[Transit]

At Don Valley Station, Metrolinx has closed the elevator between the bus terminal and the concourse level for Ontario Line construction.

At the time of this post; Monday, February 9th at 11:50 am, the only public notifications are located inside the station at the concourse and bus terminal levels.

The elevator closure is not listed on www.ttc.ca.

Pictures taken on Sunday, February 8th at 10:40 am.

 

[nfitz]

The CBC had a live blog of this morning's Line 5 service. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/livestory/line-5-lrt-eglinton-crosstown-opening-9.7077945

100% positive - I guess, unlike here, they couldn't find anyone with negative comments.

Perhaps because CBC was talking to people who'd actually ride Line 5!

 

[Thaboss]

I'd say the vast majority of comments here have been positive to bery positive. Especially about the underground sections.

also, give it time. There will be legitimate issues that bubble to the surface, such as frequent emergency breaking due to intrusions.

The CBC had a live blog of this morning's Line 5 service. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/livestory/line-5-lrt-eglinton-crosstown-opening-9.7077945

100% positive - I guess, unlike here, they couldn't find anyone with negative comments.

Perhaps because CBC was

 

[christine]

This is fanfic my dude.

He didn't "have the money". He cancelled a bunch of other projects and then asked the province to reallocate it to the project he wanted.

The province said "no", in part because Ford had demonstrated that the city was an unreliable partner, and partially because other levels of government don't take marching orders from the Mayor of Toronto.

The province offered him an olive branch by offering him an extra $2 billion so Sheppard would be a success if the east end was reverted to at grade. But his stubbornness on this point killed his Sheppard plan.

There's a lot of misinformation and rose-tinted glasses about the Ford's and their view of transit expansion. And the money being spent on current projects has spoiled us to believe getting money for transit is as easy as typing FUND on a Google maps screen. Not to mention we seem to allow politicians to make decisions that often ignore (or cherry pick info from) the experts who's jobs are to help research and develop these projects. And by experts I mean people who have the educational background and/or experience in this type of planning, not people with YouTube channels or consultants hocking snake oil.

 

[Westey]

The province offered him an olive branch by offering him an extra $2 billion so Sheppard would be a success if the east end was reverted to at grade. But his stubbornness on this point killed his Sheppard plan.

If only Sheppard, from Don Mills to Morningside, had transit as good as Finch West.

 

[Westey]

Building the whole line as a tunnelled subway would have been crazy expensive, but of course that's not the only option. The eastern part could have been elevated, like the Ontario Line, REM, or Skytrain. For that matter, the western extension from Mt Dennis to Renforth should also be elevated instead of tunnelled. I would be very interested to see a cost comparison of elevating both the east and the west vs. the current weirdness of building the east as a tramway and putting the west in a tunnel.

I think the question was posed to Metrolinx and they said both cut-and-cover and elevated would either be more expensive or not technically feasible.
Translation - they had no problems lying to build what the Provincial Gov't wanted.

 

[SkyScraaaper]

Ummm, I'm as critical of Line 5 as anyone......but your sense of cost needs some tweaks.

The lowest tunnel cost anywhere in the world is 200M per km currently, and the average much higher.

That would get you over the 2B mark, w/o the surface section, the stations, the MSF and the rolling stock.

Over 10km of tunnel, 19km route length, 25 stations stops, 15 underground.

The cheapest you could get would be in the 9B range and that's unrealistic.

***

Yes, the stations could be finished more nicely, no question. But that doesn't get you an 80% price discount.

Fair enough, I'm older too, so maybe my sense of inflation isn't as good as it should be. I'm just so so disappointed for what we received as taxpayers for the cost. I still believe we should audit this project and if only to make sure we never have this happen again.

 

[Northern Light]

Fair enough, I'm older too, so maybe my sense of inflation isn't as good as it should be. I'm just so so disappointed for what we received as taxpayers for the cost. I still believe we should audit this project and if only to make sure we never have this happen again.

I get the disappointment. However, I would say, I think we all know from discussions here what went wrong.

At the earliest stages of design, politics made a hash of things.

The P3 process was utter nonsense.

