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Toronto wants subways

borgo100

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Posted: January 13, 2009, 12:28 PM by Peter Kuitenbrouwer

George Grossman asks: "Has anyone mentioned a westward expansion of the Sheppard subway? In my opinion THE most glaring omission in the system is the lack of subway connection along Sheppard between Downsview and Yonge. (i.e. between the Yonge line and the Spadina line) We're talking about 5km of subway, probably less (?)

Howard Levine writes, "As one of four people who had requested a hearing under the Environmental Assessment Act for the St. Clair Streetcar Project, I was deeply disappointed when the Minister instead appointed us to sit on a "Liaison Committee". Together with TTC and City Transportation staff, we have met for several years now for endless hours in an mostly futile attempt to ameliorate the on-going and seemingly never ending project. If this project is to be a template for the Light Rail components of Transit City, Toronto is in for a transit fiasco beyond contemplation."

Don Rodbard, who lives near King and Spadina, writes, "There is some really slick construction going on around the world, mostly bridges, that uses slender concrete columns to support off-site fabricated road/rail spans that are tensioned after installation forming a durable integrated structure that in many cases aren’t as terribly ugly as say the Gardiner or some of the older steel elevated trains. Why can’t we run elevated transit down the middle of some of our wider streets and not give up the limited vehicle flexibility that we all have learned to live with?
Dick Chapman, meanwhile, notes, "With a player like Jack Layton on the scene in Ottawa, the city should enlist the former T.O. councillor in renewed efforts to wring massive new funding from the feds to underpin Toronto's subway expansion. Of course any success Layton achieves in this regard will be politically self-serving, but who cares? If he succeeds, everybody wins. If we stop to fret the political losses and gains, nothing ever gets done. Now is not the time for partisanship, in case anybody hasn't noticed. We seem to be on the brink of a global economic abyss and a lot of us already have vertigo. Subway building in our largest cities would be a wise expenditure of the mysterious stimulus packages which so far seem aimed at propping up the major banks with benefits that suspiciously seem likely to trickle down only as far as the banks' shareholders. Unlike added subway capacity. Does anybody here need reminding how wide is the gap between transit funding from Canada's senior governments and that provided in Europe and the U.S.A.? I think not.

D. Vallance writes that we probably can't afford more rapid transit, noting that the Chinese have a car that will sell for under $7,000; to make transit fast enough to compete with that is out of our reach, he says.

Meanwhile, Andy Manahan of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario notes that subways would cost us a lot less if we built them consistently instead of piecemeal. A report “Building a Stronger City: Subway expansion in Toronto,†which his previous employer (Local 183) commissioned in 2003, noted that continuous construction is half the price of piecemeal subway-building.

He notes, "when the Sheppard subway project was completed there were negative impacts from both labour and machinery perspectives:

(1) Skilled project engineers and labour left this region to find work of a similar nature in other jurisdictions.

(2) Toronto sold both Tunnel Boring Machines at fire sale prices. If there had been a steady stream of transit projects, then these TBMs could have been kept in operation for their full life span (and the capital costs more appropriately amortized).

A continuous and steady expansion transportation program for the GTAH will result in a much more effective deployment of capital and labour. I have encouraged Metrolinx to incorporate these concepts into the Business Case Analysis as a continuous expansion program will bolster economies of scale and reduce costs.’’

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/01/13/toronto-wants-subways.aspx
 
("Toronto Wants Subways") said:
D. Vallance writes that we probably can't afford more rapid transit, noting that the Chinese have a car that will sell for under $7,000; to make transit fast enough to compete with that is out of our reach, he says.

This person seems to miss the mark that the infrastructure for cars is also expensive to expand. The person also conveniently forgets the various expenses associated with car ownership and negative externalities of excessive usage.

Yes, we want subways! Maybe we should hold rallies in front of City Hall...
"Subway or the highway!"
"Sheppard LRT's not for me!"

(Those are just suggestions for slogans. They can always be changed.)
 
