Written by Lorne Ross, March 2017.
Your Glen Andrew representatives were invited to
meet Mayor Tory’s Chief of Staff on February 24th to discuss our ideas for the
subway. I attended for Iain McLeod who was travelling out of the country.
Joining us were Gary Comeau from Glen Andrew, Gail Doehler from North Bendale
and Lai Chu from Agincourt.
The Mayor’s Staff brought in James Perttula from
City Planning and Gary Carr from TTC to listen once again to our presentation.
Results
of the Meeting
No subway station at Lawrence. Not now. Not ever.
The main reason is because the TTC proposes
to tunnel under the creek which runs under McCowan just north of the hospital.
That means the subway tunnel is VERY deep when it passes under Lawrence. So
deep that it would be incredibly disruptive and expensive to build a station
there. And expensive to operate with
quite likely multiple escalator lifts to street level.
We showed them their own plans for bridging over the
Don River when they did plans in 2009 to extend the Yonge Subway to Richmond
Hill. They looked at tunneling under. Compared it to bridging over. And chose
to bridge.
They even did an artist’s rendering of what a double
deck bridge over the Don would look like. That’s Yonge Street on top and the
subway running underneath.
We showed
them all their own arguments about the benefits of bridging over as opposed to
tunneling under a watercourse. We asked
why those same benefits don’t apply to bridging over the humble Highland Creek.
No answer.
Then we heard a very unusual word from the TTC engineers.
They said their engineers studied it and studied it for over a year and they
just “can’t” make a bridge work.
A lot of people in Glen Andrew have worked in the
building, design and engineering trades. I bet like me they must be very
surprised to hear an engineer say ‘can’t’ when it comes to designing a bridge
over a little creek like we have coming out of Thompson Park.
So we said well if you’ve studied it for over a
year, can we have a copy of the study to better understand why not. And the
answer is: there is no study. They can’t give us anything.
Their second reason for no station at Lawrence is
there is not enough ‘walk in’ trade from the surrounding area.
It’s really difficult to remain sitting down in a
meeting when you hear that kind of stuff from TTC-City Planning. They know:
1. The key to getting riders onto a subway station
anywhere outside of the downtown is to bring them in on TTC bus routes and
Kiss’n’Ride facilities;
2. Subway stations outside the downtown core that
have really poor bus service have pathetically low usage. High Park, Donlands,
Greenwood, Museum, Castle Frank, Chester, Rosedale, Old Mill, Summerhill and
Glencairn subway stations have very low usage and really weak bus service to
bring in passengers.
3. The Lawrence East bus in contrast carries over
36,000 passengers a day. It’s the sixth busiest bus route in the whole city.
Once the subway to Vaughan opens, Lawrence East could be the third or fourth
busiest bus route in the city;
4. The TTC is
busy building magnificent new subway stations on the Vaughan subway at Pioneer
Village, Downsview Park and here’s my favourite, on Jane Street across the road
from one of the city’s largest cemeteries. How much ‘walk in trade’ will they
generate? How much density is there around Pioneer Village?
5. And here’s the kicker: they don’t want a station
at Lawrence because if the subway stopped there it would add maybe 40 seconds
to the ride from Scarborough Centre to Kennedy station. I tend to think you
would want to stop a subway at a hospital, a nursing home, a seniors’
apartment, lots of other health care services AND ESPECIALLY AT THE CITY’S 6TH
BUSIEST BUS ROUTE. I don’t see any talk
about shutting down the stations at Donlands, Chester, Greenwood and Castle
Frank, all of which have pathetically low usage. That would ‘save’ Scarborough
commuters almost 3 minutes on their trip downtown! And save a ton of
maintenance costs. Let those people take the bus to the next station. That’s
what Scarborough transit riders do.
The real reason is they simply don’t want a station
at Lawrence. They want people to stay on the Lawrence East bus and ride over to
the proposed Lawrence Station on the Smart Track-Stouffville GO line.
ROUGHING
IN A SUBWAY STATION: NOT GOING TO HAPPEN
A lot of people want more than a ‘one stop subway’.
They want a station at Lawrence, maybe a future station down Danforth Road
where it meets Eglinton. A three stop subway. They are hoping the TTC can
‘rough in’ the stations now and come back later to finish the job.
Let’s be very clear about one thing: there is no
such thing as ‘roughing in’ a station.
You either build a station now when you build the subway or you forget
about it. And the answer we’re getting from the TTC and City Planning is
‘Forget about it.’
