[Kyle Campbell]

You would still have to pay to continuously maintain the elevator if it was installed.

I realize that, but it's still a drop in a bucket in a 2.89 billion operating budget. And accessible access shouldn't be a nice to have, there should always be an alternate route. I get why retrofitting old stations one elevator is all you can shoehorn in, but these newer stations are vast and are actually designed for it. It's pinching pennies at rider expense. You could have saved millions with a simpler station design and saved enough to run that elevator for decades

 

[nfitz]

For a few months I had the city of Toronto and Vaughn fighting over who owns the street lights on Steeles in front of Pioneer village, in the end apparently neither city owns them so the lights will remain burnt out.

I thought that would be easy to answer. But I seem to be going down the same rabbit hole. All the other streetlights on the north side of Steeles are Vaughan, and on the Vaughan streetlight reporting website - with the absurd URL - https://sv.vaughan.ca/en-US/interaction-type-deflection/?id=1dfa2b9a-d325-e911-a980-000d3af3e521

(JFC - the Vaughan website is crap. I typed in an address on Steeles in Vaughan, and the stupid, poorly designed mapping tool, zoomed into Regina! You have to type in Vaughan as well in the address search! )

But as you can see below, those two particular ones are missing. Looking in Google Streetview, they were added when the subway station was built.

Maybe it's a question for the TTC TYSSE project office as a Pioneer Village station construction deficiency.

The light-blue circles are the streetlights, that you can click on to get the Street Light ID. The ID numbers are 5-digits long. Is there a plaque or something on the pole with the number?

 

[Kyle Campbell]

I thought that would be easy to answer. But I seem to be going down the same rabbit hole. All the other streetlights on the north side of Steeles are Vaughan, and on the Vaughan streetlight reporting website - with the absurd URL - https://sv.vaughan.ca/en-US/interaction-type-deflection/?id=1dfa2b9a-d325-e911-a980-000d3af3e521

(JFC - the Vaughan website is crap. I typed in an address on Steeles in Vaughan, and the stupid, poorly designed mapping tool, zoomed into Regina! You have to type in Vaughan as well in the address search! )

But as you can see below, those two particular ones are missing. Looking in Google Streetview, they were added when the subway station was built.

Maybe it's a question for the TTC TYSSE project office as a Pioneer Village station construction deficiency.

The light-blue circles are the streetlights, that you can click on to get the Street Light ID. The ID numbers are 5-digits long. Is there a plaque or something on the pole with the number?
View attachment 640230

Considering both lights are attached to a traffic light, shouldn't they be owned by whoever's traffic operations department that runs the signals?

 

[turbanplanner]

I thought that would be easy to answer. But I seem to be going down the same rabbit hole. All the other streetlights on the north side of Steeles are Vaughan, and on the Vaughan streetlight reporting website - with the absurd URL - https://sv.vaughan.ca/en-US/interaction-type-deflection/?id=1dfa2b9a-d325-e911-a980-000d3af3e521

(JFC - the Vaughan website is crap. I typed in an address on Steeles in Vaughan, and the stupid, poorly designed mapping tool, zoomed into Regina! You have to type in Vaughan as well in the address search! )

But as you can see below, those two particular ones are missing. Looking in Google Streetview, they were added when the subway station was built.

Maybe it's a question for the TTC TYSSE project office as a Pioneer Village station construction deficiency.

The light-blue circles are the streetlights, that you can click on to get the Street Light ID. The ID numbers are 5-digits long. Is there a plaque or something on the pole with the number?
View attachment 640230

It was actually 4 (2 west of northwest gate) that are out in a row, but for some reason the head of engineering agreed the 2 westernmost ones were vaughns property but not the intersection ones.

There are a few other intersections on Steeles that I've had this happen

Considering both lights are attached to a traffic light, shouldn't they be owned by whoever's traffic operations department that runs the signals?

There are lights on the north end of Steeles that vaughan seems to agree that they own, so it's weird this one is an exception. Toronto hydro refuses to fix anything on the north end.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

It was actually 4 (2 west of northwest gate) that are out in a row, but for some reason the head of engineering agreed the 2 westernmost ones were vaughns property but not the intersection ones.

There are a few other intersections on Steeles that I've had this happen

View attachment 640232

View attachment 640233





There are lights on the north end of Steeles that vaughan seems to agree that they own, so it's weird this one is an exception. Toronto hydro refuses to fix anything on the north end.

Toronto and Vaughn must have a set of rules as to who maintains the traffic signals, as you can't split that down the middle. The controller is on one side of the road or the other

At this particular light, street view shows the controller on the north side.

Actually, considering this is a regional road, could it be York that's the owner of the traffic signal in this scenario? And since the street lights are on the traffic signal, it could be York that's on the hook

 

[smallspy]

I was at York University station today, and saw the "ghost" future 2nd elevator shaft at the main entrance .To me it seems an odd form of penny pinching. Like all stations on the Vaughan extension it's grand and elaborate, and it seems bizarre that a redundant elevator was where they drew the line on expenses, yet they went to the trouble of roughing it in

With elevators - and other elevating devices, to be honest - the installation cost is only part of the total cost.

There is also the ongoing maintenance/regulatory servicing of the device and electrical costs.

Not installing the elevator means that these additional costs are prevented.

Dan

 

[Northern Light]

I realize that, but it's still a drop in a bucket in a 2.89 billion operating budget. And accessible access shouldn't be a nice to have, there should always be an alternate route. I get why retrofitting old stations one elevator is all you can shoehorn in, but these newer stations are vast and are actually designed for it. It's pinching pennies at rider expense. You could have saved millions with a simpler station design and saved enough to run that elevator for decades

The decision process to include a redundant or second elevator shaft was the anticipation that 2 elevators would become the standard in the future (it has for new builds already), and that it would very expensive to rough in an additional shaft later.

