When I count the votes on the new council, it seems pretty clear that a Transit City vs. subway vote, due in February according to TTC chair Karen Stintz, will be extremely close. But for now, the numbers tilt slightly in favour of Mayor Rob Ford’s agenda. Based on the Liberals’ mealy pronouncements last week, I would not be shocked if they decided to capitulate rather than defend Metrolinx’s Big Move.
From Queen’s Park’s perspective, Ford’s gambit could free up some cash in the short term and the rest of this expensive mess gets kicked way down the road, for someone else to deal with. Add in some creative bookkeeping and a bit of political blather about a new era in provincial-municipal relations, and the transit expansion file once again drops into a boring-machine-sized wormhole.
After all, the Liberals, with their eyes firmly trained on the 2011 election and the mirage of an economic upswing circa 2013, may be tempted to play let’s make a deal with the new mayor and ante up enough pledges of capital to at least get started on a Sheppard subway (engineering studies, etc.), even while continuing construction on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT (west end Liberals).
So far, the debate has been entirely about the capital spend and the financial impact of cancelling various Metrolinx contracts. The operating budget shortfall for Ford’s subway scheme is another story entirely, but one that has yet to be acknowledged publicly by either of the participants in this weird transit tango.
In theory, a fiscally conservative mayor should care about building a transit line that could cough up a substantial operating deficit for decades to come.
And, again in theory, a deficit-addled provincial regime should care about the TTC’s operating budget, because Toronto politicians – and Ford will be no exception – are constantly asking for Queen’s Park’s helping in soaking up all that red ink associated with maintaining an aging transit service (over $400 million last year).
But so far I haven’t heard a peep from the mayor about whether a Sheppard subway stretching from Downsview to Scarborough Town Centre will have any hope of becoming financially viable within the foreseeable future. I’m hoping TTC general manager Gary Webster will have the courage to include those calculations in the options he presents to the new commission next month (he will).
Here’s a bit of a preview:
The Sheppard stub currently serves about 47,700 customers on an average weekday, a figure that is less than 10% of the Bloor-Danforth volume and 7% of the Yonge-University-Spadina ridership. According to my colleague Steve Munro, those figures translate into a peak-period ridership of about 12,000.
The TTC says subways earn their keep when peak hour ridership exceeds 15,000. Now consider that the long-term TTC projections for the Sheppard East LRT ridership crest at 3,000 by 2031. Build a subway and, yes, some more riders will come. But the reality is that no one reading this post will live to see the day when the Sheppard line will be surrounded by enough density to make it worth the green.
Which isn’t necessarily a reason not to proceed: subways do attract density over the long haul. But upzoning and redevelopment is measured in decades. In the meantime, council either has to pick up the tab for an even larger TTC operating shortfall (or impose higher fares to cross-subsidize its loop-closing expansion).
How much of a shortfall is difficult to say. When David Miller once threatened to mothball the Sheppard line as part of a budget cutting drive, city officials said the move would save about $10 million a year, although that figure is likely high.
Ford’s platform promise – from Downsview to Yonge, and then from Don Mills to Scarborough Town Centre – essentially triples the Sheppard line. So while I’m hesitant to do the arithmetic, such a route will require three times the power, three times the personnel, three times the routine maintenance, and on and on.
Politicians of all stripes routinely make the mistake of building infrastructure without first considering how to deal with the cost of running it. So quite apart from the debate about whether the provincial should crack open its Big Move plan and give Ford what he wants, the new mayor and the new council needs to ask which is more cost effective: running LRTs or subways.
If Ford genuinely wants to show “respect for taxpayers,” he’ll confront that question now rather than let some future council figure out how to pay the piper.
27 comments
One clarification in case readers missed it.
The 12,000 passengers are spread over the peak three hour period, and about 6,000 of them would ride in the peak hour. That’s at the peak point on the line, westbound to Yonge.
When the Transit City folks talk about 3,000 per hour, that’s the peak on the LRT section of the line east of Don Mills Road, and that’s for the peak hour, not the entire am peak period.
The whole point of an LRT-based network is a recognition that densities and demands fall off quickly as one gets away from a major corridor like Yonge, and the demand isn’t all going to the same place. Therefore, you don’t get the same accumulation of riders at a peak point.
