Sheppard East LRT - Cancel or Continue?

[Justin10000]

You need to get out more. First of all, there are dozens of subway extension of that length and that ridership (or lower) being built around the world. I lived in Munich for a bit, so the Messestadt and OEZ extensions come instantly to mind. Berlin is building the U5/U55 extension. As I've mentioned, the L train in New York had a lower ridership than Sheppard when Sheppard opened. It's also three times the length.

What other cities do is no justification for extending a poorly planned line. And the L line was built when? 1924?
Berlin built 1km of the U55, and it probably won't be extended anytime soon due to financial issues. You need to use better examples to prove your point.

Secondly, you remember incorrectly. Network 2011 studied subway, BRT, and LRT in detail. They recommended BRT with provisions for upgrade to LRT on Eglinton, and subway on Sheppard.

Actually, you're incorrect. The original 2011 plan never included any LRT lines. It was a subway plan, with a busway to Mississauga from Eg. West which would have been converted to subway eventually. This plan was conceived when subway construction was still in vogue. The TTC tried to change some of the lines to LRT, due to the rising costs of subway construction(sound familiar?) but the province wanted a fancy project instead. Enter the ICTS. Anyways, you wrong. The original plan had no LRT lines in it. The plan you're talking about is the plan the Liberals came up with, after killing the 2011 plan due to the cost.

This is one of the most blatant logical fallacies of the LRT planning (along with, of course, the inelastic demand numbers). What does "reaching" mean? It's all well and good if the purpose of these lines is to be able to look out your window and see an LRT line (or to put a streetcar in every ward, as Councillor de Baeremaeker said), but if you're actually trying to move people places, the most important thing is for the line to actually serve real travel patterns.

So.. Local medium and short distance are not real travel patterns? No wonder you support subway lines with pitiful ridership. Newsflash. Not everyone wants to go downtown, or to STC, and we should not be wasting billions to get them there as quickly as possible when a cheaper option can do the job just fine. The LRT is expected to interline with the SRT(converted), so rider will have a transit option to STC.
The blatant logical fallacy is this asinine assumption that people only want to go to downtown, or STC.

How many people in Morningside Heights actually want to go down to Kingston Road? How many people by Rouge Park actually want to go to Fairview Mall? How many people at Jane and Finch actually want to go to Jane and Eglinton? Most of these lines deliberately bypass established hubs like Scarborough Centre because it's a mall (ew! ick!) despite the fact that it's by far the biggest destination in Scarborough. Trips can also include more than one mode. For example, a person riding from Malvern to Downtown will now have two Transit City routes in their neighbourhood. They're not likely to ride either of them. As Adam Giambrone said, the Sheppard LRT will be too slow for people going all the way downtown. The same is certainly true for the Morningside line. The best way to give people all over north, northeast, and east Scarborough a faster, more reliable, and more comfortable ride is to replace the RT with a subway. Yes, the subway might not be in front of their door, but it will benefit far more people.

Just like how the Sheppard Subway is benefit North York residents.

And Mr. Giambrone is correct. If you want to go downtown, you should be taking GO. Of course we need to convince GO to provide better 416 service. Makes me wonder why no one is advocating that.
Again, spending billions to build one subway line so people can get to downtown faster is stupid. It's still not faster than the car. And yes, building subway between nodes is a bad idea too.

And no, I would not advocate cancelling subway lines. Unlike most members on this board, I do not place one mode above another. I think the Spadina extension is a waste, but I am not going to call for it's cancellation. It's paid for, build it, and make the best of it.

 

[kEiThZ]

The way it is playing out, DRL might be a prerequisite for any expansions on Yonge subway, so who knows.

