A subway, here? Bellamy Road route looks like a leafy pipe dream

After the city narrowed possible routes for the Scarborough subway extension to three, the Star investigates Mayor John Tory’s best option.

Thestar.com
May 31, 2015
By Jennifer Pagliaro

There is a green mile on Bellamy Rd. in the leafy heart of Scarborough, stretching as far as the eye can see.

It’s the first thing you notice looking south towards Lawrence Ave. from Ellesmere Rd. on the four lanes running north-south - what is less major artery than local throughway.

Buses arrive infrequently on a weekday afternoon; the way is lined with fenced-in backyards butting up on grass-bordered sidewalks and calm pedestrian crossings shaded by a dense tree canopy. Single-family detached homes fan out from the road along quiet cul-de-sacs.

You can walk to Lawrence Rd. and not encounter enough people to start your own rock band.

But it may be the new locale for a multi-stop subway extension worth billions of dollars - one option Mayor John Tory may be leaning towards.

Experts who spoke at length with the Star say it doesn’t appear there’s the density or ridership to justify a subway along the Bellamy Rd. corridor - or the additional costs it would require to build it.

Patricia Wood, a geography professor at York University who has been taking part in local consultations on the subway, said the Bellamy option has barely registered in discussions.

“For a subway? I wouldn’t even run a streetcar along Bellamy,” she said. She was surprised it was even selected for the short list. “On every front it doesn’t make sense.”

Bellamy Rd., one of three options the city is now considering for the Scarborough subway extension, is the easternmost route - making it the most viable of the three for Tory, who finds himself with limited choices to build both a heavy rail SmartTrack and a parallel subway.

Many have pointed out that the lines risk becoming redundant if placed too close together, serving the same riders going the same way in the same amount of time.

Tory refuses to publicly endorse any route until final studies come back to council this fall. Behind the scenes, his staff has been looking east for a potential solution. Tory promised this week to do what is “rational.”

When you consider the density along the Bellamy Rd. route - a factor that calculates the number of residents and jobs in a defined area - the numbers don’t appear to even approach the needed threshold.

Metrolinx has defined the minimum required density for a subway as 250 people and jobs per hectare.

In all three subway route options, Scarborough Town Centre is considered to be a major hub for riders. But a 2012 Metrolinx report citing the most recently available 2006 census numbers says there are only 97.5 people and jobs per hectare in the area measured around the station.

“We have to absolutely make sure that we’re meeting the optimal density around there,” said Cherise Burda, Ontario director for the Pembina Institute think tank/ She adds that studies being done now suggest the city is not even meeting density targets around the subways we already have.

Little traffic runs north-south through the purely residential neighbourhood, intersected by the sprawling Gatineau Hydro Corridor north of Lawrence Ave., which could further hamper potential redevelopment.

What would be considered major intersections along the route currently house small convenience store plazas, a Ca$h 4 You, fast-food joints like KFC, and gas stations - little in the way of commercial or large-scale residential buildings.

Local transit advocate Steve Munro, who favours building a light-rail network in Scarborough, is among those questioning whether low densities on the Bellamy Rd. route in areas around Lawrence Ave. could support a subway. He points out there would be “considerable” walks to reach some of the stations.

“Frankly, I think that Bellamy is something of a ‘straw man’ in this debate,” Munro wrote in an email. “It is self-evident that going too far east, say to Markham Rd., would push the cost up so much and add to the [Scarborough Town Centre]-to-Kennedy travel time to make the option unacceptable. Bellamy is the next arterial to the west, and the penalty is not as high for taking that route, but other than the GO station it serves nothing.”

Though the city says it is considering a connection to the Eglinton GO station along the Bellamy Rd. route, the number of trips taken from that station every day suggests it wouldn’t significantly help boost ridership for a subway.

According to Metrolinx, there are 2,561 trips counted at Eglinton station on a weekday, evenly split between those getting on and off.

On local bus routes, which are packed from Kennedy and Scarborough Town Centre stations, it seems few passengers get off at Bellamy Rd. According to the TTC’s numbers, the number of people who take transit on Bellamy is also relatively low. Ridership on the 9 Bellamy bus stayed stagnant at 4,100 weekday riders between 2011 and 2012.