People seem to forget this, but unlike the other plans replacing the SRT can’t be put off indefinitely because the SRT is already over capacity and overdue for replacement.
Royson James idea to replace the SRT with a subway, which was also proposed by George Smitherman, and continue to build the underground part of the Eglinton LRT seems to be a reasonable compromise.
Hi John,
Another solid piece. Would you post your running tally of how councillors will likely vote on the subway vs. Transit City vote?
Cheers.
Transit City seems like a plan any fiscal conservative would support if it wasn’t proposed by David Miller–or if you were as uninformed and stubborn as Rob Ford. Anyhow, how about charging a premium to ride this line like they do with the Mount Pleasent bus?
To be fair, Bloor-Danforth has a huge catchment compared to Sheppard and passes through U of T. Yonge needs no explanation. Obviously ir’s tough for any other corridors to approach those numbers off the bat.
In fact, we don’t necessarily want them to so long as much of that ridership transfers to an overloaded Yonge line without DRL taking much of the BD load away. This is also true of Eglinton – Steve Munro above has said that the DRL should reach Don Mills/Eglinton as subway because of the engineering difficulties with a surface Pape-Don Mills LRV project.
The best case for Sheppard in my opinion is to extend a couple of stops east for now since converting the existing Sheppard to LRT will be anathema under Ford. The tunnelling of the LRT under the 404 to Fairview will cost almost as much as the subway and the existing Don Mills interface plan is in my view unwise as it compromises both the subway and the LRT operationally.
When the Globe published their list of the councillors and their positions on Transit City (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/where-toronto-councillors-sit-on-the-future-of-transit-city/article1821613/) I only count about 15, and that’s being pretty generous, that would vote for Rob Ford’s Marshmallow Subway To Nowhere. Am I missing something?
“subways do attract density over the long haul. But upzoning and redevelopment is measured in decades”
I know the trains are packed on the BD line but where is the density? Is it really any more dense then it was the day they put the line in or is it just that the lines reaches the town center via the SRT. If the BD line is expanded to the town center and beyond there wont be standing room for the folks getting on at the danforth stops. The Eglington cross town is a must either that or start digging the DRL!
I still think a subway extension of the Shepperd line is a waste of money…an LRT would have cost half the money, been completed in half the time or less and and reached twice as far….
@campbell. The Globe’s Kelly Grant and I spent last Wed. running laps around the second floor, taking the pulse, etc. We didn’t talk to everyone, but based on the responses we got (29) and extrapolating the rest, I’d say there are 21 votes for Transit City. Not all of those are Transit City-as-is, however. Some, like Jaye Robinson, want “tweaks” and others, like Josh Colle, are focused mainly on Eglinton.
Another important consideration in regards to the operating budget is the presumably higher cost to operate buses if LRT is not built on routes such as Finch, Don Mills, parts of Eglinton and Sheppard.
Never mind the cost of having to purchase those buses, or the riders that get driven away because there is no room for them.
There’s an email campaign on Facebook for Transit City…
http://www.emailthem.ca/transitcity/
I was surprised to get a response back from Karen Stintz’s office super fast… well until my subsequent responses resulted in the original email being sent back to me once for each of my 3 replies… LOVE this new “customer service” oriented city hall… I feel so involved.
If Ford wants to build subways come hell or high water, common sense (and respect for taxpayers) be damned, should we not argue to build Sheppard to the west AS A SPUR / BRANCH LINE rather than pressing to go east to Scarborough Town Center?
Map: http://bit.ly/ijO7S3
If you just built that fairly small section of tunnel from Yonge to the Allen, and made it a spur, you would overnight:
1) Turn the stubway into a useful downtown route. What happens when you do get to Scarborough Town Center with a Sheppard train? Now people take Sheppard instead of SRT/Bloor and even more people jam the platform at the terrible Yonge/Sheppard transfer. Making the Sheppard stubway a one-seat ride to the west side of midtown and downtown will pay wide-reaching dividends. Sure, most people are likely still headed for Yonge line destinations but there will be plenty who remain on board to get to U of T or the expanding downtown western office district, etc. This will be a huge change from telling everyone to get off at Yonge, saving that line from overload.
