Torontonians are probably longing for an end to constant talk about building public transit and a start to, well, actually building something. But, just when everyone’s just about had enough… along comes a report from the Neptis Foundation that suggests we have go back to the drawing board to rethink many of the projects we’ve all been talking about.
According to the independent analysis by transit expert Michael Schabas for Neptis, Metrolinx’s regional transportation plan, “The Big Move”, “needs a major course correction”, if it is to meet its stated goals of doubling ridership and decreasing commute times.
The analysis by Schabas, a partner at FCP, an international transit and rail consulting firm in the United Kingdom, suggests that Metrolinx has yet to prove the business case for many of its projects, and whether they provide value for money.
Schabas says that Metrolinx, has also been less than transparent when it comes to providing clear, complete, and consistent evidence to justify and prioritize its a $36 billion program of capital investment.
Using Metrolinx and TTC data, and filling in the gaps where no data is available or where data is incomplete, Schabas compares the Big Move projects on a common basis and derives benefit: cost ratios for each project. (A benefit: cost ratio compares the total cost of a project in monetary terms with its total benefits, also in monetary terms.)
According to Schabas, his findings show that, while some projects provide good value for money, others, including the Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit line, the Downtown Relief Line, and light rail transit projects on Sheppard and Finch Avenues, have low benefit: cost ratios (B:CR). He says that some projects require a rethink, others require changes and some should be rejected outright. The author offers creative and incremental solutions that provide better results but at less cost, while increasing ridership.
Instead of the TTC’s proposed multi-billion dollar Downtown Relief Line, for example, Schabas suggests that upgrading and integrating GO Transit services can provide relief to subway congestion more quickly and at a fraction of the cost of a new line. A new pedestrian link between TTC’s Main Street Station and GO’s Danforth GO Station, with integrated fares and shuttle trains to Union Station, he says, would take thousands of passengers out of Bloor - Yonge interchange station.
Schabas also found that Metrolinx has not championed the one project that has the greatest potential for increasing transit ridership and reduce highway congestion. He shows that upgrading GO from a commuter system into a Regional Express Rail system is not only technically feasible but also very affordable.
His analysis shows:
- GO Transit produced a flawed electrification study. This report finds that GO overlooked the potential of operating a mixed fleet of electric locomotives to propel the existing bi-level cars along with smaller electric multiple units (EMUs). The mixed fleet would operate cost-effectively throughout the day for an incremental investment of about $1 billion on the Lakeshore line. Additional fare revenues and operational savings could offse costs entirely. GO trips would be faster with trains every 15 minutes all day.
- GO could upgrade its entire 450-kilometre (280-mile) system to a 15-minute-all-day, two-way service with 25 percent faster journey times for less money than the cost of the 6-kilometre (3.7-mile) long first phase of the Downtown Relief Line.
- Schabas says that completing the Eglinton Crosstown line with the technology used on Vancouver’s Skytain and with fewer stations would attract twice as many new riders. Yet it would cost less to operate, bring in higher fare revenues and reduce net costs. (This technology is the same as the TTC uses for the current Scarborough rapid transit line.)
- The report shows how Metrolinx and the TTC could rebuild the Scarborough RT and the Sheppard subway line and combined them into a single automated light rail system at a lower cost that would attract many more riders than either TTC’s LRT proposal or the subway alternative.
- Overall, Schabas also looks at how modernizing the subway can increase capacity, and how net costs of Metrolinx schemes could be reduced more than half, while doubling the number of riders attracted off roads and on to transit.
The report is timely, since the provincial Transit Investment Strategy Advisory Panel also released its report this week. One of the issues the panel has raised is a loss of public trust in government’s ability to deliver solutions, including critical investment in public transit. Schabas says his report not only offers feasible solutions to some of the region’s transit problems, but also shows that transit operations need not always be heavily subsidized, and that passenger fares can often pay back much of the capital investment.
Schabas says that his analysis shows clearly that Metrolinx has not followed its own guiding principles in maintaining a regional focus, investing where it matters most, and providing clear and timely information on decision making to the public. However, he is clear that there is still time to make the necessary changes to the Big Move before more money is spent.
You can read the entire report here.
The Neptis Foundation is “an independent, privately capitalized charitable foundation” in Toronto. It “conducts and disseminates nonpartisan research, analysis and mapping related to the design and function of Canadian urban regions… to inform and to improve policy- and decision-making around regional urban growth and management.”
Subscribe to our news feed: (