This person seems to miss the mark that the infrastructure for cars is also expensive to expand. The person also conveniently forgets the various expenses associated with car ownership and negative externalities of excessive usage.[/SIZE]

No point in being critical - they obviously have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to the big picture in transportation issues. And you can't hold anything against this person - whoever wrote that is one of many people who are lost at sea when it comes to this type of thing.

I'd be interested in seeing the report mentioned in the article about building subways consistently.
 
Has anyone got a cost estimate on how much it would cost to build a Sheppard subway extension from Spadina to Yonge and then onto Scarborough Town Centre on the eastern end?
 
now, we are talking!
 
the only estimate we got is : ''Subways are too expensive''


We're Toronto damn it. Not philadelphia or Boston.
Those kind of politicians with no vision should have the decency to admit they are not made for the job.

I worked for a city before as admin employee. You would be surprised how taxpayers' money is being wasted.

The ''were to poor to built a subway'' is pathethic.
 
Yeah, whatever happened to Toronto being the richest city in Canada?? Yes, we do have the biggest subway system in Canada, but it's still not enough, and we should be able to afford it, llok at Madrid!
 
In due time, the TTC is going to have to face the facts that building a network of ROW Streetcar lines is not going to solve Toronto's problems. Nor will Subway's, but they will sure help.

By building these streetcar LRT lines, they are going to ensure that subway's are forever dead in Toronto until the next generation or politicians come along and look back at all the mess that has been the last 25 years in transit planning.
 
^These opportunities never come back. When you make a snap decision to build an all-encompassing transportation system your city eventually evolves according to what is being built. What could have been is a parallel life that we will never know. It's kind of like being accepted to a prestigious university in a faraway city but deciding to stay behind and get a job in your hometown to be closer to your family. You will adapt to your new life and the opportunities that greet you along the way, but where could you have been instead?
 
Well, I don't know about here but it must be the same as in Montreal.

The subway was built with ''the credit card''. Which city can say they have the money up front to build a complex subway network?

The''credit card'' is when the city has to borrow to do major infrastructure construction. So the city get's a deficit like the federal government is about to get this year and then this increases the debt.

If it wasn't for those ''debts'' we wouldn't have a subway,downtown, underground highway, underground city, stadium, olympic games, Expo 67etc... Montreal would have been a big suburb like city.

Same goes for Toronto. Without some ''borrowing'', The city wouldn't be what it is today.

Am I promoting deficits? No

Because it is true that city, provinces and Canada have made stupid choices and put themselves on deficit due to stupid reasons in the past.

In a political point of view, is not very attractive to tell the population to vote for you and at the same time, annoucing deficits.

How do you think cities like New York, London, Mexico (their subway is huge), Madrid, tokyo etc... build their system? Right...They had the money upfront....sure

I was talking about it to someone at work who work at ottawa before (I work for the federal government) he said there are no logical reason this country doesn't have the Quebec-Windsor HSR and Toronto and Montreal doesn't have subway that shoud rival some of the world's big cities. We have the density to do it.

Out of the G7 country, Canada is the only one without deficit and with the lowest national debt.

Would Canadians understand if there was some debt increase over public transportation? Hell yeah. Its necessary and justified.

There's a difference between lowering our revenue by giving tax breaks to banks and Oil companies (BILLIONS OF DOLLARS) and building a REAL public transit.

The problem? Politicians that will do anything to stay in power at the expenses of their citizens...

Like I said before ,We're Toronto damn it. We should act like it and look like it.
 
You know the 'activism' that York used to get the Spadina and Yonge extensions seemed to work quite well. Furthermore the TTC itself (with help from the city?) has set up it's own bit of activism with the TC website. Maybe it's time the city/TTC set up a similar website/scenario for the DRL. Imagine the poll results!
 
You know the 'activism' that York used to get the Spadina and Yonge extensions seemed to work quite well

It helped that the provincial finance minister at the time of the Spadina extension happened to be Sorbara. His family owns a lot of land near York University and at VCC. Self interest is more likely in this case.
 

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