GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
In the current climate, they'd find a way to spend 400 million/kilometre on an Eglinton subway. It's not right, but it is what it is.
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Metrolinx: Five-in-Ten Plan
- Thread starter Rainforest
- Start date
ssiguy2
Senior Member
This is so obscene. All this huge money being spent and Torontonians will still see no real difference in their commute times.
Also, unless I haven't been informed correctly and these are 300 metre gold inlaid stations, how the hell does a tiny little SkYtrain expansion come in at $2.4 billion?!?!?!
Also, unless I haven't been informed correctly and these are 300 metre gold inlaid stations, how the hell does a tiny little SkYtrain expansion come in at $2.4 billion?!?!?!
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Commute times will improve on GO Transit as they roll out all-day service and improve the quality of the tracks. The TTC is a local transit provider and modes of transport are chosen based on capacity not speed. It takes about 50 minutes to get from Kipling to Kennedy which is a distance of 27km (32km/h). If you are really trying to reduce a long commute the choices are live closer to work or take the GO. In the same time a subway goes to Eglinton from Union a GO train goes to Long Branch which is double the distance and this is before electrification.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
The prices per km likely also include projected expropriation costs. Eglinton will require far more expropriation than the Spadina extension did because the land on which many of the stations will sit have existing buildings on them. With the Spadina line I'm not sure any building needed to be razed or significantly altered to accomodate the surface entrances of the stations.
In Vancouver Cambie is a wide street in most places so they likely didn't need to expropraite much to put in vents and emergency exits, and in Vancouver they have limited the station sizes to handle only 3-car trains (i.e. half that of the stations on the Bloor and Yonge lines and one less car than on the Sheppard line) allowing them to get by with a single entrance building safely. Making stations with platform lengths half the size, with half the entrance buildings, and with lower expropriation costs is going to be cheaper.
In Vancouver Cambie is a wide street in most places so they likely didn't need to expropraite much to put in vents and emergency exits, and in Vancouver they have limited the station sizes to handle only 3-car trains (i.e. half that of the stations on the Bloor and Yonge lines and one less car than on the Sheppard line) allowing them to get by with a single entrance building safely. Making stations with platform lengths half the size, with half the entrance buildings, and with lower expropriation costs is going to be cheaper.
Fresh Start
Banned
^ Well, I'd like to see evidence of that.
The numbers don't add up and I would like for the TTC to publically disclose how they're arriving at these figures. Breakdown every item in a list. The fact that they can throw out any number they please and expect even industry insiders to except it as infallible is ridiculous.
That's precisely why they're rushing this through, they're terrified that our next Mayor will be of the common sense variety and obliterate everything Transit City to start anew. People think that renegotiating now will lead to even further construction delays, yet they fail to realize that the past 5 years spent discussing TC has further led to the DRL being on the backburner as well an Eglinton West subway to the airport which was slated as next-in-line as a priority after the Sheppard Line before TYSSE (and RHC) weaseled their way into the debate.
We've gone from those heights to now being grateful that they're at least stubbing a light-rail line at Eglinton Flats Park? C'mon.
The numbers don't add up and I would like for the TTC to publically disclose how they're arriving at these figures. Breakdown every item in a list. The fact that they can throw out any number they please and expect even industry insiders to except it as infallible is ridiculous.
That's precisely why they're rushing this through, they're terrified that our next Mayor will be of the common sense variety and obliterate everything Transit City to start anew. People think that renegotiating now will lead to even further construction delays, yet they fail to realize that the past 5 years spent discussing TC has further led to the DRL being on the backburner as well an Eglinton West subway to the airport which was slated as next-in-line as a priority after the Sheppard Line before TYSSE (and RHC) weaseled their way into the debate.
We've gone from those heights to now being grateful that they're at least stubbing a light-rail line at Eglinton Flats Park? C'mon.
Rainforest
Senior Member
This might play a role; but do they need to destroy any buildings for the Eglinton underground stations? If they only adding entrances and redesigning parts of existing buildings, it should not be that expensive.
Rainforest
Senior Member
I believe that people who express such concern actually have a point. Toronto has so many competing transit priorities that one can endlessly create plans, review them, dismiss since they do not emphasise correct priorities, create new plans etc.
If I was to make the decision, I would certainly let some components of Transit City to progress, while modify others. Based on the latest cost projections, it looks like Eglitnon and SLRT are the 2 projects in greatest need of rethinking. Proceeding with their LRT implementation means just reducing capacity with very little cost reduction to show for it.
Regarding Sheppard and Finch LRT, I'd let them proceed given the substantial amount of design work and goodwill already invested, even though I wouldn't propose them in their present form (and at their present cost) starting from scratch.
