TTC: Sheppard Subway Expansion (Speculative)

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I always found it ironic that Eglinton had this "must be a one seat, transferless ride right from the East end of the city to the West", while it was ok to chop Sheppard off at Don Mills. I realize that the Sheppard subway was there while there was no higher order transit on Eglinton, however it just seemed that the Sheppard LRT was planned with "0" regard for the existing conditions on the street. That being that there was a subway line already there.

Ahh but we are beating a dead horse here.

 

[nfitz]

I always found it ironic that Eglinton had this "must be a one seat, transferless ride right from the East end of the city to the West", while it was ok to chop Sheppard off at Don Mills.

The difference is that ridership on Eglinton is more than double that on Sheppard, and there isn't money to build both.

 

[Dan416]

People who trumpet converting the Sheppard subway to LRT have zero sense of reality. I think it'd be the height of absurdity to spend money to decrease the capacity of a transit line. It's the opposite of forward-thinking.

If it had been built as LRT originally, as maybe it should have, then sure having some of it underground and some above-ground would be okay.

But the fact of the matter is it's a subway, and the price tag of converting it to LRT would be put to much better use to actually expand the line. What was the cost in that Metrolinx report? $600 million? You must be able to get a couple subway stops for that!

 

[Inkarnate]

People who trumpet converting the Sheppard subway to LRT have zero sense of reality. I think it'd be the height of absurdity to spend money to decrease the capacity of a transit line. It's the opposite of forward-thinking.

If it had been built as LRT originally, as maybe it should have, then sure having some of it underground and some above-ground would be okay.

But the fact of the matter is it's a subway, and the price tag of converting it to LRT would be put to much better use to actually expand the line. What was the cost in that Metrolinx report? $600 million? You must be able to get a couple subway stops for that!

I thought there were some posts earlier in the thread explaining that it'd cost less to convert it Sheppard subway to LRT than the extend the subway, but right now I can't be bothered to find them...could someone enlighten me?

But either is fine by me, really, as long as that ridiculous transfer at Don Mills is history.

 

[EnviroTO]

This viewpoint assumes that everybody getting on at Yonge is due for a destination south of Bloor. They maybe heading south, but they may not all be heading South of Bloor. There's bound to be riders who would take Sheppard from STC because they are due for points closer to Sheppard (south or north).

Sure, there will be some going to points north of Bloor but if Eglinton has a line why would someone at SCC take Sheppard? Sheppard/Yonge is north of the Sheppard east of Victoria Park and north of SCC. To go north in order to go south reduces the number of people who will take that route.

In any event though, that's not the point of the Sheppard line. It's just a happy byproduct that it feeds Yonge. But that's not its main purpose. It's supposed to be a Cross-town.

Real bad choice for a cross-town. A subway doesn't cross town quickly compared to commuter rail, Sheppard ends at Weston Road and has Downsview Park in the middle of it, and it is very unlikely that as a subway it would ever "cross town" to take passengers from Pickering to Mississauga. Due to that it will never be able to take much share of the 401 cross town traffic. GO ALRT was a cross town. Sheppard Subway is a local service that is overbuilt.

For example, how many York U students do you think would take the line if it ran from STC to Downsview? I am willing to bet 10k riders just from York U students in Scarborough per day at least.

None of the residents and none of the students that live outside eastern North York and Scarborough. Lets assume that 20% of the students at York actually do live in eastern North York and Scarborough, that billion dollar extension brings in the ridership of the Morningside bus route. I don't think that it will push the ridership into the territory where having a subway was required.

How many UTSC and Centennial college students in North York and Etobicoke would suddenly find their campuses significantly more accessible by transit if they didn't have to trundle down to Bloor or Eglinton to get across town?

Those college students need an education if they think taking the subway to Bloor or Eglinton to get to Scarborough makes sense. York Mills GO to Scarborough GO and the 38 bus. GO gets you from Yonge to Scarborough Centre in 16 minutes and the subway isn't really going to do it any faster. In fact the GO plus Transit City's connections to UTSC and Centennial College would get you there faster than Sheppard built without the LRT extension past Centennial and the Malvern Line spur which had a chance of being build for the Pan Am Games. Even taking the 95 bus is faster than going to Bloor.

That was the TTC's contention. Not mine. They also assumed that a subway would only draw in an extra 1000 or so riders per hour. I find that particularly hard to believe. I'd love to see their assumptions and raw calculations on that one. Makes me wonder if any of the guys who worked that out have taken the Finch bus during rush hour.

