Toronto LRT Information Blog

Back on March 27, I stated here that there would be no funding for the Yonge Subway extension to Richmond Hill. Today’s issue of the Richmond Hill Liberal has a story that starts on the front page about how this project has had its brakes slammed on because of lack of funding.

Hopefully, this will give the chance to reconsider how best to serve York Region by looking at LRT as a viable option that can meet the needs of the Yonge corridor and at the same time reach a far greater area, and people, for the same money.

This subway extension was being touted as the first subway project in the province to go through the new EA process. The level of zeal by the municipal politicians was akin to children jumping in excitement about getting a train set for Christmas. One of the telling quotes that suggests this is from York Region chairperson Bill Fisch. The City of Toronto placed some caveats on its support for this extension that were related capacity issues of the Yonge subway. Fisch commented, “I think they went overboard.”

If this does not show the “Wow! Once we have our train the world will be wonderful” attitude, then tell me what does. Does he not realize that a system that is bursting at its seams in its core cannot simply be extended further and further out and expect to attract more people. Does Fisch think that the system will magically just handle more?

The TTC has received funding to upgrade its signalling system. This is needed over the next few years because the current system is getting harder to repair, but this has been cited as being the panacea to increase capacity by decreasing head-ways. This will increase capacity, but not by as much as one might expect. Current rush hour head-ways are about 150 seconds and it is said that the new signalling system can bring that down to 90, for a capacity increase of about 66%. The trouble with that is, that leaves no room for any minor delay (think of that guy who grabs the door because he just has to get on this train). Minor delays of even 15 seconds will drastically effect the entire line’s operation. Let’s say to account for such problems, the headway can be brought down to 115 seconds. That gives us an increase in capacity of 29%. One problem with that: terminals such as Finch and Downsview require close to 140 seconds to turn a train around. The way around this is to short-turn trains, but that means that the ends of the line will not be used for its full capacity, even though it costs just as much.

Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti said he understood the approval (of the funding for the signalling upgrade) would lead to a green light for the subway, but now wondered if that money could have been better spent elsewhere. News to Frank: this upgrade is needed without the extension.

The new Toronto Rocket subway trains, that will begin to operate later this year, will add about 3% to the capacity of the line. This is mostly due to the space between each car that may be occupied by passengers, but it is partly due to the ability for passengers to spread out throughout the entire train. There is a possibility, though not funded yet, of adding a 50-foot trailer car to the middle of  a train to add some more capacity. This would add another 11% capacity.

Capacity of the trains themselves is not the whole issue. Can the stations downtown receive a significant increase of people arriving on trains? The simple answer is ‘no’. The Bloor-Yonge station alone is bursting at its seams. The TTC has plans of renovating this station to increase passenger flow and capacity, but this may not be enough. Worse yet, some parts of those plans may not be physically possible as the north end of the Yonge line platform sits within the foundation posts of the Hudson’s Bay tower. Many of the other stations lack a second exit as required by current fire code. Imagine an emergency need to evacuate with 20% more people on the system? Imagine it now!

Part of the Don Mills LRT line should be built as full subway. No, you haven’t entered a parallel universe where everything is backwards. I still believe that the entire Spadina Subway Extension and a proposed Yonge Extension north of Steeles would better serve our transit needs if built as LRT, but this is not the case for the portion of the proposed Don Mils LRT line that will be south of Eglinton. Eglinton and Don Mills should be the north-eastern end of a Downtown Relief Line (DRL), built as a full Subway.

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I am going to go out on a limb and say that yesterday’s provincial budget has nothing in it for the Yonge North subway extension. To be accurate, the budget had nothing specific about any particular project. The budget had $32.5 billion (with $5 billion coming through the province from the federal government) for infrastructure. There were no specifics on where this would be going in order to keep the focus on the harmonization of the Retail Sales Tax with the federal GST, which will not come into effect until July 2010.

It is expect that a significant piece of the $32.5 billion, possibly more than $10 billion, will go into transit projects, but it is expected that projects that apply for this funding will have to be completed by March 31, 2011. Of course, it is possible that the subway extension project could be broken up into smaller sub-projects, some of which could be completed by this deadline, but the race to do this could be a wasted effort as there are numerous other transit projects ready to go once funding is in place that will be in line as soon as the application process opens up in the next few weeks. The Sheppard East Transit City line has completed its EA process and is in a shovel ready state just waiting for cash to flow, and I understand that LRT plans in Hamilton are close to a similar state.

Let’s see what happens over the next few weeks as municipalities start jumping through the province’s bureaucratic hoops.

April 1 update: That limb is looking stronger every day! Today, the big announcement was for $9 billion in spending for transit that included such TTC projects as the Finch West LRT (going east to Don Mills and down to Sheppard), an Eglinton-Crosstown line (not sure if this will be LRT or something else at this time) going all the way to the airport, and an “upgrade” of the Scarborough RT with an extension to either Sheppard and Markham (likely if the “upgrade” involves ART MARK-II technology) or the Malvern Town Centre (likely if the “upgrade” involves conversion to LRT). The announcement also included funding for VIVA BRT lane construction and an LRT study in Hamilton.

Still to be announced is the funding for the Sheppard LRT line and the contract for the replacement of the legacy streetcar fleet, both of which should be very soon and will use up more of the available infrastructure funds.

Last week, a reader by the name of Jordan posted a comment on this blog announcing the new blog on the VivaNext site. In his comment, he did not identify himself as an employee of York Region Rapid Transit Corporation, but he did so in a similar comment he posted on Metronauts.

March 25 update: It took several days, but comments posted since March 20 finally appeared on the VivaNext blog. My comment even appeared without editing, so it appears to me that this is being run as an open forum for the sharing of ideas. I will continue to follow what is posted and will continue to add my own comments. I encourage others to do the same.

The Environmental Project Report for the Yonge Subway Extension has been completed and has been available for public review since February 2. The public has until March 4, 2009 to submit comments.

The document can be reviewed at the VIVA website and more information can be seen in this Notice of Completion.