, the TTC produced a plan for expanding Bloor-Yonge Station including a new eastbound platform as shown here, not to mention a new centre platform on the Yonge line.  Indeed, it was this scheme that was used to justify “phase 1” — the widening of the platforms at Bloor Station.

One big problem with adding such a platform is that you need to connect it with the station “upstairs”.  This is extremely difficult given that much of the structure would be inside of the existing 2 Bloor East building.  Indeed, the TTC’s own plans showed a large column directly conflicting with what would be the new eastbound platform.

The basic point is that 1 Bloor East may be adding more demand at this station, but I doubt that every resident will spill out onto the subway at the same time if only because there wouldn’t be enough elevator capacity for that.  Structurally, the site is completely separate from the Bloor subway line and offers no opportunities for expansion.

As for the Yonge line, the TTC did have a scheme to add a third centre platform, but building it would be extremely complex (again it is inside of existing buildings) and parts of the work would require that the station be closed (yes, closed) for at least half a year.  You don’t just shuffle platform space and track around as an overnight job.

Many capacity issues in transportation (and indeed in other systems) can be approached in two ways:  either we go into panic mode and desperately try to expand at the perceived site of the problem, of we figure out how to reduce demand at that point by directing traffic elsewhere.  As I have written in many other posts, this comes down to improving GO rail service so that the subway isn’t lumbered with all of the long-haul trips and adding capacity into the core to divert traffic off of the Yonge line itself.

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Can We Redecorate the Toronto Subway?

The post about artists decorating a New York Subway car reminded me of a conversation earlier this week at a gathering of the Jane Jacobs Prize winners.  A few of us were talking about ideas for getting stories of the transit system’s history out where people could easily find them, and I brought up the issue of subway station decor.

Decor is not quite the word I would use when describing the TTC, but the mathemeticians among you will understand the concept of the null set.  Even the total absence of decor is a form of decor itself, minimalism taken to the extreme.

This brings me back to a topic discussed here in the early days of the site, subway station beautification.

Why can we only have subway station makeovers when someone wants to drop millions of dollars, and a lot of capital-D Design on a few stations? The current proposals for Museum, St. Patrick and Osgoode involve complete makeovers with a high ratio of design and construction effort to finished product. Will they stay relevant in five, ten, twenty years, or will they fizzle out from staleness of content and indifferent maintenance like Arc en ciel at Yorkdale Station?

Why must decor take on the character of a station domination advertising campaign?  Indeed, could future proposals run aground for fear that they would compromise the TTC’s ability to sell entire stations to advertisers?  Imagine Union Station bereft of advertising and full of imagery of transportation!

The Poetry on the Way program is a tiny, occasionally heartwarming touch in the sterile subway environment, but it’s far too little.

Toronto is in the midst of considering a complete makeover of its street furniture, a scheme designed to sell every square inch of the city for advertising revenue.  Wouldn’t it be nice if there were places in the subway, prominent places, not just out of the way corners in stations like Bessarion or Ellesmere, where we could see images of the nearby city past and present?  With a bit of thought, the design of such presentations could even fit in with the character of each station.

An even more aggressive scheme would involve actually changing these displays from time to time.  Yes, panels cost money to fabricate and install, but think of it as part of the cost of making the system attractive.  “Hey, look, that picture wasn’t there yesterday!”

I throw this out as a challenge to all those would-be benefactors of arts and urban life.  Instead of building up funds for mega-construction projects, think small, but on a big scale.  Don’t try to put the same cookie-cutter generic Toronto photo in every station, don’t just slap a cheap piece of cardboard or plastic in an advertising frame as filler during the off-season, put in something that will last.  And do it everywhere so that art, decor, a bit of warm feeling about our city, aren’t just the preserve of a few stations dedicated to grand construction on the University line.

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Spadina Subway? What Spadina Subway?

For three years, we have pretended that the Spadina Subway extension was a worthwhile project.  We hoped that  lobbyists from York University and their pals at Queen’s Park would look kindly on poor little Toronto.  Maybe they would give us more powers in a City of Toronto Act.  Maybe they would actually start paying for social services that are really a provincial responsibility.  Maybe they would give us better, ongoing funding for transit.

Three years of tugging our forelocks and saying “please, sir, we want some more” were a total waste of time.  All of the transit spending and social services budget relief go to the 905 and Toronto gets nothing.

Toronto has new taxing powers, and it should use them.  Build the city with the “revenue tools” we have and stop being so dependent on other governments.

We have been duped into an unworkable formula of 1/3 shares by the federal, provincial and municipal governments.  This makes every project, every funding request, hostage to federal and provincial whims most of which avoid spending on Toronto.  Yes, it’s outrageous that we get less transit funding than cities in any other major country, but we should stop holding our breath for this to change.

Now Toronto needs to make its spending priorities fit a Toronto agenda, not one for Queen’s Park.

The Spadina Subway extension exists for two reasons:

  • The combined force of York University’s lobbying and the Finance Minister’s desire to see a subway into his riding.
  • The long-standing resistance of the TTC to examine and promote any alternatives to subway extensions.

Any realistic examination of “value for money” would have killed this line, and especially the extension into Vaughan, long ago.  Any proper examination of alternatives would have examined an extensive network of LRT, busways and commuter rail to serve this sector.  That debate hides in back corridors because nobody in power wants to challenge the inevitability of a subway to York University and beyond, nobody wants to support a fair analysis of alternatives.

Toronto should withdraw support for the Spadina Subway immediately.

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Some Day My Parts Will Come

Long time readers here will remember my survey of escalator status, and will also have noticed that I didn’t publish anything on the subject for quite a while.  Why?  I was keeping track, but the problem of escalators being out of service seemed to have faded to a tolerable level.

Maybe it’s a statistical blip, maybe the bad old days are back, but last week, I hit something of a “home run” for out-of-service elevating devices. Continue reading →