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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

BurlOak said:
Gweed,

I thought you said a while ago that Metrolinx insider's thought the elevated ECLRT connected to the SRT was the best option. Is it the case that political interferance has existed since day 1 and we cannot be sure that the Transit City LRT plan is actually the best one?
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Well there was that fairly publicized incident at the start of Metrolinx's mandate re: Transit City about making Eglinton higher order transit (most likely subway) instead of LRT. That got bogged down by politics pretty fast too..
 
Jonny5 said:
I think a part of what fools people's memory on the issue is that the vocal opposition to gay marriage went away once it became law. IIRC the Conservatives took one final all or nothing vote on the subject in 2006. They lost they lost vote by a significant margin and it was declared a settled issue. It may now seem like "everyone supports it, but there are still millions who oppose it, however they know that battle is lost, and they have moved on.
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Sure, however polls clearly show the general public went from about 45% in favour to 75% in favour a couple of years after the fact. 25% remain against and that is millions and millions of people; but nowhere close to enough to overturn it.

Lots of people who were sitting on the fence changed to go with the flow.

I'm hopeful Metrolinx gets the same type of public response once they start getting revenue and tendering work on a larger scale.
 
I'm coming in late on this thread so perhaps this has been suggested, but why not have the Scarborough Subway become the DRL? As a compromise on both ends, the Province would replace the Scarborough RT with a subway if the City endorses funding tools to help pay for a larger project. With funding in place, Metrolinx would merge the Scarborough RT with the DRL so that instead of following the existing route along Bloor/Danforth, it would branch off south to Union.

Some trains could still run along the Bloor route while others would go Express to Union. Scarborough would then take ownership of this project and it could finally cease to be called the Downtown Relief Line. It would be the Scarborough Downtown Express. No more fighting.
 
Probably because one of the most consistent components of the DRL has been its connection to Pape station on the east side (and north up Don Mills). In fact, its probably the only consistent element among all the different DRL plans.
 
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MetroMan said:
I'm coming in late on this thread so perhaps this has been suggested, but why not have the Scarborough Subway become the DRL? As a compromise on both ends, the Province would replace the Scarborough RT with a subway if the City endorses funding tools to help pay for a larger project. With funding in place, Metrolinx would merge the Scarborough RT with the DRL so that instead of following the existing route along Bloor/Danforth, it would branch off south to Union.

Some trains could still run along the Bloor route while others would go Express to Union. Scarborough would then take ownership of this project and it could finally cease to be called the Downtown Relief Line. It would be the Scarborough Downtown Express. No more fighting.
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It's odd seeing you around these parts :rolleyes:

Anyways, I (and probably other board members) have proposed similar things in the past. But I don't think that this could be a replacement for the DRL. The issues are:

1. It's too far east. I'm not sure about how this would impact the relief capability of the line. Remember, this line is designed to lower congestion on the Yonge subway.

2. Future extension of the DRL, north on Don Mills becomes impossible. This has been prosed a few times here on UT. The idea is to further relive the Yonge subway by giving bus and LRT passengers coming from the east a more direct route downtown (rather than going to Yonge).

3. A future DRL connection to the mid-eastern ECLRT (Don Mills area) would provide a great amount of relief for Yonge. Your plan makes this impossible.

An alternate solution would be to keep the DRL exactly as is and build the Scarborough-Downtown Express since the east end really does need an express line downtown. This was actually proposed in Stintz's OneCity transit plan and is estimated to cost $5.6 Billion. Ideally, this express line would have stops at Kennedy, Main Street (BD Subway), Gerrard (DRL) and Union.

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Awfully tough to see how existing GO service does not satisfy most if not all of the requirements of that Scarborough-Downtown Express in that diagram. Even if you ran the trains every 15 minutes at a loss, it would be cheaper over a 50 year term than building that line.
 
bobbob911 said:
Awfully tough to see how existing GO service does not satisfy most if not all of the requirements of that Scarborough-Downtown Express in that diagram. Even if you ran the trains every 15 minutes at a loss, it would be cheaper over a 50 year term than building that line.
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Existing GO service is at capacity. LSE local (Pickering to Union) is standing room only pretty much past guildwood. Stouffville line is standing room only at Milliken. LSE cannot more any more trains at this time because it is also running many express trains Oshawa to Union that are at capacity from Pickering.

