Monday’s headlines

20 comments

1. So why are we extending a subway to the 905, which will not pay taxes to subsidize the running of the line for their passengers through the 416, whose residents voted for the party which ruined transit funding in the first place? Vaughan and its voters are irresponsible, but the city is, as usual, idiotic to accept this ‘gift’ since we’ll be stuck paying for the running of it.

2. The subway is transforming the GTA on daily basis. Its limited network and crowded single north/south line encourage people to find other options. And the 905 has the advantage when it comes to car infrastructure.

3. I took the new busway out from Downsview to York U. on the weekend and I think it’s great. Instead of wasting hundreds of millions on subways out to the burbs, dedicated busways would be a cost-effective approach that could scale up with demand. It’s a shame this option hasn’t been given more consideration.

4. I know we are all pleased to see some extension of the subway but have a look again where its going. I see big box, parking lots and green fields….Vaughan’s mayor’s comment that it will focus attention on development in their downtown core is joke…You think the shepperd line is the line to nowhere…wait till the wonderland line is done in….wait what did they say 2015? ok..yeah 2015. Anybody remember how long shepperd took? I hope they (TTC) put more effort into the important links like the EG LRT line to the airport than this…oh well..at least they are expanding…now if we can just get rid of the damn tokens and tickets!

5. My main issue with the subway is that it currently goes to nowhere. Which, some may argue was the case when Sheppard was built, and look at it now. I agree.

   However, I have little to no faith in Vaughan and its council– what reason have they given anybody to believe that they can build a “corporate centre” that isn’t like all the grotesque and auto-centric “corporate centres” they’ve built throughout Vaughan?

   And yet out here in Scarborough it appears that we’ll never get a real subway. Makes me sick.

6. @Paul

   “dedicated busways would be a cost-effective approach that could scale up with demand.”

   The busway itself is largely built within the hydro corridor. There are only so many of those, and space on them is rented from Ontario Realty Corporation.

   While they might “scale up with demand” there is a limit to how far they can scale before they require overtaking lanes, not to mention that each 40ft vehicle requires a separate driver so that beyond a certain point vehicles that are much longer per crewmember become more cost effective, especially given that TTC does not consider any available 60ft bus to conform to its requirements.

7. Extending the TTC to the 905 is going beyond the TTC’s mandate which is to focus on transit within TO’s borders. That said, providing the funding is in place, I don’t think extending the subway into 905 is necessarily a bad idea given that many of the vehicles congesting are roadways are coming into the city from there. Situated properly, it has the potential to cut down on a lot of vehicles coming into TO from up there (and also leaving TO because the outflow of employees from TO to 905 is actually greater now than the inflow). However, I don’t think passengers should not be able to board at the 905 stations for the same price being paid within TO’s city limits because none of their municipal taxes supports TTC. Bottom line is that if the current funding formula for municipal transit systems was more adequate, you’d likely have these systems make decisions that were better from a region-wide perspective.

8. … MISTAKE “However, I DON’T think passengers should be able to board at the 905 stations for the same price being paid within TO’s city limits because….”

9. Bus-only lanes could also be added or repurposed on the highways and multi-lane roads that are spread across the GTA sprawl. When the demand became such that we needed to start talking about bigger buses, then we could look into putting light rail, or eventually subways along the routes. The demand has to come first.

10. can you imagine bus only lanes on the 401 through the core..
    Also, not sure if anyone noticed the lack of planning on Dufferin..the bus lane turns off and into the hydro corridor…but another bus lane, used by the TTC continues on north of steeles to vaughan. Would it not have made sense to continue construction a bit further north past the great lawn of environment canada to steeles. What a waste.

11. james,

    As Sam has noted, the reverse commute (Toronto to Vaughan) in the a.m. is the dominate flow. It has been that way since 2001. As far as tax dollars go, consider that the average household in Vaughan pays more income, sales and property tax than does the Toronto average, yet gets back far less than Toronto in the way of transfers and grants. You should also account for all the money that the the TTC has received from the province.

12. Re: Ryan

    The lanes a little further north are HOV lanes, meaning that vehicles with at least 2 people in them can use them. The ones from Downsview to the hydro corridor are only for buses.

    Anyways, on topic with the subway, the fact of the matter is that the Yonge-University-Spadina line has evolved into more of a regional line than an inner-city local line. Stations are more spaced out, there is more commuter parking and connections with suburban bus routes, etc. Compare this with the Bloor-Danforth line with far closer station spacing and no connections with major highways. Rather than judging the merits of a transit project by its technology, it should be judged by how it is operated. Because of this, an extension to this line makes more sense than some would think.

