Finance

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Will Scarborough Get Its Subway? (Updated: Probably)

Updated October 9, 2013 at 1:20am:

Toronto Council, by a vote of 24-20, has approved proceeding with the Scarborough Subway project including a three-stage property tax increase totalling 1.6% to finance the City of Toronto’s share of the budget.

There is little new to add at this point on the technical issues all of which were covered on this site before.

My personal reaction is disappointment, but more strongly, disgust at the behaviour of some Councillors and a few City Officials.  The outright hatred and slander against “downtowners” and their motives in “pushing” LRT does not bode well for cordial relations on Council, not to mention sowing equivalent feelings among the electorate.  There are arguments to be made for the subway option (many of them have appeared here in the comment threads), but this should be done in a civil manner relatively free of distortion.

Instead, we got warped versions of the truth about both the subway and LRT options, and not a few outright lies.  TTC CEO Andy Byford, one who trotted out the “100 year subway” myth was forced to backtrack on two counts by questions at Council.  He admitted that the tunnels last for 100 years, but much of what is in them does not.  Meanwhile, he talked about LRT lasting 50 years, not the 30 year figure that has been bandied around of late.  The obvious issue is that a tunnel may very well last 100 years, but if you don’t have to build one in the first place, and can save the expense, what does it matter?

We will have to wait a decade to see whether the suddenly much rosier projections of demand for a rapid transit line in Scarborough come from the same well-cooked land-use and population assumptions that brought us the vastly overstated estimates for the Sheppard Subway (and for growth at Scarborough Town Centre).

In any event, the vote is taken, and barring a discovery of a major extra cost for the City appearing during detailed design, the decision is as final as we can expect to see from this Council and the provincial government.

How the rest of the LRT network will fare really depends on the 2014 municipal and provincial elections.  Mayor Ford has already declared that subways on Sheppard and Finch are goals for his next term.

The half-hearted advocacy for LRT from Metrolinx and Queen’s Park plays a big part in this situation, but I never thought their hearts were in it going right back to the early days of Metrolinx when I was persona non grata for asking their newly-minted Chair if they would consider this mode as an option in their grand plan.

How many more ridings will the Liberals feel the need to buy off with a subway promise?

The original article from October 4 follows the break.

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TTC Service Changes Effective October 13, 2013 (Updated)

Updated September 24, 2013 at 11:20pm

Information has been added regarding the replacement of streetcars by buses on Lake Shore Blvd. in Etobicoke starting mid October.

Original article:

Several service changes will take effect on October 13, 2013.

Service improvements are almost exclusively in the off-peak period.

2013.10.13_Service_Changes

Night Service Improvements

  • 310 Bathurst service will be improve on Saturday nights / Sunday mornings between 1:00 and 3:00 am, and between 6:00 and 9:00 am.
  • 320 Yonge service will be improved by the elimination of the York Mills short turn.  All trips will operate to Steeles Avenue.  Service on Sunday morning between 1:30 and 3:30 am will be improved.

Construction Diversions

Many construction diversions now in place will continue, and two more will be added.

Continuing to mid-November 2013

  • Construction at Lawrence West Station causing extension of 58 Malton and 59 Maple Leaf routes to Lawrence Station.
  • 510 Spadina streetcars replaced by buses between Queens Quay and King.  Schedules on 504 King will be adjusted to provide additional running time to compensate for congestion at King & Spadina.
  • Track work on Ossington affecting the 63 Ossington route.
  • Water main and platform work on Bathurst requiring buses on 511 Bathurst and changes to mid-day service level on 512 St. Clair.
  • Road construction on Dufferin requiring a northbound diversion of 29 Dufferin from Queen to Dundas.
  • (New) Reconstruction on the Dundas bridge at Sterling Road requiring cutback of streetcar service to Lansdowne on Dundas and Carlton routes with shuttle buses beyond.

Continuing to mid-December 2013

  • Road and track construction on Kingston Road affecting 502/503 streetcar routes, 22A Coxwell, 64 Main and 92 Woodbine South.
  • Road construction on Kingston Road affecting 12 Kingston Road and 69 Warden South routes.
  • York Region bridge and road construction affecting the 68 Warden route.
  • (New) Reconstruction of streetcar platforms on Lake Shore requiring replacement of 501 Queen and 508 Lake Shore services west of Humber Loop with buses.

