Mississauga Hurontario-Main Line 10 LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

[BMO]

I was really hoping the yonge corridor could get a boost, otherwise Toronto and Richmond Hill (the yonge corridor) are the biggest losers, not even getting an RER

The Feds look like they're going to announce $1B in transit funding for the largest cities based on ridership, etc. I'm sure come election time we may see something for the Yonge Subway since it passes through some pretty big ridings that tend to switch between conservative and Liberal.

 

[ShonTron]

Start of construction - 2018? The TPAP and early design work has been completed. The route decided, apart from the Downtown Brampton (and Port Credit) NIMBYs stil trying to fight this.

There will be both provincial and municipal elections that year. If the province was serious, they'd push to start construction in 2016, at least on the maintenance centre by Highway 407.

 

[mdrejhon]

I was really hoping the yonge corridor could get a boost, otherwise Toronto and Richmond Hill (the yonge corridor) are the biggest losers while it's the busiest corridor, not even getting an RER

I agree we need some north-south relief... I'm sure it will come eventually.
Richmond Hill needs about $1bn of flood remediation before a RER plan can even be considered. It may be easier to do RER on the Don Branch instead since it's at a higher altitude, and more corridor room to double-track and add valley interchange stations (e.g. Queen, Gerrard, Danforth, Millwood, Eglinton) with less altitude difference.

Also, we can blame Ford to an extent too -- Transit City cancellations cost Toronto dearly, and there's little appetite at the moment to create new cancellable transit projects (beyond SmartTrack, which overlaps the GO RER plans neatly, and the rest is a detail such as infill stations, and whether or not to do the Eglinton spur)

Consider Ontario's $16bn plan gives a much, much more massive transit upgrade GTHA-wide than Scarborough's $8bn three-stop subway that's controversial (upgrade to some, downgrade to others). For only twice the Scarborough subway, dozens of stations get near-subway-frequency express rail service.

 

[aquateam]

Which politicians talk about the DRL and I mean the Toronto City councillors and Mayor within the last year? It barely gets a mention, sure the TTC may talk about it but the politicians determine what gets built. Tory is pushing Smarttrack, haven't heard anything about the DRL. It's now pushed back till who knows when.

Several politicians talk about the DRL a lot. The TTC talks about it a lot. But "priorities" are set by only a few insiders, the mayor being one of them. And that's what the mayor promised to build during his election. In three years it could be completely dead.

The Mayor was pro-DRL at the beginning of the election cycle. Then when he announced SmartTrack it changed to being the "the wrong line at the wrong time."

My opposition to this line is long standing and well recorded so no need to go into that again......but it does show how little can actually get built for $15B when it comes down to it and a bit sad that the last dollars are spent on a line that, while nice and new and shiny, can hardly be considered crucial from a regional transit perspective.

Why are you against the Hurontario-Main LRT? Or are you against the DRL?

I think the case for the Hurontario-Main LRT is pretty strong, except for the Square One loop. It goes in a straight line, connecting 3 GO stations (which are going to receive major service increases in the next 15 years.)

The line is on the surface, and besides the Square-One loop there are relatively few add-ons to inflate cost. The LRT ties in to intensification plans, and Michael Schabas gave it a glowing endorsement in his review of the Big Move. I think it's a big part of transforming Missisauga from a sprawling bedroom community of Toronto to a self-contained, more mature, less auto-oriented city. As long as the city follows through on adapting land-use in the Hurontario corridor it should have much potential for success, both in attracting investment and in avoiding infrastructure costs associated with further sprawl.

That being said, I'm not too familiar with the Hurontario corridor so I can't personally say if it seems likely to attract ridership.

 

[TOareaFan]

Why are you against the Hurontario-Main LRT?

documented and articulated in this thread....not going to drag people into that discussion again....particularly as its getting built now so why bother.

 

[Adjei]

The Mayor was pro-DRL at the beginning of the election cycle. Then when he announced SmartTrack it changed to being the "the wrong line at the wrong time."

Toronto has never really advocated for the DRL unlike Mississauga which has been pushing the Hurontario LRT for a long time and so it's no surprise that when funding came along, it received funding. For the longest time Toronto under Miller pushed LRT and the province provided funding for the partial completion of Eglinton, Finch, and the full completion of Sheppard. Nobody in Toronto brought up the DRL until they realized that the province would provide funding for the subway extension to Richmond Hill. That is when the DRL became somewhat relevant. Under Ford, he was focusing on subways on Sheppard and Finch. Toronto even went ahead and provided funding to convert the Scarborough RT to a subway without even thinking about the DRL. Under John Tory now he's focusing on Smarttrack when he could have focused on pushing the DRL. Don't you think that if Toronto had been pushing and advocating for the DRL and willing to provide over 2 billion dollars for it like Smarttrack, it wouldn't be getting built? Instead they chose to focus on other transit projects when funding is available.

 

[mdrejhon]

So, with the GO expansion announced last week....and this project today....is the book closed on the funds allocated for the GTHA pool of funds the province made available?

