CityNews Rewind 2012: Toronto on track for serious changes to TTC

It’s been years in the making but by late 2012, Toronto was finally on track for serious changes to the TTC.

Construction began on three new projects: a subway extension that will eventually lead to York University, an electric link to the airport and one of four approved light-rail transit lines.

The province, under Metrolinx, also promised to speed up work on a downtown relief line (DRL).

Commuters, it seems, can finally breathe easy – but then, we’ve heard that one before.

“It’s difficult to go wrong announcing transit expansion,” transit advocate Franz Hartmann of TTCRiders told CityNews.ca.

“There’s no doubt that there’s a need for a downtown relief line. But there’s so much need for new transit, and expanding existing routes, and getting more vehicles on the road. So much more needs to happen.”

Click here to read other stories in our CityNews Rewind 2012 series.

Fares are going up again next year, by five cents, and that money won’t be going to construction. Instead, according to TTC chair Karen Stintz, it just keeps pace with inflation and avoids service cuts.

But with the province planning to spend $34 billion to improve transit in southern Ontario, things are – cautiously – looking up.

The downtown relief line was first drafted in 2008 as part of Ontario’s Big Move plan to improve transit across the GTA and Hamilton (GTHA). This month, Metrolinx announced construction on the DRL will be completed sometime around 2027 – about 10 years earlier than previously expected at a cost of $3.2 billion

According to a recent study by the TTC and the city, the DRL is necessary to avoid nightmarish overcrowding.

The study found that by 2031 transit ridership into the downtown is expected to grow by 51 per cent and the population south of College Street from Bathurst to Parliament will surge by 83 per cent.

The number of morning peak-period trips into downtown will also jump from 155,000 to 236,000, the TTC said.

The DRL is just part of a comprehensive transit overhaul. The Big Move is “the single largest investment in infrastructure in Canadian history,” Metrolinx CEO and president Bruce McCuaig said during a board meeting in December.

“Congestion is something we all face – and we have to get ready for increased demand, the equivalent of the population of Montreal moving into the region.”

The plan includes building four new LRT lines on Eglinton, Sheppard Avenue East, Finch Avenue West and along the Scarborough RT route. Shovels are in the ground at Eglinton.

“The new LRT lines won’t be built or open until 2020 – so it’s still a ways away, but we’ve got the project signed and the tunneling has begun too,” Stintz told CityNews.ca.

“It was a struggle to get there,” she admitted, but added that signing the master LRT agreement with Metrolinx was one of the TTC’s biggest successes of 2012.

Other items in the Big Move include the subway extension to Richmond Hill, an electric air rail link, the implementation of the Presto card – which will be used on all TTC streetcars, buses and subways by 2016 and eventually on all GTHA routes – and the electrification of the rail link to the airport.

The Presto Card, along with the Union Station renovation, were the subject a scathing Auditor General’s report that found the fare card system will cost $450 million more than originally projected –  and the price tag for restoring the train shed at Union skyrocketed by 25 per cent to $270 million.

The final price tag on Presto will be more than $700 million, making it one of the world’s most costly systems, Ontario’s Auditor General Jim McCarter revealed in his annual financial report.

These projects are set to be completed by 2031, but that’s almost 20 years away.

What Toronto transit riders can expect in 2013 is a five-cent fare hike, more new subway cars on the Yonge University Spadina line and improved service on some surface routes. No new routes are planned and new streetcars won’t arrive until 2014.

The LRT and the Presto agreement will be protected if the government changes.  But some of those plans – like Transit City and the Eglinton subway before them – could be scrapped if Ontario heads to the polls in 2013.

Fingers crossed.

Click here to read other stories in our CityNews Rewind 2012 series.

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