So Miller is willing to expend political capital on downtown subway project (which is right and he should) but not willing to do it for Scarborough? Using the logic deployed on the Sheppard corridor, we should just settle for the half billion dollar rebuild (cheapest solution) of Yonge-Bloor which achieves the goal of relieving Yonge-Bloor instead of pressing for a 2 billion dollar subway line. Why wasn't Miller willing to go to bat for Scarborough and say that a subway is needed there so that STC can be connected to NYCC?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The lie I was referring to before was re: the SRT replacement/Danforth extension to STC, where a subway extension was pooh-poohed because of cost and the 'cheaper' alternatives have all been more expensive. It's hard to say people lied about Transfer City since the scale has inflated over time, but the initial cost estimates were deliberately low and excluded some budget components. This was done for PR purposes, but it didn't really work because most people in Toronto still have no clue about what's actually getting built.

Clearly the city knew about billions of dollars of provincial funding on the way, though perhaps not the exact number of billions. You do not complain about a lack of funding and about being literally unable to pay for transit projects and then suddenly propose rewritten transit plans costing far, far more, with a stated intention that the city of Toronto will not be paying for any of it, unless you know that a funding windfall is on the way. Transit City was a sheer fantasy plan that Toronto could not possibly have paid for...until MoveOntario's billions were announced immediately afterwards, of course. We know that Transit City was planned with knowledge of imminent funding...it's not like the province would suddenly decide to spend billions on transit just because Toronto decided to rewrite its official plan and build LRT lines.

If we play devil's advocate and suggest that the city had absolutely no idea about provincial billions on the way, it just highlights how terrible the Transit City plan is since it's even more expensive, unaffordable, and impractical than the plans it replaced...and it preempted some bus-based RGS proposals/improvements, too.

Miller didn't cancel anything; there has never been provincial funding allocated for a Sheppard extension.

Miller canceled a funded and ready-to-be-built plan to extend the Sheppard Subway?

Yes, Miller cancelled the plans to extend Sheppard.

Using this definition of allocated funds, Mike Harris didn't cancel anything, either, which undermines your entire arguments.

The ever popular Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs theory.

We're gonna need a golden egg-laying goose to pay for Transit City's bloat.

 

[unimaginative2]

What other cities do is no justification for extending a poorly planned line. And the L line was built when? 1924?
Berlin built 1km of the U55, and it probably won't be extended anytime soon due to financial issues. You need to use better examples to prove your point.

Okay, how about the Messestadt and the OEZ. But this is obviously pointless. Streetcars are a religion to you. I get it. But hopefully others will see the issues with your logic.

Actually, you're incorrect. The original 2011 plan never included any LRT lines. It was a subway plan, with a busway to Mississauga from Eg. West which would have been converted to subway eventually. This plan was conceived when subway construction was still in vogue. The TTC tried to change some of the lines to LRT, due to the rising costs of subway construction(sound familiar?) but the province wanted a fancy project instead. Enter the ICTS. Anyways, you wrong. The original plan had no LRT lines in it. The plan you're talking about is the plan the Liberals came up with, after killing the 2011 plan due to the cost.

Actually...read the plan. They studied different modes on all the corridors and recommended based on their individual conditions, unlike the one-size-fits-all approach of today. Eglinton was to be BRT with provision to be upgraded to LRT (not subway) while Sheppard was to be subway. Those were the recommendations. Consider reading the reports if you can't bear to listen to me.

So.. Local medium and short distance are not real travel patterns? No wonder you support subway lines with pitiful ridership. Newsflash. Not everyone wants to go downtown, or to STC, and we should not be wasting billions to get them there as quickly as possible when a cheaper option can do the job just fine. The LRT is expected to interline with the SRT(converted), so rider will have a transit option to STC.

So we should be wasting money to get people from Sheppard and Morningside to Sheppard and Markham?

The blatant logical fallacy is this asinine assumption that people only want to go to downtown, or STC.

They want to go to other parts of the city via the subway, or to other points in Scarborough through the established hub.

And Mr. Giambrone is correct. If you want to go downtown, you should be taking GO. Of course we need to convince GO to provide better 416 service. Makes me wonder why no one is advocating that.

No one? Well I know I am, and I happen to know quite a number of others who are too. Not to mention Metrolinx...

Again, spending billions to build one subway line so people can get to downtown faster is stupid. It's still not faster than the car. And yes, building subway between nodes is a bad idea too.

Building subway anywhere is a bad idea! Haha...it's amazing...it's like a religion to you people!

