Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[Amare]

Go ahead, book a referendum, and prepare to lose.

Not interested in wasting my time, especially when it comes to citizens who don't care to educate themselves on basic municipal affairs.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

For everyone who thinks the SSE cost will rise, there's a very good reason for that:

John Tory’s favoured Scarborough subway was ‘drawn on the back of a napkin’ when council chose it over LRT, critics charge

The supposedly researched estimate (according to Tory) was based, in part, on napkin sketches. This is exactly why $3.35 billion is nowhere near what this thing will cost - all of the estimates thus far are based on nonsense. When they're forced to do some actual work and reality sets in, the cost rises accordingly.

As SSE planning moves beyond napkins, it seems obvious the cost will be much closer to the $5 billion city staff estimated as the high ceiling for this absurd project.

Can someone explain just why digging this short extension is so damn expensive and more importantly why they can't control the number? Even for inflation I'm sure the cost just can't go up by over a billion in just a few years. Why is building subways here so expensive vs other parts of the world???

A lot of the reason these project seem so expensive was a change in accounting practices. The City now uses year-of-expenditure inflation, rather than net-present-value, to calculate infrastructure costs. When using NPV, the Scarborough Subway costs about $2.6 Billion.

However, that's still really expensive compared to a decade ago. Eglinton Crosstown was $5.4 Billion and TYSSE was $2.5 Billion.

This also makes the Relief Line seem way more expensive than it really is. In $YOE the DRL Short is a whopping $6.8 Billion. But in $NPV, it is a totally reasonable $4.8 Billion.

I think YOE makes a lot of sense for accounting practices, but for public consumption it's totally misleading. When people hear something will cost $x Billion dollars, they aren't thinking about what a dollar will be worth a decade from now; they're thinking about what a dollar is worth today. This accounting does not help in getting these projects approved.

Note: Totally not an accountant, so someone let me know if I'm incorrect about this.

 

[BurlOak]

Not interested in wasting my time, especially when it comes to citizens who don't care to educate themselves on basic municipal affairs.

The mayor election is a form of non binding referendum. The mayor is the only one who runs on city wide issues - and usually transit is the biggest. Every Councillor just runs for local issues related to a couple of square kilometers. But when done - we give the mayor the same power as an individual Councillor - even though he is carrying a huge mandate. Things won't fix themselves until we get a stronger mayor - or possibly open party politics (we already have hidden party politics).

 

[Streety McCarface]

A lot of the reason these project seem so expensive was a change in accounting practices. The City now uses year-of-expenditure inflation, rather than net-present-value, to calculate infrastructure costs. When using NPV, the Scarborough Subway costs about $2.6 Billion.

However, that's still really expensive compared to a decade ago. Eglinton Crosstown was $5.4 Billion and TYSSE was $2.5 Billion.

This also makes the Relief Line seem way more expensive than it really is. In $YOE the DRL Short is a whopping $6.8 Billion. But in $NPV, it is a totally reasonable $4.8 Billion.

I think YOE makes a lot of sense for accounting practices, but for public consumption it's totally misleading. When people hear something will cost $x Billion dollars, they aren't thinking about what a dollar will be worth a decade from now; they're thinking about what a dollar is worth today. This accounting does not help in getting these projects approved.

Note: Totally not an accountant, so someone let me know if I'm incorrect about this.

The Eglinton Crosstown actually looks extremely expensive. Shave off a billion dollars for the above ground section, and the tunnels are 4.2 Billion dollars. With a length of 10 km, that puts tunnel costs at around 420 million/km. Compare this to the TYSSE and it's extravagant stations, at 3.2 billion dollars for 8.6 km of subway, tunnel costs are around 370 million/km. A difference of 50 million/km is quite a lot for just 4 years.

 

[Rainforest]

The Eglinton Crosstown actually looks extremely expensive. Shave off a billion dollars for the above ground section, and the tunnels are 4.2 Billion dollars. With a length of 10 km, that puts tunnel costs at around 420 million/km. Compare this to the TYSSE and it's extravagant stations, at 3.2 billion dollars for 8.6 km of subway, tunnel costs are around 370 million/km. A difference of 50 million/km is quite a lot for just 4 years.

4 years, and tunnels with a larger diameter. The profile of a light rail vehicle (relatively narrow, and very tall to accommodate the catenary) is far from optimal for a tunnel dug by TBMs.

Placing light-rail vehicles in a tunnel only makes sense when there is a mix of tunnel sections and surface sections. I think it is fine for Eglinton in its present form (however, a fully tunneled Eglinton line with light-rail vehicle style would be a very odd and cost-ineffective solution).

 

[Streety McCarface]

4 years, and tunnels with a larger diameter. The profile of a light rail vehicle (relatively narrow, and very tall to accommodate the catenary) is far from optimal for a tunnel dug by TBMs.

Placing light-rail vehicles in a tunnel only makes sense when there is a mix of tunnel sections and surface sections. I think it is fine for Eglinton in its present form (however, a fully tunneled Eglinton line with light-rail vehicle style would be a very odd and cost-ineffective solution).

It should have just been a subway with LRT or BRT lines at the termini. LRT should be reserved for corridors like Finch and Steeles.

 

[JSF-1]

I don't really think Eglinton should be a Subway. Even back in the 90's experts were saying it was a terrible idea. A subway on Eglinton would make Sheppard look like the YUS. By 2030 if I am not mistaken ML only predicts the Crosstown to move about 4,000 - 7,000pp/h however the TTC justify's a Subway when it can move 15,000pp/h (at the moment Line 1 and 2 are the only ones that meet this threshold).

