[TheTigerMaster]

When Metrolinx deferred the connection from Mount Dennis to Pearson to an unfunded Phase 2, back in 2010, the priced the connection to Renforth at $467 million. Hard to see why it need be $1.5 billion now.

I'm surprised it's so low, and I'm puzzled to understand how it could be that low

Looking at the Crosstown EA, the distance of the preferred alignment between Mt Dennis and Pearson was more than 12 km. This distance does not include the price of the interface with Pearson, which might include an overpass. The price of the Finch West LRT is $90 million/km in 2008 . That results in $1.1 Billion for this extension. Inflation should add $200M to 300M to that.

The ECLRT extension won't require a new MSF, so that cost needs to be subtracted. How much would the MSF cost? Leslie Barns was estimated at $350 Million and went up to $500 Million because of overruns. SELRT's MSF is $333 Million. I haven't seen a price for ECLRT's.

Also need to factor in the Pearson interface, which wasn't studied and the cost of new LRVs. How much that would cost is anybody's guess. All this considered, I'd guesstimate about $1 Billion on the low end, $1.5 on the high

Edit: the low dollar would increase the price as well.

 

[Steve X]

The commuting demand in Etobicoke is different. It's faster to commute to the Bloor Danforth Subway than to travel across the city to the Spadina Line.

The demands in the above figure makes a lot of sense. We can see that the 32 Eglinton West route only has the 32A branch west of Jane. The same goes for the 52 Lawrence West west of Weston Rd. Eglinton becomes sort of an at-grade expressway west of Jane instead of the commercial strip road. Eglinton in Etobicoke just looks different than in the old borough of York.

The 45 Kipling or 37 Islington bus takes about 10-12 minutes from Eglinton oppose to 16-20 min. from with the 35/195 Jane and 20-25 min. with the 41 Keele and 89 Weston Rd. The LRT won't attract a lot of riders to transfer unless it takes the same amount of time as going to the Bloor subway stations. There is a chance that capacity constraints on the Yonge Line might change commuting patterns. Riders traveling to/from the airport might add to the demand.

 

[sixrings]

I am curious to see the ridership numbers for all of TC. The east portion of Eglinton, Finch and Sheppard. Those townhouses are not the only thing on Eglinton being developed. Here is an additional 5 towers (http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/4000-eglinton-ave-w-33s-30s-27s-24s-18s.24813/) Pretty sure once the LRT comes all that land to the north of Eglinton will be sold and redeveloped. So whatever those numbers were may need to be readjusted for what is happening today and what will happen tomorrow. Steve Munro never has said that this part of Eglinton was the waste of money some are pointing it out to be.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Eglinton West is better than this subway (which should have been ended at York U) but we should push for it now. We need a second crosstown. We can't have people keep going down to bloor every single time.

 

[nfitz]

I'm surprised it's so low, and I'm puzzled to understand how it could be that low

Looking at the Crosstown EA, the distance of the preferred alignment between Mt Dennis and Pearson was more than 12 km. This distance does not include the price of the interface with Pearson, which might include an overpass. The price of the Finch West LRT is $90 million/km in 2008 . That results in $1.1 Billion for this extension. Inflation should add $200M to 300M to that.

The ECLRT extension won't require a new MSF, so that cost needs to be subtracted. How much would the MSF cost? Leslie Barns was estimated at $350 Million and went up to $500 Million because of overruns. SELRT's MSF is $333 Million. I haven't seen a price for ECLRT's.

Also need to factor in the Pearson interface, which wasn't studied and the cost of new LRVs. How much that would cost is anybody's guess. All this considered, I'd guesstimate about $1 Billion on the low end, $1.5 on the high.

The $467 million was for less than 8 km from Jane to Renforth (they later moved the terminus back to Mount Dennis, so that would add another kilometre). No car house, no complex entry to Pearson.

Renforth to Pearson is another issue, but SmartTrack was proposed to terminate at Renforth, not Pearson. Being almost entirely (and perhaps totally) in Mississauga, it's not something the City of Toronto will be funding.

 

[crs1026]

The 45 Kipling or 37 Islington bus takes about 10-12 minutes from Eglinton oppose to 16-20 min. from with the 35/195 Jane and 20-25 min. with the 41 Keele and 89 Weston Rd. The LRT won't attract a lot of riders to transfer unless it takes the same amount of time as going to the Bloor subway stations. There is a chance that capacity constraints on the Yonge Line might change commuting patterns. Riders traveling to/from the airport might add to the demand.

