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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

kamira51 said:
Rob Ford is smiling right now, pointing an laughing at city hall for their "glorified streetcar" idea, instead of the SUPERIOR subway option.

He won...
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Ford 1 was in favour of a "glorified streetcar" to SC. Just contiguous with a grade-separated Eglinton East Crosstown vs standalone grade-separated line from Kennedy. All the in median at-grade Eglinton LRT is almost complete, so...

What he was more adamant about if you followed the news at the time was completing the Sheppard Subway. Which is by the wayside and looks to be a 2060 project.
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
He's dead, and dead men don't pay dues. I guess in the end it is the city (aka homeowners) that are the true winners fiscally speaking, since the province ended picking up the entire tab. Who's really laughing now?

AoD
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Developers, and the unions, simple.

They get new areas to build transit oriented development, and then charge premiums due to proximity to transit

Unions get more work.

Here's the hard truth: throwing money at transit is always going to pay off in some way: property values are going to go up, and hence, tax revenue is going to go up. Building any form of transit is going to support thousands of jobs directly, and thousands more indirectly for at least a decade, car traffic is reduced or shifted, at least somewhat, the greenbelt is protected, it catalyzes the construction of more dense development, hence more jobs and housing (even if it's unaffordable), etc etc etc.

There are other ways we can talk about governments wasting money, or question whether or certain things require less funding, but we should at least all be happy with the investments we're seeing right now.
 
Streety McCarface said:
Developers, and the unions, simple.

They get new areas to build transit oriented development, and then charge premiums due to proximity to transit

Unions get more work.

Here's the hard truth: throwing money at transit is always going to pay off in some way: property values are going to go up, and hence, tax revenue is going to go up. Building any form of transit is going to support thousands of jobs directly, and thousands more indirectly for at least a decade, car traffic is reduced or shifted, at least somewhat, the greenbelt is protected, it catalyzes the construction of more dense development, hence more jobs and housing (even if it's unaffordable), etc etc etc.

There are other ways we can talk about governments wasting money, or question whether or certain things require less funding, but we should at least all be happy with the investments we're seeing right now.
Click to expand...
I think most people are fine with the SSE, YNSE, and EWLRT going ahead.

However, this is again the oh-so-Canadian mentality of settling for mediocre. Ontario's budget is going to shit, fast. Building the same amount of transit without a change in user experience (cough EWLRT) for billions less and sooner is never a bad thing.

There is also a giant shortfall of transit funding, and the current 4 projects add up to about $650 million per km of transit, transit which is in mostly suburban areas. If EWLRT had been cut-and-cover, it could have cost $2 billion less. I'm confident that SSE and YNSE aren't the most cost-effective projects, either. If we took the $2 billion from EWLRT, what could we fund with it? Sheppard East? OL North?
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
He's dead, and dead men don't pay dues. I guess in the end it is the city (aka homeowners) that are the true winners fiscally speaking, since the province ended picking up the entire tab. Who's really laughing now?
Click to expand...

Province picked up the initial capital tab. The city is still expected to pay maintenance for the next century (that enormous TTC SOGR lineitem which eats most of the cities annual capital budget).
 
nfitz said:
Montreal got Line 5 though, decades after Line 4 opened, and the original Line 3 was cancelled - or perhaps in the 1980s, they were saving Line 3 for the REM ... :)
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REM does run along the alignment what was supposed to be line 3, does it not?
 
DirectionNorth said:
REM does run along the alignment what was supposed to be line 3, does it not?
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It does - hence my humorous comment. There's no indication (I've seen at least) of how it will be signed or appear on the Metro map though. Montreal seems to go through these phases of using the line number and then not using it. Haven't seen it for a bit now, but it seems to be starting to appear more often again.

Edit - I moved the second part of this to the Montreal thread, as it's increasingly off-topic.
 
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rbt said:
Province picked up the initial capital tab. The city is still expected to pay maintenance for the next century (that enormous TTC SOGR lineitem which eats most of the cities annual capital budget).
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It's worth noting that part of the reason subway construction is so much more expensive now is because the quality control on these projects is immense, since the design lifecycle is >50 years.

Operations? Yeah that's going to eat a lot of money on a subway, especially electricity for powering stations and whatnot, but capital maintenance isn't going to be nearly as significant, at least for 50 years. This is, of course, as long as proper quality control is done. Metrolinx is generally quite strict with this stuff, but nowhere near the MTO. Only time will tell how much work is actually needed while ridership builds.
 
DirectionNorth said:
I think most people are fine with the SSE, YNSE, and EWLRT going ahead.

However, this is again the oh-so-Canadian mentality of settling for mediocre. Ontario's budget is going to shit, fast. Building the same amount of transit without a change in user experience (cough EWLRT) for billions less and sooner is never a bad thing.

There is also a giant shortfall of transit funding, and the current 4 projects add up to about $650 million per km of transit, transit which is in mostly suburban areas. If EWLRT had been cut-and-cover, it could have cost $2 billion less. I'm confident that SSE and YNSE aren't the most cost-effective projects, either. If we took the $2 billion from EWLRT, what could we fund with it? Sheppard East? OL North?
Click to expand...

Exactly. Savings abound. Crosstown W on the surface, Metrolinx did a report that SSE can be on the surface, YNSE no river tunnels and exorbitant stations. Put savings towardd Sheppard East which was promised transit 15yrs ago, or Don Mills which was promised 15yrs ago, or connecting to the airport. Obviously a bit too late now. But current gov't is a lot less spendthrift than they make out to be.
 
rbt said:
Province picked up the initial capital tab. The city is still expected to pay maintenance for the next century (that enormous TTC SOGR lineitem which eats most of the cities annual capital budget).
Click to expand...

Fair, but it isn't like they aren't paying for it right now in full with the SRT and then some; nor whatever alternate proposed modes.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Fair, but it isn't like they aren't paying for it right now in full with the SRT and then some; nor whatever alternate proposed modes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the SRT replacement is much closer to cost-neutral than the other lines proposed (looking at you Eg-West); but maintenance costs of underground sections still tend to be higher than surface or elevated sections (of subway; not necessarily SRT) due to inevitable water intrusion issues. That said, Crosstown is a fixed-fee contract which the TTC will be paying, but I don't believe we know whether it's more or less than TTC typical maintenance costs for subway tunnel/station for new lines (like Sheppard or Spadina extension).

It'll be interesting to see if future legislated requirements will be paid by the province as part of the year-30 maintenance contract retender or whether they'll have the city cover it as SOGR maintenance; these have included the elevator, second exit, and deferred fire suppression system programs.
 
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Member Motion at today's Council Meeting from Councillor Ainslie.

He would like the SRT's elevated track preserved so that Scarborough can have its own 'High Line' Park....

:rolleyes:

Motion here:


Substance thereof:

1643828689642.png


Just no.

This is not and never would be the 'High Line'.
Not the same, not close, could not, would not, should not be.
Far better uses for the money.

By all means retain the ROW through Scarborough City Centre as a linear park or the like where plausible.
Likewise, preserve room in the N-S section of corridor for a multi-use path and a meadoway-type treatment.

But don't blow money preserving the bridges.
 
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