Recently, the provincial government announced that the timeline for the Transit City Sheppard LRT has changed and that there was now room for hope for finishing the Sheppard subway. The surface LRT is now scheduled to start construction in 2017 and finish in 2021. Eglinton is supposed to be finished in 2020. This gives us time to change the course of debate and elect the government we need to build real rapid transit in Toronto. Rather than spending $2B on surface LRT lines that are barely faster than busses and interfere with roads, we could be completing the Sheppard East subway, or be building the Downtown Relief Line East, or be elevating the Eglinton LRT.

With the recent resignation of Premier McGuinty, we need speak out and elect a premier - whether Conservative or Liberal - who support real rapid transit construction underground or in the air. We need a premier and council who support a plan that builds more rapid transit, that goes significantly faster than a regular bus, that serves more people, and that creates the transit network that Toronto needs. 

Anyone who does not support this vision, we must vote out of power. Continue spreading the word that while Toronto wastes money on slow on-street transit, Vancouver, BC will surpass us as the biggest rapid transit system in Canada by cancelling their LRT project and choosing to build rapid elevated Skytrains. Tell people that while some Toronto councillors want to run trains in the middle of the roads slowing transit and cars, Ottawa has chosen to run their trains in tunnels and away from roads, providing their citizens with fast transit and reliable commutes.

We need a province for rapid transit that wont allow Toronto to fall behind

Metrolinx announced that the partially-tunneled Eglinton line, and the surface Sheppard and Finch LRTs will not be operated by the TTC. 

If the money was used to extend a current TTC line (e.g. extending the Sheppard Subway as per the original plan), this probably would not have happened. 

It will be interesting now to see whether Eglinton East (proposed to be on the surface, crossing red lights/intersections) will become elevated rail or a surface subway in order to be real rapid transit, attract 2 times the peak ridership, and save on labour costs through automation.

Metrolinx is proposing to extend the Eglinton line's rapid transit terminus from Keele to Weston. This means Toronto will have an extra "subway" stop. This proposal replaces the surface LRT route that was originally planned for this section, bringing fast, reliable transit that won't interfere with traffic further west.

This will be done using elevated rail on the side of the road with an underground station at Weston where it will interchange with the GO.

Is elevated rail being embraced as a low-cost way to provide transit at subway speeds without interfering with roads? Will Toronto have a true, affordable rapid transit line to the airport in the future as opposed to the proposed slow surface LRT?

While Toronto embarks on building a new rapid transit line on Eglinton from Keele to Laird, and an extension of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway from Downsview to York University to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. Metrolinx has decided to endorse the split vote of Toronto Council and build the Sheppard East and Eglinton East lines as surface LRT and not as underground or elevated rapid transit. This decision divides the original Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown into two, forcing a transfer at Kennedy. The reason for this is due to the difference in service, reliability, and automation between a grade-separated line (Scarborough RT) and a surface LRT line crossing intersections running at slower speeds (Eglinton).

While Metrolinx hides behind the council's divided vote to stifle subway construction and ignore the will of the people, they are rejecting a proposal that is passed almost unanimously by council to bring subway-like surface to the Air Rail Line.

The provincial cabinet has yet to issue their decision and the following letter was sent to Premier McGuinty and the MPPs. The future decades of transit is at stake and we must continue the fight.

Click images to enlarge.

As we continue to lobby the province, please ask your friends to sign our petition and have your voices heard at Queen's Park. Metrolinx will address cabinet on April 25, and there isn't much time. Rapid transit is a regional issue that affects riders and drivers across the GTA. These stakeholders's views must be reflected.

The Yonge-University-Spadina extension to Vaughan will bring a downtown vision to that area, and we should do the same within Toronto. We have over $8B to build the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown completely underground and elevated, and we have $1B leftover that can build the Sheppard subway to Victoria Park. With $1-2B more in funding, we can finish the Sheppard East line. Councillors are floating funding ideas, and they can be used to fund the remaining Sheppard East extension and the $4B Downtown Relief Line that Toronto needs. With that, we will have a strong transit backbone zipping people all across the city.