I agree that it's a short trip from Eglinton to Bloor today, but anyone coming from Rexdale or beyond has a long ride down. Kipling is about to get ugly, when Six points becomes a flat intersection and more condos go up. Same with Royal York, which is two lanes and about to see development at Humbertown and along Dundas. Travel times will get longer.

If ST/RER came to Islington - not a stretch, since the fourth track is already in place Rogers to Nickle and Weston Road to Islington, requiring only a short addition Nickle to Weston Road, you'd pull all the Rexdale to Bloor ridership onto ST. Put an express bus on Dixon to RER/ST, and you have mitigated the need for ECLRT to go to the airport at all. Let Miway figure out Renforth to the Airport. You'd want to accelerate the last bit of the Mississauga busway to Renforth.

I wonder how much the cost went up when Toronto sold the land that could have allowed an off-road alignment. If the extension goes ahead, I hope they really explore how to not utilise a center of road design - nothing will kill LRT in this city like building more streetcar type trackage that chokes auto traffic. Eglinton West has this risk.

- Paul

 

[sixrings]

Whatever happened to building a network. I miss transit city

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Two reasons why many passengers do not board the 32A Eglinton West from Etobicoke, unless they have to, at the moment. One, construction and traffic congestion on Eglinton. Two, no express bus on Eglinton West. Instead, they board the southbound buses to get to the 2 Bloor-Danforth line. Unfortunately, getting a seat on the 1 Yonge-University subway transfer would be difficult doing so at St. George Station.

Once they open the first phase of the Crosstown LRT, there will be many people boarding the feeder buses to the LRT. Even more when the extension opens. However, the northern areas of Etobicoke may start to use the Finch West LRT more, when that line opens. More chance of getting a seat on the Spadina leg of the 1 Yonge-University line at the Finch West Station (or whatever name they will call it on the Finch West LRT).

 

[crs1026]

I know why people want a TTC rail connection to the airport, but it needs to be understood that the kind of travel that happens at airports are not congruent with mass transit systems. A subway/LRT connection to Pearson is more symbolism than it is sound planning.

Hmmm. I wonder if Heathrow, Charles De Gaulle, Midway, O'Hare, Leonardo da Vinci, etc, etc would endorse this statement.

I can agree that air travellers who live in the dense population area around Yonge/Eglinton probably aren't eager to get on a tram just yet, even if it goes all the way versus dumping them off at Mount Dennis to transfer to a bus. For now, anyways. But the 192 from Kipling sure pulls in good ridership.

The vexing thing for Toronto is - if we start at the Airport and plan eastwards, where should a mass transit system aim to maximise ridership, take the most cars off the roads, and do the most good? Would a Finch LRT extension do better than Eglinton? Would a link to Kipling/Bloor (as envisioned decades ago) do better still? I really don't have a good answer to this one. Do we want to take a billion dollars and place a bet? If we picked on and built, would they come?

The key question is, how much do we care. How high would we place this billion dollar bet in our infrastructure bucket list?

As we discuss northwest Etobicoke, we seem to be assuming that the peak ridership (which is what we base decisions for rail transit on) consists of people travelling to downtown. So we are analysing whether we can get them to the Spadina line versus the Bloor line. I think we may be going in the wrong direction here. Certainly, looking at the non-dense suburban areas close to Eglinton, there are many upper middle class people there who work downtown. But the people who are on the bus coming from the north end are more likely heading to other employment areas elsewhere.

For the west end, especially north of Eglinton, the 'network' goal may be more valid than the 'bring more people downtown' goal.

Do we have any actual data on this?

- Paul

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Hmmm. I wonder if Heathrow, Charles De Gaulle, Midway, O'Hare, Leonardo da Vinci, etc, etc would endorse this statement.

I can agree that air travellers who live in the dense population area around Yonge/Eglinton probably aren't eager to get on a tram just yet, even if it goes all the way versus dumping them off at Mount Dennis to transfer to a bus. For now, anyways. But the 192 from Kipling sure pulls in good ridership.

The vexing thing for Toronto is - if we start at the Airport and plan eastwards, where should a mass transit system aim to maximise ridership, take the most cars off the roads, and do the most good? Would a Finch LRT extension do better than Eglinton? Would a link to Kipling/Bloor (as envisioned decades ago) do better still? I really don't have a good answer to this one. Do we want to take a billion dollars and place a bet? If we picked on and built, would they come?

The key question is, how much do we care. How high would we place this billion dollar bet in our infrastructure bucket list?

As we discuss northwest Etobicoke, we seem to be assuming that the peak ridership (which is what we base decisions for rail transit on) consists of people travelling to downtown. So we are analysing whether we can get them to the Spadina line versus the Bloor line. I think we may be going in the wrong direction here. Certainly, looking at the non-dense suburban areas close to Eglinton, there are many upper middle class people there who work downtown. But the people who are on the bus coming from the north end are more likely heading to other employment areas elsewhere.