THE
BIG BEND ALIGNMENT
The Staff report and Executive Committee decision of
March 7th pretty much put The Big Bend Alignment to bed. TTC engineers had
another one of those mysterious “Can’t do it” moments. They looked at two
tunnels curving out of Scarborough Centre Station: one was such a tight curve it ran into the
foundations of the YMCA; and the other was so broad a curve it ran way out and
under 22 homes on the east side of McCowan.
That’s funny. Did they look at a curve somewhere
been ‘too tight’ and ‘too broad’?
It just might miss the YMCA on the one side and the
homes on Stanwell on the other.
We’ll never know.
We never did
get the apples to apples cost comparison to their alignment we’ve been asking
for since May last year. No costs were provided to keep the SRT cars running
nor for the ‘extensive structural repairs’ required to the SRT track.
Here’s the
plan for the subway and bus terminal recommended by Staff.
The round shape on the left with ‘Triton Rd’ written
on it is the movie theatres.
The proposed bus terminal is 70% larger than the
existing Scarborough Centre bus terminal on Triton Road: this one has 34 bus
bays although the plan to the left seems to show 30. It will be the ‘largest
bus terminal in the TTC system’.
It’s a ‘stacked’ bus terminal. The majority of the
bus bays are down at the level of McCowan Road. The dark grey shape on the left
noted as 12 bay bus platform is up at the level of the YMCA and Borough Drive.
Which means we are going to have a four level
subway-bus station, pretty much like we have now at Kennedy Station. The subway
boarding level will be way below ground. Above that but still well below ground
is the subway mezzanine level. Above that is the first level bus terminal,
level with McCowan Road. And the fourth level for 12 or 16 more buses will be
higher up still.
They cannot start building the upper level bus
terminal until after the subway opens. The SRT guideway is in the way. And
their plan is somehow to keep the SRT running until the subway opens. It may take 2 years after the subway opens to
demolish the SRT guideway and open this upper level bus platform for
Scarborough commuters.
This stacked station apparently costs as additional
$178Million. Councillors once again rummaged under the couch cushions at City
Hall and said “YUP! We found it! Carry on.”
This is the point where we finally understand the
City Planning Department’s resistance to the Big Bend Alignment. They want the
station to be on McCowan Road because it is the catalyst they need to
completely rebuild McCowan and Progress north of Town Centre Court. If the station were where we proposed it,
their ideas to change McCowan-Progress would have to stand on their own. This
way they are tied into the subway.
Here’s what they said:
Today, McCowan Road is a challenging environment for
pedestrians, including transit users. The road has been designed primarily for
vehicles, with grade separated intersections at Progress Avenue and several
free-flow access ramps. In order to achieve the vision for Scarborough Centre,
it is critical to change the nature of McCowan Road in this area. Pedestrians
must be able to access destinations, including the subway station, and they
must feel safe walking along McCowan Road and crossing it.
Here’s an illustration from the staff report of
McCowan looking north past the lower level bus terminal. The Progress Overpass
is demolished. Progress is lowered down to intersect with McCowan at a new
signalized intersection. Just north of that is another signalized intersection
where a new street runs west from McCowan roughly where Jack Astor’s is
today. All the buildings you see will
come along after the subway is built. And I’m sure you eagle eyed Glen Andrew
folk will note there’s almost no traffic on McCowan! That’s what we want: two
more traffic signals, the city’s largest bus terminal, and all the traffic
disappears!
As an aside, and to tie into my article about Grade
Separations, if I found $178Million under City Hall couch cushions I’d start work immediately on the 4 grade
separations we need to keep Danforth, Progress, Huntingwood and McNicoll open
once the expanded GO service starts through Scarborough.
Connecting
to the Sheppard Subway
As far as ever connecting this subway into a future
Sheppard Subway we’ve been told that’s not in the plans. In fact City Planners
told us in December that they want to start the process to take the Sheppard
Subway out of the Toronto Official Plan this year.
But, not to worry. If it is ever built they said it
could come in from the west and they’d just excavate another station underneath
this one they want to build on McCowan so you could transfer from one to the
other.
This from the folks who ‘can’t’ figure out how to
get a bridge over the Highland Creek.
Or, what the heck, maybe the Sheppard Subway runs
east all the way to McCowan, then turns south and runs right into this new
station they want to build.
Or maybe not.
Lorne
Ross.
