Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[TheTigerMaster]

On paper, you're right but Toronto doesn't have the financial resources to do it unless they increase taxes significantly...which will never happen. This fact is why the Queen's Park by default have all the power.

I wouldn't count on that. Many cities of similar size have raised taxes to build transit. And Torontoninans showed near unanimous support for the additional taxes in Stintz's OneCity transit plan. In the municipal election campaign we will very likely see at least one major candidate campaign on something similar.

 

[Solid Snake]

I wouldn't count on that. Many cities of similar size have raised taxes to build transit. And Torontoninans showed near unanimous support for the additional taxes in Stintz's OneCity transit plan. In the municipal election campaign we will very likely see at least one major candidate campaign on something similar.

A poll doesn't mean anything. I for one would put some referendum questions in the next election regarding transit and how to fund it.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

A poll doesn't mean anything. I for one would put some referendum questions in the next election regarding transit and how to fund it.

A poll showing 80% support for anything.... that means something. You almost never get 80% of people agreeing on anything, let alone on massive tax increases to build more transit.


That poll shows that Toronto residents across the political spectrum are incredibly receptive to the idea of higher taxes. If the right candidate brings forward the idea then there's an incredibly good chance that the taxes will pass.

I'm hoping that Chow & Tory bring forward the idea. It's about time that we considered the idea.

 

[ehlow]

I wouldn't count on that. Many cities of similar size have raised taxes to build transit. And Torontoninans showed near unanimous support for the additional taxes in Stintz's OneCity transit plan. In the municipal election campaign we will very likely see at least one major candidate campaign on something similar.

Even LA did it

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Why on earth would you want that? As of now the LRT maintenance costs are assumed by the province. If we go with your play, the burden falls on the TTC and the City of Toronto

Honestly it's because I don't trust the Province of Ontario not to screw it up. I'm sure that the PCs would just love to pick off the ECLRT, FWLRT and SELRT and sell it off at a discount to some private operator who will milk the City for subsidies like they did with the 407 boondoggle. If Metrolinx is so concerned with making sure that the city can pay for operations, then maybe they should go back to properly subsidizing transit operations like they did pre 1990s.

Furthermore local transit operations have always been municipal jurisdiction. Eglinton, Finch West and Sheppard East are most definitely local transit; no less so than any simple bus route on those streets. We wouldn't expect provincial bureaucrats to be in charge of the 199 Finch route or 510 Spadina, so why do we now expect them to be in charge in operating local LRT routes on Finch or Sheppard? I have no problem with Metrolinx running GO and coordinating transit development across the region. But it feels like a serious encroachment for provincial bureaucrats to be deciding that they should be running local transit routes. Especially when the municipality in question has a fully capable agency that for centuries has been in charge of massive transit operations on a scale that is unheard of to said provincial bureaucrats.

If the province wants to be helpful then they can feel free subsidize the operations of the lines. But they have no business running local transit on Finch, Sheppard or Eglinton. That is something for a municipality and its local Council to oversee (as long as they're capable of overseeing something of that size)

 

[Palma]

Again, all Toronto can do is debate which plan gets on Metrolinx's desk. They can't bring anything on their own which was made obvious through this term. Queen's Park controls subway extensions along with LRT lines. All that Toronto can do is build streetcars and manage bus routes. Uploading subways and LRT to GO is starting to make way more sense...especially if it saves us from another theatrical debacle at city hall

Other than Spadina (Sabora extension) what subways has the province built? If the province is in the business of building subways guess won't be long before they reach Markham or wherever the gov;t needs to win seats.

 

[Palma]

Honestly it's because I don't trust the Province of Ontario not to screw it up. I'm sure that the PCs would just love to pick off the ECLRT, FWLRT and SELRT and sell it off at a discount to some private operator who will milk the City for subsidies like they did with the 407 boondoggle. If Metrolinx is so concerned with making sure that the city can pay for operations, then maybe they should go back to properly subsidizing transit operations like they did pre 1990s.

Furthermore local transit operations have always been municipal jurisdiction. Eglinton, Finch West and Sheppard East are most definitely local transit; no less so than any simple bus route on those streets. We wouldn't expect provincial bureaucrats to be in charge of the 199 Finch route or 510 Spadina, so why do we now expect them to be in charge in operating local LRT routes on Finch or Sheppard? I have no problem with Metrolinx running GO and coordinating transit development across the region. But it feels like a serious encroachment for provincial bureaucrats to be deciding that they should be running local transit routes. Especially when the municipality in question has a fully capable agency that for centuries has been in charge of massive transit operations on a scale that is unheard of to said provincial bureaucrats.

If the province wants to be helpful then they can feel free subsidize the operations of the lines. But they have no business running local transit on Finch, Sheppard or Eglinton. That is something for a municipality and its local Council to oversee (as long as they're capable of overseeing something of that size)

Could not have said it better.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Honestly it's because I don't trust the Province of Ontario not to screw it up. I'm sure that the PCs would just love to pick off the ECLRT, FWLRT and SELRT and sell it off at a discount to some private operator who will milk the City for subsidies like they did with the 407 boondoggle. If Metrolinx is so concerned with making sure that the city can pay for operations, then maybe they should go back to properly subsidizing transit operations like they did pre 1990s.