For the west end, especially north of Eglinton, the 'network' goal may be more valid than the 'bring more people downtown' goal.

Do we have any actual data on this?

- Paul

Actual data on what exactly?

As was discussed before, the EA had zero people travelling from Pearson airport via ECLRT at peak hour. I doubt Finch would have been any better since there are fewer destinations along Finch than Eglinton.

 

[Steve X]

Two reasons why many passengers do not board the 32A Eglinton West from Etobicoke, unless they have to, at the moment. One, construction and traffic congestion on Eglinton. Two, no express bus on Eglinton West. Instead, they board the southbound buses to get to the 2 Bloor-Danforth line. Unfortunately, getting a seat on the 1 Yonge-University subway transfer would be difficult doing so at St. George Station.

Once they open the first phase of the Crosstown LRT, there will be many people boarding the feeder buses to the LRT. Even more when the extension opens. However, the northern areas of Etobicoke may start to use the Finch West LRT more, when that line opens. More chance of getting a seat on the Spadina leg of the 1 Yonge-University line at the Finch West Station (or whatever name they will call it on the Finch West LRT).

The 32A Eglinton West isn't reliable. It sometimes don't show up.

The problem with the LRT design is the waiting area. If it's easy to transfer with waiting areas, riders are more likely to transfer.

The problem of getting a seat will come back to bite you. If buses start running from the Bloor-Danforth Line, they'll be very pack at Eglinton.

As we discuss northwest Etobicoke, we seem to be assuming that the peak ridership (which is what we base decisions for rail transit on) consists of people travelling to downtown. So we are analysing whether we can get them to the Spadina line versus the Bloor line. I think we may be going in the wrong direction here. Certainly, looking at the non-dense suburban areas close to Eglinton, there are many upper middle class people there who work downtown. But the people who are on the bus coming from the north end are more likely heading to other employment areas elsewhere.


- Paul

Riders in Northern Etobicoke would rather ride the Finch West LRT across to Finch West Station at Keele than to Eglinton and across to Eglinton West Station at Allen. The intention of LRT was to developed the whole corridor and increase local ridership. Townhouses are going up now even without the LRT.

 

[ehlow]

New renderings for some stations are on http://www.thecrosstown.ca/the-project/stations-and-stops

Also some info about bike parking

 

[crs1026]

Actual data on what exactly?

Is there data showing where the ridership that is a potential transfer to Eglinton from north-south routes in Etobicoke is going.

My curiosity being - We know from the data that ECLRT-West trips to the airport will be low. Is there another potential ridership that we are missing? Can we find this in the north-south bus ridership who are believed (I'm wondering if this is fact, or assumption) to transfer to the Bloor subway?

- If there are people who would go east on Eglinton if the trip were faster, ECLRT offers them something. This business might grow and the west extension might be justified.
- If they are headed to lower downtown, then east on Eglinton offers them something as they can take ST downtown rather than via Bloor. That ridership segment might be growable.
- But if (as I suspect) the north=south bus riders are headed elsewhere again, transfer to Eglinton offers them nothing and there is no potential ridership growth.

We seem to be assuming with both Finch and Eglinton that the demand is tied to getting downtown, and I'm just questioning that assumption.

- Paul

 

[BurlOak]

Actual data on what exactly?

As was discussed before, the EA had zero people travelling from Pearson airport via ECLRT at peak hour. I doubt Finch would have been any better since there are fewer destinations along Finch than Eglinton.

This maybe shows how flawed the EA study was. Pearson has hundreds of shifts with workers starting and finishing at all hours of the day. Also imagine if employee parking rates went up (maybe because of some city bringing in a parking levee), a lot of employees would be looking for alternate ways to get to YYZ.

Riders in Northern Etobicoke would rather ride the Finch West LRT across to Finch West Station at Keele than to Eglinton and across to Eglinton West Station at Allen. The intention of LRT was to developed the whole corridor and increase local ridership. Townhouses are going up now even without the LRT.

People on Finch will take the FWLRT, but there is a lot of area between Eglinton and Finch. Anyone living on a north-south road south of Finch will go south to Eglinton.

 

[Hopkins123]

Are we really discussing not building any form of rapid transit west of Mt Dennis on Eglinton? Have you've not seen all the apartment buildings between Scarlett Rd and Royal York? At Kipling? Is connecting to Renforth Gateway not a regional planning goal worth extending the Crosstown for?