Updated September 24, 2013:

I asked the TTC why such a long shutdown was required for work on the safety islands on Lake Shore.  Here is their response:

There are 16 platforms needing either lengthening, widening or both, plus shelter installation. In short, a large scope of work. Contractors indicated to us when this was tendered that they’d need more time if they were to bid, so we amended the tender based on that feedback.

Brad Ross

Continuing to end of 2013

  • Yonge subway early shutdown for tunnel liner replacement north of Eglinton.

Continuing to at least the end of 2013

  • Additional buses and running time on many routes for Spadina subway extension project.

Continuing into 2014

  • 509/510 Harbourfront/Spadina services replaced by buses pending completion of track work on Queens Quay and construction at Union Station Loop.
  • 72 Pape diversion for Union Station Second Platform project.
  • Additional buses and running time on many routes for Metrolinx Weston Road bridge project.
  • 83 Jones diversion for utility reconstruction and track work on Leslie Street.

Continuing into 2015

  • Metrolinx LRT construction on Eglinton affecting 32 Eglinton West route.
  • 29/329 Dufferin and 316 Ossington buses turned back due to structural problems with the Dufferin bridge over the rail corridor.
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TTC Service Changes Effective September 1, 2013

The TTC will revert to its fall schedules across the system on the Labour Day weekend.  The schedule period starts on Sunday, September 1, but the first weekday will be Tuesday, September 3.

The summer changes implemented on June 23, 2013, will be reversed and many improvements, primarily in off-peak periods, will start in September with more to follow later in the year.  Because many construction projects are stretching the bus fleet thin, some improvements cannot begin as soon as planned.

2013.09.01 Service Changes

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How Much Will The Scarborough Subway Cost Us?

Now that the Liberals are safely ensconced in Scarborough-Guildwood with their “subway champion” the member-elect, let us turn to the question of what that subway will cost the taxpayers of Toronto.

Back in July, Toronto Council adopted a convoluted motion supporting the Scarborough Subway, but with many options designed to act as “poison pills” if things didn’t go exactly as planned.  This tactic bought the co-operation of Councillors who might otherwise rebel against an open-ended spending spree designed to prop up the fortunes of Mayor Ford and TTC Chair Karen Stintz.

Although Queen’s Park has signed on to the subway project, they are firm in setting a cap of $1.4-billion (2010$) on their contribution.  Karen Stintz flailed around for a few days claiming that the subway was dead, only to come to an agreement with Transportation Minister Glen Murray on air on CP24.

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TTC Service Changes Effective August 4, 2013 (Update 2)

Updated August 1, 2013 at 2:45pm:

The plans for the King/Spadina project originally would have seen streetcars replaced with buses from Spadina Station to Queen’s Quay for the entire month of August.  This has been changed so that streetcars will return between Spadina Station and King Street on August 20 (presuming that reconstruction of the intersection has progressed sufficiently for this).

Plans for a 522 Exhibition West streetcar service have been cancelled and the 193 Exhibition Rocket will operate as usual.  The 521 Exhibition East streetcar service will operate from King & Church to the CNE as previously announced.

Streetcar service on 511 Bathurst will be supplemented with buses during evenings and weekends.

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Where and When Is King Street Congested? (Updated)

Updated July 31, 2013 at 2:45pm:

In response to comments I  have received, I have produced charts that show the average speed of operation on parts of the King route.  This is at a very fine detail by contrast to the “link time” charts covering route segments that I published in earlier articles.  The new material is added at the end of this article.

Original article from July 22, 2013:

The TTC’s Andy Byford has proposed that King Street be reserved for transit vehicles during the AM peak period as a means of improving service quality.  In previous articles I have examined service reliability and congestion, as well as the history of transit priority on King Street.

The big issue whenever “congestion” comes up for discussion is that any tactics adopted to improve transit service need to address what is really happening on the street, not an abstract idea that somewhere, sometime, it might be a good idea to have some sort of transit priority.  Previous analyses published here show the effects of congestion through charts of “link times” (the time taken by vehicles to travel of specific parts, or links, of a route), but these don’t pinpoint the exact locations or severity of delays.