2) Provide a crosstown link that besides being useful in its own right makes service disruptions on Yonge more survivable. It finally closes the loop on Y-U-S.
3) Save capacity for Toronto residents. Let’s assume every other train on Spadina alternates between Vaughan and Don Mills. Long term, the trains coming in from Don Mills will be less crowded than Vaughan, which means every other train at, say, Spadina Station will have a lot more capacity remaining on it for transfers and other boarders. It works this way in Manhattan with the 2/3 subway — look at a map and you’ll see. The number 3 acts as a relief valve for crowds that can’t get on the 2 because it is full with Bronx riders by the time it enters Manhattan. Vaughan will pack the trains – just watch. It is a stupid, stupid extension because traffic that should have been on an electric GO train will end up on subway, reducing capacity farther down the line and further distorting the role of subways in Toronto as long distance commuter vehicles rather than hop-on, hop-off urban rapid transit. Tying in the undercapacity stubway will now become an asset rather than liability.
4) Save Sheppard East LRT for the future. If Ford cancels it, fine, we wait until the city elects a non-idiot as mayor. There is nothing wrong with LRT in this application — look at a map of the EIGHT Paris tramways that feed into the fringe metro stations (four lines exist, four are planned – http://extension-reseau.ratp.fr/recherche_par_projet.html). Run the stubway west, where it can do the most good, and leave the eastern direction for ever-expandable LRT that can one day hit Whitby.
5) Be affordable. No way is there enough money to build the whole Sheppard line. No subway is affordable relative to LRT, period, but surely building across Sheppard to Downsview is less costly than going east? There is little existing density in terms of large buildings, the Don Valley crossing seems fairly open, there are whole swaths of open space to cut open the junction south of Downsview… surely this costs less than trying to reach STC?
If Ford cannot be stopped, then let’s push for a subway extension that is cheap enough to actually happen, does not conflict with future TC, and actually leverages some additional functionality out of the existing subway lines.
Merge the Sheppard line with the Yonge line – half the trains go east, the other half go north – stubway gone. Other cities do this all the time. The extension of the subway to Vaughan will take pressure off Finch station on the west, trains going up Yonge then across Sheppard will make it easier to go east. The new signal system will make sure there is not too much of a wait at Finch. Re-route some bus routes that formerly went to Finch – have a Steeles East express route divert down the 404 to Don Mills station using the HOV lane.
I like your thoughts iSkyscraper. Make connections instead of subways to nowhere. Surely there are a number of folks who come down from North York on the Yonge line and transfer to head west and vice versa. I always thought that if Toronto needed any more subways it would be to connect Sheppard and Downsview. If the Spadina line is underused give people the option of transferring further north. Perhaps this would help the problem of Bloor/Yonge being so overcrowded.
I agree with everyone on the Shepperd extension westwards. The connection is smart and needed, but I feel Ford has exploited this in his subway crusade.
The spur to connect the Shepperd line westward will happen, the TTC has wanted this to happen for a long time for common sense and maintenance reasons. The TTC wants the ability to access the Wilson yards for the Shepperd trains. Ford must understands this and is using it as a backbone to lobby his tunnel dreams of a Shepperd line eastwards nowhere.
The TTC and Ford are both trying to use this to their advantage, its common knowledge that Robert Moses deliberately planned some of his expressways to induce demand and thus require .. more expressways. the TTC took the Queens Park carrot for a not-needed subway into Vaughn knowing full well it would induce great demand and lead to possible some type of DRL getting built?
Merging the Sheppard line with the Yonge line certainly would lead to melodrama. First of all, “not too much of a wait” at Finch would be horrible, given that the cars are full with standees leaving in the morning, and arriving in the evening. Then there’s the engineering. The Sheppard line would have to be rebuilt to handle six-car trains, but that’s the least of the problems. You’d have to build a fully-functional junction and new tunnels. If you want Sheppard-routed trains to stop at Yonge and Sheppard, you have a lot of thinking to do how to accomplish this, and there is absolutely no way to do it easily.
iSkyscraper’s ideas are intriguing, but look. It will easily take 12 minutes or so to travel from Yonge to Downsview, stopping at Bathurst. By this time, someone who trasferred to the Yonge line is already (standing) on a train, and likely approaching Lawrence station. The person who has stayed on the Sheppard-Spadina train is now at….Donwsview station, which is at least 25 minutes and nine stops north of St. George station. Lawrence station is the sixth stop north of Bloor, and is, what, under 20 minutes travel? I really wonder how many people would go for a big loop through the north end of the city instead of transferring. It’s clear that people mostly don’t use the much shorter loop on University to avoid the congestion at Bloor/Yonge.