 

[Hopkins123]

I don't really think Eglinton should be a Subway. Even back in the 90's experts were saying it was a terrible idea. A subway on Eglinton would make Sheppard look like the YUS. By 2030 if I am not mistaken ML only predicts the Crosstown to move about 4,000 - 7,000pp/h however the TTC justify's a Subway when it can move 15,000pp/h (at the moment Line 1 and 2 are the only ones that meet this threshold).

Bloor-Danforth's 500,000 daily average ridership would likely be halved were Eglinton Crosstown built as a full subway. With ~80 intersecting routes through the Eglinton corridor, most riders would opt to transfer at that earlier point of their journey rather than at Bloor-Danforth.

 

[BurlOak]

Bloor-Danforth's 500,000 daily average ridership would likely be halved were Eglinton Crosstown built as a full subway. With ~80 intersecting routes through the Eglinton corridor, most riders would opt to transfer at that earlier point of their journey rather than at Bloor-Danforth.

And then transfer to the YUS - which is clearly clogged.

The Eglinton LRT plan is predicated on the DRL not being built.
With DRL - Eglinton should have been a subway.

 

[JSF-1]

So how does changing the type of transit just suddenly grab more riders? The only difference between the Subway and LRT plan would be the number of stations and the lack of a surface level portion. The number of bus routes intersecting doesn't change. All the busses set to be terminated at say Science Centre wouldn't change regardless of whether the line is LRT or Subway. If the Crosstown as an LRT is only going to attract a fraction of the ridership as an LRT than I think the same will hold true for the Subway as well. If the Crosstown is to divert people off of Line 2 as much as you say it would as a Subway than why hasn't it as an LRT? Why has every model done by ML not show any sort of major ridership compared to a Subway? Shouldn't the numbers be well beyond the capacity of LRT? I don't believe that just burying the Crosstown in its entirety would just somehow magically make another 10,000 riders per hour appear out of the blue.

 

[BurlOak]

So how does changing the type of transit just suddenly grab more riders? The only difference between the Subway and LRT plan would be the number of stations and the lack of a surface level portion. The number of bus routes intersecting doesn't change. All the busses set to be terminated at say Science Centre wouldn't change regardless of whether the line is LRT or Subway. If the Crosstown as an LRT is only going to attract a fraction of the ridership as an LRT than I think the same will hold true for the Subway as well. If the Crosstown is to divert people off of Line 2 as much as you say it would as a Subway than why hasn't it as an LRT? Why has every model done by ML not show any sort of major ridership compared to a Subway? Shouldn't the numbers be well beyond the capacity of LRT? I don't believe that just burying the Crosstown in its entirety would just somehow magically make another 10,000 riders per hour appear out of the blue.

The outer parts (that are on street) will be slower and reduce passengers a bit. They also added a couple of extra stations that likely would not have been there with subway.

However, I think you are right. I have always said that the pattern for Scarborough according to Transit City was (possibly bus) to LRT to B-D to the transfer at Y-B.
With SSE, its (likely bus) to B-D to the transfer at Y-B. Both overload Y-B equally if you believe the transfer from LRT to B-D is not a big deal - which the people complaining about the SSE seem to believe. It was this realization a half dozen years ago that made me realize that the continuous line from STC to ECLRT was a very good idea, and it would also promote the DRL north - something that Transit City entirely ignored.

 

[steveintoronto]

So how does changing the type of transit just suddenly grab more riders? The only difference between the Subway and LRT plan would be the number of stations and the lack of a surface level portion. The number of bus routes intersecting doesn't change. All the busses set to be terminated at say Science Centre wouldn't change regardless of whether the line is LRT or Subway. If the Crosstown as an LRT is only going to attract a fraction of the ridership as an LRT than I think the same will hold true for the Subway as well. If the Crosstown is to divert people off of Line 2 as much as you say it would as a Subway than why hasn't it as an LRT? Why has every model done by ML not show any sort of major ridership compared to a Subway? Shouldn't the numbers be well beyond the capacity of LRT? I don't believe that just burying the Crosstown in its entirety would just somehow magically make another 10,000 riders per hour appear out of the blue.

Further to your point, although not a fully linear extrapolation, by the same logic as a subway creating more demand, then the DRL being RER (or a form of Metro) would garner that much more ridership again.

In the event, running it north of Steeles as a "metro" (single decker RER) to Richmond Hill or further would do exactly that.

 

[drum118]

One more time: Stop the Scarborough extension

 

[cplchanb]

One more time: Stop the Scarborough extension

if theyre seriously going to stop this now they might as well spend the money on refurbing the existing line and getting new trains. This has seriously gone way too far
and even if theyre going to jump to at grade LRT it would be billions of dollars as well. The original SRT was good enough, and IIRC the costs for renovating the stations to fit new
trains would be cheaper that all the other options. Its only because of the "eyesore" naysayers that got the whole subway debacle started to begin with.

 

[Streety McCarface]

if theyre seriously going to stop this now they might as well spend the money on refurbing the existing line and getting new trains. This has seriously gone way too far
and even if theyre going to jump to at grade LRT it would be billions of dollars as well. The original SRT was good enough, and IIRC the costs for renovating the stations to fit new
trains would be cheaper that all the other options. Its only because of the "eyesore" naysayers that got the whole subway debacle started to begin with.

There are other issues with the LRT as well; the corridor needs to be used for RER, so any LRT would actually have to be built above grade, which is almost as much as a subway.