Sheppard Subway

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Sheppard Panel To Recommend LRT, Not Subway

Various media outlets have reported that the Expert Panel struck by Toronto City Council to review options for the Sheppard East line will recommend the original Transit City LRT plan, not a subway extension.

To the amazement of many, Mayor Rob Ford appears to be trying for a compromise, but given his history, that word probably has a different meaning for the Mayor and his circle than for the rest of us.  The essential problem is to decide whether the subway will end somewhere west of Scarborough Town Centre (Don Mills?  Victoria Park?) or if the “compromise” plan would presume getting to STC some day.  If that’s the “compromise”, them building an LRT to meet the subway would come under fire as a waste of money, and we would be back, essentially, to Ford’s all-subway plan for Sheppard.

Meanwhile, TTC Chair Karen Stintz and Councillor Josh Matlow held a packed meeting in North Toronto to explain and advocate for the LRT option endorsed by Council.  Although there is good support for LRT, an uphill battle remains to counter the Ford camp’s pro-subway spin.

City Council will meet in March 15, 2012 to consider the panel’s report which, if the agenda process runs true to form, should be available in advance of the meeting.

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The Secret Sheppard Subway Report

On February 15, 2012, the Star’s Royson James wrote about a TTC report prepared in March 2011 for Mayor Rob Ford on the Sheppard Subway.  The article included a photo of the report’s summary.

Royson James graciously provided me with a copy of the document, and it is available here for those who want to see the whole thing.  I suspect that it is only part of an even larger report because this material only covers one big question: why are the assumptions from the Network 2011 study done back in 1986 no longer valid?  There is no discussion of construction costs, project financing, or any comparison of alternative schemes.

2011.03 Transit Technology Summary and Background

2011.03 Transit Technology Table

Note:  These files were prepared by scanning the copy I received, which itself was a previous generation copy including a lot of marginalia.  The text was imported into and formatted as a new Word document with approximately the same layout (and typography) as the original.  This allowed it to be “printed” in PDF format (the files linked above) rather than a much larger set of images of the scanned sheets.

The report contains a few rather intriguing comments that won’t sound new to regular readers of this site, but which raise questions about the planning assumptions underneath decades of work by the TTC, City Planning and other agencies.

Planners and politicians make grand statements about how policies, official plans and zoning will focus development in locations and patterns of their choice.  In practice, this does not actually happen because the best intentions are inevitably diluted by political reality.  Developers build where there is a real market, not where a plan tells them they should build.  Jobs move around in complete ignorance of city, regional and provincial goals.  Do you own some land that doesn’t fit the plan?  Just sit on it until a friendly government comes to power and get a brand new, as-of-right zoning upgrade.

The idea that transit will shape development is demonstrably false because so many parts of the city with subway stations have not, in fact, developed at all.  This may be due to neighbourhood pressure, or to a policy of preserving the “old” parts of the city because that character has a value greater than massive redevelopment.  A neighbourhood may simply not be ready for development, or may have the wrong character.

This is particularly striking for residential development where local amenities and the “feel” of a neighbourhood are more important than with an industrial/commercial/office development.  People may work in office towers surrounded by pedestrian-hostile roads and parking, but they want to go home to something friendlier.

Because the market for commercial real estate and the jobs it brings has shifted to the 905, much of the development in nodes originally intended for employment has been residential.  This completely changes the transit demand pattern.  Instead of many commuters travelling “in” to a few nodes, we have residential areas that spawn outward trips all over the GTAH.  Subway plans presumed the concentrated trip making that nodes full of employees would create, and these have not materialized.

We are now seeing this pattern even in downtown Toronto with the growth of the condo market.  Many residents live and work downtown, but a considerable number are “reverse commutes” out to the 905, trips for which both the local and regional systems are very badly equipped.

The idea of “downtown North York” or “downtown Scarborough” has simply not materialized in the form expected three decades ago.  Actual employment levels at these two centres are about 1/3 (North York) or 1/5 (Scarborough) of the 1986 projections.  This should be a lesson for today’s planners and politicians who think they can forecast and direct future growth patterns with the aid of a few maps and regulations.

The employment growth projected back in 1986 for “Metropolitan Toronto” (now the City of Toronto) was a rise from 1.23-million to 1.9m.  In fact, employment grew only to 1.30m by 2011 with the lion’s share of the jobs going instead to the 905.  With the absence of strong nodes for new jobs, there was little chance of improving the modal split to whatever commercial development did occur.  Combining lower than predicted growth and a failure to achieve the projected transit modal split leaves us with demand projections that are completely meaningless.

Far too often, there is a political imperative to make the future look better than it might be, or at least to do a proper sensitivity analysis, a “what if” scenario for conditions that don’t match what we would like to see.  Any subway financing scheme that depends on future ridership must answer basic questions:  will those riders actually arrive, and will land development occur in a manner that will generate trips the subway will serve?

We have already seen development in the Sheppard corridor, but it is unclear whether this attracts buyers because it is near the 401 and DVP (and thus to a wide set of GTA destinations), or because it is near the subway.  That development is generating many car trips because, for most destinations, auto travel is the only real option.  The market share for transit at the North York and Scarborough centres is barely half what was projected in 1986, and the compound effect of much lower employment means that transit demand to these centres is a trivial fraction of what Network 2011 was intended to serve.