More funding can free up in future years. Funding is often overlapped. So the order book is not closed for 10 years.

My opposition to this line is long standing and well recorded so no need to go into that again......but it does show how little can actually get built for $15B when it comes down to it and a bit sad that the last dollars are spent on a line that, while nice and new and shiny, can hardly be considered crucial from a regional transit perspective.

!!!!!!

All things considered, imperfections aside, it is a great use of $16Bn.

For only twice the cost of a Scarborough subway extension, it brings a hugely massive upgrade to the entire GO network, adds a couple of new LRT routes, turns the urban parts of 5 GO lines into bona-fide surface electric subways with 15-min all day service on all 5 of them.

- Consider Hurontario $1.6bn versus Scarborough subway ($8bn for only 3 stations)
- Consider cheaper Vaughan extension cost more for fewer stations ($3bn for only 6 stations)
- Consider Hurontario's impressive interchange opportunities (3 GO lines, MiWay transitway, Square One), properly running much faster than bungled St. Clair
- It is anticipated that obvious benefit of improved TTC/LRT/GO RER interchanges are going to occur, blending the GO/TTC network, and putting the electric frequent-service sections of GO lines onto all TTC subway maps, with far better wayfinding.

For those pro-SmartTrack people, SmartTrack may just have been delayed a bit, but it overlaps nicely. See a little extra from fed/municipal ($3bn + $3bn) if TTC-fare SmartTrack infill stations (~$1bn) and/or Eglinton spur (reported to cost ~$5bn just for the spur) goes ahead, the province is electricifying the corridors anyway on their dime -- that's essentially their $3bn share of SmartTrack. The fed-prov-city split overlaps nicely when split into this cost breakdown. If they chop Eglinton spur, Tory saves a lot of money, a portion of which can help Metrolinx extend ECLRT to Square One (and send SmartTrack trains north to Brampton instead). I hope some wise decisions are made soon, to keep Tory planning in sync with Province. This adds a lot of useful infill stations that also additionally interchanges with a lot of upcoming routes, including ECLRT. It's our job to vote the right people so they work with each other, and also influence City Hall too, so that the City co-operates better with the Province. We have our preferences of which poisons to pick (or even to abstain and let other voters decide). We have apparently voted a train-happy mayor (Tory) and a train-happy province (Wynne) and they are both co-operating (relatively) nicely, even with this recent GO RER announcement which is fully compatible with the SmartTrack cost planning, when you look at the numbers like the above. Don't believe the pundits who misinterpret and say Ontario ignored Tory -- the plan is actually good news for Tory, even if it means a bit of wrangling over the city-requested addons (Eglinton spur & infills) not orignally planned to be funded by Ontario if it went its way.

The $16bn is a good use of Ontario money (even if I don't like the source of money: Hydro One). Ignoring the Eglinton spur (which isn't going to be fully funded by Ontario). It is a messy plan, but far more efficient use (per passenger) of transit spending.

The method of funding method (sale of Hydro One), I don't like as much, however...
But where the funds are going, it's far better than any fantasy transit map coming from Toronto City Hall lately. (Where's the DRL?)

And Metrolinx (controversial as they may be) appears to be slowly building a far better track record than TTC. They delivered nicely on many GO upgrades (e.g. 7.5 minute Lakeshore West service at peak, 30 minute offpeak allday), even if a few were postponed. And the political UPX train, although a waste of corridor space and stupendously (stupidly?) high capital cost, appears to be delivered on time and will be fully farebox funded being very popular with airport travellers. At least Ontario delivered something more reliably Toronto City Hall. If Toronto City Hall can't do their job shaping up, let Ontario do it if they're currently doing a better job (even if flawed). Metrolinx has a bunch of cost overruns but aren't too outlandish. Presto, albiet with lots of cost overruns and a messy deployment, has now made transferring between different municipalities much easier (I tapped a Hamilton HSR, transferred and tapped a GOTrain, then transferred and tapped TTC Union subway) , it eventually delivered (and after a nightmarishly inconvenient full-TTC rollout, it will finally be a 'good' system). There's more than one election Torontoians voted in (federal, provincial, municipal).

As imperfect (and in some ways, expensive) as Metrolinx may be, they've recently got a much better track record than TTC at getting new transit delivered to Torontoians (e.g. ECLRT construction, UPX construction, Lakeshore West 30-min 2-way allday 365days/year even holidays, and upcoming services).

From a simple mathematics perspective, it is quite clear, on average, that the $16bn is being spent far more efficiently than TTC, and in ten years from now, By 2031, Metrolinx rail vehicles (GO+RER+LRT) are going to carry more passengers than TTC subway combined, from the napkin math I just did. That's a pretty impressive expansion of passengers for just $16bn. Sure, the money could be spent even better, but the grim transit spending inefficiencies have been terrible lately.