Rainforest
Senior Member
Even if so, at 400 million/km the Jane - Don Mills subway line (14 km) will cost 5.6 billion, which is within their latest 6.065 billion allocation for Eglinton.
Plus, there is no guarantee that they build the Jane - Kennedy LRT even for 6,065 billion without further cost overruns. So far, the cost projection went from 73 to 303 million/km before a single track section laid and a single cubic foot of soil excavated.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Don'y have to look to Monorails to see how obscene this is. Vancouver is going to begin construction of it's new Evergreen SkyTrain line in 2011. It will cost $1.4 billion but is 11km which includes a 1.5 km tunnel and vehicles. Are these just numbers grabbed out of thin air? I'm with Fresh Start and demand to know how every single penny is being accounted for. That will clarify the true costs and how many palms are getting greased at city hall and construction companies.
BTW, please don't bring in the land buying bill as property costs are 50% in Vancouver than they are in Toronto and this figure doesn't even include a new stock yard as that is already accounted for in the Sheppard East extension.
The same people who are saying "we'd have to start all over again!" are probably the same people who like to conveniently forget that we HAD a working transit plan before Transit City came in and started everything from scratch. RTES was a workable plan, with the planning for it pretty well underway. I find it ironic that the LRT supporters are throwing their arms up saying "we can't cancel it now! It'll set us back at least 5 years!". Newsflash: that's what Transit City did to us 5 years ago. Had Miller and Co not decided to create their own little pet project, we would have probably had at least 1 more subway line under construction now than we do already, and likely set to open soon.
And I don't buy the length of time some people are saying it would take to get a subway-based plan in motion. The Sheppard EA was completed, the Eglinton West EA was completed (heck, construction was even started), the DRL is being studied as we speak. Granted, the Sheppard and Eglinton EAs may have to be updated slightly, but that would take a matter of months, not a matter of years.
kettal
Banned
That's a good point. I plan to research into this, especially how it relates to Scarborough RT's costs.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Yes they will need to completely destroy a number of buildings and significantly modify others. In the cases where they are keeping the existing buildings it may up even costing more if their basements aren't deep enough because digging inside an existing building is difficult since most equipment can get in (pile drivers and steam shovels). The plan document shows exactly which buildings are expected to impacted. Where the building has significant stairs at the entrance or where the construction isn't up to code you can expect demolition and where there is significant buildings or historic buildings you can expect modification.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Evidence of higher expropriation costs? It is obvious. Sheppard West, open field with height restrictions... if it was really valuable land it would have been developed already and the current property owner might even be the federal government. Finch West, used car lot... there will be a cost associated with the impact on the business as well as higher expropriation costs compared to others on this extension (but still relatively cheap) since it is a more developed area. York U, the empty space in the middle of campus with universities being closely related to the provincial government. Steeles West, empty space and parking spaces, much of the land owned by the university. 407 Station, empty field. VMC, empty property next to Future Shop in an area with lots of empty lots and there may be some business impact costs related to Caterpillar. Compare that to the Eglinton stretch getting subway which has retail against the street almost in its entirety, and no vacant empty lots that I can think of besides the area around the GO Barrie line. On Eglinton almost every vent, entrance, and emergency exit will impact property the city doesn't currently own and impact many existing businesses. I don't know what percentage of the budget expropriations and settlements ends up being but the expropriation costs on Eglinton are surely more significant than the Spadina Extension and the Canada Line.
Rainforest
Senior Member
OK, you have a strong point here, and it probably explains at least a part of the cost escalation for the Eglinton project.
However, expropriation costs should be almost independent on the choice of technology, be it LRT or HRT. They should depend mostly on the length of tunnel and the number of underground stations.
Then, even though 1 km of HRT might still cost somewhat more than 1 km of LRT due to other costs, the presence of the large and technology-idependent expropriation cost in the total tally makes it desirable to squeeze more capacity out of that huge investment. If tunneling through midtown is so horrendously expensive, then we can't bank on a parallel LRT route (like Lawrence).
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
You're wrong. It's not like the city has a pool of capital money they can draw from for TTC projects. They're entirely at the mercy of the provincial government, and before MoveOntario2020 there was exactly zero dollars available.
I suppose you could argue that had Transit City been a more subway-specific plan we'd be closer to just starting to build some new subway construction (aside from Spadina extension) but given recent cuts it's pure speculation to imagine what that would like. (Half a Sheppard extension? Eglinton subway from Bathurst to Jane?)
I do admire your optimism that we live in a world where this transit agency and government bureaucracy can turn on a dime and funding can just be moved from one pocket to another and everything can be built for much cheaper than it is now. To believe that in the face of three decades of opposing evidence is fairly badass.