One item caught my eye in the section of “Public’s travel patterns and behaviour”.  Not only were the employment and mode share values used to model demand considerably above what actually happened, assumptions were  made about the way the Sheppard subway would get its passengers.  Regional and local bus services would be gerrymandered to force riders onto the Sheppard line (at least in the model), but riders actually preferred to go to Finch Station where there was a chance of getting a comfortable spot on a train.

Another assumption in the demand model was that the cost of driving would rise substantially both through higher gas prices and the cost of parking.  Neither of these materialized, although based on typical motoring behaviour, without a very  good network of transit alternatives, the pricing of auto trips does not discourage much travel.

This begs a vital question for all regional planning — can we trust the models?  What assumptions went into the model for our new transit  network, and have these been tested against actual patterns of development and of the regional economy?

The projected demands on new transit lines made back in 1986 were substantially higher than today’s expectations:

  • The Sheppard subway was expected to have 15,400 peak riders by 2011, but the actual number on the existing line is 4,500.  The projected peak demand for the full line in 2011 is now 6-10,000.
  • The Eglinton subway was expected to have 17,600 peak riders by 2011, but the LRT projection is now reduced to 5,200 (based on having the central section underground).
  • The Downtown Relief line was projected to have 11,700 peak riders by 2011, and the demand projection today is 12,000.  This is no surprise given that the DRL would serve a demand that actually existed 25 years ago, rather than a notional demand in a regional plan.

In previous articles, I have discussed the matter of the TTC’s Capital Budget and the mounting cost of simply keeping the subway system running.  Nothing lasts forever, and many systems are wearing out.  We are now on the third major generation of vehicles, there are problems everywhere with station finishes and equipment, water penetration and damage is an ongoing headache, and the signal system must be completely replaced.  Contrary to statements by some subway advocates, subways do not last for 100 years without major investments in rehabilitation.

Back in 1986, the TTC had not yet reached the point where the subway had started to wear out.  The oldest line (Yonge from Eglinton to Union) was only 32 years old, and much of its first generation equipment was still functional.  The TTC now knows that the subway system has an ongoing cost of $230m operating (routine maintenance) and $275m capital (major systems replacement) every year.  Looked at another way, simply maintaining the subway system consumes about 1/6 of the annual operating budget, and a substantial slice of the non-expansion related capital budget.

There is a large backlog of needed capital repairs with a shortfall of $2.3-billion in the 10-year capital budget thanks to provincial cutbacks in capital funding.  Building more subway lines will only add to this set of maintenance costs a few decades in the future.

Finally, we have a bit of creative history writing.  Why, the TTC asks, was LRT not embraced as an option back in 1986?  They claim that at the time it was a poorly understood mode with only limited use, particularly in North America.  What we now think of as “modern” LRT had not yet evolved.  This statement ignores the LRT renaissance in Europe and suggests that despite new LRT systems in North America (notably Edmonton’s and Calgary’s), it was too soon for the TTC to embrace the mode.

I will not dwell on the fact that the Scarborough ICTS system was brand new, and the idea that an “intermediate capacity” system between buses and subways already might exist was simply not in accord with provincial policy.

In fact, the TTC’s love for LRT is a very recent phenomenon.  When the Ridership Growth Strategy was first proposed in 2003 for “short term” service improvements, TTC subway planners were terrified that their pet projects had fallen off of the map.  The RGS was hastily amended to include a commitment to the Spadina and Sheppard extensions, and this move has been cited ever since as “proof” that the TTC supports the Sheppard line.  It would be another four years before the Transit City scheme was launched.

LRT was well-established around the world before the Transit City plan was announced, but it took a major rethink of Toronto’s transit network at the political level, combined with the economic constraints against subway building, for LRT to get the consideration it deserved.  Transit City was not perfect, but it got Toronto thinking about what might be built.

This report is a year old, and its existence shows that the pro-subway forces in Toronto, notably in the Mayor’s office, did not want an informed, public discussion of subway plans to occur.  Observations about the changing growth patterns in Toronto raise important questions about the future role of transit, indeed of the ability of transit to serve the region as we have actually built it.  Far too much effort is concentrated on the subway-vs-LRT battle in a few corridors when the real challenge lies “out there” in the growing and very car-oriented 905.

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Metrolinx and the Toronto Council LRT Decision

At its February 16, 2012 meeting, the Metrolinx Board received a presentation and report on the status of projects in Toronto arising out of the Council action taken on February 8.  The report does not add much to information already reported, but it consolidates various documents in one convenient location.

The map of the 5-in-10 plan (the version of Transit City agreed to by Toronto Council in 2009 and disavowed by Mayor Ford) appears in both documents.  This map includes:

  • The Eglinton line from Jane to Kennedy with an underground section from Keele station to Laird station.  In the press scrum following the meeting, I asked about the possibility of redesign of the section through Mount Dennis (Weston Road) and near Don Mills and the DVP.  Metrolinx confirmed that details of these areas are still being worked out.  (See below)
  • The SRT rebuilt as LRT from Kennedy Station to Sheppard.
  • The Sheppard LRT from Don Mills Station to Morningside including a new carhouse at Conlins Road.
  • The Finch West LRT from Finch West Station to Humber College.

