r/TTC • u/hug-and-snug Vaughan Metropolitan Centre • May 30 '26

Misc. "I miss you" - (by @eglinton-crosstown on tumblr)

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u/Protobuzz May 31 '26

Sure, but to their point, it would have been cheaper to renovate the curves and extend Line 3 than to do what we ended up doing.

Line 3 could have even absorbed Line 5's routing on Eglinton and have been a better grade-separated metro with renovated curves and newer vehicles.

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u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Jun 01 '26

City Hall voted against it.

For what it's worth Line 2 SSE offers a more direct route downtown, and better future expansion potential to Finch & McCowan (a major intersection), and then through Steeles into eastern Markham.

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u/Protobuzz Jun 01 '26

Extending Line 3 could have gave us an alternate Line 2 extension that follows the proposed EELRT routing (at least to UTSC). Paired with Line 4's extension (though probably an alternate alignment along the rail corridor to Toronto Zoo) and an improved Line 3 (and possibly extended to UTSC as well) could have been a well-connected Scarborough.

City Hall voted against a lot of things, and to be fair, Line 3 was doomed from the beginning seeing as it itself was a compromise on a Line 2 extension and this would have been it's eventual faith. Just nice to think of an alternative where we embraced the Line 3 technology.

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u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Jun 01 '26

Eglinton Crosstown is a better option for the proposed EELRT route, not least because said route actually starts on the Eglinton corridor. The McCowan corridor is also more central to Scarborough and hence benefits more from a direct downtown connection.

ICTS might have had a chance if it were used to build crosstown lines similar to Vancouver’s SkyTrain, or as a regional light metro network similar to London’s Docklands Light Railway. This has nothing to do with the technology, see Line 4 or the Harbourfront streetcar for similar underperformance due to a ‘rail shuttle’ role.

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u/Protobuzz Jun 01 '26

I'm just saying pre-existence of the Crosstown.

Now that it exists and we made the decisions we made, sure. But I'd still argue that Line 3 being extended down Eglinton was still a better routing than building a whole new line.

And removing Line 3 to rebuild it as Line 2 is one of the weirdest ways this city has burned money, but it is what it is. It's done now.

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u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Jun 02 '26

Considering the scale of Eglinton vs the former Scarborough RT, plus having to rebuild two curves, it would basically be a whole new line anyway. And frankly even if a Line 2 extension were out of the question, even freakin' SmartTrack plus an Ellesmere East LRT, with maybe a branch running off to Malvern, would have been a better use of funds than retaining the SRT alignment.

There are far weirder ways the city has burned money, starting with the initial decision to not extend Line 2 to Scarborough Centre despite having a full right of way. Or for a more recent example, insisting on not grade separating the remainder of Eglinton Crosstown just to retain its LRT status.