On December 16, the TTC will receive an update on the status of the Transit City projects. This post is a brief synopsis along with my own comments on the progress, or lack thereof, on this plan.
This is a long post, and I have placed the break here for those who don’t want to read the whole article. The Eglinton LRT is covered here including comments on the December 2009 version of the design presented at recent open houses. I will deal with the remaining lines in Part 2. Continue reading
Starting tonight, there will be a series of open houses for the Eglinton project.
Updated: The display panels are now available online.
All Open Houses will be held from 6:30pm to 9:00pm.
Please use this thread for comments on the latest proposals, preferably after you have seen them.
Today’s Metrolinx Board Meeting was notable both for the update, in public session, of the project status for five major lines as well as for supplementary information that came out in a press scrum after the public session.
Five projects now have funding and are at various stages in their approval/construction process.
At its meeting on November 17, the TTC will consider a report on the Eglinton LRT Transit Project Assessment. A few items have caught my eye already:
Revised November 13, 10:15 am:
The process for handling Commission approval of the Transit Project Assessment is rather odd because only the Executive Summary is available at this time. Full details of the proposal have not been provided, and yet the Commission is being asked to sign off on the TPA.
This begs the question of how the TTC can “approve” an assessment when the document is not before them and may not yet exist in final form. Continue reading
Toronto will host the 2015 Pan-Am Games thanks to an overwhelming vote in favour of Toronto’s bid on November 6. No sooner was the announcement out, but we started to hear what a boon this would be for transit pending in Toronto.
Let’s take a serious look at what will actually happen.
Don Lands
The Athletes’ Village will be built in the West Don Lands with the intention that it be converted to assisted housing after the games. This will no doubt spur construction of the Cherry Street branch off of the King route so that residents will have transit once the games complete.
However, there are no competition venues in this part of Toronto, and no reason to build new infrastructure to serve them. We will get the Waterfront East leg, but like the Cheery Street branch, this project was already on the books and, I believe, funded by Waterfront Toronto.
The missing piece is the connection under the rail corridor where the existing Cherry Street underpass must be twinned to provide enough room for the LRT, the road lanes, cycling and pedestrians. This underpass is shown as a “secure” area in the Bid Book, and there is no sign of the second span on the map.
Also missing from the Bid Book is any description of the as-yet unfunded reconfiguration of the mouth of the Don River and associated street changes in the neighbourhood. These are vital to knitting together various parts of the new community, but they are nowhere to be found in the Bid Book, nor is there any need to build them as part of the games infrastructure.
Scarborough-Malvern LRT
The Scarborough Campus of UofT will gain a new aquatics centre to host some events, but attendees will likely arrive from many parts of the GTA of which only some would be served by the LRT line. One might even argue for service via the north end of this route (south from the Sheppard LRT).
George Smitherman, Minister of Infrastructure and possible mayoral candidate for Toronto, has already said that Toronto shouldn’t be too hasty to look for spending on this type of improvement.
The Airport
The Air-Rail link will be in place by 2015. The Bid Book says it will. What the Bid Book does not say is that this will be a premium fare service that is not integrated with the local transit system, nor that its capacity will be limited by the size and frequency of trains for which the route is designed.
Meanwhile, the TTC should be pushing to get the western part of the Eglinton LRT completed for 2015, at least from the Airport to Eglinton West Station. Is this asking too much, or will the TTC bumble along and stay with the current plan for the Eglinton line and a 2016 “phase one” opening?
Everything Else
The games generally take place well outside of Toronto. The logistics of placing the Athletes’ Village so far away from the venues only makes sense because it is right beside the Gardiner and DVP, and these can be closed or restricted to provide bus shuttles as needed for participants, press and poo-bahs from the games organization. New public transit infrastructure, beyond what is already in the pipeline, will have little to do with it.
On September 2, the TTC held an open house to present designs for the section of the proposed Eglinton LRT west of Martin Grove. The display panels and an updated FAQ are available on the project’s website.