A note I received from Rick Ciccarelli (long active in transit affairs in Weston) gave further information from a public meeting on February 15 in Weston:

In speaking with Jack Collins [Metrolinx Vice-President, Rapid Transit Implementation] last night at Councillor di Giorgio’s Kodak Town Hall, he said underground [is] still in play and indicated the loading and unloading of trains at the start and end of service will be a problem for at-grade, and he also expects an interconnecting GO/TTC station to work better. He is not sure if it will go underground past this station. They are also looking at a bridge across Black Creek Drive to service the yards, plus bus connections for both TTC and regional service. The Kodak building could become a bus terminal. He said there are multiple issues to sort through before the design can be finalized including whether they are designing for 3 car LRT or full subway vehicles, and the relationship with the GO rail corridor track expansion project and the new station.

Collins confirmed at the Metrolinx meeting that the purchase of the Kodak site was concluded at about the beginning of February.  The remark about possibly designing the carhouse for full subway vehicles dates, I suspect, from a period when the actual technology to be used for the line had not been settled by Council.  Changing to full subway requires far more extensive design modifications than simply at the carhouse.

During the Board’s discussion, the question arose of interference in Council’s decision by the Ford brothers and their “Save Our Subways” scheme.  CEO and President Bruce McCuaig replied that Queen’s Park has indicated that they will listen to Council.  Chair Rob Prichard said that Metrolinx’ job was to be respectful of the Council process, and that it was not for Metrolinx to take sides with individual Councillors, but to wait for Council’s decision-making process to complete.

Director Lee Parsons asked what risk there might be that the Council debate will not be resolved by the end of March.  McCuaig replied that Metrolinx needs “certainty and clarity” from Council.  Prichard said that the “end game” is an agreement with the City, a binding agreement, and that McCuaig and his staff would move forward to a full master agreement as quickly as possible.  In the press scrum, Prichard hopes that Council will take a position endorsing a new master agreement, and referred to comments by individual members as “noise on the side”.

Director Douglas Turnbull worried that the longer the LRT versus subway debate continues — a false one he believed because LRT is the only reasonable option — that a window of opportunity for transit expansion may be lost.

Director Peter Smith noted that both Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario are strong supporters of arrangements where the entire provision of a line would be outsourced.  Bruce McCuaig replied that the province is committed to AFP (alternative financing and procurement) models, but various types of “package” may be appropriate.  Smith wondered whether the TTC was in any position to dictate an alternative arrangement for a facility that was not their own, and thought that the public did not understand the situation well (blaming the media for this state of affairs).

On the status of penalties for cancelled projects, Rob Prichard stated that Metrolinx would provide the City’s “expert panel” reviewing options for Sheppard with information about these and the effect of various possible options on which sunk costs could be reinstated as part of active projects.  Jack Collins said that Metrolinx has now broken down the costs per project and that the amount of sunk (unrecoverable) costs will go down as original route designs come back into the plan.  There will be some loss from the work done on tunnel design for the eastern section of Eglinton, although to whose cost this might be is an interesting point considering that Council never requested the change.

The vehicle delivery schedule must be revisited now that Finch and possibly Sheppard are  back in the mix.  Delivery dates can now move back to something close to the original contract based on the 5-in-10 plan.

Director Joe Halstead asked what differences there were between the Council motion of February 8 and the Transit City 5-in-10 plan.  Collins replied that the big issue is the status of Sheppard East although this also would have an effect on the SRT/LRT project.  If there is no Sheppard LRT and carhouse, then extension of the SRT beyond McCowan Station is unlikely.  Rob Prichard noted that the sequencing of projects may be changed depending on what is planned for Sheppard to accommodate constraints on the cash flow acceptable to Queen’s Park.

During the press scrum, the Star’s Tess Kalinowski asked at what point is Council’s position considered to have “coalesced”.  Bruce McCuaig replied that there are two points:

  • What position will Council take after the report of the Expert Panel on Sheppard?
  • How much power will they delegate to staff to negotiate the Master Agreement with Metrolinx, and will the agreement have to come back to Council for ratification?

McCuaig noted that a lot of work on the language of an agreement already existed from previous work on the 5-in-10 plan.

I asked about press reports that the Presto implementation in Toronto might be held hostage now that the Ford MoU which purported to commit Toronto to Presto was of no force.  Bruce McCuaig replied that work on Presto is still moving forward, and that implementation of the fare card is linked to other funding agreements including the streetcar purchase and the provincial gas tax share.  Metrolinx expects that an agreement for Presto implementation will go to the TTC Commission at its March 2012 meeting.

[I will report on other issues from the Metrolinx meeting as an update to my “preview” article.]

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The LRT Vote: A Long Day at Council (I)

Wednesday, February 8, 2012 brought the debate on the future of LRT in Toronto to the floor of Council for a Special Meeting.  After a year waiting for Mayor Ford to get his act together on the transit file, to bring his Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Queen’s Park to Council for debate, to bring a credible plan for financing the Sheppard Subway extensions into public view, Council had enough.

TTC Chair Karen Stintz, the last person the progressive wing of Council would have expected, filed a petition with the City Clerk on February 6 for the meeting with the support of 23 of her colleagues.  Two days later, Council would be in open revolt against the Mayor.  The public gallery filled quickly, with overflow viewing by video in the rotunda of City Hall, and the Press Gallery had more reporters and camera crews than I have seen at Council in years.  They stayed all day — this was not a story to cover in an hour or so.