    And one last thought: Up until the 1950s, Toronto WAS part of York Region…

13. the spadina line seems not nearly as full as the yonge line during rush-hour, particularly north of bloor. i personally think we have better uses of transit money than bringing the subway to vaughan, but have to admit that the existing spadina line seems a little underused, and perhaps it will be better used when the extension is built (or, of course, when transit city is up and running).

14. Extending the TTC into the 905 is a result of trying to plug the obvious shortfall left by GO, which compared to a peer city like Chicago has too few lines, too few stations, and not nearly frequent enough nor electric service. No doubt the same will eventually happen with an extension of the Bloor line into Mississagua, Yonge into York Region, etc. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul because while commuters may get their train service downtown via TTC, the agency has no resources left to focus on filling in the short-hop rapid transit needs across the 416 (Eglinton, Shep., DRL, etc.)

    This (ab)use of the TTC as commuter rail has to stop. Build rapid transit for the city, and proper full-service commuter rail for the suburbs. Period, end of report.

15. Re: iSkyscraper

    Chicago’s subway lines also extend outside the city and into the suburbs. Many routes even have express branches, which bypass stops to move commuters from the outer ends into the core quickly.

    As I said, technology and politics aside, the YUS line plays more of an S-Bhan/RER role compared to the BD line. Even GO’s ALRT project (Google it) would have relied on the YUS to move commuters over longer distances through the north-south corridors.

    Maybe we should annex surrounding counties into Toronto? It would help the region prosper the current tax and funding schemes, and property taxes would be pooled together to help pay for transit region wide. That way we can stop with this 416 vs 905 BS.

16. iSkyscraper,
    I actually agree with what you are proposing… but despite “end of report”, I don’t see it happening.

17. Ben, my comparison is still apt. Chicago’s system is mostly inside the city limits, has great coverage, and is much older than ours. When the TTC has six or seven lines radiating in all directions from Union station, feel free to tack a few stops onto a couple of them.

    And I’ll be happy to turn the YUS into an S-Bahn/RER once there is a U-Bhan/Metro to go along with it. As it stands, with our wee subway net confined to Zone 4 of this book (http://bit.ly/6hAFJ0), we are too underbuilt to be extending the spine out to the suburbs. Unless Transit City gets properly built as true LRT, and the legacy streetcars also speed up, I don’t see the transit web functioning properly with the current planning.

18. Regarding Toronto carrying all the operating costs:
    We know that fares cover only 70% of the operating costs for the TTC. So just count how many people board the subway extension in Vaughan, and have the Municpality of Vaughan pay the other 30% for them.

    Regarding rapid transit for Toronto. Yes, it is time to build more subways in the city to serve the city. GO is gearing up to provide three or four times the level of regional rail in the next decade. We should start making plans so that as the Transit City projects reach completion, we are ready to put shovels in the ground for the downtown relief line. (And the city should be quietly buying up property along the route to resell when the subway is announced, and finance a lot of the construction with the profits.)

19. @Laurie – you seem to be under the impression that this is still up for argument. The contract is signed. There will be no surtax on Vaughan riders or on their municipality – TTC is already planning for the likely losses.

    http://stevemunro.ca/?p=2786&cpage=1#comment-40867
    By the way, even with those savings, the TTC expects the Spadina Subway extension to add $14.2-million (plus inflation) to the operating losses of the system. This is net of new revenue from riding growth.

20. Re: iSkyscraper

    Sorry for the late reply. Anyways, I would argue that the Bloor-Danforth line is comparable to an urban RRT (rail rapid transit, tired of speaking German here) since it has very frequent stop spacing well outside of downtown. Even the YUS line is somewhat like a hybrid line, a suburban RRT that operates like an urban RRT as it reaches the core. If the TTC turned back every other train at Eglinton and St. Clair West, essentially operating two branches of the line, then the Eglinton-St. Clair West would be an urban RRT while the Finch-Vaughan Metro Center would be suburban RRT.

    Also I fully agree about your views on Transit City. Once the new tram fleet and smart card boarding become standard through the system, then these multi-billion dollar lines will be no more “rapid transit” than Spadina or St. Clair!

    Finally, the point I was trying to make was that because of how the YUS operates, that there is merit to extending it. Not that it should come above other much needed rapid transit plans in the core.