2018 Provincial Election Transit Promises

[innsertnamehere]

^ Will be interesting to see what he does with HSR and the cost of the Bypass for further Kitchener Line service.

People's Guarantee continued HSR, which sort of surprised me, actually. Bypass will happen as the all day kitchener service has huge politically pressures.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

People's Guarantee continued HSR, which sort of surprised me, actually. Bypass will happen as the all day kitchener service has huge politically pressures.

Not really - KW/London is an area they should be focusing on. If they can't throw a bone to the hinterland...

Plus I wonder who are the major landowners peripheral.

AoD

 

[amnesiajune]

Current Liberal party already did that. Back in '10 they offered to *fully fund* a Sheppard Subway extension. It was either a subway on Sheppard East, or a subway on Eglinton East.

They didn't offer to fully fund it. They offered around $2 billion. I believe this was equal to the extra cost of burying the Eglinton LRT east of Leslie - they basically told Ford that the city could use the funding for Sheppard or Eglinton, and he picked Eglinton (which was then overriden by city council in 2013).

 

[JSF-1]

I can see many of the suburban initiatives staying in tact in one form or another. However I do fear greatly for the DRL since while it is a subway and we know Ford loves them, it also has the stigma of being a "Downtown" thing even though that couldn't be farther from the truth. I don't think the DRL will be cancelled but I can see it getting deferred in favor of something like Sheppard which would be an enormous mistake.

 

[kEiThZ]

It may not be a popular view here. But I'd argue that building the bones of the system is far more important than local transit. If Ford cancels/postpones the Hurontario, Hamilton and Finch LRTs and delivers RER and starts on the HSR, I will consider that a decent outcome for the GTA.

The LRTs are much easier to execute, take less time, and cost less. They can easily be deferred and pushed through when more infrastructure spending is needed. This is not the case for bigger projects like RER.

 

[BurlOak]

It may not be a popular view here. But I'd argue that building the bones of the system is far more important than local transit. If Ford cancels/postpones the Hurontario, Hamilton and Finch LRTs and delivers RER and starts on the HSR, I will consider that a decent outcome for the GTA.

The LRTs are much easier to execute, take less time, and cost less. They can easily be deferred and pushed through when more infrastructure spending is needed. This is not the case for bigger projects like RER.

Agree, except HSR is a money wasting joke. GO to London makes more sense.

Doing the big stuff first was the Ford idea as Mayor - build the subways first and fill in the rest later. Miller had the exact opposite idea, build all the LRT (including Don Mills), and then there's no space to build a subway. Miller plan also had all the LRT funneling through Y-B.

 

[crs1026]

It may not be a popular view here. But I'd argue that building the bones of the system is far more important than local transit. If Ford cancels/postpones the Hurontario, Hamilton and Finch LRTs and delivers RER and starts on the HSR, I will consider that a decent outcome for the GTA.

The LRTs are much easier to execute, take less time, and cost less. They can easily be deferred and pushed through when more infrastructure spending is needed. This is not the case for bigger projects like RER.

If he added DRL to this list, I'm happy. The reality is, BRT can handle the volume for these lines for a decade or so. Hamilton only approved LRT by a narrow margin, so there is little political harm. It's hard to drive down Hurontario and convince myself that anyone out there cares about LRT. Sheppard subway might actually generate ridership if it ran from Downsview all the way to McCowan or so.

I do hope he gets tough with Toronto over the Line 2 extension cost. Make it cut and cover and build the damn Lawrence station, saving $1B in the process.

- Paul

-

 

[nfitz]

Most of the existing subway network was built under PC governments though.

Much of it 100% funded by the city. It wasn't the province's idea.

But I don't think Doug Ford is a Bill Davis.

 

[kEiThZ]

Agree, except HSR is a money wasting joke.

I disagree. HSR is absolutely needed to make Waterloo more competitive as a tech hub (there no other global tech hub this poorly connected from an international airport) and to avoid London becoming a large economic sink. We need to plug them into the GTA economy.

The good part here is that HSR is an add-on cost to RER. I believe it was $5 billion over and above RER. I'll be happy if they just build the corridor and electrify it in one term. They don't have to necessarily launch HSR.

If he added DRL to this list, I'm happy.

Would be ideal. But I'm going to say that HSR under Ford is probably not a likelihood. Which is why I left it off my post.

The reality is, BRT can handle the volume for these lines for a decade or so. Hamilton only approved LRT by a narrow margin, so there is little political harm.

