2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Transit Plans

[kEiThZ]

I've tweeted them, I've emailed them, I've called them and not one person from Tory's campaign has been able to explain this to me. Nor has anyone been able to explain how it's better than the Relief Line + GO plan we have today

What kinds of upgrade are needed? Do we know the magnitude of these costs?

Edit: it's almost certainly not as much as SmartTrack. The cost to RER all the go lines is only $10 Billion

Tweet these questions to news reporters. Hopefully, they can ask him.

 

[kEiThZ]

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...ttrack_plan_proves_popular_in_forum_poll.html

More evidence that people really want faster long distance travel options.

High time politicians actually cared about voters priorities.

For me the perfect solution would be a proper GO RER network (more stations and service than what has GO has booked right now), LRT and bus network that feeds the RER network and full-service and fare integration with GO inside the 416. This means bus service, for example, that focuses on feeding GO stations, not just TTC hubs. Tory's committment is a start. In my books, his campaign promises essentially open up the city to cooperation with Metrolinx to deliver a vision like what I've outlined.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Well ain't it great that that is the plan that GO is working on as we speak.

 

[salsa]

kEiThZ, you seem to be quite a fan of this Smart Track but you will have to realize there are some major issues with this plan.

Despite the name, SmartTrack may not add up to a very smart transit plan. Here are five reasons why.

1. Much of it is already happening — without John Tory as mayor

Tory’s plan proposes electrifying and providing more frequent service along GO Transit’s Kitchener and Stouffville corridors. This is a good idea and should happen, but Tory can’t really take much credit for it.

Electrification of the Kitchener line is part of phase two of Metrolinx’s Big Move, as is more frequent GO service on all corridors. The Liberal Party of Ontario’s platform includes a pledge to electrify all corridors and provide 15-minute service. The NDP has also spoken up in favour of electrification. Only Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives have spoken out against taking GO electric, but even they favour more frequent service. Coun. Mike Layton and other members of council have been talking about the need for better local service on the GO lines for years, and mayoral candidate Olivia Chow endorsed the idea again Tuesday morning.

So what’s Tory brought to the table that wasn’t already in the works? A plan to build more stations, basically, and maybe to provide a service more frequent than the every 15 minutes others have promised — but the backgrounder documents provided by the Tory campaign are vague on that point.


2. There’s no apparent justification for station locations

If Tory’s plan is all about new stations, it’s hard to figure out how those stations were selected. Tory’s SmartTrack Toronto map proposes 22 stations along the two GO corridors, but puts seven of them in Scarborough, two of them in Markham and one in Mississauga. The central core only sees new stations at Liberty Village, Spadina and the proposed Unilever commercial development site east of the Don River.

There doesn’t seem to be any real justification for these station locations. Dense neighbourhoods in the city core don’t get any stations, but a stretch of Kennedy Road gets a station every two kilometres.


3. It doesn’t say how it will address capacity issues

A 2011 study by Metrolinx suggests that Union Station will be completely at capacity by 2031. This is a problem for Tory, as his plan envisions very frequent trains dropping off high volumes of passengers at Union Station. It threatens to create a massive choke point — and that’s without even addressing his assumption that there’s enough room on the rail corridors leading out of this city to support the increased traffic driven by the SmartTrack plan.

The Metrolinx study looked at a plan similar to what Tory has proposed, with satellite GO stations added on the east and west side of Union, but determined that strategy wouldn’t provide adequate relief. You know what they say could do that? Some version of the DRL — which both Metrolinx and TTC CEO Andy Byford have said will still be needed even with improved service on the GO corridors.

It’s unclear how much relief Tory’s alternative will actually provide. A backgrounder provided by his campaign shows a map of the current TTC subway network with big arrows pointing at the Yonge-University subway line. Then it has another map showing the subway network with SmartTrack added, where the arrows are more spread out. In both cases, the backgrounder links to a map of TTC ridership created by blogger Jason Bragg. I don’t know why.


4. It relies a whole lot on the provincial government pitching in

Tory’s plan makes major assumptions about the provincial government’s role. His plan hinges on changes to the GO network, which is under provincial purview. There’s no guarantee anyone at Queen’s Park will listen to him, but I guess there’s a chance they might go for it.

Much less likely is his plan for Metrolinx — a provincial agency — to take on operational responsibility for the new line. It’s unclear why Tory thinks the province would take on both the responsibility and cost of operating a local service transit line given their long history of, you know, not wanting to do that.