The display starts with introductory materials for the project and shows the current schedule for the overall study. By November 2009 when the next round of public meetings occurs, the design options should be settled in preparation for the formal Transit Project Assessment. However, the length and complexity of the line may interfere with this schedule depending on how the project team reacts to comments at the neighbourhood and political levels.
The TTC needs to “get it right” before the TPA starts because that process runs to a fixed timetable and does not offer much opportunity for significant change. Any “alternatives analysis” is presumed to be completed before the TPA itself.
At its meeting on July 9, the TTC approved purchase of four tunnel boring machines from LOVAT Inc. for construction of the Spadina Subway extension at a cost of about $58-million. There was considerable discussion about this expense from the point of view of whether any could be recouped after construction, or what commonality there might be with Transit City requirements.
Various tidbits came out during the questions to staff from Commissioners.
The Sheppard tunnels are 5200mm inside diameter, whereas the Spadina tunnels will be 5400mm. The larger bore is required both to meet current fire code, and to allow trains to travel through curves with sufficient clearance. (The Sheppard line is, pardon the pun, rather boringly straight.) The larger tunnel size adds about $35-million to the cost of the 6km of bored tunnel on the Spadina line.
Transit City tunnel size will be determined by the dynamic envelope required for its cars and for the overhead power supply. These tunnels may not be the same diameter as those on the Spadina subway, but more to the point, the construction period for both Spadina and Eglinton overlap and using the Spadina machines for Eglinton will delay that project. It is conceivable that the Richmond Hill subway, if funded, might inherit the machines. Otherwise, the TTC expects to be able to sell them for about 30% of their original value.
This question will also affect the Sheppard tunnel at Don Mills, a short but necessary piece of work to get under Highway 404.
The TTC has canvassed the world market for second hand tunnelling machinery, but none which has the required bore diameter and soil condition design is available.
In a conversation after the meeting, I learned that although the single large bore tunnel (13m) proposed for Eglinton might be feasible, this large tunnel greatly increases the cost of removing spoil (earth and rock) because the tunnel structure is much larger than would be the case for two single tunnels. In turn, this begs the question of how much of the Eglinton line will be built cut-and-cover so that it is not dependent on the availability of tunnel boring equipment. We shall see in the fall when the next set of community meetings come around for the Eglinton corridor study.
My thanks to Peter Miasek who sent me the link to this item on York Region’s website.
Recently, Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Transportation, Bruce McQuaig, wrote to York Region advising on the financial and operational framework for “designated projects” as defined in the recently enacted Metrolinx legislation. This letter can be found among several pieces of correspondence bundled into one PDF starting on pages 12-16.
I understand that a similar letter went to the City of Toronto, but it has not yet appeared in any public debates, partly because there are so few of them currently. It is alluded to in a TTC report on Transit City funding.
The scheme begins with a desire by Queen’s Park to bring its books into line with current accepted accounting principles. What this means, in practice, is that instead of shipping money off to York Region and Toronto, never to be seen again except as part of the Provincial Debt, Ontario will now own the assets purchased with those funds. Nothing in the letter explains how those portions of projects funded by others such as Ottawa would be treated, nor what would happen with extensions of existing lines owned municipally like the Yonge-University Subway.
The assets would be depreciated over their expected lifetimes and would show up as an offset on the provincial books to the debt raised to fund them. This is a neat bit of accounting that ignores the fact that an asset only has a real value if you could sell it and recapture your investment, but it keeps the bean counters happy and makes the books look better for the politicians. To quote the letter:
Through retaining the risks and rewards of asset ownership over regional transportation assets, the Province can best achieve its accounting and financial management objectives.
This, of course, has nothing to do with transit and could equally refer to a hospital, a school or a highway.
There are some fine words about partnerships with the municipal governments coupled with concern about “value-for-money to taxpayers and transit customers”. Then we get into the details.
