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Despite what Ford says The Streetcar in Toronto is here to stay.

I read this article in the Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/n... the no. 7 to seacaucus? that’s a plan&st=cse

I'm not sure how far that subway is, but it was planned with 2 stops, and they cut one, and it's going to cost $2.1 billion. In comparison to that, the SRT replacement with subway is a bargain (two stations: Lawrence East and STC).

As for their extension to New Jersey being $5.3 billion, it makes you wonder how our Sheppard Subway could cost $6 billion. How can the Sheppard subway cost more to build than a NY subway under a river to NJ?
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
As for their extension to New Jersey being $5.3 billion, it makes you wonder how our Sheppard Subway could cost $6 billion. How can the Sheppard subway cost more to build than a NY subway under a river to NJ?
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There aren't any stops (stations are $100M or more a pop) under the river and under-water is under-water. A very large number of TTC tunnel/stations are below the local water table too which has nearly identical difficulty in construction as a deep bore beneath a river.
 
rbt said:
There aren't any stops (stations are $100M or more a pop) under the river and under-water is under-water. A very large number of TTC tunnel/stations are below the local water table too which has nearly identical difficulty in construction as a deep bore beneath a river.
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That still doesn't explain how finishing Sheppard would cost more than a subway to New Jersey.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
That still doesn't explain how finishing Sheppard would cost more than a subway to New Jersey.
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Not sure why you think it would be. I don't think anyone has estimated that completing the Sheppard Subway would cost over $5 billion.

We are all well aware that New York subway construction is much higher than in Toronto. You've commented so yourself.

The distance of the the 7 Line extension would be about 10 km, and it costs more than the Sheppard Subway would cost, for less distance, even though Sheppard is entirely underground, and much of the 7 Line extension in New Jersey would be above ground.

I guess I'm not seeing your point.
 
I already explained where the 6 billion figure came from. It came from a guest on a Radio 1 program regarding streetcars and the implications of Rob Ford's victory and his dislike of streetcars and the fate of Transit City. The person suggested the TTC was asked to cost out the suggestions of implementing Ford's plan to convert SRT to subway (additional $600 million) and finish Sheppard (additional $6 billion), figures supposedly over and above the cost of the TC lines they'd be replacing.

Assuming she was correct, and the TTC estimates that the cost of finishing Sheppard at the price of the SELRT + $6 billion, that would make Sheppard considerably more expensive than the subway to NJ.
 
Obviously $6 billion isn't correct. Not in current dollars ... perhaps in 2020 dollars by the time it would get built ...

But even assume it was. $6 billion for 13 km is still cheaper than $5 billion for 10 km.

So why are you claiming the Sheppard subway cost more to build than a NY subway under a river to NJ?
 
Filip said:
It usually gets down to convenience. If you're going grocery shopping, you'd rather drive to the store so you don't have to carry all that weight around, or convenience in the sense that you don't have to adhere to a transit schedule (especially with the 501 by my house, which shows up at its convenience, every 4 minutes, sometimes 25, sometimes 35, sometimes every 2.. you just never know!).. If you're going down the street to see a friend, even then not having to take the walk from the transit stop is worth grabbing your car.

I'm sure a lot of people see it that way.
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Not really.

Shoppers take cabs if they have a lot of bags.
 
I certainly use my car to do big grocery shops - for smaller ones it's far easier to just to walk into a grocery store for 3 or 4 things when I walk past it - I never understand why I can be in and out of Valuemart in 5-minutes flat having spent $40 and a knapsack full of groceries, while it takes at least an hour to get to Loblaws and back again in a car for a $200 shop ... logic suggests there should be efficiency in larger shops, but I never seem to achieve it.

However for big shops, the car certainly get's used; no question. But for taking the streetcar down the road to the harware store, or to see a friend? It's far simpler just to walk out the door onto a streetcar than having to get the car out of the driveway, down the street, find a parking spot, etc ... It's not like people have to wait for an unsuspecting streetcar anymore ... you just walk to the stop when one is coming - http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/pr...501&d=501_westbound&s=queelee_w&ts=queewave_w
 
Justin10000 said:
Doesn't matter. Anyone can take the bus to the grocery store, and take a cab back. It's quite common.
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Yeah, but also "quite common" is an assumption that cabs are a ripoff medium of last resort (and as such, maybe a Wendell Cox-ian "public transportation" fantasy)
 
I guess the other thing is: who cares? There's this weird type of person who thinks they're making an important argument when they point out scenarios where they'd still use their car.

But what does it matter? Absolutely there's times when it makes sense to drive. There always will be. What we need to talk about is whether it makes sense to design whole neighbourhoods around facilitating people driving to grocery stores in their car. I strongly believe that that should not be a top priority in urban planning.
 
^ It shouldn't be a priority whatsoever. All urban planning should be entirely geared towards creating transit oriented development from now on.
 
Back in 1976, due to a fire in a Philadelphia carbarn, SEPTA purchased thirty used PCC cars from the TTC at $12,500 each. The cars were re-gauged by TTC crews at Hillcrest Shops from Toronto gauge (4′ 10-7/8″) to SEPTA gauge (5′ 2-1/4″) at an additional $4,000 each. At the time, the trolley cars on the SEPTA system were equipped with wheels at the tops of the trolley poles to receive power. The Toronto cars arrived with slider-shoes on the poles instead of wheels, and it was decided to retain sliders on the cars as an experiment. During 1976 it was decided to convert all SEPTA surface rail vehicles to the slider-shoe type of power collection. See this link for the complete story.

2311-2250_july-13-1977_luzerne_szilagyi-kodachrome_900px.jpg


2306_5th-wyoming_1978-snowstorm_900px.jpg


While the CLRV's would start arriving in 1977 and revenue service in 1979, the TTC still had a surplus of PCC’s. Today, the TTC has a shortage of streetcars due to cutbacks in the last years of the 20th century. When accounting dictates policy at the TTC instead of operations, we end up in the situation today where we don’t have enough vehicles to operate the streetcar network efficiently.
 
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