Thanks John. Been waiting all week for someone to highlight the folly of the TTC Operating Burden being contemplated by the Ford Team. The TTC, as the only mature system in the Metrolinx bunch, has continually tried to highlight the impending crisis in expansion without intergovernmental commitment to day-to-day and State-of-Good-Repair cost. LRT not only builds cheaper, but runs cheaper. Scarborough will fill up with 39 story buildings to accommodate a subway, only to find the operation still needs subsidy from a totally unwilling Province or Federal Government. That’s why, in the unlikely event that Ford succeeds in building the extended Subway on Sheppard, it is the only one he will ever build and bus riders will be left on the curb throughout all of the other suburbs. My heart is breaking for them.
Ed, it takes 10 minutes to go 5.5 km from Don Mills to Yonge. I don’t think it would take 12 minutes to go 4.3 km from Yonge to Downsview. With iSkyscraper’s plan, some kind of huge turn radius would be needed to send the Sheppard trains southward. Even with that, I can’t imagine the segment taking more than 9 minutes.
From what I understand, the Sheppard line stations are already built for six-car trains. Some cheap-o walls just need to be knocked down.
Yes, I would have loved a spur at Yonge – heck, there would be no talk of “stubway” if that had happened – but due to some incredibly mind-bending short-sighted thinking, only one track was connected to Sheppard instead of two, so it cannot be done. No way can you go back and rip up all of that work again, especially with surrounding new development. South of Downsview is much easier to branch off of — it’s all open space, should be relatively easy to connect. And the odd self-crossing route has precedent — see the Millenium Line in Vancouver. When fully built out to UBC that will look somewhat similar to a future Y-U-S-S.
I can only speak from my New York experience, but you would be surprised by what people do to keep a seat and a comfortable ride rather than take a shorter route involving transfers and risk (may not be able to get on that Yonge train when it arrives). An extra 15 min may be quite feasible for some. Yes, many, many people would still get off at Yonge, but it would not be anything near 100%, and every person who did not would be saving capacity on that line. And there are markets better served by University Ave stations – the hospitals, the university – that might attract Sheppard riders. In any case, even if the bulk of commuters still transfer you still get the service yard and loop benefits.
My main concern is to push for a spur, because the TTC has a terrible history with interlining and seems to avoid it like the plague. Can anyone confirm that they would consider a spur? Everything I’ve seen shows a terminal stop at Downsview, not a spur below it. The essential flaw of the stubway (and SRT for that matter) – the transfer of whole trainloads of people into a suburban station – must be avoided or you just have a longer stubway on your hands.
Fair enough, I misestimated the times (it always seems to take so long on the 2 km section).
Nevertheless, in return for not having to transfer to the crowded Yonge line, the Sheppard-Spadina rider will have:
–An additional 4.3 km plus 1.5 km additional on the Spadina line (11.5 km to St. George, versus 10 km to Bloor via Yonge): total 5.8 additional km (enough to go from Sheppard almost to Eglinton)
–An additional three stations to travel trhough (Bathurst North, Downsview, Wilson, Yorkdale, Lawrence W., Glencairn, Eglinton W., St. Clair W., Dupont, Spadina, versus York Mills, Lawrence, Eglinton, Davisville, St. Clair, Summerhill, Rosedale)
I don’t see a lot of people finding this attractive. Of course it may be useful to some people, but it seems an awful expense to go to. Plus any delays or disruptions on the Yonge-University-Spadina line now will affect service on Sheppard. Plus the Sheppard line will always run on headways that are multiples of YUS frequencies. In the late evening, this would really kill service both to Don Mills and to York University, with headways of almost ten minutes (based on the current late evening headway of 4 minutes 52 secionds).
