Move Toronto
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Comments on Save Our Subways Proposal Move Toronto By Steve Munro February 6, 2010 These comments are organized roughly in the sequence of the Move Toronto paper. Although variations and alternatives have appeared in other locations, notably threads on the UrbanToronto website, I have not attempted to address these as they are (a) a moving target and (b) not necessarily the formal position of the Save Our Subways group. I believe that Move Toronto contains many flaws arising from an underlying desire to justify a subway network just as critics of Transit City argue against its focus on LRT. Among my major concerns are: • Subway lines are consistently underpriced. • LRT is dismissed as an inferior quality of service with statements more akin to streetcar lines than a true LRT implementation. • Having used every penny to build the subway network, Move Toronto proposes a network of BRT lines for the leftover routes. However, this “network” is in fact little more than the addition of traffic signal priority and queue jump lanes (“BRT Light”) on almost all of the BRT “network”. • Parts of the BRT network suggest that the authors lack familiarity with the affected neighbourhoods and travel patterns. • There is no financial analysis of the life-cycle cost of building and operating routes with subway technology even though demand is unlikely to reach subway levels within the lifetime of some of the infrastructure. Why Not Transit City? This section starts off the discussion with a number of points: • Transit City is all LRT, and this one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate technologically or financially. • Transit City is focussed on the suburbs and does not address travel to downtown where it is really needed. • Transit City does not connect major transit hubs and growth centres. • Transit City imposes transfers that will be a considerable inconvenience for future riders. I will address some of these points elsewhere, but a few general comments. Transit City was conceived in the context of projected demand levels for suburban routes that are very much lower than those normally associated with subways, but higher than can be handled by buses (even BRT in the physical context of existing streets). Money will always be found for high profile projects like the subways to York Region, but not for "in town" lines with the exception of Eglinton that is seen as a regional facility because of its length. Commentary on Save Our Subways “Move Toronto” Proposal Page 1 Transit City never intended to address travel to the core area as that function has been left primarily to GO Transit, but to provide higher capacity and somewhat higher speed service to the growing suburban 416 areas. It is totally inappropriate to criticize a plan for omitting something for which it was never intended. Indeed, a better target would be Metrolinx whose Big Move has gaping holes in the ability to serve local travel within municipalities. The focus on Transit City and the absence of corresponding comments about The Big Move gives the impression of selective criticism. Major hubs and growth centres, unfortunately, are located where it has been convenient to access the road network, or in some cases, simply because a developer assembled land, and a pliant Council approved their plans decades ago. Connecting every node will be difficult in any network, and the challenge is to make the best of the situation. Transit systems have artificial nodes serving only as major interchange points, but with little or no development immediately nearby now, or in some cases, for the foreseeable future. Compare Wilson Station to Eglinton Station. Debates continue on whether a “Mobility Hub” should be a parking lot or a residential/commercial development around a major transit station. There is a TTC myth that stations stimulate development making rapid transit construction viable. Look at the many stations on both YUS and BD that have little or no development around them and never will. The bulk of the high demand on these lines comes from surface feeder routes, not from walk-in trade. By contrast, the goal for at least some parts of the TC network is to encourage medium density development along a route, and to build infrastructure at a level that does not depend on a very large catchment area served by bus feeder routes. Transfers are a fact of life in a transit system and, properly used, a great strength by comparison with attempts to give one seat rides to every traveller. The debate here is about locations where those transfers should be imposed on the network, and whether removing them is a substantial benefit to riders and to the network's attractiveness. Transfers at Kennedy and Don Mills are singled out for special mention as “inconvenient”. This is a direct result of the poor design of both terminals which require long walks through multiple levels to make the connections. Both of these will be addressed in the new station designs. At Kennedy, the LRT connections will likely be at the mezzanine level, one above the subway and immediately adjacent to it. At Don Mills, the LRT will serve an extended platform at the same level as the subway. Yes, there will still be transfers, but the existing designs should not be used to disparage the future network. Commentary on Save Our Subways “Move Toronto” Proposal Page 2 Why Move Toronto? As an alternative, Move Toronto proposes: • An Eglinton subway first from Don Mills to the Airport, with a later extension east to Kingston Road • The Downtown Relief Line (DRL) first east to Don Mills and Eglinton from downtown, later to the northwest via the rail corridor to Weston/Eglinton • Extension of the Bloor-Danforth line to Scarborough Town Centre (STC) and Sherway, with a later extension to Mississauga's Square One • Extension of the Sheppard line east to STC and west to Downsview • Extension of the Yonge-University-Spadina line to Vaughan and to Richmond Hill • Use of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as a lower-cost alternative to LRT in other corridors Of the proposed subway extensions, only the line to Vaughan is funded at present, and all other lines would require either new or reallocated funding. The Downtown Relief Line As I said above, I agree that the DRL east should be built north to Eglinton. The basic premise is that the south end of the Don Mills LRT will have to be completely grade separated anyhow, and it might as well be part of a DRL. This configuration would make Don Mills and Eglinton station (regardless of technologies) a major transit node. That has a big advantage in the network generally because it splits this function off from the cramped stations on the Danforth Subway (Pape is the proposed interchange point, but others are possible). The DRL east also benefits the Bloor-Yonge interchange by removing transfer traffic and lowering demand on the Yonge line below Bloor. The proposed expansion of Bloor-Yonge, one of the most outlandish schemes the TTC has ever come up with, would also be saved, and this (both the hard budget dollars and the softer "cost" of disrupting a major junction for years) value can also be used to offset the DRL's construction. Two related but unfunded projects are obviously part of the equation: the Yonge subway extension to Richmond Hill and Metrolinx' proposed "regional express" rail service to the same location. There is some debate about the physical constructability of the Metrolinx proposal, and it is not part of their short-term plans. Whether it will survive the current budget crisis and funding needs elsewhere (electrification) remains to be seen. The DRL west is proposed to run in the rail corridor. This runs headlong into both the problems of usage (urban transit vs mainline rail, vehicle crash strength, etc.) and the infamous Air-Rail link (aka Blue 22) which would use the same space where the DRL might go. For all my supposed influence, I and many others have been unsuccessful in even getting a public discussion started about the folly of Blue 22, the resources expended on it, and the stupidity of putting a premium fare service in a corridor that should be handling regular transit customers. The private partner, SNC Lavalin, has the government so tied in knots, and the push to get anything built to the airport before the Pan Am Games is so strong, that nobody will touch this issue. Oddly Commentary on Save Our Subways “Move Toronto” Proposal Page 3 enough, neither SOS nor any of the mayoral candidates has attacked this waste of public resources (the corridor's physical capacity) nor the highjacking of an important link to serve a very limited market. I am less convinced of the need for a DRL west per se because: • DRL west provides less of a "relief" function than the east leg because it intercepts the BD line further from the core and because it partly duplicates the Spadina-University line's function which has no equivalent east of Yonge. • If GO Transit's and the TTC's fare structures are properly integrated, and if a good electrified GO service operates in the Weston corridor, it will provide the equivalent function with a better reach than a subway line ending at Eglinton. • I believe that the DRL east should not connect into the existing network at Union Station which will have great difficulty just handling the proposed commuter rail upgrades in the Metrolinx plans. • A western route out of downtown from anywhere other than Union Station is more difficult than an eastern one.