5. Tory’s financing plan is incredibly vague

Speaking of costs, in his financing plan Tory pegs the capital investment for the project at $8 billion. That actually seems high, given his claim that 90 per cent of the plan will use existing rail track and he isn’t proposing any tunnelling. I guess all those stations don’t come cheap.

So how will Tory raise $8 billion? He’ll rely on the provincial and federal governments for a chunk of it. The rest — about $2.5 billion — is to come from tax increment financing, or TIF.

There’s no real magic behind TIF. The practice isn’t all that different than regular debt financing. It’s the government equivalent of the owner of an apartment building calculating that she could increase her monthly rents by $200 per unit if she does some renovations, then using that forecasted increase to take out a loan to pay for those renovations.

For municipal governments, TIF makes sense as part of a larger package of funding tools for transit, but Tory is relying on it for 100 per cent of the city contribution to his plan. He provides little detail on how it’ll be possible to raise this kind of capital through the TIF process, so it’s hard to mount a full criticism, but there are several questions Tory needs to answer.

To start, what kind of development will Tory push for to bring in these TIF revenues? With his transit map, it’d be fair to assume he’d want high density development to take place around stations in Scarborough, but his financing plan doesn’t mention doing that. Instead, it says that his revenue estimates are “based only on projected new office development in three precincts within the following districts along the SmartTrack line: the Central Core; the East Don Lands site; and Liberty Village.”

That’s hard to accept without major skepticism. Land values in the Central Core are already very high, so it’s hard to figure out how increased GO service will drive a major increase in tax revenue. Liberty Village has already been built up significantly over the last decade, and I’m not sure residents would be receptive to large-scale developments. And the East Don Lands site development is, by Tory’s own admission, several years away and relies on a complicated — and expensive — reconfiguration of the Gardiner Expressway.

So how will Tory’s math work? It’s impossible to say. His financing plan is just two pages long, and includes no breakdown of revenues.

Which is pretty much par for the course with this plan. It’s way short on details. Tory doesn’t really explain how he’ll collect $2.5 billion. He’s taken an existing idea, tweaked it a bit, given it a fancy name and is now offering it as an alternative to a real plan to build the relief line subway — all of which can be built without tax increases.

Tory needs to provide more detail if he expects us to believe adding some stations along existing GO lines is a better use of limited resources than building the relief line subway. He needs to provide way more detail if he expects us to believe office development in such limited TIF areas can lead to $2.5 billion in usable transit capital. And he needs to provide a whole lot more detail if he expects us to believe his plan will address capacity issues on the city’s transit system.

Mostly, though, Tory needs to provide a whole lot more detail if he expects anyone to think his plan is any good.

http://metronews.ca/voices/ford-for...arttrack-transit-plan-doesnt-seem-very-smart/

Note that this article didn't even mention the bizarre spur along Eglinton, or the need for a Scarborough subway extension, or the elimination of Sheppard and Finch LRTs.

 

[gweed123]

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...ttrack_plan_proves_popular_in_forum_poll.html

More evidence that people really want faster long distance travel options.

High time politicians actually cared about voters priorities.

For me the perfect solution would be a proper GO RER network (more stations and service than what has GO has booked right now), LRT and bus network that feeds the RER network and full-service and fare integration with GO inside the 416. This means bus service, for example, that focuses on feeding GO stations, not just TTC hubs. Tory's committment is a start. In my books, his campaign promises essentially open up the city to cooperation with Metrolinx to deliver a vision like what I've outlined.

Bang on. I like SmartTrack not because of what it is, but because of what it could become. The GO RER plan is a great start, but having SmartTrack will hopefully force Metrolinx to add an extra layer of service inside of the 416. GO RER and SmartTrack have the potential to be very complimentary proposals.

 

[kEiThZ]

And what makes you think that GO RWR isn't a priority? I'd say it's the #1 priority for Metrolinx

If that's the case, how and when will they find money in the couch cushions for the DRL?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

We have $15 billion in funding. RL is $3 Billion. GO RER is $10 Billion. There's enough money to go around.

 

[kEiThZ]

Bang on. I like SmartTrack not because of what it is, but because of what it could become. The GO RER plan is a great start, but having SmartTrack will hopefully force Metrolinx to add an extra layer of service inside of the 416. GO RER and SmartTrack have the potential to be very complimentary proposals.