First of all, thank you John for pointing out the folly of building a subway that we cannot afford to operate.
I’d like to go back to the years before the Sheppard subway opened, when operational costs were not even in the picture, and the TTC and the government realized that they could not really afford the Sheppard line without facing serious pain.
I ask everyone to think about the “cost savings” that were being proposed at the time. Remember that the line was shortened, stations were removed, and they even talked about removing all intermediate stations between Sheppard-Yonge & Don Mills.
Sheppard line stations are “unfinished” at platform level for a reason, and it is not minimalist design.
To iSkyscraper, yes, the idea of a westwards extension of Sheppard from Yonge to Downsview looks good on a map and seems logical. So why has this link never appeared on any serious “final” “we’re going to go with this” plans from the TTC or local or provincial governments in the past 2…no, let’s say 3…decades?
Perhaps it is because the cost of the extension could not be justified by existing demand or future projections at the time – even with the Sheppard line tailtrack already extending well beyond Yonge St.?
Frankly, I would have loved to see the line extended to Downsview back then. It would have made construction at Yonge & Sheppard easier since the links between the two lines could have been built in empty Downsview instead of at busy Yonge & Sheppard.
But the TTC was satisfied with building those costly Yonge-Sheppard rail connections then, preferring that to the extension to Downsview.
Again I ask, why?
Even with the potential of a cross-town link from Don Mills to York University, shifting trains to Wilson Yard and redeveloping the air rights over Davisville Yard, the TTC still does not mention the westwards extension from Sheppard to Downsview.
Why not?
Regards, Moaz Yusuf Ahmad
ps. Also, why not build a 3-way wye allowing travel along 3 branches (Spadina-York U-Vaughan, Spadina-Yonge-Don Mills and Don Mills-York U-Vaughan) instead of two (Spadina-York U-Vaughan & Spadina-Yonge-Don Mills).
Shouldn’t people be able to get a 1-seat trip from Vaughan to Don Mills and vice versa (with access to both the Yonge and Spadina lines)
I used to think the Downsview-Yonge section was a no brainer because of the savings from using Wilson Yard for train storage until Steve Munro pointed out how tricky it was going to be (and thus costly) to tunnel under the Humber.
iSkyscraper has published this map before but it would be better if he zoomed in on Downsview station and indicated the approach path of the subway.
It is difficult to see how a reasonable curve radius can be constructed which hits the station without substantial demolition north of Sheppard east of Wilson Heights, and the map he posted appears to miss it, joining south of Downsview without stopping there with Wilson being the interline station, or alternatively a Spadina Station-type walk between Downsview and the Sheppard line platform with again the interline. That’s fine, as long as that’s explicitly the plan and everyone realises that’s going to cost a chunk of $$$.
I think a reasonable alternative would be to create two interline stations, one at Downsview (platforms at right angles like Yonge-Bloor) with Sheppard West TTC/GO Transit being the point at which the lines run parallel (like St. George), either joining before that or between there and York U Station. This would allow the Sheppard trains to form part of the service between Downsview and Highway 7 where available paths will be created by the turning back of some trains further south because of expected Vaughan-downtown traffic levels. As long as the money is there, which right now it isn’t.
correction “west of Wilson Heights”
There is a remarkable aspect to this story which has not been commented on.
I remember in the 1990s a TTC subway expansion plan, which involved the full Sheppard Line, and Eglinton line, and a couple others. It was drafted under Bob Rae’s tenure as premier, and it died with the Mike Harris cuts. As I recallm, the conservatives argument was it was simply too expensive, and the dream of more people to fund it eventually may not materialize.
So, how very odd to find, almost 20 years later, that the next generation of political players have found their arguments inverted. Rob Ford, clearly a conservative of the Harris ilk is arguing for Subways as a key component of building a successful city… really: expenses be damned, we need those subways.
And the next generation of the liberal-socialist coalition finds itself in the position of arguing that costs need to be carefully considered and money should not be thrown at infrastructure without regard to the future, and especially not at pie-in-the-sky dreams.