And no, I would not advocate cancelling subway lines. Unlike most members on this board, I do not place one mode above another.

I think he actually genuinely believes that.

 

[EnviroTO]

Yes, Miller cancelled the plans to extend Sheppard.

Using this definition of allocated funds, Mike Harris didn't cancel anything, either, which undermines your entire arguments.

The NDP government had committed to funding the Eglinton subway project, significant amounts of engineering were done, and construction started. Nobody has ever committed to funding the Sheppard subway, no engineering of the subway extension has been done, and no construction has ever started. Saying Miller has put a low priority on the idea of Sheppard subway extensions would be accurate. Saying he cancelled it is nonsense.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Yes, Miller cancelled the plans to extend Sheppard.

Using this definition of allocated funds, Mike Harris didn't cancel anything, either, which undermines your entire arguments.

I'd agree that Harris didn't cancel Sheppard like he did Eglinton. Lastman simply failed at getting any kind of commitment for an extension and took what he could get.

Any kind of Sheppard extension was extremely unlikely after Lastman's term, due to the political optics of it. Provincial governments weren't going to touch it with a ten foot pole.

Sheppard easily could have been left ouf the TC plans altogether, which I suppose some would have preferred. I definitely think it's more than a little likely that it was included both for the aforementioned political reasons (streetcars in every ward) and to spite Lastman.

I'm not a big fan of that last bit.

 

[DavidH]

The NDP government had committed to funding the Eglinton subway project, significant amounts of engineering were done, and construction started. Nobody has ever committed to funding the Sheppard subway, no engineering of the subway extension has been done, and no construction has ever started. Saying Miller has put a low priority on the idea of Sheppard subway extensions would be accurate. Saying he cancelled it is nonsense.

Exactly. There was never anything there to cancel.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Exactly. There was never anything there to cancel.

Thank you for confirming that you were wrong.

The NDP government had committed to funding the Eglinton subway project, significant amounts of engineering were done, and construction started. Nobody has ever committed to funding the Sheppard subway, no engineering of the subway extension has been done, and no construction has ever started. Saying Miller has put a low priority on the idea of Sheppard subway extensions would be accurate. Saying he cancelled it is nonsense.

Harris cancelled Eglinton, but Miller cancelled the rest of Sheppard. Preempted future extensions, changed plans, switched alternatives...call it what you want but your spin isn't working. And it was much farther along than an idea: a Sheppard extension was policy, waiting patiently for funding, guiding development, and being included in official plans.

I think you guys should look the word 'cancel' up in a dictionary.

 

[EnviroTO]

Local bus, LRT, and Subway modes are for services over short distances.
Regional rail is for node to node service over medium distances.
Intercity and High-Speed Rail are for node to node service over long distances.

TTC services are local. All the downtown subway services replaced local services. Anyone downtown on Bloor, Danforth, Yonge, or University is expected to walk to the subway. That is local service, not long distance node to node service.

GO Services are node to node. They get you from Union to Etobicoke's six-points in a single stop, a distance not dissimilar to going from North York Centre to Scarborough Centre. Every 20 minutes a bus leaves York Mills going to Scarborough Centre taking 15 minutes and a subway will not do it in less and simply giving GO a diamond lane would ensure reliability.

Transit City combined with frequent GO services is all we really need if the routes LRT is proposed on can handle the projected ridership. If a train leaves from Agincourt station every 15 minutes during rush hour heading downtown with only 2 stops and a bus is leaving SCC every 5-10 minutes heading for York Mills and Yorkdale in a shorter time than the subway can do it then why (with fare integration) will the SCC to Don Mills subway be so important?

 

[ShonTron]

The EA and Rae funding was to build the subway to Victoria Park. Less known than Harris's cancellation (he only called it a 'deferrment') of the already-ahead-of-Sheppard Eglinton Subway, was that he pulled funding beyond Don Mills (a cancellation, if you will). If Sheppard went to Vic Park it would be much more useful now.

There was still a valid EA and plans to Vic Park. I'd say that part is cancelled at this point.