Furthermore local transit operations have always been municipal jurisdiction. Eglinton, Finch West and Sheppard East are most definitely local transit; no less so than any simple bus route on those streets. We wouldn't expect provincial bureaucrats to be in charge of the 199 Finch route or 510 Spadina, so why do we now expect them to be in charge in operating local LRT routes on Finch or Sheppard? I have no problem with Metrolinx running GO and coordinating transit development across the region. But it feels like a serious encroachment for provincial bureaucrats to be deciding that they should be running local transit routes. Especially when the municipality in question has a fully capable agency that for centuries has been in charge of massive transit operations on a scale that is unheard of to said provincial bureaucrats.

If the province wants to be helpful then they can feel free subsidize the operations of the lines. But they have no business running local transit on Finch, Sheppard or Eglinton. That is something for a municipality and its local Council to oversee (as long as they're capable of overseeing something of that size)

To expand on my previous comments:

The biggest problem with the Province of Ontario owning these lines is it diminishes the voices of the people who actually use the piece of infrastructure.

The opinion of some random guy in Ontario (not Toronto), who may never step foot inside Toronto, suddenly carries equal weight to voice of somebody who actually uses that piece of infrastructure. Now, Mr. Hudak (or any politician of your choosing) can go to that random guy in Ontario and ask him, "What do you think we can do with that local LRT route on Finch?". And Mr. Hudak may very well could end up listening to whatever the guy in Ontario says, even if everyone who actually uses the LRT in Toronto objects, because there are far more votes in the rest of Ontario than there are in Toronto. Clearly there is something fundamentally wrong with what is happening in this hypothetical situation.

Having three and sometimes even four levels of governments eliminates this kind of situation from happening. To upload Eglinton, Finch and Sheppard to the province would be to completely disregarding the point of having this kind of government structure.

So if you live in Toronto, and you care at all about having any amount of control over your local issues, you had better fight like hell to ensure that not only Eglinton, Finch and Sheppard but also all of Toronto's subways and RT are never uploaded to the Province of Ontario. The province has no business meddling in our local transit.

And no, maintenance costs isn't a good reason to hand over these lines to the Province. If you're concerned about that, then you should demand that the province does with so many other local issues: provide funding and leave it up to local governments to decide to do with the funding for that particular local issue.

 

[smallspy]

Other than Spadina (Sabora extension) what subways has the province built?

Bloor-Danforth extensions, Bloor-Danforth extensions, North Yonge extensions, Sheppard line, Spadina line, SRT....

So, yeah, not much.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Palma]

Bloor-Danforth extensions, Bloor-Danforth extensions, North Yonge extensions, Sheppard line, Spadina line, SRT....

So, yeah, not much.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

And who build the original Yonge line and Bloor/Danforth lines. Again Sheppard built (Lastman's backyard)

 

[innsertnamehere]

Original yonge line was financed from Fare surpluses accumulated over WWII. Bloor I think was provincial.

 

[nfitz]

I think it will cost more. According to the Stintz One City Plan, it was to cost more than 1 billion.

Metrolinx put the cost of the Eglinton line from Jane to Commerce (near Renforth) at $467 million, and then another $300 million to get from there to Pearson.

 

[Adjei]

That's not too bad then. I wonder why Stintz estimate was more.

 

[howl]

The trains will be red.. Metrolinx is just doing all the renders in Green as it is their project. Metrolinx will be contracting out operations to the TTC, so the TTC will probably want them to be red.

I'd much rather that Metrolinx own the project, it keeps costs down for the TTC.

I've pretty sure its been decided the trains will be green. I suspect Metrolinx wants to own the Eglinton line because it will be the first of a whole network of regional transportation lines they will own - in addition to all the GO lines. They want all their lines to be green.

Metrolinx will own the Eglinton line but the operation of the vehicles will be contracted out to the TTC. My understanding is the station construction contact includes an extended maintenance period and require the contractors to provide their own long-term financing thus putting the financial risk of cost overruns on the private sector rather than on the taxpayers, which is the standard for most large-scale Provincial projects now, so the people who construct the stations will essentially operate them for some period of time.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Original yonge line was financed from Fare surpluses accumulated over WWII. Bloor I think was provincial.

I've scraped this together. I'm not going to claim that this hastily put together list is 100% accurate. But it should give us a good overview of where money has come from.

It looks like the City of Toronto (or any preceding municipality) was involved in funding 8 of the 12 subway expansions in Toronto. the entire 30 km Yonge-University-Spadina line was built with municipal transit taxes and TTC surplus, with the exception of a small amount of corporate and provincial funding for the University Subway. The Province of Ontario has assisted with funding with 5 of the 12 subway projects. The City of Toronto exclusively funded 6 of the 8 projects it contributed to. The Province of Ontario exclusively funded 2 of the 5 it's been involved in.

So it looks like the City of Toronto and Province of Ontario have each built more or less half of subway network. The City building Yonge-University-Spadina and the province building the Scarborough RT and the largest chunk of the Bloor-Danforth. They were also responsible for the Sheppard Boondogg... Stubwa... Subway if that counts for anything (it should count against them )

Yonge (Union to Eglinton): City of Toronto
University: City of Toronto, Province of Ontario, Private Donations
Bloor-Danforth (Keele to Woodbine): Province of Ontario
Bloor-Danforth (Keele to Islington, Woodbine to Warden): Metro Toronto, Province of Ontario
Bloor-Danforth (Woodbine to Kennedy, Islington to Kipling): Metro Toronto
Yonge (Eglinton to York Mills): Metro Toronto
Yonge (York mills to Finch): Metro Toronto
Spadina (St. George to Wilson): Metro Toronto
Spadina (Wilson to Downsview): Metro Toronto
Scarborough RT: Province of Ontario
Sheppard Subway: Province of Ontario