True...Sadly, it does not help people in, say, Thornhill or The Beaches (if that's where you live, for example). We all still have to work to solve undeserved areas, and I'd like to see the crosstown DRL finished by the 2030s.

 

[Edward Skira]

Good to see this project is going ahead. Hurontario needs it.

 

[TOareaFan]

For only twice the cost of a Scarborough subway extension

There is the crux of the matter when we overspend to over build one thing. It becomes the standard against which other things are measured.

 

[TOareaFan]

More funding can free up in future years. Funding is often overlapped. So the order book is not closed for 10 years.

so...we haven't identified yet where all of the first pot of money is coming from....but now that we have spent it all....we can expect more spending to be identified?

Putting spending in front of revenue generation is very much a cart before the horse problem and is what leads to the kind of deficit financing problem which is plaguing this province.

 

[mdrejhon]

so...we haven't identified yet where all of the first pot of money is coming from....but now that we have spent it all....we can expect more spending to be identified?

Putting spending in front of revenue generation is very much a cart before the horse problem and is what leads to the kind of deficit financing problem which is plaguing this province.

This be true, but even in well-budgeted surplus governments they overlap their funding. You don't need a deficit to overlap the budget spending. (e.g. ...Norway and their $1 trillon dollar national savings fund called a "Sovereign Wealth Fund" making every Norwegian worth $200,000 each. And every hamburger flipper and Janitor in Norway actually earns a living wage...) such countries often overlap their budgets funding and planning, too. e.g. 2013 budget may also fully fund some construction lasting 2014-2016, and 2014 budget may also fully fund other construction lasting 2015-2017, and so on. Or it may be 10-year funding plans overlapped by 5-years. All kinds of funding/budgetting mechanism.

So it's another topic. Deficit is another major problem altogether, though this year, Ontario will have a large one-time surplus thanks to the Hydro One sale (ugh...) temporarily eliminating the deficit and actually paying down part of the debt. Not that I like this funding mechanism (IMHO, a 2-percent-point raise in the provincial portion of HST would have been preferable to me -- but it's more politically problematic).

Three separate topics, anyway...

 

[TOareaFan]

This be true, but even in well-budgeted surplus governments (e.g. Norway and their $1 trillon dollar surplus called a "Sovereign Wealth Fund" making every Norwegian worth $200,000 each), they even overlap their budgets funding and planning, too. e.g. 2013 budget may also fund some construction lasting 2014-2016, and 2014 budget may fund other construction lasting 2015-2017, and so on.

Deficit is a problem altogether, though this year, Ontario will have a large one-time surplus thanks to the Hydro One sale (ugh...) temporarily eliminating the deficit and actually paying down the debt. Not that I like this funding mechanism (IMHO, a 2-percent-point raise in the provincial portion of HST would have been preferable to me -- but it's more politically problematic).

Ontario's deficit sits at 10.9B....hydro sale generates, what, $4B (after paying down debt of $5B)...all numbers approx....tell me how this leads to a temporary surplus?

 

[wopchop]

Who is paying for Eglinton, Finch, and Sheppard LRT lines? It sure isn't the City of Toronto...

Which politicians talk about the DRL and I mean the Toronto City councillors and Mayor within the last year? It barely gets a mention, sure the TTC may talk about it but the politicians determine what gets built. Tory is pushing Smarttrack, haven't heard anything about the DRL. It's now pushed back till who knows when.

Maybe not, from the Toronto star article;

That and the LRT will eat up most of the $16 billion the province has earmarked for Toronto region transit over the coming decade. But, referring to last week's announcement that the government will sell assets such as Hydro One shares to fund infrastructure, Finance Minister Charles Sousa hinted there could be other revenue mechanisms in the budget for projects such as Toronto's downtown relief subway.

So presumably the question regarding the DRL was posed at the press conference.

 

[mdrejhon]

Ontario's deficit sits at 10.9B....hydro sale generates, what, $4B (after paying down debt of $5B)...all numbers approx....tell me how this leads to a temporary surplus?

Possibly not, but this is just a guess: Ontario had announced plans to eliminate deficit in a few years, and Hydro One may not be fully sold before then. Deficits can change on a year-to-year basis. Wynne may be engineering her re-election by making sure her final year is a surplus, as an example. Whether this is something someone likes or hates, the polarized Cons vs Libs debate, but regardless, it would academically be smart politics by any government to time a surplus in the final year...

Also, the budget has not yet been announced, but I'm not sure that Hydro One will be fully sold and into the books during this fiscal year cycle -- we'll need to see...

 

[ShonTron]

Toronto's problem is that the politicians haven't been pushing for the DRL. We have right-wing populists (Ford et al.) and left-wing populists (like De Baeremaeker) pushing the wrong projects. Then Tory comes along, and grabs an idea pushed by some of his buddies at the Canadian Urban Institute and real estate developers interesting in serving suburban business parks on a flawed premise to build instead of the DRL, while trolling Chow, who actually supported the DRL.

There's lots of blame to go around.