Some City staff, when those in a working group pointed out design flaws, declined to reopen the matter, be it out of laziness or ego.

The P3 consortium, by their own admission, miscalculated a number of things and failed to own up to taking the hit for that; meanwhile, Mx was headed by someone who was nothing short of temperamental jerk who never
met a problem he couldn't make worse.

There are some details we could nitpick, but fundamentally those aren't the big let downs, nor the big cost drivers. Bad process, poor leadership and oversight, both bureaucratic and political got us here. I'm afraid that an audit will not only not un-do any damages, but won't mitigate any in the future either.

I could show you countless Auditor General's reports whose recommendations were never followed going back decades.

We simply need to demand better, in real time, not await a report 2 years from now that will likely gather dust.

its when people are hot about the issue that change is possible.

 

[hw621]

Ummm, I'm as critical of Line 5 as anyone......but your sense of cost needs some tweaks.

The lowest tunnel cost anywhere in the world is 200M per km currently, and the average much higher.

That would get you over the 2B mark, w/o the surface section, the stations, the MSF and the rolling stock.

Over 10km of tunnel, 19km route length, 25 stations stops, 15 underground.

The cheapest you could get would be in the 9B range and that's unrealistic.

***

Yes, the stations could be finished more nicely, no question. But that doesn't get you an 80% price discount.

Are those costs of a full subway, or a light metro like Line 5?

 

[nfitz]

I'd say the vast majority of comments here have been positive to bery positive. Especially about the underground sections.

Ultimately - it was very negative for the first 2 or 3 hours after opening - but those folks seem to have gone quiet about how slow it is.

There will be legitimate issues that bubble to the surface, such as frequent emergency breaking due to intrusions.

I'm sure there'll be issues - there always is. Braking might be an issue too, in addition to it breaking!

Are those costs of a full subway, or a light metro like Line 5?

The cost of Line 5 from Laird to Weston should be similar to a full subway like Line 4 is now. Stations wouldn't be cheaper, and the tunnel for the LRT is bigger than the subway, because of the catenary.

 

[robmausser]

The P3 process was utter nonsense.

The Crosstown was basically a P5 process as I call it. There were too many cooks in the kitchen. Too much involvement from every branch of government and Crosslinx.

Its my opinion that either a P3 should be a complete hand off of a project to a private firm, including maintenance and operation, with strict contracts dictating what the intended outcome objectives need to be, or don't bother outsourcing the work at all.

This whole half assed P3, where every person gets a tiny little say in every aspect of the project was a disaster for obvious reasons. Not only for delaying the project and creating cost over runs, but everyone can point fingers and blame everyone else when things go tits up.

 

[Northern Light]

Are those costs of a full subway, or a light metro like Line 5?

Tunnel costs the same. Tunnel construction costs are agnostic of vehicle type
they vary by technique (ie cut and cover vs bored) and by depth as well as under pinning needs where applicable.

Station costs are a bit smaller with smaller trains due to reduced length of platform, but its only about a 15-20% savings per station when fixed costs are considered. The big way to cut costs on stations is to have them be shallow. But you can't do that if the tunnel is deep.

 

[robmausser]

Are those costs of a full subway, or a light metro like Line 5?

Thats basically irrelevant. The immense cost of subterranean transit is due to the tunnelling, whether its a light metro, LRT or heavy rail system that rides in it barely affects the cost.

 

[nightstreak]

First impression of Line 5

I guess they haven’t found a budget to hire caretaker staff.

Snark aside, is this going to be a problem? The TTC was already operating in the red, short tens of millions each year, is the supposed new ridership going to be enough to cover running 2 new lines? What about the Ontario Line? Where are the operating funds going to come from?

Added thought: Perhaps fare evasion could lessen because fewer people will be accessing the TTC via POP (buses) and more through fare gates. Certainly not enough to operate these new lines.

 

[nfitz]

Station costs are a bit smaller with smaller trains due to reduced length of platform, but its only about a 15-20% savings per station when fixed costs are considered.

Can't a 90-metre (100-metre?) platform be a full subway. That's all we are getting on the Ontario Line - but with the design for a 90-second frequency, it would exceed the current capacity of Line 2.