There's talk of electrifying GO Train rail service but that's probably at least a decade out price tag for whole system is 4.2 billion.
 
scar_resident said:
Existing GO service is at capacity. LSE local (Pickering to Union) is standing room only pretty much past guildwood. Stouffville line is standing room only at Milliken. LSE cannot more any more trains at this time because it is also running many express trains Oshawa to Union that are at capacity from
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That's not true - I get on every day at Scarborough Station around 8am peak time and get a seat, every day. Going home around 5 pm it's half empty. That's with a 30 minute headway. I'm sure they could improve it to 15 minutes for a lot less than 5.6B :)

3 minutes or less is probably not realistic though.
 
bobbob911 said:
That's not true - I get on every day at Scarborough Station around 8am peak time and get a seat, every day. Going home around 5 pm it's half empty. That's with a 30 minute headway. I'm sure they could improve it to 15 minutes for a lot less than 5.6B :)

3 minutes or less is probably not realistic though.
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Some Stouffville trains are filled though. I got on a 5:30 pm or so at Kennedy recently and was surprised at how full it was. Lots of standees. What was bizarre is some folks had decided to sit down on the stairs ... my gosh, do you know what I've stepped in today ... and yet the upper deck while full, didn't have people standing eveywhere, like the lower deck and stairwells.
 
Great piece by Cohen in the Star. He draws an interesting parallel between the gas plants debacle and the potential reneging of the Scarborough LRT plan:

Unplugging the LRT would throw $100 million down the drain, perhaps much more. After securing a deal with city hall, the provincial transit agency Metrolinx has already spent $85 million on so-called “sunk costs,†not counting the “tens of millions†more that would be identified in any final accounting.

“Sunk costs†has a special resonance, because it’s the same loaded phrase used by the governing Liberals to explain away their costly pre-election promises to cancel two gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville.

The Liberals claimed “sunk costs†would be within a couple of hundred million dollars. But the knock-on effects, hidden costs and unforeseen clauses have brought the bill to nearly $600 million so far.
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http://www.thestar.com/news/queensp...borough_would_be_a_transit_mismatch_cohn.html
 
I must chuckle at the idea that Metrolinx take over all rapid transit in the region. It was/is an idea in PC platform. I might not trust them on transit but that's one idea I fully agree with.

Why do we have the current situation? Lack of fare and service integration. Metrolinx didn't create a true regional transit plan. It took a laundry list of local transit ideas and promised to fund them. A truly regional plan, for example, would never have had the Sheppard East LRT as a Phase 1 project.

A real regional plan would have had a full GO REX network as its backbone. A real regional transit agency would be managing the long-haul network including the subways and LRTs and leave the feeder buses and to the local authorities where service can be varied directly according to local ratepayer whims.

Instead of that kind of sound panning, we got MO2020. So no sympathies that Scarborough residents are asking for a subway and the province is considering the request. Had Metrolinx actually done its job, they'd be planning GO stations in Scarborough, and be on the verge of launching all-day GO service with full TTC fare and feeder service integration.

If Metrolinx just wants to act as cover to tax municipalities to fund the transit construction laundry list, it deserves its fate.
 
kEiThZ said:
I must chuckle at the idea that Metrolinx take over all rapid transit in the region. It was/is an idea in PC platform. I might not trust them on transit but that's one idea I fully agree with.

Why do we have the current situation? Lack of fare and service integration. Metrolinx didn't create a true regional transit plan. It took a laundry list of local transit ideas and promised to fund them. A truly regional plan, for example, would never have had the Sheppard East LRT as a Phase 1 project.

A real regional plan would have had a full GO REX network as its backbone. A real regional transit agency would be managing the long-haul network including the subways and LRTs and leave the feeder buses and to the local authorities where service can be varied directly according to local ratepayer whims.

Instead of that kind of sound panning, we got MO2020. So no sympathies that Scarborough residents are asking for a subway and the province is considering the request. Had Metrolinx actually done its job, they'd be planning GO stations in Scarborough, and be on the verge of launching all-day GO service with full TTC fare and feeder service integration.

If Metrolinx just wants to act as cover to tax municipalities to fund the transit construction laundry list, it deserves its fate.
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I agree 100 percent.
 
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