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TTC: Sheppard Subway Expansion (Speculative)

EnviroTO said:
Oh wait, I see where you are going. The goal was stating the absurd. OK then, this is the future as I see it:

1. The Liberals pass a tax,
2. The NDP and PC kick them to the polls because of it and the PC's win a majority,
3. The PC's keep the tax and, BAM, they get rid of those streetcars that nobody wants and 5 years later you got this:
dream_toronto_subway_map.jpg


Boo-ya. Take that Liberals and Bike Riding Pinkos.
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A PC wins just means Eglinton gets buried, SRT becomes an extension of the Danforth line and Finch & Sheppard won't be LRT. Little new capital would be necessary to achieve that, just reallocating money that's already on the table. Meaning, you're not upsetting out of city voters or downtown voters and you just created the opening that you needed to win the votes you need to get in power. Win-Win.

What will they do with the regional transit taxes? Certainly not the map above. I'm praying they will have the decency to build the DRL at least.
 
Solid Snake said:
A PC wins just means Eglinton gets buried
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Unless you mean buried in a grave, like the Eglinton West subway they deferred in 1996 ... Hudak has made it clear he'd cancel all the projects, and defer them until there is a budget surplus - but at the same time, he's also promised to cut taxes.

Now he did seem to assume there'd be an election by now, so the state of Eglinton tunnelling may be too far advanced if he is elected to cancel outright - but a lot of money could be save by leaving as a tunnel for a decade or two ... or simply not building east of Don Mills.

But I'd be really surprised if anything gets built east of Don Mills under a Tory government ... unless the LRT contract has already been awarded, and it proceeds as surface LRT.
 
nfitz said:
Unless you mean buried in a grave, like the Eglinton West subway they deferred in 1996 ... Hudak has made it clear he'd cancel all the projects, and defer them until there is a budget surplus - but at the same time, he's also promised to cut taxes.
...
But I'd be really surprised if anything gets built east of Don Mills under a Tory government ... unless the LRT contract has already been awarded, and it proceeds as surface LRT.
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Agreed. Even a design+build would be cancellable. The contractor would be pretty happy with $COST spent + $400M for their trouble.

If the spring budget fails to pass and an election is called for May or June, the only sure thing is Spadina.
 
rbt said:
Agreed. Even a design+build would be cancellable. The contractor would be pretty happy with $COST spent + $400M for their trouble.

If the spring budget fails to pass and an election is called for May or June, the only sure thing is Spadina.
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Based on history, only the Liberals are the ones who would cancel such a large contract and get nothing in return. Maybe the the conservatives would cancel something and pay tens of millions in penalties (which was probably less than 10% of what was planned to be spent), but only the Liberals would spend hundreds of millions to cancel something (close to 100% of what was to be spend).

I think it is better to spend 10% to get nothing than 100% and get nothing.
 
BurlOak said:
Based on history, only the Liberals are the ones who would cancel such a large contract and get nothing in return. Maybe the the conservatives would cancel something and pay tens of millions in penalties (which was probably less than 10% of what was planned to be spent), but only the Liberals would spend hundreds of millions to cancel something (close to 100% of what was to be spend).

I think it is better to spend 10% to get nothing than 100% and get nothing.
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Your history seems somewhat selective.
 
The Sheppard subway is dead in the water folks. It is not getting built. Period. We may not like what is in place, but it is too late to do much about it. Personally I would have liked to see either Sheppard continue as an elevated line, modified rolling stock which can support both overhead wires and third rail, or refurbishing the tunnel to support overhead wires. All three of those suggestions would have created a transfer free ride across northeast Toronto for a fraction of the cost of going all underground, and none of the options were even considered.

The best we can hope for now is how the line will operate, and even that is a long shot. Removing the stops at local streets to create a limited stop line is the best way to get rapid transit along the corridor. And before you go on saying that these stops are necessary, for my 3rd year research project I surveyed people at some of these local stops, and the vast majority of people said they would not mind walking to main road to catch a faster vehicle.
 
Luckily I think the NDP realize that the situation will only get worse for them once the libs are defeated, as a PC government is likely much worse than a Liberal for them. I highly doubt we will see an election this summer, and we might get one if the libs are looking good again next year. The NDP are currently the most powerful they have been since the Rae days, and won't throw it away for some silly reason like lower auto insurance. They will wait until it looks like they could get more seats, but that the libs will still likely win a minority. With any luck, the liberals survive a full term of a minority government, as by that point the SELRT will be under construction. Then the cons will have to pull a gas plant, and cancel mid construction. They won't put themselves in a position that the liberals can ridicule them for the exact same reasons that the PCs have been ridiculing the liberals for the last couple of years. Quite possibly, the gas plants are something that very well could have saved the SELRT.
 
