General Politics Discussion

[ijmorlan]

The SRT's trains are falling apart and won't make it through another winter. There is no train stock available that can traverse the same tracks (particularly the tunnels and corners) without extensive (and expensive) modifications to trains, tunnels, or both.

These facts have been known for over a decade, but repeated municipal waffling and inaction means that the existing Line 3 will have to shut down a good 7 years before its replacement service opens.

At least the section between Kennedy and Ellesmere can be made into a busway in the interim, and Olivia Chow has made that a priority.

If they said "well, these are the repairs we expect the trains to need, these parts must be fabricated, it will cost 80 million in additional maintenance to operate the RT...or 40 million to operate at reduced service using the trains in best mechanical condition, or 20 million to build an interim busway"

The Scarborough RT has always been trouble. It was supposed to be built as effectively an LRT line using streetcars on a dedicated right of way. That’s why when it opened the vehicles reversed at Kennedy station by looping around above the station entrance. But the vehicles they ended up using derailed on the tight curve. The maximum speed around the curve was reduced to avoid the derailments and eventually a switch was installed and the platform extended over where one of the tracks had been so they now reverse in the usual way.

Why did they switch vehicles? Because the Ontario government wanted a made-in-Ontario transit technology. They believed there was space for something less than a subway but more than a streetcar, hence ICTS (Intermediate Capacity Transit System), but they didn’t know about LRTs. I guess flights to Europe were too expensive at the time.

The following has more information:

https://transittoronto.ca/subway/5107.shtml

Also check out Steve Munro’s website:

https://stevemunro.ca

I am aware that the exact same technology works well in Vancouver. There are 2 main differences: the weather is much better there (specifically, warmer temperatures and very little snow), and it’s a huge system rather than a one-off line using its own technology (like the Ontario line will be).

The above does not fully explain why the line is falling apart. But the Transit City plan had the RT being replaced by a Transit City LRT line, either as part of preparations for the 2015 Pan Am games or with the line closing for construction immediately afterwards. I assume they let maintenance, already overpriced, slide during that time. At this point restoring it to full operation would be a very large project and probably doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t explain why we don’t turn it into an LRT line as previously planned; as far as I can see you might not even have to replace the track — it’s already standard gauge, unlike the subway and streetcar, so just rip out the linear induction stuff, install new overhead and signalling, and re-work the stations to bring the track to the appropriate level in the stations for our LRVs.

I hope that explains some of the background. Rob Ford and Dalton McGuinty have a lot to answer for. Why Dalton McGuinty? Because Rob Ford only actually delayed Transit City by a couple of years; less than 2 years after he took office Council voted to resume LRT construction, but the province slow-walked everything rather than just continuing from where they left off.