SAFE (Subways Are For Everyone) has written a letter to Premier McGuinty detailing that the GTA suffers from the worst congestion in North America and that we should be using transit money to build fast rapid transit in the region, not slow surface LRTs. Will the Premier support the subway vision that has stood the test of time, has the will of the people behind it, and has the support of the Scarborough Liberal MPPs? 

Make yourselves heard to the province, and a letter from SubwaysTO will be released shortly. Click read more for SAFE's letter, and please continue to spread the word.

Last week in a split decision, Toronto City Council voted for the surface LRT plan that canceled the Sheppard East subway along with underground Eglinton East line, and overturned the will of the people. It was not the right choice to replace these two planned core rapid transit routes with surface transit.

Why?

Let's go back to the basics. What is rapid transit?

The American Public Transport Association states that rapid transit is "rail or motorbus transit service operating completely separate form all modes of transportation on an exclusive right of way". This includes underground, trenched, and elevated rail, and other transit at grade not crossing intersections. Surface LRTs proposed on Eglinton and Sheppard East do not match this description, and surface LRTs are not rapid transit.

Why is rapid transit important? Let's look at why Vancouver cancelled surface LRT in favour of grade-separation on its Evergreen Line. This line will run underground, elevated, and at grade but separated, and cost only 12% more in captial costs than surface LRT.

• Ridership: In Vancouver's case, grade separation brings more than 2x more riders - this is also true for Sheppard (27M riders if underground, 17M if surface LRT) and Eglinton (2x riders, 2x capacity if underground)
• Transfers: The grade separated plan eliminates transfers, saving commute time - this is also true at Kennedy and Don Mills if the lines are underground
• Speed: It is true in Vancouver as it is here that rapid transit is much faster than surface LRT. Surface LRTs are only be 6 km/h faster than a bus, while subways and elevated transit are 16 km/h faster.
• Operating Costs: Surface LRTs are shown to have a higher operating cost because various factors including the lack of automation - this is also true for Toronto ($15 - 20M more).

This is what the fight is about - common sense. Ottawa is also building a LRT line, but they are using tunnels and a completely separate at-grade right of way, and they state, "Grade separation is necessary to allow for the high speeds and level of automation necessary to maximize the LRT system’s efficiency."

We must continue to lobby the province and Metrolinx as they make their decisions. There is $2B at stake. With it, we could build a good chunk of the Sheppard East and Eglinton East lines underground, we could build the Downtown Relief Line East, or we could use it to build Skytrains at costs only slightly higher than surface LRT and reach even farther. However, using this money to build surface LRTs on these core routes that need high speed and capacity is irresponsible and absurd.

If this transit battle is truly about building transit that is fast and serves the most riders, there is one choice and that is grade-separated rapid transit - not surface LRTs. Please contact us if you want to help the cause and continue to spread the word and get your friends to sign the petition. This will be a marathon and we will win in the end.

Yesterday, Toronto City Council voted to cancel the planned Sheppard Subway and replace it with a surface LRT. It added onto the vote that placed the Eglinton East LRT at-grade. This was a huge set-back to rapid transit expansion in the city. We had a completely funded Eglinton-Scarborough underground and elevated line, and we had around 50% of the funding secured for the Sheppard East subway.

Even though the pro-LRT councillors said they would build Sheppard if they had the money, this was not the case. The conservative concillors did the right thing and proposed a transit tax that could be used to fill the funding gap. However, it was clear at the end that the pro-LRT councillors (most who have subways in their wards already) did not want to build fast rapid transit for the rest of the city. Rather, they wanted transit to be slow in outer Toronto so it resembles streetscapes of Spadina, and they wanted to show the Mayor that they are in charge. To be fair, there has to be blame on the pro-Subway side also for failing to bring the MOU plan to council and to make compromises earlier in the game that could have led to the completion of the Sheppard subway.

In 1985, a plan - Network 2011 - was drafted to build the Downsview extension and the Sheppard, Eglinton, and Downtown Relief subways by 2011. This never materialized in the 25 years that has passed and only a fraction of that plan was built.

Today, a group of city councillors will be proposing a dedicated revenue source that will finally fund the Sheppard and Downtown Relief subways, and keep Eglinton underground (Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Sun, Toronto Star).