Finally, somebody starting to understand where I'm coming from.

That said, I don't think the average voter who supports this is so sophisticated. They support it because they are fed up between forcing to choose between a 2-hr long TTC commute (including standing the length of the Yonge line) and $15 in transit fares if they want to use GO (accessed by a TTC bus). Tory actually kinda gets their frustration (or at least seems like he does).

Still leaves questions about his plan. But I fully understand why it's taking off. I'm fed up with the lack of a proper regional travel system inside the 416.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Can someone who supports the $8 Billion SmartTrack explain to me why they support it over the nearly identical $1.6 Billion GO RER plan? The only difference is fare integration and additional stations, both of which would be incredibly cheap to implement. I have a hard time justifying the $6 Billion extra required for SmartTrack. It's wasted money.

Man... SmartTrack IS GO RER! Tory is just taking credit for provincial plans. It will in reality cost zero, or whatever the final bill for smart track is.

 

[salsa]

That said, I don't think the average voter who supports this is so sophisticated. They support it because they are fed up between forcing to choose between a 2-hr long TTC commute (including standing the length of the Yonge line) and $15 in transit fares if they want to use GO (accessed by a TTC bus). Tory actually kinda gets their frustration (or at least seems like he does).

If you've ever tried talking to the average unsophisticated voter, you would see that many of them either don't really understand what the smart track is, or haven't even heard of it. I don't think that alone would explain Tory's recent increase in the polls.

 

[kEiThZ]

If you've ever tried talking to the average unsophisticated voter, you would see that many of them either don't really understand what the smart track is, or haven't even heard of it. I don't think that alone would explain Tory's recent increase in the polls.

Then what explains Chow's drop in the polls?

I certainly think there's correlation, with SmartTrack polling higher than the DRL.

 

[ehlow]

Bang on. I like SmartTrack not because of what it is, but because of what it could become. The GO RER plan is a great start, but having SmartTrack will hopefully force Metrolinx to add an extra layer of service inside of the 416. GO RER and SmartTrack have the potential to be very complimentary proposals.

Man... SmartTrack IS GO RER! Tory is just taking credit for provincial plans. It will in reality cost zero, or whatever the final bill for smart track is.

Having more stations and having it cost TTC fare is a good modification to GO RER.

 

[salsa]

Then what explains Chow's drop in the polls?

I certainly think there's correlation, with SmartTrack polling higher than the DRL.

The Forum Poll suggests she's losing the support of women voters. Are you saying that somehow the smart track is more popular among women?

 

[TOareaFan]

Because this is Toronto and I don't trust the politicians to actually build something that isn't a priority. I'd much rather get true suburban rail that will enable long distance travel in the region than LRTs. And the only way this happens in my books is with a mayor who actually makes it an election promise.

And like I said, if he's overbudgeted? Great, we'll get to accelerate some other priorities....

A mayor making an election promise is more solid than a Premier and a Minister of Transportation making one? GO RER was a very major component of the Liberal's budget-reelection campaign-budgetII.

 

[kEiThZ]

kEiThZ, you seem to be quite a fan of this Smart Track but you will have to realize there are some major issues with this plan.



http://metronews.ca/voices/ford-for...arttrack-transit-plan-doesnt-seem-very-smart/

Note that this article didn't even mention the bizarre spur along Eglinton, or the need for a Scarborough subway extension, or the elimination of Sheppard and Finch LRTs.

Guys like Graphic Matt won't vote for any politician that isn't left-leaning or doesn't subscribe strictly to LRT orthodoxy. It's that simple. Sure, there's questions. But they only seem to come up when guys like John Tory run. Nobody questioned the $6 billion price tag when Miller proposed Transit City. How come? Transit City more than doubled in price by the time the finishing touches were put on and very few folks here batted an eye. But a politician proposes a regional rail line and makes mistake of overestimating the cost by a lot and he gets crucified?

And some of the criticisms are bizarre. Too much reliance on provincial funding? Really? Where does graphicmatt think the money for the DRL or all those LRTs will come from?

I see SmartTrack for what it is. A conceptual proposal. Serious discussion about regional rail as a cheaper alternative to subways, for the 416. It's a paradigm shift. Just like LRT would have been under Transit City. Except that he's overpriced it, which means there's actually a chance it can be delivered.... The details will work themselves out in the wash, with Metrolinx, like any other transit proposal, to be proposed by any other candidate.