Stepping back from the political drama, this was an astounding day for me as a lifelong advocate for Light Rail Transit.  Here was Toronto Council spending an entire day debating transit planning, technology and funding with a level of detailed knowledge of the issues advocates could only have dreamed of years ago.  At stake was not just $8.4-billion of provincial money, but the future direction of transit development.

The results are reported elsewhere.  This article presents the flavour of the questions and speeches that filled the day together with a strong sense that LRT, forty years after the Streetcars for Toronto Committee’s victory, will finally have a fair chance in Toronto.  I have included details of the questions asked by most Councillors in the interest of showing the range of the debate and the growing understanding, or lack of it, by various members of the details of the issues.

Mayor Ford is not known as a gracious loser, and long before the votes were actually counted, it was clear which way the issue would turn.  The lowest point of the day came just after lunch when the Mayor’s team attempted to sabotage the meeting by breaking quorum.  Council cannot meet without a majority of members present (23), and the Mayor’s folks actually seemed to think that by staying away, they could halt the meeting.

This shows the desperation of the anti-LRT side, and puts Ford’s later comment that Council’s vote was “irrelevant” in a different light.  So relevant was that vote that he attempted to ensure it never took place.  He failed.

Continue reading →

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The LRT Vote: A Long Day at Council (II) (Updated)

Updated February 12, 2012 at 10:40 pm:  Remarks attributed to Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday were in fact spoken by Councillor Doug Ford.  This article has been revised to correct the error which arose from mis-transcription of my notes.

This article continues the discussion of City Council on the question of whether to approve the original Memorandum of Agreement between Toronto and Queen’s Park for the Metrolinx 5-in-10 plan of 2009, or the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Mayor Ford in 2011.

I have not included every speech by every member as some of them added nothing significant to the debate.  However, I wanted to give readers a sense of how each member wanted to get their oar in, and how it can take hours to reach a vote on issues.

Continue reading →

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Metrolinx Contemplates LRT vs Subway (Updated)

Updated February 8, 2012 at 7:40am:  I have often described a suspicion that there is a fifth column within Metrolinx working against the TTC and LRT plans.  Royson James in the Star gives us a view into that organization in which we clearly see how it suits some at Metrolinx to misrepresent what the Toronto of David Miller and the TTC were doing.  This problem goes back years, and was evident during preparation of “The Big Move”, but the Metrolinx love for secrecy, for holding all of the substantive discussions behind closed doors, kept this out of sight.  Now Metrolinx may be faced with a vote at City Council that could run directly opposite to the scheme some at Metrolinx secretly have supported for years.  Will Metrolinx and Queen’s Park listen?

Original post from February 7 below:

On Monday February 6, Metrolinx held a press conference to outline its position on the current subway vs LRT controversy.  This article is a summary of the presentation (which is now available online) and a commentary on it.

I have taken a breather from the Chong report because of its size, the fact that it is now available online, and my desire to review Metrolinx position first.  That agency has somewhat more credibility than and “Toronto Transit Infrastructure Limited”.

Purpose

The presentation is intended to “provide information” on the Eglinton line as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Mayor Ford, and to restate the principles embraced by Queen’s Park and Metrolinx.

Principles

  1. Sound Regional Transit Planning.  Any projects must “achieve sound transportation objectives for the City and the region” and be in tune with the regional plan, The Big Move.
  2. Budget and Cost.  The maximum budget available from Queen’s Park remains $8.4-billion (2010$).  Any plan must remain within the overall total as well as projected yearly cash flows.  Additional costs must be paid by the City or some other partner.
  3. Penalties.  Queen’s Park will not pay any penalties resulting from changes sought by the City, and the penalty costs and losses from the MOU (the Ford document) remain the City’s responsibility.
  4. Cost of Delay.  Further delay is unacceptable to Metrolinx, and any costs this triggers must be paid by the City.
  5. Traffic.  “Any plan should minimize adverse impacts on traffic to the extent reasonably possible.”

Point 3 begs an obvious question of how the Province can hold Toronto responsible for costs incurred because they were foolish enough to proceed on Mayor Ford’s say-so without ensuring Council’s approval.  As we know from the recent legal opinion, the Mayor cannot bind the City to a contract without Council’s consent.

Point 5 is unclear about whether this refers to traffic problems during construction or after a line has opened.  During construction is of interest because this affects both cost and elapsed times for big projects like Eglinton.  The TTC’s construction schedule for an all-underground version is extended out to 2022 because they don’t want to dig up every station location at the same time.  If this were allowed, say as part of a sweetened deal with a private partner, the cost would come down.

Status

The west/central portion of the Eglinton project is common to both versions of the plan, and it is “making good progress”.  Metrolinx and the TTC are working to allow an alternative procurement strategy (putting more responsibility in the hands of a private partner), but certainty is needed on what exactly will be built in the eastern portion.

Current Plan

This is shown as a map with the following components and costs:

  • Metrolinx Crosstown Project:  $8.18-billion
  • Sheppard East Subway Project:  $2.75b
  • Sheppard West Subway Project:  $1.48b
  • Sheppard Subway Yard:  $0.5b

It is worth noting that the total here for Sheppard is $4.73-billion.  This is the “TTC” estimate for Sheppard, not the lower so-called “Metrolinx” estimate cited in the Chong report.  Is there something about the cost of Sheppard Metrolinx knows that they did not share with Gordon Chong and KPMG (who wrote the section of Chong’s paper where this appears)?

