SmartTrack (Proposed)

[44 North]

Sad to say, but the most optimistic outlook on transit planning may have occurred when the Ford-McGuinty compromise on the Eglinton Scarborough Crosstown was struck.

I want to begrudgingly say I agree, but I can't for no other reason than the ridiculous cost of the very reasonable proposal of connecting the Crosstown and Line 3 as one subway/metro line. Had the two politicians and Metrolinx even mentioned affordable grade separation along Eglinton East (e.g trenched and elevated), and/or talked about subway vehicles with similar dimensions as Flexity LRVs, I'd say 'yes agreed 100%!'. Guaranteed the high cost could've been cut by 1/2 or 1/3 - thus freeing up funds for other key projects. But they didn't. We had some clowns behind closed doors tossing around and wasting $Billions of our money like it was nothing, which is par for the course I guess. For that I can't agree the Eglinton-Scarboro line was the most optimistic.

It was only a recent discovery for me so it's mostly an anachronistic retrospect realization, but IMO the seemingly buried Metrolinx report of a Line 2 extension using the SRT corridor was probably the most optimistic outlook for subway/metro expansion. Trailing behind that would be the pre-TC plan to extend the SRT sans LRV, though I don't agree with the TTC's go-to plan of using MkII or MkIII (seeing that there were more conventional vehicles to choose from).

 

[steveintoronto]

Councillor Matlow has written to residents on the "absurd" situation council now faces on transit.

"On the whole, I believe this to be an even worse process than the one that resulted in Council choosing the One-Stop subway in Scarborough."

http://joshmatlow.ca/issues-and-pol...ttrack-proposal-before-council-this-week.html

Very well written, presented and referenced article.

[...]
As well, Council is being asked to assume liability for an unidentified amount of sunk costs to be paid to Metrolinx if the City decides at a later date that the project is not worth pursuing.

While I’m unclear as to the reasons why this incomplete report was only provided last week, despite Metrolinx notifying the City in June of the deadline, the result is that Council has been put in an unreasonable position. Either we blindly commit the City to a project with little information or forego a potentially worthwhile transit investment for Torontonians.

On the whole, I believe this to be an even worse process than the one that resulted in Council choosing the One-Stop subway in Scarborough. I’m not suggesting that the SmartTrack project itself is worse, but there was far more information available, as often misleading and incomplete as it was, to the public and Council during the Scarborough transit debate. Prior to the unfortunate Scarborough vote, there was at least a transparent funding plan in addition to some, albeit imperfect, planning analysis. While the report before us this week at Council is named Transit Network Plan Update and Financial Strategy, there actually is no clear and transparent financing strategy included in the document.

The SmartTrack report does not provide the mayor or Council with sufficient information to make an informed decision, given the money and resources being requested.

Some have suggested a distracting and simplistic narrative: that we should simply build anything, just build it. That you're either for transit or against it. That anyone who raises legitimate concerns about SmartTrack is a “Debbie or Douglas Downer” and only looks for ways to say “no” rather than “yes”. I believe most Torontonians see through that rhetoric and are more thoughtful than that. I also don't believe that that messaging is fair to those who are raising reasonable and sincere questions and/or concerns.

In fact, that kind of binary decision-making is why we’re still subsidizing the woefully underused Sheppard subway and led us to proceed with spending over $3 billion for one subway stop in Scarborough when there was a demonstrably better option on the table. [...]

 

[Cobra]

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_h...or-lrt-operating-costs-internal-document.html

A 2013 internal document obtained by the Star calls into question a newly-proposed deal to be debated Tuesday that would see the city shouldering operating costs for all remaining LRTs — which will likely cost the city almost $100 million annually.

Critics on council have questioned those terms, after they were made public last week, saying the city is being made to pay what was meant to be provincial costs in order to move ahead with Mayor John Tory’s plans for SmartTrack.

“I am appalled that Mayor Tory would sell out the future of transit in Toronto just to keep SmartTrack attached to something, anything at all,” said Councillor Gord Perks. “Losing provincial funding for light rail operations sets the city’s transit future back decades and we get almost nothing in return.”

lost for words...

 

[steveintoronto]

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_h...or-lrt-operating-costs-internal-document.html

Thanks for 'heads-up' on that Cobra. Just reading it now. Pagliaro is their new 'Robyn Doolittle' on staff. She's really established herself as a deep digger, and excellent journalist.

[“As a matter of fact and as matter of law, the interpretation of the agreement is very, very clear,” city manager Peter Wallace told the mayor’s executive committee last week. Wallace only came to the city in 2015. He was the most senior bureaucrat with the province from 2011 to 2014.]

Some of Council get this, most don't. It's not just Tory that's the problem, he has only one vote on Council. The problem is the majority of Council who are sheep, on a good day, worse on a bad one.

Baaaaaaa!

 

[salsa]

This transit plan can go straight to hell.

 

[Cobra]

Smarttrack is NOT worth all of this. They should have just let Metrolinx do their thing on RER and push DRL for those inner city stops while having the province pay for LRT operating cost.