This is the thing. They could build BRT for easy conversion to LRT on many of these corridors and save a bit on capital spending now. Just look at what Ottawa did with BRT. They've managed to provide decent transit service with BRT for decades and are converting to LRT now that the BRT capacity is maxed out. And they are converting to LRT relatively cheaply and doing it quickly, with minimal delays or cost overruns. I would think this would be a good model for a lot of the 905. York seems to have learned with VIVA.

I don't think Doug Ford is a Bill Davis.

This. Davis actually endorsed Elliott:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...ne-elliott-for-pc-leadership/article21513609/

 

[innsertnamehere]

I can see many of the suburban initiatives staying in tact in one form or another. However I do fear greatly for the DRL since while it is a subway and we know Ford loves them, it also has the stigma of being a "Downtown" thing even though that couldn't be farther from the truth. I don't think the DRL will be cancelled but I can see it getting deferred in favor of something like Sheppard which would be an enormous mistake.

It's not going to get deferred. I would be surprised if we didn't see tri-party support for it going into the election - it has a lot of political pressure now, more than it ever has. And the TTC and Tory has been pretty clear that there is no Yonge North without the DRL. Yonge North arguably has the largest political pressures for a transit project in the entire province right now.. It's going to happen.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I disagree. HSR is absolutely needed to make Waterloo more competitive as a tech

Disagree. What KW needs is regular Go Transit or VIA service that leaves Union and KW throughout the day starting at 6:30am. 200 kph rail or faster isn’t needed, just get regular rail service in place.

I used to work in KW and the drive from Cabbagetown was awful, and I forever wanted a train that left Union at 6:30a and arrived at KW by 8:30am, and returned from KW at 5pm, getting me home by 7pm.

 

[hw621]

Disagree. What KW needs is regular Go Transit or VIA service that leaves Union and KW throughout the day starting at 6:30am. 200 kph rail or faster isn’t needed, just get regular rail service in place.

I used to work in KW and the drive from Cabbagetown was awful, and I forever wanted a train that left Union at 6:30a and arrived at KW by 8:30am, and returned from KW at 5pm, getting me home by 7pm.

Wouldn't it be nice if HSR can get you there in an hour?

 

[BurlOak]

Wouldn't it be nice if HSR can get you there in an hour?

Why stop at 1 hour. Wouldn't 30 minutes be even better.
I'd guess a few dozen Billion dollars extra might be able to do it.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

This is a good point. I'd expect them to do exactly what they did with the Yonge North Subway Extension back in 2007: Commit to studying the project and perhaps progressing it to an EA. They are unlikely to commit any dollars to the Sheppard Extension, but that won't matter anyways, since voters won't distinguish between committing to work on a project, and committing funds to that project. The Liberals will also point out that the PC's transit proposals are not feasible with the funds they want to commit.

They'll commit to building the Relief Line Short, and further study of Relief Line Long (the latter of which is not news). The combination of DRL Long + SSE will likely be a winner for them in Scarborough.

I hate to say this. But if the Liberals do this, I'll start betting that they are going to lose. It pains me to say this, but the DRL is just not really understood outside of transit activists and a broader urbanist community. Nobody else, really, really cares about the DRL. Especially not the DRL as we conceive it (DRL Long). Announcing a downtown subway will only reinforce the downtown-centric elitist image of Wynne and the Liberals. And help deliver the ridings in Scarborough and Etobicoke (and maybe even North York) right into Ford's hands. I really hope she doesn't do this.

Do you believe this to be the case even if the Liberals are campaigning on the Relief Line North, as I mentioned in my post?

There are very strong arguments in favour of it from a Scarborough POV. For anyone west of McCowan (and a lot of people east of there too), it will provide by far the fastest Downtown-bound trip times. Campaigning on trip times of 25 mins, down from an hour+, is something that will be irresistible for many voters

For political reasons, they might want to rename it to something sufficiently neutral, such as the “Don Mills Line”. The Liberals have invested something like $150 Million into the design of this line, and I maintain that’s primarily bexause they want to protect these Scarborough ridings.

I’ll admit that a lot of voters are too daft to realize how they’ll benefit from a transit project that doesn’t run in their borough, which is why I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Liberals also make some vague promise to progress the Sheppard East Subway Extension (I don’t believe they’d have any intention of building it anytime soon; the technical hurdles are too costly to resolve at the moment)

 

[JSF-1]

^I really do think it is important the line gets renamed, not just from a political standpoint but from just a basic understanding perspective. Naming it something like "Don Mills-Queen Subway" or something of that nature is far more descriptive and helpful to the average person. The term DRL is a very vague one that doesn't really say much. Names like Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT are perfect because they tell you what they are, where they are, and what they do.