Benefits of the Current Crosstown Plan

Just the title of this section is intriguing because, of course, Council has never approved this plan and strictly speaking, it’s not “current”.

Metrolinx claims that there will be a reduction of travel times from Kennedy to Black Creek by 25% as the line will operate at 30-32km/h overall.  Of course, the subway-surfrace variant would operate at this speed too, and the only question is the speed over the section from Leaside to Kennedy.  Part of this section will be grade separated (around Don Mills Station) although the extent is not yet confirmed.  The total distance from Brentcliffe to Kennedy is about 8km.  From Black Creek to Brentcliffe is a bit over 10km.  In other words, the section where any improvement in time can possibly occur is 8/18 or about 45% of the line.

To achieve a 25% increase overall, the speed improvement east of Brentcliffe would have to be 55%.  We know that the speed used for underground operation is 30-32, and this means that the presumed speed for surface operation would be only about 20km/h.  This is lower than the figure actually used by the TTC in the Eglinton line’s published description (22-25km/h) and it also ignores the change in access time to the more widely-spaced stations on an underground alignment.  The difference is between a 15 minute trip (at 32km/h) and a 24 minute trip (at 20km/h).  If the higher TTC speed (25km/h)  is used, the surface trip falls to 19 minutes.  Much will depend on the degree of surface transit priority afforded to the LRT.

Metrolinx cites reliability because an underground line would be completely separated from traffic.  Conversely, a surface line would have to interact with traffic and pedestrians at intersections, and there would be some effect on left turns and signal cycle times.

They also cite “convenience” because the Eglinton and SRT routes are linked.  Note that this arrangement is not peculiar to the underground proposal, and nothing prevents the TTC from doing this for a subway-surface version of the line.  The TTC’s concern is that demand north of Kennedy is higher than on Eglinton, and they don’t want to operate a very frequent “SRT” service with short turns at Kennedy to accommodate a smaller demand west on Eglinton.  This is an issue of operational convenience rather than necessity.

Metrolinx cites higher ridership, especially in the peak, on an underground Crosstown line as compared to the subway-surface route.  This is a direct effect of their demand model which is very sensitive to running times, and which redirects a considerable amount of traffic from the Danforth subway to the Eglinton line.  Whether this is desirable is quite another matter given concerns about the capacity at Eglinton/Yonge station.  A related question is the potential benefit of a Downtown Relief Line intercepting demand on Eglinton at Don Mills.

Overall, Metrolinx states that a fully grade-separated line doubles the capacity of the project.  This is true in the sense that more and longer trains can be operated if the line is all grade-separated, but it also begs the question of the effect on overall cost of providing a fleet and yard sufficient for that capacity and whether LRVs are appropriate for a route that never runs on the surface.  The presentation returns to this issue later.

Light Rail Vehicles

About $76m of $770m of the contract for 182 Bombardier LRVs has been spent to date.  The “current plan” reduced this number to 135 by the elimination of the Finch and Sheppard routes, but these vehicles are suitable for “other LRT applications around the region and province”.  The strongest endorsement of LRT comes here:

“Metrolinx remains confident that LRVs are a good choice given their flexibility to operate at surface, in tunnels and on elevated guideways, with a low floor and high capacity”

Metrolinx notes that the LRVs were intended to operate partly in tunnels in the original plan.  They cite other examples of Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco.  Closer to home, one can look at Edmonton, Philadelphia and Boston (where streetcars have run underground for over a century).  The important point about all of these is that the LRVs do not stay underground when there is no reason for them to do so.

LRVs are low floor vehicles which, in the Metrolinx implementation, will load level with the platform (unlike the surface streetcars which must use a ramp because they operate in mixed traffic).  The low floor aspect of the cars is a “small component” of the overall vehicle cost and project.

Metrolinx notes that:

“Having a low floor provides flexibility for the vehicle to be used in a surface application, when the line is extended west towards Pearson airport or north and east further into Scarborough”

Vehicle Capacity

Metrolinx cites capacities for three-car trainsets ranging from just under 10k/hour at a 3 minute headway (20 trains/hour) to just under 20k/hour at a 1.5 minute headway.  This can accommodate projected ridership beyond 2051.  Surface operations in a median are limited to 8-9k/hour because frequent trains and high pedestrian volumes would interfere too much with road traffic.

Results

What was once a $6.5b project is now an $8.2b project and limited funds are available for other routes.  There will be fewer stations because of their higher cost underground.  Metrolinx states that although this version costs more, it “delivers greater benefits”.  Whether this calculation is offset by the benefits lost through not building other routes is unclear.

Going Forward

Metrolinx and Queen’s Park seek a single position from the City.  They “remain committed” to partnering with Toronto, but “clarity is required”.  Any City position will be evaluated against the principles stated earlier.

I cannot help pointing out that there already is an accepted Memorandum of Agreement dating from 2009 between all of the parties and especially City Council.  It would be difficult for Metrolinx to claim now that the network the MOA contemplates (the 5-in-10 Metrolinx plan for Eglinton, SRT, Sheppard and Finch) would now fail this test.  Tinkering with the plan by Council could re-open the question of what is an “acceptable” request.

The next installment in this drama lies with Council, and political concerns will dominate although this will be disguised by concerns for technical matters.  We may learn again why Canadian winters are too cold for surface operation and other tidbits from Ford’s fountain of transit knowledge.