Tory has failed this city

 

[steveintoronto]

Smarttrack is NOT worth all of this. They should have just let Metrolinx do their thing on RER and push DRL for those inner city stops while having the province pay for LRT operating cost.

Tory has failed this city

This transit plan can go straight to hell.

Some posters still insist Tory is (gist) "All there is" for Mayor. I digress! Tory has screwed-up so badly on this that the press is going to be relentless. They were on Ford, and now it's Tory's turn. Some councillors (Matlow of course being one, Perks another) have acquitted themselves very well on all of this. There's going to be some very potent challengers for the throne next civic election.

Btw: In searching on this file in Google, found myself entering "TransitTory" lol...a mimic for SmartTrack.

 

[Cobra]

Private developer wants to help fund SmartTrack station

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/11/07/private-developer-wants-to-help-fund-smarttrack-station

First Gulf wrote to city council Monday — a day ahead of a key vote on the planned SmartTrack surface rail transit line — to urge councillors to approve the project.

Company CEO David Gerofsky said in the letter that the developer will contribute to the cost of the SmartTrack station at East Harbour — a planned development in the Lake Shore Blvd.-Don Valley Parkway area — hailing it as the first time a private company has offered to partner with the city and province to pay for a major transit station.

“SmartTrack will be a transformative, catalytic investment in Toronto’s future, and we strongly urge city council to ensure that it moves forward quickly,” Gerofsky said.

I'm so annoyed by how overshadowed the DRL is

 

[Amare]

So it wasnt just the capital costs that Tory saddled Toronto with, but also the operating costs of new transit lines? My goodness Tory is like that gift that keeps on giving for the Liberal government.

 

[robmausser]

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_h...or-lrt-operating-costs-internal-document.html



lost for words...

Can someone please enlighten me, that, except for a Lawrence Smarttrack station, what the hell does this have to do with Smarttrack?

This sounds to me like it has everything and anything to do with the Scarborough Subway replacing the LRT, and very little to do with Smarttrack.

Have we become this polarized and black and white in Toronto? Find anything against the mayor and attack his whole plan and platform? Can we not be intelligent about this?

I for one am for Smarttrack and against the Scarborough subway. Heaven forbid I can make a decision like an individual and be for parts of Tory's plan and not others.

I'd love to see the LRT along with Smarttrack, and I don't see what this has to do with Smarttrack, other than just trying to dig up anything and framing it against the mayor.

Either I am missing something here, or this journalist and Gord Perks are too dense to see the details in transit plans, and just see it as buzzwords.

Smarttrack bad! Liberals good! Hulk Smash!

OR, they know better and are just trying to use anything they can to derail a plan wholly, instead of cooperating and attempting to refine it with some kind of compromise.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Private developer wants to help fund SmartTrack station

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/11/07/private-developer-wants-to-help-fund-smarttrack-station

First Gulf wrote to city council Monday — a day ahead of a key vote on the planned SmartTrack surface rail transit line — to urge councillors to approve the project.

Company CEO David Gerofsky said in the letter that the developer will contribute to the cost of the SmartTrack station at East Harbour — a planned development in the Lake Shore Blvd.-Don Valley Parkway area — hailing it as the first time a private company has offered to partner with the city and province to pay for a major transit station.

“SmartTrack will be a transformative, catalytic investment in Toronto’s future, and we strongly urge city council to ensure that it moves forward quickly,” Gerofsky said.

I'm so annoyed by how overshadowed the DRL is

SmartTrack is approximately as "transformative" as the Victoria Park bus. The amount of attention this thing gets compared to how few people it'll move around is mind boggling.

 

[Cobra]

This sounds to me like it has everything and anything to do with the Scarborough Subway replacing the LRT, and very little to do with Smarttrack

Have you read the Star article?

 

[Amare]

More Information on how crucial today's council meeting is, and what exactly is at stake:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...-of-transit-vote-toronto-councillors-say.html

 

[robmausser]

Have you read the Star article?

Yes I read it on the subway this morning.

The master agreement was reopened in order to remove the Scarborough LRT from the list of projects after council controversially voted in 2013 to flip-flop on the fully-funded Scarborough LRT and build a three-stop $3.56 billion subway instead, under pressure from mayor Rob Ford and Scarborough councillors.

Regardless of what the negotiations are as a whole in the new deal being asked to be approved, I don't see the relationship to Smarttrack.

The negotiations should obviously be...renegotiated on the merits of the LRT operating costs, fine. But that doesn't have anything to do with Smarttrack other than the fact that they happen to be in the same meeting, and negotiation document.

I feel like this is grasping at straws, and nothing shows me there is a concrete link between the province agreeing to 6 new stations on the GO line, and the unfunding of LRT operations, other than what the journalist is implying.

 

[Cobra]

Yes I read it on the subway this morning.

So you don't see a problem with Tory agreeing to pay for the O&M of LRT lines (previously paid for by the province) in exchange of capital cash for Smarttrack???