So which is it? Would the SELRT adequately handle the ridership on Sheppard or not? If the answer is that it cannot handle passenger demand then it doesn't rule out the possibility of building a subway or at very least grade separating the LRT at bottlenecks to increase carrying capacity. Only if the SELRT can easily accommodate the ridership would it render a Sheppard Subway obsolete.

Really? Is that why Metrolinx had proposed that Finch continue on Finch East till Don Mills and then head south to Don Mills station before heading east on Sheppard? They wanted to avoid duplication?

Transit City wasn't planned by Metrolinx and despite Metrolinx wanting a single line across the city it wasn't a priority to the city which felt the section between Yonge and Don Mills was already served by the Sheppard Subway.

They picked their grid with zero regard to where ridership is today. That much is clear, looking at which bus routes would be replaced.

So Eglinton, Finch West, and Sheppard are not where the ridership is? If that isn't where the ridership is then how can we possibly entertain subways which would serve the same purpose?

Not just that. They also picked routes without much thought as to how the corridors would develop. For all their fantasies about pedestrian-friendly streets, apparently none of these planners drove past Markham on Sheppard and saw the great backyards of Malvern which are available for re-zoning.

It is a continuous route. The options would be greater segmentation of the route, or a continuous route. I don't think they expected that the parts of Sheppard east of Markham would redevelop that quickly. The backyards of Malvern don't rule out redevelopment though... the NY Towers development at Bayview was all residential.

But avoiding building between Don Mills and Yonge is clearly wrong.

There is a subway there. Hopefully it can handle the load.

Even more galling was the fact that they didn't plan a spur for STC. Skipped right by it. Apparently the zoo was a bigger priority.

They didn't build a spur into the zoo either. Spurs to STC, UTSC, and the zoo were contemplated for the future.

 

[Rainforest]

Real bad choice for a cross-town. A subway doesn't cross town quickly compared to commuter rail, Sheppard ends at Weston Road and has Downsview Park in the middle of it, and it is very unlikely that as a subway it would ever "cross town" to take passengers from Pickering to Mississauga. Due to that it will never be able to take much share of the 401 cross town traffic. GO ALRT was a cross town. Sheppard Subway is a local service that is overbuilt.

If it ever comes to building a 401 GO rail service, then perhaps the existing section of Sheppard subway can be used as a part of it. The new sections, west of Yonge or west Downsview, and east of Don Mills or Vic Park, would be moslty in the middle of 401 with wide (4-6 km) stop spacing. The existing section with a much closer spacing would be an odd duck, and would slow the line down slightly. However, it can contribute a critically important, already built interchange with Yonge line.

Of course, such a project would cost a lot of money, and is not the best investment of transit dollars in the near future. But eventually it might become feasible.

 

[andrewpmk]

The trouble is that east of Don Mills, an express subway in the middle of the 401 would not adequately serve all the local transit demand along the route. There is lots of medium density residential along the section of Sheppard between Don Mills & Kennedy, which the express subway would totally bypass. There is also lots of potential feeder bus traffic from the north here, particularly from the apartment buildings along Finch.

 

[Palma]

I thought there were some posts earlier in the thread explaining that it'd cost less to convert it Sheppard subway to LRT than the extend the subway, but right now I can't be bothered to find them...could someone enlighten me?.

There was a post that did say it would cost less to convert Sheppard subway to LRT but I cannot find it.

 

[nfitz]

There was a post that did say it would cost less to convert Sheppard subway to LRT but I cannot find it.

The cost of the retrofit was put at $670 million by Metrolinx. With the LRT cost to Morningside at about $1.1 billion, then you could do the entire LRT line from Yonge to Meadowvale for $1.8 billion - a distance of about 20 km. The cost to complete the entire 18 km Sheppard subway is almost $5 billion.

 

[Inkarnate]

The cost of the retrofit was put at $670 million by Metrolinx. With the LRT cost to Morningside at about $1.1 billion, then you could do the entire LRT line from Yonge to Meadowvale for $1.8 billion - a distance of about 20 km. The cost to complete the entire 18 km Sheppard subway is almost $5 billion.

Ah, all righty. LRT sounds good to me, thanks!

I like subways quite much, and I always liked the possibility of extending the Sheppard Subway, but it's just grown more and more tiresome as it goes on.

