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Old Posted Feb 9, 2012, 7:13 PM
nname nname is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
So the Transit City plan as it stands now is going to have vastly more length then just the Eglinton Crosstown. But it is going to carry the same or less amount of people than just an Eglinton Crosstown line would have carried.
I don't think many people actually consider the cost of running the line...

More length and more line = higher cost
Carry same amount of people = same revenue
Higher cost + same revenue = lower recovery and more subsidy
More subsidy = more funding, higher fare, or cut service elsewhere

Running a single, high capacity, and better utilized line is actually "much cheaper" than running 3 lower capacity lines. From the ridership projection of the underground cross-town line, it seems like TTC would be able to gain profit, or at least very close to when running the line. Whereas the projection for Transit City LRT, there's no way it would be close to revenue neutral, or even match the recovery of the bus routes they'll replace (unless someone claim running a LRT line would cost 1/2 to 1/3 compared to running a street car line).

Seems like Vancouver does a better job in projecting the operating cost for rapid transit projects. The contract for Canada Line was set so that the subsidy for running the line, including repaying the 750M private sector contribution, would be no more than the subsidy for the bus routes the line replaced after year 3 (in fact, we achieved that in just 1 year). The operating subsidy for running Evergreen Line (~60M) between 2016 and 2026 was already budgeted last year, before construction even begin.

In the case for Toronto, they're just putting everything aside and worry about it later. It would be interesting to see what'll happen when the lines open...
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