Ontario, through Metrolinx, will own and control the Sheppard LRT, Eglinton LRT, Finch LRT, Scarborough RT and VIVA Next Bus Rapid Transit. Ownership, from an accounting point of view, requires control and this means that Queen’s Park can’t just build the lines, they have to actually appear to manage them rather than effectively ceding them to municipalities via a long-term lease. This does not prevent Metrolinx from contracting with local agencies for construction, operation and maintenance, but on paper, the lines remain Queen’s Park’s property, and they could be assigned to some other entity if they chose to do so.
Terms of any operating agreement would be set at 75% or less than the expected lifespan of the asset so that, in a worst case scenario, Metrolinx would regain control of a line before it was run into the ground. A great deal of legal verbiage must be created to define the criteria to which local agencies (or any private entity) will be held by Metrolinx. This strikes me as an opportunity for a huge bureaucratic waste of time especially if all parties involved are in the public sector.
Metrolinx will define project scope, budgets and schedules, and any changes will require their approval. Given the total absence of political input from the municipal level to Metrolinx, these discussions will likely happen in private. Of note is the exclusion for Metrolinx funding of ancilliary upgrades to utilities, streetscaping, etc. that are thought to be add-ons of convenience for a municipality rather than an integral part of a transit project. It will be interesting to see what standards Metrolinx defines as the “basic” level it will fund, and how much will fall on municipal budgets.
Queen’s Park wants transit riders to “experience the benefits of a regionally integrated and inter-operable system”, and the Presto fare card will be a requirement for all of the designated lines. In a telling comment, the Deputy Minister states:
… the Province and Metrolinx will … monitor the evolution of technologies, and will consider how to plan for enhancements and improvements as part of an overall strategy to sustain the Presto electronic fare collection system.
“Evolution” will no doubt include a recognition that this is not a situation where Ontario should develop or adapt a proprietary technology, but should work with internationally recognized electronic payment standards and systems. The time is long past when Ontario could get away with building “roll your own” systems, and they need to look at the extensive experience in other jurisdictions.
While Metrolinx is working on the benefits of a regional service, they will also need to address the integration of GO Transit fares and service into the wider regional system. GO, as a separate entity, has remained aloof from regional integration except as it suits them with cost sharing arranements in 905 municipalities. These arrangements are to GO’s advantage because the joint fares with local operators are much cheaper than the cost and development effects of building more parking at stations.
Finally, Infrastructure Ontario will act on Metrolinx’ behalf for projects that are to use Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP). This is a variation on a PPP in which the asset may actually be built and held by a private company and leased to Metrolinx. The accounting fig leaves are thick on the ground here. One way or another, Ontario borrows money, Metrolinx builds something (or has it built for them), and, likely, the local operating agency contracts to run it.
Lurking under all of this is a clear indication that it is Queen’s Park, not the Metrolinx Board of Directors, who runs the show. To be fair, it is their money (or more accurately our money), but the opportunities for interference and sheer bureaucratic incompetence are legion. There’s a reason transit has been in local hands for decades — the Ministry of Transportation hasn’t the first idea how to operate large systems, nor any feeling for the local issues involved.
Metrolinx itself becomes little more than a construction planning and, later, a holding company on the Province’s behalf. This should not overly tax the skills of the new, non-political Board, for whom all of the important decisions will be made elsewhere.
This series works through the three-part presentation of the proposed Eglinton LRT design that appears on the project’s website. Part 1 brought us east from the Airport to Black Creek, and Part 2 covered most of the remainder east to Warden.
Part 3 of the presentation deals with the short section from Warden to Kennedy as well as various construction issues, notably an alternative scheme for tunnelling.
In Part 1 of this series, I discussed general issues about the Eglinton LRT and details of the proposed line between the airport and Black Creek.
In this section, I turn to Part 2 of the June 2009 TTC presentation concerning the line from Keele to Warden. Continue reading
Steve Munro 