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The Chong Report (I) (Updated)

Updated February 6, 2012 at 11:45pm:  The Chong report is now available online (linked below) together with a report from KPMG on financing the Sheppard subway.  Large chunks of the KPMG report are reproduced in the Chong report.

Original post from Feb 5 follows:

Gordon Chong’s report

Toronto Transit Back on Track
Sheppard Subway Development and Financing Study

will be released sometime this week, but a copy has already found its way to me.  This report was commissioned by Mayor Ford to explore the viability of his proposal, as stated in the purported Memorandum of Understanding with Queen’s Park, for the City to go it alone on the Sheppard Subway project.  The report is close to 200 pages long including its appendices, and I am not going to review it in a single article.

There is no question Chong’s mandate was to substantiate the need for and viability of the subway line, and to that end his report is coloured with sections intended to denigrate LRT alternatives and the political process that led to the Transit City proposal.  I will turn to this material in due course, but any decision on the subway project must stand on its own.  History is worth reviewing insofar as it provides technical background and shows the evolution of transit planning in Toronto.  Fighting old battles may score political points, but the subway must be justified on its own merits.

The cost and financing model are central to the thesis that the Sheppard line, and by extension a network of subways, is an appropriate goal, indeed the only goal, for Toronto.  The common wisdom is that “everybody wants subways”, but as with many aspects of public spending, what people want is not always what they will get.  Recent events in Toronto’s budget process are littered with lectures by Ford’s followers about fiscal responsibility and the need to make do with less.  We are told that the city and its taxpayers cannot afford to pay more.  We must, therefore, examine claims that major new public works are affordable with suspicion.

What is the estimated cost of any new project?  Are the numbers we are using credible?  Are subways actually cheaper than we have been told, and could a lower cost bring them within financial constraints of potential revenue?  Are public agencies the appropriate developers of such projects?  Are their costs (historical and projected) greater than might be achieved through another delivery mechanism?

While it may be a common Toronto sport to poke holes in TTC budgets, management practices and operations (a not uncommon thread on this blog), such criticism must be backed with a standard of accuracy and care.

How Much Will the Sheppard Subway Cost?

A central premise in this debate is that the TTC, and by implication the public sector generally, is unable to deliver this project at a reasonable cost.  An oft-quoted figure puts the TTC’s estimate of the project at $4.7-billion while an estimate from Metrolinx sits at $3.7-billion.  These numbers first appear in Table 2 in the Executive Summary, and they are routinely repeated as gospel.  One must read all the way down to page 147 and Table 38 to see the details. Here we see component costs that are generally higher for the TTC estimate than the Metrolinx one, but the details reveal that the billion dollar difference is not all that it seems.

Metrolinx estimates the cost of maintenance facilities at $138-million based on a per-car value of $2.66m.  A footnote on the table clearly states that the TTC estimate of $500-million is based on a new facility larger than is needed to hold just the fleet for Sheppard.  Why such a big difference?  Metrolinx assumes an expansion of the yard at Wilson and therefore a marginal increase in system capacity whereas the TTC makes provision for future fleet growth for demand and for system extension.

Wilson Yard has a looming problem with its size because there are limits on how fast trains can be pushed out for service buildup in the AM peak.  Already there is discussion of shortening the hours of subway service to retain an overnight maintenance window between the end of one day’s operations and the start-up of the next.  TTC plans include proposal for an underground storage yard north of Finch Station and, eventually, to a new carhouse somewhere in York Region.  We cannot simply keep stuffing more and more trains into Wilson.

This aspect of the cost difference cannot be counted as a penalty against the TTC because it addresses a completely different model of what would be built (and why), not some inherent flaw or inflation in TTC costing.

“Operating Systems” covers a range of items listed in the comparison.  For this, the TTC’s value is 4.5 times the Metrolinx value ($329m vs $73m).  This amount cannot be explained simply by claiming inefficiency at the TTC, and it is wildly out of scale with the differences in other items.  At the very least, anyone purporting to compare estimates would flag such a difference and explain it in their report rather than simply using the numbers without question.

“Contingency” is a catch-all allowance in any project budget to allow for unexpected events and costs during construction.  Both the TTC and Metrolinx estimates allow about 26% over and above the component costs, and with the TTC’s costs being higher, so is the contingency in their estimate.

Sales tax is included in the TTC estimates, but it is not in the Metrolinx version.  This shows up by virtue of an HST Rebate in the TTC section of the table which has no equivalent on the Metrolinx side.  The HST is included in the component costs including the contingency factor, and the TTC unit costs are not presented on an equal, untaxed footing with the Metrolinx costs.  Again, this sort of adjustment is a basic requirement of financial analysis, but it is absent from Table 38.

There are likely other areas where differences between Metrolinx and TTC figures would bear scrutiny, but as the TTC numbers are not detailed here, nor are the assumptions on which they are based, it is impossible to dig further.

Taking what we can see into account covers about three quarters of the difference between the Metrolinx and TTC estimates.  Before we can believe the Metrolinx $3.7b estimate, the inconsistencies with the TTC numbers must be explained.  Both values may be legitimate given the underlying assumptions used in each case, but these are demonstrably different.  Saying that there is a $1-billion spread between the two is an apples-to-oranges argument.

