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Introducing Ask Torontoist
Several major GTA transit projects have been sitting in limbo awaiting federal funding for so long that if you weren't directly involved you might have forgotten they were ever announced.
Now everybody can all breathe a sigh of relief: an election is in the wind and Stephen Harper is going on a spending spree.
The biggest giftee is the $2 billion project that will extend the Spadina Subway up to York University and beyond into Vaughan, the proverbial "City Above Toronto." It's been years since the crazy idea was conceived and months since the provincial and municipal governments ponied-up their thirds of the funding. Since then they've been planning, making pretty drawings of stations and twiddling their thumbs, waiting on the feds to come through with the $700 million balance.
Construction on the subway could start by the summer, though it won't be fully operational for about seven years. In the meantime, you can expect Vaughan to get more of the 40-storey condo tower proposals they've been seeing and, just maybe, the beginning of the end of suburbia as we know it.
Local mayors are darned happy to have the cash, but they're still telling Harper that they need long-term funding (from the gas tax, perchance?) to actually develop a coherent transit system and other infrastructure.
Stéphane Dion has said that's what he would do (more or less) so you know there's an election a-comin'.
Other local plans getting the big bucks:
• York Region's Viva system has been waiting forever for the cash needed to construct median right-of-ways for their busses. Now it's finally happening.
• Missisauga is building a bus-only transitway along the 403.
• Brampton is implementing a program to improve bus service.
• $5 million to study rapid transit for Durham region.
• And, sorry transit lovers, an expansion of Highway 7 and an environmental assessment for extending Highway 407 eastwards..
Now all someone needs to do is tie it all together and figure out what exactly the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority does...
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I can think of a dozen other projects that I would rather see funded before the York subway, but I should relate this: my friend and I were talking about articulated buses and he asked me if I have ever seen 9 buses line up and leave completely full of people.
I admitted I hadn't and he said York is like that every single day. I mentioned maybe they could use articulated buses.
He kind of rolled his eyes and said, "Or a subway..."
The problem I have is that this just pushes more people onto the subway earlier on - meaning poor sods like myself who catch trains going downtown from say dupont will either have to shoe horn myself onboard, (thus causing delays) wait for train after train to pass until there is a space. I wonder how much usage that line is going to get on the weekend or off-peak hours (as opposed to a much needed downtown east-west line)
Yes, personally I would be very much more in favor of building the downtown relief line than making it easier to live in sprawl-land, which is what this project will do.
there are so many other ways you could spend on this
since this subway only serves the downtown people going to york and anyone near the vaughn coporate centre... otherwise ur out of luck
shouldve built it from downsview to steeles passing york, and then extend sheppard line to the west to downsview or something, then more people would use the subway and it would actually have some good use
I don't for the life of me understand why the the transit advocates here would oppose a subway which will greatly increase ridership by going where the commuters live (rather than, say, a congestion tax which would try to induce them to abandon their cars halfway through their journey). A new downtown subway would not have nearly the same effect - it would basically redistribute existing riders. Your downtown elitism significantly undercuts the points you are trying to make.
making it easier to live in sprawl-land
People will live there anyway. The majority in the GTA already do. (York Region long ago surpassed downtown Toronto in sheer numbers and the trend does not look good for downtown.)
I don't think "but what's in it for me" is a great strategy for getting better transit in Torontoist's catchment area. There are, just to make up an example that has nothing to do with your point, all sorts of people in the 905 who will never need, or even live near, a subway line that goes from Pape to Fort York. All of them have a vote as good as any of ours and (sad but true) many of them live in ridings that are actually contestable in the coming elections. Do we really want to see the results if we teach these folks it's perfectly okay to whine because there's a subway to Vaughan instead of the Skydome?
I'm a student at York and I live downtown--the TTC is my friend (who I sometimes hate, damn you 196!). I've debated the proposed subway with many of my fellow students, but I just don't know if that kind of expense can be justified. I think a dedicated bus lane or LRT would be a far better solution (also because I'll be long gone before the subway finally makes it to York).
I would like to know what stats the TTC has on ridership though, because I believe something like 40,000 of the 60,000 undergrads commute to York in some form. Couldn't this new line see more use than the good ol' Sheppard extension???
Getting hung up on 905 and 416 avoids asking whether this subway line really works from a ridership or financial perspective.
Obviously the existing transit service to York is insufficient, but presuming that a subway is the next logical step does not automatically follow -- not if you're really concerned about the money that's to be spent. Or transit riders as a whole.
It's logical to design an appropriate level of transit for the expected ridership and population in a particular corridor. Maybe this quadrant of the GTA will someday generate the riders to justify spending $100 million per kilometer, but not in 20 to 30 years.
It's simply too much capacity coming too far in the future -- and that's irresponsible considering the high crowding on existing lines downtown, in Scarborough, in Etobicoke, in Mississauga and elsewhere in North York.
There are corridors in these areas that merit rapid bus or light rail transit on traffic-free routes, long before York merits a subway. Only the projects from Brampton and York Region included in this funding package begin to address real, current transit needs in a practical way.
How would you serve those among York U's 60,000 coming from the east and west? With the planned subway, many would no longer be able to travel directly to the centre of campus -- but be required to transfer to the subway for one or two stops. Transfers add time and inconvenience -- making transit less attractive compared to the car -- especially in 905.
Doesn't York's ad campaign go something like 'Examine every angle...' ?
I'm cautiously optimistic about this project. While I'd love to see an east/west King/Queen subway line, it's likely a pipe dream. I think what this will hinge on is: will this just make it easier, as Kevin points out, for people to live in "sprawl land", or, will it cause the densifying of Vaughan in the form of a new "downtown". Remember the series the Star ran a couple of years back about the plans for mini downtowns around the GTA all linked up via bus lines, light rail, and subways? I thought it was very promising: maybe this the beginning of it. Really, I have no problem if a bunch of 40-50 story condos goes up around the Vaughan station. Isn't that what we're aiming for?
I liked that Adam Giambrone is in favour of scrapping the extension beyond York U in favour of extending (fixing) the Sheppard and doing more LRT but being NDP he doesn't have to worry about a party line - Liberal and Tory politicians will not see any problem with it...
I don't for the life of me understand why the the transit advocates here would oppose a subway which will greatly increase ridership
That's the thing - it doesn't greatly increase ridership. Read the posts here to get an idea of why the money could be better spent elsewhere:
www.stevemunro.ca/index.php?cat=9
I seriously hope that this decision doesn't go through. If you want to live in the boonies then thats a decision that you made and you shouldn't expect an already transit overburdened city of Toronto to shift a large chunk of their transit budget so that the Harper government can appease their 905 voters. Finish the Sheppard subway or build a bunch of LRT's criss crossing the city that can actually alleviate transit congestion in the core.
Rather than spending 6bn on 6km of subway, why not add stops along the existing Go Train lines?
Instead, why not make the Bradford line a stopping line
I live on the subway, so it would benefit me more personally to have it extended, but better using the existing mass transit corridors seems such a Quick Win that this plan surely deserves serious study.