Mayor ready to scrap heavy rail spur line

A report released Tuesday rejects the so-called Western spur of Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack transit plan as being too costly and disruptive.

Thestar.com
Jan. 19, 2016
By David Rider

John Tory's "transformative" transit plan is being transformed by data that shows the original vision of another heavy rail line running from the Kitchener GO tracks to the airport will cost too much and fail to attract significant ridership.

The mayor says he's taking the "honest and responsible" approach by following the transportation experts' advice and dropping the rail spur from his $8 billion SmartTrack plan, following the release of two transit studies Tuesday.

Instead of a seamless GO-train style trip between Mount Dennis and the airport corporate centre, Tory has ceded to the original Metrolinx plan. It would extend the Eglinton Crosstown light rail line west from Mount Dennis, requiring SmartTrack riders to transfer to reach the airport employment hub.

"Because of anticipated costs and lower ridership numbers, I accept that heavy rail is not the best option for the western leg of SmartTrack," Tory told reporters on Tuesday.

LRT would draw more than 105,000 daily transit boardings at a cost of about $1.3 billion. Heavy rail options were estimated to cost up to $7.7 billion but attract, at best, only about 87,000 boardings, according to a joint report from city planners and the University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute.

SmartTrack will still deliver on Tory's campaign promise to connect the three biggest job hubs, downtown, at the airport and in Markham, stressed the mayor. It will also cut road congestion, subway crowding on the Yonge line and improve trip times for city commuters on the Kitchener and Stouffville GO tracks.

"You will not see me digging in my heels and insisting on charging ahead with things that don't make sense, which cost too much or don't provide the most efficient, most effective benefit to our residents," said Tory.

The SmartTrack Western Corridor Feasibility Review and the SmartTrack Ridership Forecasts, have been widely anticipated by the mayor's critics and allies awaiting proof that Tory could live up to his campaign promises.

"If anything, the ridership numbers that we've seen today make the case for a more robust version of SmartTrack with the change we've agreed to make in the western end," the mayor said.

The ridership report, originally planned for last fall, was delayed as the city and U of T developed a new forecasting tool that allows them more flexibility in projecting how time, frequency, price and density impact passenger volumes.

It showed that SmartTrack ridership volumes could exceed those Tory promised in the campaign, increasing significantly with more frequent train service and cheaper fares. If the price was the same as a TTC fare and the service ran every five minutes, the study shows that SmartTrack would exceed the current daily ridership of the entire GO system.

It could also reduce crowding on the Yonge-University subway south of Bloor St. by up to 17 per cent, although there would still be more subway riders than there are today - 32,000 in the busiest hour of the morning rush compared to the TTC's number of about 25,500 today.

Many questions remain, however, including how many stations will be built. Tory promised 22 new ones and insisted there will still be a "goodly number." But Metrolinx is looking at the proposed SmartTrack locations among 50 possible new stations as part of its electric GO regional express rail expansion. The provincial agency hasn't said how many will make the final cut.

It's also unclear what exactly a TTC fare will be by the time SmartTrack trains are running. Metrolinx is still studying how it will integrate TTC fares with the rest of the region. It is looking at GO-type, distance-based prices and also whether to charge more for faster transit modes such as trains and subways.

Tory refused to speculate on the outcome.

Planners say they're not sure if the 5-minute train frequencies, which produce the best ridership projections, are feasible on the GO tracks. In a media briefing, city planners and U of T professor Eric Miller, who led the computer modeling study, said Tuesday's report was only a "first cut."

They will have to go back and look at whether more train tracks on the Kitchener and Stouffville corridors are needed and if there's room to lay them - what that might cost, how it would impact residents and businesses in those areas and other infrastructure requirements.

Other scenarios will likely be considered. It could be that in the end another frequency makes the most sense in terms of cost and viability - maybe seven minutes instead of the 15 that GO is promising or the five- or 10-minute headways the city has studied so far.