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rbt said:
Your history seems somewhat selective.
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Can you please give me an estimate on the cost of cancelling the Eglinton West line (actually the launch shaft) and the estimated cost of the entire line. If I recall correctly, the cancellation cost was about $60M and the total line maybe $1B, but I stand to be corrected.

The power plant is more difficult since the Liberals are doing there best to hide the true costs. I recall the cost of the Oakville plant was originally about $1B (it was much larger than the Mississauga one) and the cost to cancel is not $40M as originally stated. The best guess number now is about $500M to $750M - but maybe higher since numbers are being hidden. For Mississauga, I recall the cost being $400M and cancellation is about $200M - although again, this is the admitted cost of cancelling and not the actual cost. So the percentage actually appears to be about 66% based on what is known now, not 100% - I appologize for exagerating without putting some calculation to it. To make matters worse, they spent this money cancelling their own plans wheras all other examples involve cancelling a previous governments project.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Luckily I think the NDP realize that the situation will only get worse for them once the libs are defeated, as a PC government is likely much worse than a Liberal for them. I highly doubt we will see an election this summer, and we might get one if the libs are looking good again next year. The NDP are currently the most powerful they have been since the Rae days, and won't throw it away for some silly reason like lower auto insurance. They will wait until it looks like they could get more seats, but that the libs will still likely win a minority. With any luck, the liberals survive a full term of a minority government, as by that point the SELRT will be under construction. Then the cons will have to pull a gas plant, and cancel mid construction. They won't put themselves in a position that the liberals can ridicule them for the exact same reasons that the PCs have been ridiculing the liberals for the last couple of years. Quite possibly, the gas plants are something that very well could have saved the SELRT.
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I agree that the NDP is as powerful as they have ever been, however, I think they are in the best position to form government now than they ever will be. If the Liberals rebound in the next few years, the NDP will be sent back to third place in a Liberal majority government. If the Liberals falter farther, the NDP would be third with a Conservative majority. If they are content to hold the balance of power for the next 1 or 2 years and then return to their place as a third party with no power - they will continue to prop up the Liberals. If they think they can actually form government, they would pull the plug now. Is the reward of government for the NDP worth the risk that the Conservatives may form majority.

To "pull a gas plant" the Conservatives would have to spend a Billion dollars cancelling their own plans. Many governments have spent large sums to cancel previous governments plans.
 
thing is that the NDP can't form a government right now, and because of the PC "fear factor", they won't pull the plug until they are sure they can, Which I doubt will be anytime soon.

as for cancelling the SELRT, it would cost a ton of money. you would have to pay huge fees for the cancellation of the construction contracts, and completely redesign the conlins yard to be much smaller (if not complete cancellation of a yard that in 2016 would be half finished), because it would then only be required to serve the Scarborough LRT. That would also require the shrinking of the contract, if not complete re-tendering of it, resulting more fines. Then there is cancelling the FWLRT, which would also require a large fee to cancel the contracts for both the yard and the tracks. Then you have to shrink the size of the LRT vehicle order, requiring more fines. Then there is the cost of ripping up what has been built, and rebuilding both streets.

To cancel the FWLRT and the SELRT mid construction would likely result in at least the same $240 million that the Liberals claim the gas plants cost to cancel, if not more. no matter how much the 4 or 5 seats matter, they will not pull a move like that to gain votes, especially since there isn't unilateral opposition in the wards to the SELRT, like there was to the gas plants.
 
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BurlOak said:
Based on history, only the Liberals are the ones who would cancel such a large contract ...
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??? Given the Conservatives cancelled the Eglinton subway already under construction, paying huge penalties ... and Hudak has promised to cancel the current LRT projects ... do you think Hudak is lying when he says he'll cancel the current LRT projects and defer any future rapid transit, to be built as subway ... for years?

And was Hudak lying when he also promised to cancel the same hydro plants that McGuinty cancelled?
 
BurlOak said:
I agree that the NDP is as powerful as they have ever been, however, I think they are in the best position to form government now than they ever will be. If the Liberals rebound in the next few years, the NDP will be sent back to third place in a Liberal majority government.
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The issue is that public support for the parties is more or less split evenly. 1/3 for Libs, 1/3 for Cons, 1/3 for NDP. If the NDP were to call an election they would be making a huge gamble. Yes they could be elected, but it's more likely that the Cons will be in power or they'll lose so many seats that they once again become irrelevant. I think it's in the interest of the NDP to maintain the status quo.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I think it's in the interest of the NDP to maintain the status quo.
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I agree. Unless there's some significant change in the polling, I doubt we'll see an election until at least fall 2014, which is what Wynne has publicly pondered. Or more likely the current date of fall 2015 ... or even spring 2016.
 
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