 

[EnviroTO]

Sheppard extension was policy, waiting patiently for funding, guiding development, and being included in official plans.

That still wasn't a subway. Politicians have had tons of policies and studies on everything from high-speed rail to ending poverty and it isn't worth the paper it is printed on until it moves from policy to action.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

That still wasn't a subway. Politicians have had tons of policies and studies on everything from high-speed rail to ending poverty and it isn't worth the paper it is printed on until it moves from policy to action.

It did move to action...it was actively cancelled by Transit City.

This is turning into some silly abortion debate. Is it a subway when first conceived? Is it a subway when it becomes official policy and experiences a multi-year gestation? Is it a subway when funding is announced? Is it a subway when funding is announced a second time? Is it a subway when some spray painted lines appear on the road? Is it a subway when the first shovel goes in the ground? Is it a subway when the first bit of rail is laid? Is it a subway when it's finished and people start bitching that it should have been a streetcar?

 

[Justin10000]

Okay, how about the Messestadt and the OEZ. But this is obviously pointless. Streetcars are a religion to you. I get it. But hopefully others will see the issues with your logic.

Yes. There is issues with my logic. Make transit easy, and accessible for riders! THAT IS SO FLAWED! Makes you wonder why if the Sheppard Subway is such a success, the intermediate stations are empty at rush hour? But you want to extend this folly.
What is flawed is you saying that because what Berlin does, we should do to. That is really flawed.

Actually...read the plan. They studied different modes on all the corridors and recommended based on their individual conditions, unlike the one-size-fits-all approach of today. Eglinton was to be BRT with provision to be upgraded to LRT (not subway) while Sheppard was to be subway. Those were the recommendations. Consider reading the reports if you can't bear to listen to me.

The final plan was all subway. With one busway that was going to be upgraded to subway in the future. There was no LRT lines at all in the plan. If I remember correctly, the DRL was part of the plan too. We all know how easy it is to fudge data to make a mode more favourable. That is what you subways advocates claim about the Transit City plan.
I wonder if you read the report.

So we should be wasting money to get people from Sheppard and Morningside to Sheppard and Markham?

Fortunately with the LRT, we are not. A subway wouldn't even reach Morningside. Oh wait, you think we have unlimited funding..

They want to go to other parts of the city via the subway, or to other points in Scarborough through the established hub.

Yes, because you know where people want to go. The number of people who travel crosstown is too low to even justify a subway.

No one? Well I know I am, and I happen to know quite a number of others who are too. Not to mention Metrolinx...

Sorry. Can't hear it over the whining, and hollering about SELRT.

Building subway anywhere is a bad idea! Haha...it's amazing...it's like a religion to you people!

Here is your religion: We can build it! Yes we can! Who cares if we have to wait another 10 years and hope we get a pro-subway government! I'll wait! Anyone who thinks a Sheppard subway will be built after a line is canceled has to have a lot of faith.

And no, I never said building subways are bad. Extending one that should not have been built is bad. Stop trying to twist my words. And yes, it's stupid to build a subway to York U. just because it's a node. you build subways where the demand warrants it(DRL, Yonge extension to Steeles) not to connect distant nodes. Since when did planning become popular again?

I think he actually genuinely believes that.

I think you genuinely believe you're witty. Geez. Why are all subway advocates the same? Where are the TRANSIT advocates? Ones with a bit of common sense?

I noticed you left out my comments about the Spadina extension. Is it because you cannot accept the idea that there people out there who are not mono-centric? Doesn't work with your attempt to portray me as a LRT fanatic?

 

[EnviroTO]

Is it a subway when it becomes official policy and experiences a multi-year gestation?

It wasn't gestating. Nothing was happening. The idea was sitting there collecting dust. It was inactive. It was no more.

Until the official plan is rewritten for areas like Metrogate the subway plan is just as active as it was before.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

It wasn't gestating. Nothing was happening. The idea was sitting there collecting dust. It was inactive. It was no more.

Until the official plan is rewritten for areas like Metrogate the subway plan is just as active as it was before.

Nothing is happening now because it was cancelled. Duh.