The partially underground
LRT (not subway) may take even longer:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2227492/
Tunnel plan for Eglinton Crosstown LRT could stymie Ford
Long before Mayor Rob Ford killed Transit City, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT was an enormously complicated engineering project, but the plan to bury the 25-km line is creating new engineering and soil disposal headaches that could drive up both cost and complexity.
The estimated cost already jumped from $4.6-billion to $8.2-billion, after Queen’s Park agreed to take the line underground.
The design riddles associated with tunneling under the Don River and Black Creek could provide Mr. Ford’s critics with an opening to block the revised plan in council next year. And there could be a domino effect on Mr. Ford’s Sheppard subway plan. Under his deal with the province, if the Crosstown line comes in under budget, unspent funds will go toward the subway.
The Don Valley
Under the Transit City strategy, the LRT was to emerge from a tunnel east of Laird and continue eastward on a right-of-way in the middle of Eglinton. But because of Mr. Ford’s changes, Metrolinx officials have spent months grappling with the question of how to get the Crosstown line across the Don Valley.
A tunnel may prove to be too deep and too steep for light rail vehicles, so Bruce McCuaig, president and CEO of Metrolinx, said the agency is looking at building a grade-separated bridge for the LRT as it crosses the ravines. Public consultations on an environmental assessment examining a bridge and other tunnel configurations will begin in early 2012.
Yet some councillors are already questioning both alternatives.
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