LRT Projects

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The Sheppard LRT Report (Part III)

Many background presentations informed the Expert Panel’s review of options for the Sheppard corridor.  This article is the first of two summarizing and commenting on this information.

There are six groups of documents:

  • Professor Eric Miller’s comments
  • Metrolinx presentations and reports
  • TTC presentations and reports
  • Toronto Transit Infrsatructure Ltd. (TTIL) presentations and reports
  • City of Toronto presentations and reports
  • Third Party reports

TTIL is the TTC subsidiary through which Dr. Chong’s pro-subway work reported.  Given the amount of material, I will deal with reports from TTIL, the City and Third Parties in the fourth and final article in this series.

Continue reading →

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Toronto Council Approves Sheppard East LRT

Toronto Council, after over a day and a half’s debate, has approved the construction of a Sheppard East LRT from Don Mills to Morningside by a vote of 24-19.  This completes the rout of Mayor Ford’s subway plan and returns transit plans more or less to their position when he was elected.  The Mayor vows to fight on, but now sees this as a future campaign issue.

Today’s debate was, for the most part, more civil and organized than what we heard yesterday, except for an outburst from the Mayor and a speech showing his passionate hatred for streetcars.

Now the ball is in Metrolinx’ court to come up with a construction staging plan allowing for the year-plus delay.  During the debate, some members of the pro-subway faction claimed that, according to private conversations with Metrolinx, work would not start on the Sheppard LRT until 2016.  My own sources tell me that this is not true, but we must await a definitive word from the Provincial agency.

The Sheppard LRT decision also ensures that the Scarborough RT extension will be part of the plan with the new LRT line running, initially, to Sheppard Avenue and using Conlins Road carhouse as a base.  A motion by Councillor Cho, which passed as part of the package, seeks funding for extending the SRT/LRT northeast to Malvern Centre and the Sheppard LRT south via Morningside to UTSC campus.  “Streetcars” might reach Malvern only five decades or so after the TTC’s original proposal.

A number of additional motions related to long range planning and funding of transit expansion.  These were referred to the City Manager for future reports.  Strangely absent in the discussion was any mention of the role Metrolinx and  its “Big Move 2.0” might take in these discussions.

The details of the decision are available online.

This is an important day for Toronto.  We are on track for an LRT-based plan and for a more detailed evaluation of our transit future than we have seen for decades.  Talking about one line at once, about fundraising for one project at once, is no longer an accepted way of building the city.  Leaving the debate to a secretive Provincial agency is no longer acceptable, and the City is clearly setting out on its own review.  Co-operation is essential given the funding arrangements, but Queen’s Park must stop hiding from the transit planning and financing files.

Finally, a personal note.  Throughout this debate, I have been gratified by the broad understanding of transit issues displayed by many Councillors, advocates and media.  This blog and my own advocacy have helped, but there is the compound effect of so many people working with an informed sense of the topic.  Congratulations to everyone who had a hand in this victory.

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Sheppard East Vote Delayed to March 22, 2012

Council did not finish its debate by 8pm on March 21, and a motion to extend time failed, barely, on a vote of 28-15 (a 2/3 majority was needed because this would be a procedural change).

The pro-subway forces are running the clock, but they are simply wasting everyone’s time.  On a simple majority basis, the LRT option will pass.

Come back at 9:30 am on March 22.

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The Sheppard LRT Report (Part II)

In the previous article, I reviewed the three main options under study for Sheppard East as well as the comments of the City Planning and Finance departments on various related issues.

In this article, I turn to the Expert Panel’s evaluation of the options, their scoring system, and the question of bias in the process.

The analysis and scoring begins on page 39 of the Expert Panel Report.  The panel chose three broad areas for analysis, and subdivided each of these into three subcategories.

  • Funding & Economic Development
  • Transit Service
  • Sustainability and Social Impact

In each of the 9 subcategories, the highest possible score is 5 points for an overall raw total of 45.  However, the weights assigned to each group are different with Funding & Economic Development getting a weight of 3x, Transit Service 2x, and Sustainability and Social Impact 1.5x. Once the weights are applied, the total potential score is 95 points.  These values are normalized up to a “perfect” score of 100.

Table 15 on page 41 summarizes these scores.  In order that readers can see how the weights affect the outcome, I have recast these data to show the buildup of the weighted scores to a 100-scale. Continue reading →

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The Sheppard LRT Report (Part I)

On Wednesday, March 21, Toronto Council will consider a report recommending that the Sheppard rapid transit line be built as an LRT from Don Mills Station east, initially, to Morningside.  This is the same scheme that was on the table in the Metrolinx 5-in-10 plan, and approval of this recommendation will more or less put Transit City back on track where it was before the election of Mayor Ford.

There is a main report and many background documents, including an alternative subway proposal, what might be called the “Chong Dissent” from the otherwise pro-LRT conclusions of the panel.  This article provides a summary of material from many sources.  For the definitive word, please refer to the originals as I am not going to attempt to cover every detail here.

As a general observation, the materials present a review of the situation in considerably more detail than we see for many transit planning decisions, notably those surrounding recent budget debates.  With luck, and with a less transit-hostile TTC board, we might see the same level of interest turned to basic questions like “where’s my bus and why can’t I get on when it shows up”.

The pro-subway folks claim that the report is biased, that it is hogwash, and advance their own dissent purporting to show the superiority of a subway option.  The misinformation and factual errors in this dissent are disconcerting, putting it mildly, considering that billions in provincial spending and the future development of our transit network might have depended on such twaddle.  I will turn to this in detail later in a future article.

Continue reading →

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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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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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After the Vote: What Does the Future Hold for Council and the TTC?

This week’s historic vote to resurrect parts of the Transit City network is unprecedented in the history of the relationship between the Toronto Transit Commission and city council. Never before has a sitting TTC chair challenged and defeated a mayor on a major transit-policy issue.

Light-rail transit (LRT) supporters may have partied into the night, but the question for the days ahead is: What now?

Read the rest of this article on the Torontoist website.