The routes that are packed, even on a weekday afternoon, are those running east-west on Eglinton and Lawrence, to places beyond Bellamy Rd., such as Markham Rd. and Morningside Ave. The city’s total traffic volume counts confirm a much heavier east-west commute - nearly three times the volume on Bellamy Rd., which pales also in comparison to the volume of traffic on McCowan and Markham Rds.

As for future development needed to meet the capacity of a subway, University of Toronto human geography professor Andre Sorensen said the Bellamy option has “almost zero potential.”

His recent study, co-authored with professor Paul Hess, pointed out much of the residential land in Scarborough, such as Bellamy, was specifically planned in such a way as to prevent unwanted development, with many homes’ lots backing on to arterial roads.

Experts say new development is also likely to face vocal opposition from local residents - which could be a political landmine for Tory and his supporters.

City planners have set up public consultations in Scarborough and around the city next month.

Several commuters travelling between Kennedy and Scarborough Town Centre on a recent afternoon told the Star they just want to travel between the two as quickly as possible. Others would welcome stations closer to home.

Juanita Nesbitt is a local senior who needs to get around her Scarborough neighbourhood and downtown.

“It would help me very much, especially at the late nights. I would be able to get home safer, faster,” she says standing at the SRT platform at Scarborough Town Centre.

But the bigger picture just doesn’t add up for a Bellamy Rd. subway, the experts argue.

Many local residents, York University’s Wood said, are looking to get to places like the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus or Centennial College or the Scarborough Hospital - destinations outside all of the current routes, and not served by the Bellamy option.

“What also came out of these discussions from local voices is this kind of sad realization that it’s not ‘local’ transit,” Wood said of the limited stops and locations expected of the subway line.

Former mayor Rob Ford and others sold a faulty “bill of goods” when they pushed for a subway instead of a fully funded, seven-stop LRT, she said.

“What (residents) want is something that is more locally oriented and what they describe is what the LRT plan offered, but they have been put off wanting an LRT.”

Cost is another factor.

The Bellamy route would be the longest and most eastern of the three options, coming in just under 10 kilometres (the McCowan Corridor approved by council is 7.6 kilometres and the Midland Ave. option would run a similar if not shorter length).

More length means more tunneling, which means significantly more money -
approximately $180 million per kilometer - the TTC says, meaning the Bellamy option could cost at least $360 million more.

A longer subway also means a possible need for more stations, beyond the three-stop plan endorsed by council in October 2013. Not adding more stations potentially limits how many can access the subway on foot or by bus.

In the entire TTC network, the biggest gap between stations is the distance from Warden to Kennedy, at 2.74 kilometeres, according to TTC spokesperson Susan Sperling.

While the TTC doesn’t have set rules on station spacing, many of its gaps fall below two kilometres, and several downtown stops are less than one kilometre apart.

If the Bellamy option was built, two of its stretches would become the longest gaps in the network: 2.9 kilometres from Kennedy Station to Eglinton GO station and 3 kilometres between the Bellamy Rd./Lawrence Ave. intersection and the Scarborough Town Centre.

Tim Laspa, director of the city’s transportation planning division, said additional stops are being pondered; the TTC says that would cost $200 million each.

“We don’t have to consider it. It’s something that, as we’ve gone through our work, we see as an opportunity or an option,” Laspa said.

All this means the biggest barrier to building the Bellamy Rd. option may be money.

This week, Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca reiterated there is no more provincial cash available for a Scarborough subway beyond the $1.48 billion already committed in 2010.

Federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver, whose Conservative government previously promised $660 million to build the subway, did not respond to a request for comment about whether additional funds could be made available.

Pembina’s Burda said the real question when considering SmartTrack and its proximity to a subway line might not be where to build a subway, but why build it at all.

“Does it make sense to be building a whole other parallel line in such a low-density neighbourhood?” she asked. “It really comes down to nothing makes sense.”

“It is strictly a political decision at this point.”