The Sheppard Line: Subway or Stubway?

BY: ROGER TRAN
The city of Toronto and Queen’s Park spent almost a billion dollars to finance the project. Under six kilometres long, some would call it a “stubway.” Ridership is about the same as when it carried buses.

Eight years later, the Sheppard subway still looks brand new. The tunnels inside are still mint and bright. The artwork along station walls hasn’t degraded like its Spadina counterpart. New shops and condos are slowing springing up along the line.

However, since its opening on Nov. 22, 2002, it’s become a major transportation topic for municipal politicians.

In fact, in 2007, when city council deferred David Miller’s vehicle registration and land-transfer taxes, the TTC proposed mothballing the entire Sheppard subway to reduce costs.

The Sheppard subway carries just over 45,000 people on a typical weekday, fewer than 5,000 people during rush hour and peak direction. In comparison, the Yonge line carries 34,000 while the Bloor-Danforth line has 27,000.

“It was originally conceived to be a whole subway that went somewhere,” Paul Bedford. He’s on the board of directors of Metrolinx, the provincial governing body for public transit.

Like many new rapid transit lines in the world, the history of the Sheppard subway line is a controversial one.

END OF THE LINE: Passengers board the train at Don Mills station, one of five new subway stations from the Sheppard line. Carrying volumes much lower than subway load standards, some would call it a 'stubway.' (Photo credit: Roger Tran)

In the 1980s, Metro Toronto released Network 2011, a plan detailing future subway lines for the city. The Sheppard subway was one of four approved by the Bob Rae’s NDP government and cancelled by the Mike Harris Conservatives government.

Network 2011 would have been completed next year, but only a small portion was built. The recession in the early 1990s and the change of government derailed the plan. When the Harris government was in power, it cancelled the Eglinton subway but the Sheppard subway continued. Construction began in the mid 1990s, however, the original plan of building the Sheppard line from Downsview to Scarborough Centre stations was scrapped. And it was truncated to its current state from Yonge Street to Don Mills Road.

“The only reason they allowed that much of the Sheppard subway to be built was it was already well under construction,” former TTC chair Howard Moscoe said. “The Eglinton line, they had much less done. The Sheppard was much farther advanced.”

The momentum for new subways and system expansion grinded to a halt and slowed expansion even more.

However, Bedford says former mayor Mel Lastman was the reason the Sheppard line got built.

“The politics of the day is that Mel continued to lobby hard for Sheppard,” Bedford said. “Nobody lobbied hard for Eglinton, so they had enough money and Harris decided to just do Sheppard, but only that ‘stubway’ as I call it.”

What to build on the remaining portion of Sheppard Avenue is the question at City Hall. Both sections of Sheppard Avenue west of Yonge Street and east of Don Mills Road are left without any form of rapid transit. However, construction began on the Sheppard East LRT, continuing where the subway left off.

There’s also the plan to extend the Sheppard subway east from Don Mills station to Scarborough Centre station, despite the low ridership it has today and the LRT already under construction. Today, building subways cost nearly $300 million per kilometre. In comparison, the Spadina subway extension to York University and Vaughan is estimated to cost $2.6 billion.

Bedford says there’s not a case for it at all.

“The fact is if you’re going to build a subway, you (have) got to have the density,” he said. “I don’t think those ideas about extending Sheppard subway east make any sense, from a planning perspective.”

Both Giambrone and Bedford say light rail is the best option for Sheppard Avenue east.

“The subway travels at 32 km/h. On average, the LRT will travel 24 km/h,” he said. “So for one-fifth the cost, you get 75 per cent of the benefit.”

Giambrone questions if city hall can cancel the Sheppard LRT in favour of a subway extension.

“Construction started already, so of course you’d have to stop construction and the contracts,” he said. “(Reorganizing) will take years, and most people just want to see some rapid transit in Scarborough actually get built.”

OR

FORK IN THE ROAD: The debate is on, whether to build the Sheppard East LRT (first above) or the extension of the Sheppard subway (second above). Former mayor David Miller planned for light rail, but current mayor Rob Ford wants a subway on Sheppard Avenue. Sheppard East LRT map by the City of Toronto and Sheppard East subway extension map by Yllianos, Wikpedia user)

External Links

Transit City network - http://www3.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Projects_and_initiatives/Transit_city/index.jsp

Rob Ford transportation plan -  http://www.robfordformayor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Transportation-Plan4.pdf