Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[Northern Light]

I'm just wondering if there was ever any proposals to extend the SRT to other places in Scarborough or was it desegined as it is with no thought of expansion? I know that the yard was built right up against McCowan station but could they have done something like they did with Willson yard on line 1 and build past it to extend it further?

@JSF-1 has given you much of the answer, I can throw in a couple of extra pieces.

The route the SRT would have taken is visible for the first 1km or so to the east in the form of the old Canadian Northern Railway ROW.

You can see the very clear diagonal line up to Progress from the SRT Yard:

As I recall there were also discussions about having it turn east to follow Highland Creek for a short while as well.

The question was whether to hit Centennial College on the way to Markham/Sheppard.

At Markham and Sheppard there was a proposal for a large office/residential complex called Palmerston Place.

The land is pretty much built out now, was held vacant for quite awhile in anticipation of an expansion that never came.

You can see a corridor of parks in this picture, on the right hand side, this is the old ROW; while Markham and Sheppard is just to the west.

You can still walk the old ROW north of Sheppard (the tracks are long gone)

And it leads almost directly to the heart of Malvern:

 

[syn]

That's where Scarborough has really been failed - after all these years there still isn't any rapid transit for residents in Malvern.

More than 10 years of promises to improve its public transit and nothing has been done. Has Scarborough been taken for a ride?

 

[W. K. Lis]

That's where Scarborough has really been failed - after all these years there still isn't any rapid transit for residents in Malvern.

More than 10 years of promises to improve its public transit and nothing has been done. Has Scarborough been taken for a ride?

Really started June 26, 1995. There were many plans started or on the boards. Mike Harris was elected the 22nd Premier of Ontario, and one of his first orders of business was to cut provincial contributions to the TTC's capital projects. The Eglinton West Subway Line, which had broken ground only a year before, was promptly killed. Subsidies to the TTC's operating budget were also killed in 1998.

From link.

 

[Leo_Chan]

Since we're talking about what "could have been", here's my take:

 

[kamira51]

Really started June 26, 1995. There were many plans started or on the boards. Mike Harris was elected the 22nd Premier of Ontario, and one of his first orders of business was to cut provincial contributions to the TTC's capital projects. The Eglinton West Subway Line, which had broken ground only a year before, was promptly killed. Subsidies to the TTC's operating budget were also killed in 1998.

From link.

Imagine what could have been.

 

[ARG1]

This is a rather one-sided view of history.

Yes the province had an interest in pushing the technology - but Scarborough council was just as complicit. They weren't innocent victims in all of this.

I'm going to ask you a second time, given what was known then, would you have accepted the deal? What you knew then was that you're getting an upgrade from LRT to Light Metro, meaning that all crossings will be grade separated, AND a higher level of government would be paying for it, so to you the project would cost as much as the LRT did.

 

[ARG1]

Imagine what could have been.

Tbh, I'm not imagining great things. The NDP when they got elected decided to cut down the Sheppard and Eglinton West subways to short 5 stop stubs as Phase 1s of the project (no, it wasn't Mike Harris who stubbed the Sheppard Subway), only unlike the Sheppard Subway, the Eglinton West subway would've terminated at York Centre, which at the time was literally empty, didn't even have a mall like the Sheppard Subway did. If Eglinton West was never cancelled, I believe it would've turned out the exact same way as the Sheppard Subway did, stuck in perpetual limbo of being extended, and its entirely possible that instead of further subway expansions west to Pearson, we would've received a linear transfer onto an at-grade LRT line, such as what was proposed for Sheppard East, and considering this alternate reality, I'm kinda glad for our timeline.

 

[Allandale25]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1338468437597810688

Entire thread here:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1338468382505660417

 

[robmausser]

Since we're talking about what "could have been", here's my take:
View attachment 288670

Yep, selling off that rail corridor to housing development was such a dumb decision the city made ages ago.

Could have had a cheap at-grade subway line decades ago by now.

 

[syn]

I'm going to ask you a second time, given what was known then, would you have accepted the deal? What you knew then was that you're getting an upgrade from LRT to Light Metro, meaning that all crossings will be grade separated, AND a higher level of government would be paying for it, so to you the project would cost as much as the LRT did.

No I wouldn't. Just as today, council had studies which showed the pros and cons of each plan. Despite the drawbacks they still chose to go with ICTS technology.

Do I understand why they accepted the deal? Sure. The RT was greeted with great excitement. No one cared that it wasn't what was originally planned, nor did they care that it wasn't a subway. The RT has actually served Scarborough very well.

The point is that they're as responsible for it as the Ontario government. It wasn't forced on them by any means.

Scarborough as a victim of the province and rest of the city is a popular narrative, but one that isn't in line with what actually happened.

 

[officedweller]

Of interest re: MKIII cars (5-car configuration with perimeter seating)
Note that there were 2 bidders.

TransLink to buy 205 new SkyTrain cars from Bombardier for $723 million | Urbanized

Bombardier Transportation, a future division of Alstom, will build TransLink's new order of 205 train cars for SkyTrain's Expo and Millennium lines.

dailyhive.com

Also:

TransLink considering side seating for new order of 203 SkyTrain cars | Urbanized

An upcoming order of new SkyTrain cars for the Expo Line and Millennium Line systems will be the single largest batch of new train cars.

dailyhive.com

 

[rbt]

Note that there were 2 bidders.

Fascinating. Anybody can build a LIM but using the existing track-level Skytrain hardware has some pretty significant patent issues for a train manufacturer. I see a general line refurbishment was part of the package, so was the intention of the second bidder to remove or wholly replace the LIM system (both car and track components)?

 

[sche]

Fascinating. Anybody can build a LIM but using the existing track-level Skytrain hardware has some pretty significant patent issues for a train manufacturer. I see a general line refurbishment was part of the package, so was the intention of the second bidder to remove or wholly replace the LIM system (both car and track components)?

I doubt, since the order was only for fleet expansion and replacing the Mark Is, so the existing mark II and III cars would still be in use. Any new order would have had to be compatible with the existing trains.

 

[Tuck]

Since we're talking about what "could have been", here's my take:
View attachment 288670

The original sin of Scarborough's transit story is having this not come to pass.

 

[officedweller]

Fascinating. Anybody can build a LIM but using the existing track-level Skytrain hardware has some pretty significant patent issues for a train manufacturer. I see a general line refurbishment was part of the package, so was the intention of the second bidder to remove or wholly replace the LIM system (both car and track components)?

TransLink has stated that the technologies are not proprietary:

SkyTrain technologies, engineering not proprietary: TransLink report

The report, which goes to the Mayors' Council this week, states that claims SkyTrain is proprietary to SNC-Lavalin and Bombardier are false.

www.google.ca