Here, it suits Gordon Chong’s thesis that the TTC is an inherently poor steward of public funds and that the project could be delivered at lower cost through another agency or mechanism.

A January 2008 Metrolinx report on a study tour to the United Kingdom and Spain is included as an appendix to the Chong report.  Even a cursory reading of this document shows that there are significant differences in the environment in which large-scale projects were undertaken in these jurisdictions compared with Toronto.  A major source of savings lies in the scale and continuity of construction projects, a general agreement that the projects should go forward (possibly with less up-front review such as our Environmental Assessments), and a regulatory environment that reduces contention between proponent agencies and the companies actually building their projects.  (Buried in the report, by the way, are references to “Tram” (LRT) components of the Madrid system which are considerably cheaper per kilometre than their subways.)

The degree to which each difference between the European cities and Toronto contributes to differences in costs is not explored, and yet this is essential to any comparison.  The scale of their projects and longevity of their construction plans are not directly transferable to a single Toronto subway extension.  It is not enough to say “look at how cheaply Madrid builds subways” without also understanding why they can do it.

In my next article I will turn to the question of how we will pay for this project.

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First Steps for a Transit Compromise (Update 3)

[Updates with links to media coverage are at the end of this article.]

Elizabeth Church reports in the Globe about a proposed compromise that would redistribute the funding for the proposed all-underground Eglinton LRT line.

Tess Kalinowski and David Rider in the Star cover the same story and include a map.

  • Eglinton would stay on the surface east of Leaside with a dip underground at Don Mills to surface east of the DVP.  This is similar but not identical to the original Transit City scheme.
  • Part of the money released from the Eglinton project would be used to extend the Sheppard Subway east to Victoria Park and include a stop at Consumers Road.
  • A bus transit corridor would be provided on Finch West and East.

The article implies that there may be good support from various parts of Council for this scheme, and a clear endorsement by a motion would send Metrolinx the signal it claims to be waiting for of just what Toronto wants to build.

Updated January 25, 2012 at 10:45am:

Natalie Alcoba reports in the National Post that although there may be support growing on Council for this plan, the Mayor’s office appears unmoved.

But an official from the Mayor’s office suggested he is not interested in relinquishing ground on his LRT stance. “We’re happy with the Metrolinx plan that they’re working on now,” said Mark Towhey, the Mayor’s policy director. “Residents don’t want trains running down the middle of the street.”

…

On the radio on Tuesday, Mr. Ford seemed to distance himself from the Eglinton line, saying he doesn’t want to stick his nose in a provincial project.

“I’m concentrating on the Sheppard line, and building a subway up there. If Metrolinx or the province wants to do this… I’m not a fan of streetcars, I’m not a fan of LRTs. If they’re underground I am, that’s been my position all along.”

[End of update]

There are longer range issues here, but retention of a subway-surface alignment on Eglinton will permit future extensions to the west and northeast that would likely be unaffordable if an all-underground structure had been repurposed as a full subway line.  The difficult problems of an alignment from Black Creek to Jane have yet to be addressed.

Finch will see BRT at least initially, and it will be important that no design elements preclude future conversion to LRT when demand justifies this.  This would also avoid the cost of a carhouse on Finch West in the short term that was part of the Transit City scheme.

The unknown would be Sheppard and the terminal at Victoria Park.  Will this be a “temporary” end of the line, or will the design allow further extension by either subway or by LRT with a convenient transfer connection?  An argument now about the technology east of Victoria Park will only muddle the debate, but the option of either form of extension should be left open for a future decision.  Will a BRT on Finch stand in for the Sheppard East LRT?

Portions of the Ford subway scheme appear to have fallen off of the table.  We still need those debates about the role of subways, LRT and BRT (not to mention such lowly creatures as simple buses running in mixed traffic) in a suburban network.  Part of this will fall to Metrolinx’ “Big Move 2.0” about which we know very little today and to the degree that solid transit funding actually shows up through new revenue sources such as tolls, sales taxes or maybe even a casino.

Meanwhile, we debate the disposition of billions in capital spending while proposing a few millions in savings by widespread service cuts.  Such is the madness of Toronto’s transit politics.

I can quibble about some aspects of this proposed compromise, but it is a good start.  Here is a sign that finally Council takes seriously the need to plan and make responsible decisions about our transit future.  For a year, by its inaction, Council gave de facto endorsement to a half-baked campaign promise that Metrolinx adopted as its working plan.  Now we can have a real debate.

Updated January 26, 2012 at 12:40am:

Robyn Doolittle in the Star reports that momentum is building for the compromise plan.

Elizabeth Church and Patrick White report in the Globe with more details about response from Queen’s Park and Metrolinx.

Natalie Alcoba in the Post suggests that Mayor Ford is still wedded to a subway plan, but that support for surface LRT is building.

One troubling point in all of this is a comment by Metrolinx chair Rob Prichard who wants to see Council, the Mayor and the TTC all onside.  Whether Rob Ford will actually endorse a new plan, or wind up as one of a few voting against it remains to be seen, but at some point Queen’s Park has to listen to the majority of the citizens’ representatives.

Updated January 26, 2012 at 12:50:

Royson James in the Star gives Metrolinx a well-deserved thrashing.  By its own admission, this agency proceeded with the all-underground Eglinton plan even without Council approval, a clear requirement of the Memorandum of Understanding between Queen’s Park and Mayor Ford.

