{"id":18158,"date":"2011-02-23T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T13:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=18158"},"modified":"2013-01-21T15:16:31","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T20:16:31","slug":"lorinc-subways-in-the-suburbs-a-contrarian-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/02\/23\/lorinc-subways-in-the-suburbs-a-contrarian-view\/","title":{"rendered":"LORINC: Subways in the suburbs, a contrarian view"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Between 1954 and 1980, Toronto built two subway lines with 62 stations and 55 km of track. Between 1980 and 2018, by which time the Spadina extension to Vaughan will be complete, we\u2019ll have constructed just 19 new stations and only 22 km of track (Downsview up to Vaughan and the Sheppard stubway).<\/p>\n

Do the math and you discover that during those initial 26 years, we created subways at a speed of about 2 km per year. Over the subsequent five decades, however, the pace slackened to less than half a kilometer per year. Between 1990 and 2020, in turn, Toronto will have constructed about 36 km of dedicated light rail line, or about 1.9 km\/yr, about half of which (the Eglinton Crosstown LRT) is provincially funded and will function much like a subway for much of its length.<\/p>\n

Project forward over the coming century, and Toronto will have built about 45 km of additional subway tunnels by 2111, assuming we continue at the current rate. Madrid managed the same feat in about a decade; it is still building tunnels.<\/p>\n

Why should we be thinking so far ahead? All great urban infrastructure \u2014 sewers, pipes, bridges, highways, etc. \u2014 exists in a kind of time warp that defies both politics and biology because it endures for such long periods.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The earliest subways \u2014 London, Budapest, New York, and Paris — all date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but they continue to define those cities in the 21st. To paraphrase Zhou En Lai\u2019s famous wisecrack<\/a> about the impact of the French Revolution, it may be too soon to say precisely how subways affect urban form and the behaviour of city-dwellers. But cities with extended rapid transit networks (subways, LRTs, commuter rail) also seem to get denser over time.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d argue that the much-maligned Sheppard line is already proving the point. Despite considerable zoning obstacles, the stretch from Downview to Don Mills has seen a surge of mid- and high-density development since the Sheppard stubway went into service in 2001 \u2014 16 of the 19 apartment complexes along that stretch have opened since 2003, according to market research firm Urbanation, and there are presently ten projects with 2,200 units in the pipeline or under construction.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Sheppard subway is seriously under-used right now, and represents a drain on the TTC\u2019s operating budget.<\/p>\n

Will it ever be thus?<\/p>\n

Absent concerted efforts to significantly boost densities along the route proposed by Mayor Rob Ford, there\u2019s little doubt that a conventionally-developed Sheppard line will remain under-used for decades, draining resources from the rest of the TTC.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d argue that we should resist the temptation to reflexively dismiss Ford\u2019s pitch last week to finance the line by auctioning off the project to a private consortium while aggressively promoting corridor intensification as an inducement to builders and crystallizing the value of all that up-zoning with transit-oriented development charges and some kind tax increment financing scheme.<\/p>\n

There are lots of solid reasons to be skeptical about this gamble, and many pieces need to fall into place<\/a> before the city can even think about soliciting tenders.<\/p>\n

For all that, I\u2019d like to throw out the following caveats:<\/p>\n

One, there\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with the idea that Sheppard should be re-designated as a high density arterial from Downsview over to Kennedy\/Midland. Look at Bay south of Davenport or Yonge north of 401. We\u2019ve done this sort of thing before, including in suburban settings. If Ford and his council have the guts to push through high-density zoning in the inner suburbs, I have no issue with that.<\/p>\n

Two, the building industry should<\/em> be shouldering part of the cost of this kind of infrastructure. Developers in the past decade have made fortunes erecting high-rises within the 416, but the city has been exceedingly tentative about asking them to help pay for the costs associated with increasing population density. If Ford and his council have the jam to stare down the building industry by imposing appropriate development charges, I have no problem with that, either.<\/p>\n

Three, the political process that created subways between 1954 and 1980 has generated nothing but gridlock ever since. If Ford thinks he can entice private capital by using suburban intensification as the carrot, and if the city can guarantee a professionally managed tendering process with crystal clear objectives, maybe we should give this experiment a shot.<\/p>\n

For the record, I did not spend the long-weekend in the thrall of some kind of free market hallucinatory agent. This transformation will take a very<\/em> long time (North York City Centre took three decades to gestate). What\u2019s more, it is entirely plausible that a private consortium may dig itself in with a long-term deal and then turn around and ask for more cash if the promised development doesn\u2019t materialize.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if the city can concoct a model that relies on a witch\u2019s brew of subways, private capital and urban-minded up-zoning to goose densities in a carbon-addled suburban landscape, the reward may be worth the risk.<\/p>\n

After all, do we really want Scarborough (or North York or Etobicoke, for that matter) circa 2111 to look and function the way it does in 2011?<\/p>\n

And if not, what must the city do to alter its increasingly congested destiny?<\/p>\n

photo by Wylie Poon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between 1954 and 1980, Toronto built two subway lines with 62 stations and 55 km of track. Between 1980 and 2018, by which time the Spadina extension to Vaughan will be complete, we\u2019ll have constructed just 19 new stations and only 22 km of track (Downsview up to Vaughan and the Sheppard stubway). Do theContinue reading “LORINC: Subways in the suburbs, a contrarian view”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,20],"tags":[4811,607,2676,91,17112,359,5386,426,469,4659,470,227,89,1631,75,19,4446,3613,8263,496],"class_list":["post-18158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transit","category-urban-design","tag-budapest","tag-davenport","tag-don-mills","tag-etobicoke","tag-extended-rapid-transit-networks","tag-london","tag-madrid","tag-mayor","tag-new-york","tag-north-york-city-centre","tag-paris","tag-rob-ford","tag-scarborough","tag-sheppard-subway","tag-suburbs","tag-toronto","tag-urban-infrastructure","tag-urbanation","tag-wylie-poon","tag-york"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLORINC: Subways in the suburbs, a contrarian view - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2011\/02\/23\/lorinc-subways-in-the-suburbs-a-contrarian-view\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORINC: Subways in the suburbs, a contrarian view - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Between 1954 and 1980, Toronto built two subway lines with 62 stations and 55 km of track. 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