 

[nfitz]

Personally I think the ultimate solution is to build the Sheppard subway - when it's needed. For the time being extend it to Consumers Road and Victoria Park - past the bottlenecking at the 404/DVP, and build a new terminal at Victoria Park. Then construct an LRT platform at the same elevation at the subway - and in such a way that the subway can be extended in the future without interfering with the LRT. Build the LRT down Sheppard East - if necessary with a spur down McCowan or Brimley to Scarborough Centre. In the future you can then build the subway with less stops - only Agincourt and Scarborough Centre on Sheppard East.

 

[44 North]

This Sheppard Subway nonsense is getting out of hand.

It's not a priority, never was a priority, hasn't been taken to city council, and will bankrupt this city. There is minimal net benefit for a heavy rail subway. And TTIL - with its board of Ford cronies - is nothing but backdoor planning. This is pure bullshit coming at the costs of taxpayers, the TTC, and all TTC riders.

If "the people have spoken" and don't want LRT - and a subway is too expensive (both for capital and operating costs) - then just give them the status quo. Maybe with upgrades to articulated buses. Metrolinx never wanted a Sheppard Subway...and weren't even keen on LRT. The councillors and people of Scarborough had their chance for transit infrastructure. They blew it.

 

[Rainforest]

The cost of the retrofit was put at $670 million by Metrolinx. With the LRT cost to Morningside at about $1.1 billion, then you could do the entire LRT line from Yonge to Meadowvale for $1.8 billion - a distance of about 20 km. The cost to complete the entire 18 km Sheppard subway is almost $5 billion.

However, the "entire" Sheppard subway quoted for $4.6 billion would include a link from Yonge to Downsview. Therefore, for an accurate comparison the cost of LRT should be padded for the Yonge-Downsview link as well. The section from Yonge to West Don would have to be underground (that's about 1 km from the existing tail tracks), and perhaps a new bridge would be needed. West of the bridge, Sheppard is wide enough for street-median LRT (2.5 km). The total cost of the Yonge-Downsview LRT extension would be in the range of $500 - $600 million, and that should be added to those $1.8 billion from Yonge to Meadowvale.

Actually, even if SELRT was built as planned, I would not spend money to convert the existing subway to LRT. The same-platform transfer at Don Mills would not be bad enough to spend $670 million for its elimination, plus endure the inconvenience of the line closure.

 

[Rainforest]

Personally I think the ultimate solution is to build the Sheppard subway - when it's needed. For the time being extend it to Consumers Road and Victoria Park - past the bottlenecking at the 404/DVP, and build a new terminal at Victoria Park. Then construct an LRT platform at the same elevation at the subway - and in such a way that the subway can be extended in the future without interfering with the LRT. Build the LRT down Sheppard East - if necessary with a spur down McCowan or Brimley to Scarborough Centre. In the future you can then build the subway with less stops - only Agincourt and Scarborough Centre on Sheppard East.

That makes sense; though if a partial Phase I expansion is considered, I'd rather go to Warden than to Vic Park. Reasons:
1) Better from the network standpoint: a northern link to the Finch / Warden cluster and then to the Enterprise area in Markham.
2) The start-up and wind-down costs divided by 3.5 km rather than by 2 km.
3) New terminal needed at Warden only, whereas Vic Park can do with an on-street connection (like Bayview - Sheppard).

 

[Rainforest]

The trouble is that east of Don Mills, an express subway in the middle of the 401 would not adequately serve all the local transit demand along the route. There is lots of medium density residential along the section of Sheppard between Don Mills & Kennedy, which the express subway would totally bypass. There is also lots of potential feeder bus traffic from the north here, particularly from the apartment buildings along Finch.

By definition, an express interregional service cannot handle local transit demand. No transit mode can be fast enough for long-haul trips, and at the same time have frequent stops to address local demand. GO trains do not handle local demand at all, nonetherless there is enough long-range demand to justify their existence.

So, the question is really whether an express east-west rail service can attract enough demand to justify construction and operation of such service.

In my view, such service along Hwy 401 cannot be justified in the near future (next ~20 years or so), because of its high cost and because of the difficulty of getting the riders to / from the express stations. Indeed, most of the prospective riders would have to use local feeder service at both ends of their trip, unlike riders of the GO trains to Union who can just walk from Union to their offices.

However, such east-west express service might become feasible in the longer term, as the regional population grows and the feeder route network improves.