This article introduces a new type of chart that is intended to make delay locations and times much more obvious as a starting point for discussions of where priority is needed.

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Memo to Glen Murray & Karen Stintz: Are You Really Serious About Transit in Scarborough?

With all the upheaval of transit plans for Scarborough, politicians fall over each other to tell Scarborough residents how downtrodden and ignored they have been, how they always get the short end of the transit stick.  How will we fix this?  Build them a subway!

Mind you, that subway won’t open for 10 years, and riders on the Scarborough RT will have to endure more cold winters and overcrowded service, not to mention bus routes that run occasionally and unreliably.

We should remember what Scarborough was originally promised with the Transit City scheme announced years ago by then-Mayor Miller and now-Candidate Adam Giambrone:

  • An LRT line from an underground station at Don Mills & Sheppard with a direct connection to the Sheppard subway running east to Morningside and beyond.
  • An LRT line from Kennedy Station east and north via Eglinton, Kingston Road and Morningside to Sheppard serving the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus (UTSC).
  • An upgraded and extended Scarborough RT using LRT to reach east and north to Malvern Centre.

The Sheppard LRT is “funded” by Queen’s Park, but actual construction is a moving target with completion now planned for 2021.

The Eglinton/Morningside line (aka “Scarborough-Malvern”) drifts in limbo not even a part of the Metrolinx “Next Wave” implying completion at best by the late 2020s.

The Scarborough LRT has been replaced by the Scarborough Subway.  Although Council attached many conditions to the financing for that line, you can bet that no politician in Toronto is willing to pull the plug, to return to the LRT scheme, with provincial and municipal election fortunes in play.  One way or another, even by the simple expedient of giving Ottawa more time to pony up “their fair share” (whatever that means), the subway scheme will stay alive, and the Scarborough LRT will start to resemble Monty Python’s “dead parrot”.  It will be “sleeping” only in the minds of its most ardent advocates.

Politicians love to tell us how much they support better transit in Scarborough, and they could start by talking about something more than the subway.

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A Subway for Scarborough — Still Not a Done Deal (Updated)

Updated July 18, 2013 at 1:10 pm:

Ontario Minister of Transportation Glen Murray announced that Queen’s Park would fund 2/3 of the Scarborough Subway, an amount of $1.4-billion (2010$).  This was described a cabinet decision taken in light of Toronto Council’s request for a subway to replace the Scarborough RT.

Murray put the political ball firmly back with Mayor Rob Ford and called on him to fight together with Queen’s Park so that Toronto could get the remaining 1/3 share of funding from Ottawa in line with federal contributions to projects in other cities.

With the press conference still in progress, TTC Chair Karen Stintz was demanding that the province pay $1.8-billion even though the lower amount has clearly been settled on by the government and isn’t likely to change.  Yesterday, Rob Ford was widely quoted that if the full funding demanded by Toronto was not forthcoming, then the subway deal is dead.

We will see just how dead the subway is, whether Ottawa can be brought to the table with bags of cash, and just how serious Toronto Council was that their subway approval was “contingent” on better funding than they will receive from Ontario.  This will all be back for debate, without question, at the October 8 Council meeting.

The original July 17 article follows the break. Continue reading →

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A Few Questions About the Scarborough Transit Debate

The debate about whether Toronto should undertake a Scarborough Subway in place of the proposed LRT line will occupy a good deal of Council’s time this week even though it is likely to wind up with a subway endorsement.  We will hear a great deal of information, some of it true, some of it best described as creative fiction, and some just plain wrong.

Expecting the gang of 45 to understand all of the details is a huge stretch, and this is complicated by a critical lack of  information.  Many questions have not been answered, nay have not even been asked.

How Council can undertake a $1-billion or more project without being fully informed is baffling, especially for such a bunch of right-wing, penny-pinching fiscal conservatives.  The times, however, demand a political statement, and we’re going to start by giving Scarborough a subway, no matter what it takes.

Here are a few questions responsible representatives of we, the voters and taxpayers, should be asking. Continue reading →