Christopher Hume weighs in with a video commentary including a call for an all-surface Eglinton LRT.

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Sheppard Subway Inches Along (Updated)

Updated November 9 at 11:20pm:  The Toronto Star reports that Queen’s Park has told Mayor Ford that it will not advance any provincial funds from a possible “surplus” on the Eglinton project to jump start the Sheppard line.  This leaves Ford’s camp having to find money on its own if work on a first phase to Victoria Park were attempted.

The original article from November 8 follows:

The Toronto Star reports that Rob Ford’s Sheppard Subway proposal might creep eastward from Don Mills Station rather than bounding in one leap to Scarborough Town Centre.  An initial push east to Victoria Park might be a target for 2014, in time for the next municipal election, although the opening date would come later.

Considering that Ford was going to finance and build the entire Sheppard line in that time, this is a tad slower than promised during his election campaign.

The big problem, of course, is money.  Ford doesn’t have much and, as the Star points out, the engineering difficulties for an all-underground Eglinton line won’t leave much unspent of the provincial fund earmarked for that route.  For a route that was going to be financed by the private sector, Sheppard, or what we may see of it, is turning into a traditionally funded public sector project.

The specifics are no surprise.  Don Mills was always an odd place to end the Sheppard line, and this choice was dictated by available funding, not by network planning.  The proposed LRT connection into Don Mills is less than ideal, and a tunnel under the DVP would be required regardless of the technology.  The extra cost lies in continuing east to Victoria Park.

What we don’t know yet is whether this extension would include a Consumer’s Road Station, or just go straight through to the new terminal.

During the debates over possible adjustments to the Transit City network, a subway extension was one option proposed by some.  The typical reaction to this (and to any other schemes that would add to the cost of Transit City) was to reject the idea out of hand because the overall budget was already very tight.  However, now that Queen’s Park has decided that no price is too high to keep Mayor Ford happy, it’s much harder to argue against rethinking some Transit City options.

Victoria Park could be a good terminal for a Sheppard LRT, but there’s a problem of timing.  The “interim” subway terminal should be designed with provision for an LRT rather than subway continuation.  I suspect that no one at the TTC will be allowed to even discuss, let alone design such an option.  This will be a challenge for Councillors thinking ahead to a post-Ford era when LRT plans can be resurrected.

According to the Star, Gordon Chong should be reporting on a scheme to get the Sheppard line underway “before Christmas”.  Will Santa have a nice shiny subway train for little Rob’s stocking, or just a lump of coal?

Meanwhile for comic relief, Matt Elliot’s Ford for Toronto site reports how that pesky Don River just won’t get out of Ford’s way.

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Will Nobody Stop Fords’ Folly?

The Toronto Star and Globe & Mail report that TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster’s days may be numbered thanks to his failure to support the Sheppard Subway proposal.  Not only might we lose Webster, but we might gain a Ford cohort, a politician with no real transit experience, as his replacement.

I will leave readers to peruse the full articles, but here is a key section in the Star:

The plan to get rid of Webster “is in play now,” said former TTC vice-chair Joe Mihevc.

“(The Fords) are so committed to Sheppard they are actively contemplating getting rid of the entire streetcar system in Toronto,” he said, adding that the cost of the new streetcars could be applied to the subway.

“If Doug Ford bullies his way through on this, it truly will be the victory of extreme authoritarian ideology over good public transit policy and good business management,” Mihevc said.

Elsewhere, we learn that TTC Chair Karen Stintz who, as recently as yesterday morning praised Mayor Ford’s support for TTC customer service initiatives, is actually frustrated with the speed of implementation of changes.  The fact that there isn’t a penny for this program in the budget, and that the TTC faces a 10% cut in city funding for 2012, shows what the real level of commitment is in Toronto.

Meanwhile, the only project of any importance to the Brothers Ford is the Sheppard Subway whose “private sector” financing is a bubble of their imagination that burst months ago.  Every penny that can be scrounged from other projects, plus tax revenue from developments miles away on Eglinton, would be used to finance Sheppard and minimize the level of private sector participation needed to top up the budget.  This is financial trickery of the worst kind.

According to the Globe’s story, Stintz appears to be splitting from Ford’s all-or-nothing approach to the Sheppard line preferring instead to build to Victoria Park as a first step using money originally earmarked for the Sheppard LRT.

Queen’s Park struck a deal with the devil to preserve the Eglinton LRT as a subway while leaving Ford free to work his financial magic on Sheppard.  The streetcar system appeared safe if only because replacing it would be a long-term, difficult proposal.  However, the Liberals’ hold on power is tenuous, and a Ford-favouring Tory government would no doubt be happy to cancel the streetcar order (and probably the LRVs for Eglinton as well) with Bombardier, and the voters of Thunder Bay be damned.

In ten years, we would have a much reduced quality of transit service in the central city, we would choke streets with clouds of buses and limit the growth of major areas served by the present and proposed streetcar system.  In return, Sheppard Avenue would have its subway, and what started as Lastman’s folly and a Liberal campaign promise by former Premier David Peterson would become a full-blown monument to the stupidity of transit planning and politics in Toronto.

Has any of Rob Ford’s transit scheme gone to Council for review?  No.  Council, especially its “mushy middle”, is too busy currying favour with the Mayor to rein in his actions, leaving the Fords to dictate policy on the transit file and so many others.