There no concept of getting the second elevator cab at the time, as this was 'future proofing' the design rather than an operational decision.

****

In respect of penny pinching, I can't stand the bare concrete track side walls. There are some other 'skipped' finishes as well. The incremental cost to finish the thought was low, but the combination of practicalities (the TTC wants easy access to the walls for repairs) plus saving a million or two, per station, gave us the result we got.

****

Back to accessibility. The Ontario Line Stations are all 2 (or more) elevators each.

Easier Access IV should be coming to the TTC Board sometime soon and will likely recommend redundant elevators at several stations.

 

[smallspy]

I realize that, but it's still a drop in a bucket in a 2.89 billion operating budget. And accessible access shouldn't be a nice to have, there should always be an alternate route. I get why retrofitting old stations one elevator is all you can shoehorn in, but these newer stations are vast and are actually designed for it. It's pinching pennies at rider expense. You could have saved millions with a simpler station design and saved enough to run that elevator for decades

That's a terribly myopic view to take.

What if the workload is such that the addition of one more elevator requires the addition of another mechanic? Or another inspector, as the TTC is licensed to do its own inspections? That's an $80-to-100K position (plus benefits) in either case. And if there become enough mechanics or inspectors, it might call for another supervisor mechanic, etc.

And sure, you can make the point that "it's just one more elevator", but where does it stop? It's one more bus? One more mechanic? One more operator? One more supervisor? Because it all adds up in the end.

So anywhere that the TTC can limit its budget growth in a meaningful way - even if it is just seemingly one item - is important. Because at the end of the day, it's never just one.

Dan

 

[Kyle Campbell]

That's a terribly myopic view to take.

What if the workload is such that the addition of one more elevator requires the addition of another mechanic? Or another inspector, as the TTC is licensed to do its own inspections? That's an $80-to-100K position (plus benefits) in either case. And if there become enough mechanics or inspectors, it might call for another supervisor mechanic, etc.

And sure, you can make the point that "it's just one more elevator", but where does it stop? It's one more bus? One more mechanic? One more operator? One more supervisor? Because it all adds up in the end.

So anywhere that the TTC can limit its budget growth in a meaningful way - even if it is just seemingly one item - is important. Because at the end of the day, it's never just one.

Dan

I'd argue it's money well spent. Elevators break down all the time, and they need to shut down for periodic regular maintenance. When that happens, the station isn't accessible anymore. You can argue they always provide a shuttle alternative, but a) that's quite expensive, and b) can add a dozen minutes or more to journey time. Commercial elevators cost around 10k annually to maintain. So let's say you double all 159 elevators the TTC currently has, you're looking at about 3.2.million per year to maintain all of them, not trivial, but that's just over $1 annually for every citizen in Toronto

It's probably more cost effective for TTC to just use commercial service providers than their own staff, but that's a union contract question

Elevators aren't just for wheelchair users. Accessibility is for everyone. We all will need it at some point. Maybe you have a kid in a stroller, maybe you're on crutches, etc.

 

[Northern Light]

I'd argue it's money well spent. Elevators break down all the time, and they need to shut down for periodic regular maintenance. When that happens, the station isn't accessible anymore. You can argue they always provide a shuttle alternative, but a) that's quite expensive, and b) can add a dozen minutes or more to journey time. Commercial elevators cost around 10k annually to maintain. So let's say you double all 159 elevators the TTC currently has, you're looking at about 3.2.million per year to maintain all of them, not trivial, but that's just over $1 annually for every citizen in Toronto

It's probably more cost effective for TTC to just use commercial service providers than their own staff, but that's a union contract question

Elevators aren't just for wheelchair users. Accessibility is for everyone. We all will need it at some point. Maybe you have a kid in a stroller, maybe you're on crutches, etc.

As I noted above........the TTC will be adding redundant elevators in the next phase of easier access, at least that's the anticipated recommendation when it comes to Board, likely later this year.

 

[drum118]

As I noted above........the TTC will be adding redundant elevators in the next phase of easier access, at least that's the anticipated recommendation when it comes to Board, likely later this year.

That should happen day one, not down the road. It will cost double of the cost of putting in the current one when time comes to do it, if not more for various stations.

 

[Northern Light]

That should happen day one, not down the road. It will cost double of the cost of putting in the current one when time comes to do it, if not more for various stations.

Sure, but 'water under the bridge'. The elevators are already built, or under construction.

Would have been nice to see a bit more farsightedness..... but its done.

 

[gregv]

20 trees were recently removed behind Old Mill station as the TTC elevator project is expected to start soon. According to family in the adjacent condo they also wanted to remove the trees ahead of bird nesting season. March 29:

 

[Kyle Campbell]

That should happen day one, not down the road. It will cost double of the cost of putting in the current one when time comes to do it, if not more for various stations.

Seems like general government thinking, not unique to the TTC. It's important to show you're saving $1 today, even though that "savings" is going to cost you $3 down the road

 

[nfitz]

Seems like general government thinking, not unique to the TTC. It's important to show you're saving $1 today, even though that "savings" is going to cost you $3 down the road

I don't see how it would cost $3 down the road. Should be a lot easier to put in an elevator then, because of what they've done now.

The same way the 2010s TYSSE stations used a different platform design, to allow them to support the weight of platform doors without having to do extensive structural work to the platforms.

Though who knows when these elevators will happen. There's been little talk of Phase IV of Easier Access lately.