For me, this is evidence that the debate over how to plan and build transit in Toronto has actually been remarkably successful, with both sides absorbing and adopting the talking points of the other.
R.
“In theory, a fiscally conservative mayor should care about building a transit line that could cough up a substantial operating deficit for decades to come. And, again in theory, a deficit-addled provincial regime should care about the TTC’s operating budget…”
Sheppard was a craven deal between North York mayor Lastman (developers) and “NDP” premier Rae (construction unions?), presumably abetted by TTC commissioner Al Leach (Conservatives).
Everyone knew it was a waste of money; the city’s official priority was actually Eglinton west and other light rail. So “in theory” indeed.
“When David Miller once threatened to mothball the Sheppard line as part of a budget cutting drive, city officials said the move would save about $10 million a year…”
Too bad he didn’t follow through. Once it was being built, at least one transit advocate advocated holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Lastman, Rae (and Leach, by then Mike Harris’s municipal interference minister), one ceremonial ride, and then turning the lights out. Then at least the money eaten by operating losses could be used for cost-effective transit — elsewhere.
“Politicians of all stripes routinely make the mistake of building infrastructure without first considering how to deal with the cost of running it.”
Not really — they know full well what the cost is. They just make sure to foist it on someone else, as soon as the ribbons are cut.
Al Leach (“North American Transit Manager of the year in 1994”) scrapped the formulas of provincial support for urban transit (50% of net operating costs, 75% of capital budget). Nothing unintentional about it.
Clarification: Leach was General Manager, not commissioner, of the TTC when the Sheppard subway was approved. And the Ontario cabinet minister in charge a couple of years later when the Harrisites scrapped transit (and housing) funding.
Their objective in this, in amanglemation (as HW calls it) and in other downloading of costs was to force municipalities, especially Toronto, to cut services and/or break unions. Again, nothing unintentional about it. Rob Edsel is the culmination of this strategy.
I’ll pay slightly more in taxes to run a better subway network. Bring on road tolls, lotteries, minor sales taxes, etc. Transit shouldn’t be expected to run a profit. We don’t expect that of expressways, so why is transit always held to such impossible standards?
Bring on the Sheppard subway, Downsview to Scarborough Centre! Let those newcomers in high-rises send their children to York University or downtown easily via subway. Build new transit-oriented communities. Let people get around the city quickly and efficiently using a proven mass transit system, the Toronto subway system. The Bloor-Danforth line is standing room only at 8 in the evening downtown. Let people buy affordable houses in Scarborough and travel to work on Yonge Street quickly and cheaply. Maximize the functionality of transportation in Toronto and stop making excuses for how it can’t be done.
Councillor Carroll, are you serious?
Let me ask you a question by paraphrasing your concerns……….
Been waiting all decade for someone to highlight the folly of the city’s Operating Burden implemented by the Miller team. The City of Toronto has continually tried to highlight the impending fiscal crisis in its budget expansion without intergovernmental commitment to offer some share of non municipal taxes. .The city provides traditional municipal services (not the downloaded ones) below cost. Each household in Toronto is subsidized by the non residential property tax payer. The city spends more than $5500 per household for traditional municipal services, all the while it collects only $2,300 on average. The ability to offer more and better services for far less tax (residents) is not magic, it is done by having the commercial/industrial/ multi residential taxpayer subsidise it. Continued growth in the residential assessment base still needs subsidy from a totally unwilling Province or Federal Government or other classes of property. That’s why the City is constantly scrambling to cover its operating budget. Residential is pretty much the only area of growth in the assessment base.
Your concern about covering the operating losses on Ford’s subway plan would have much more credibility if you would have done the same for the entire operating budget.
This dynamic is best explained by Dr. Peter Tomlinson ( ironic considering he used to work for the City) “To the degree that new residential development is causing a fiscal operating loss
for the City (i.e. tax revenue brought in by new development is less than added
operating costs needed to service that development), a higher residential tax rate
would reduce (or eliminate) this loss. The higher tax rate would increase the tax
revenue that new development brings in. The higher tax rate might also slow the
pace of residential development to some degree. If new development continues
to produce an operating loss even at the higher tax rate, a reduced pace of
residential development is fiscally beneficial.”