Scarborough Malvern LRT

Scarborough Malvern LRT
Overview
Type Light rail
System Toronto subway and RT
Status Cancelled (but revived as an eastern extension of Eglinton Crosstown line)
Locale Toronto, Ontario
Termini Kennedy Station
Sheppard Avenue
Operation
Operator(s) Toronto Transit Commission
Technical
Line length 16.5 kilometres (10.3 mi)
Track gauge 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 12 in)
Route map
Legend
Eglinton Crosstown line
to Mount Dennis

Bloor–Danforth line
to Kipling

Kennedy
Scarborough rt

Stouffville line
Kennedy GO
Midland
Falmouth
Danforth
McCowan

Eglinton GO
Lakeshore East line

Mason
Markham
Eglinton/Kingston
Golf Club Road

Guildwood

Guildwood GO
Lakeshore East line
Galloway
Lawrence
Kingston/Morningside
West Hill
Highland Creek
Ellesmere
UofT Scarborough
Military Trail
Highway 401

Sheppard
Sheppard East LRT

The Scarborough Malvern LRT was a proposed light rail line in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[1] It was part of Transit City, a plan to develop new light rail lines along several priority transit corridors in the city. In January 2016, the plan for this light rail route was revived and rebranded as the Crosstown East extension of the Eglinton Crosstown line.[2]

History

The Scarborough Malvern LRT was part of the Transit City proposal announced on March 16, 2007 to be operated by the Toronto Transit Commission. It was expected to cost approximately $1.26 billion including vehicles, property, escalation and an apportioned cost of the Maintenance and Storage facilities. With construction originally to begin in 2014, the line was expected to open in 2019 as the last of the seven Transit City lines.

The Scarborough Malvern LRT was approved by Toronto City Council on September 30, 2009,[3] and the environmental assessment received a notice to proceed from the Government of Ontario on December 15, 2009.[4] However, it was cancelled by Rob Ford on December 1, 2010 when he announced the cancellation of Transit City.[5][6] While LRT lines on Sheppard East, Finch West, and Eglinton were revived through a new agreement between the City of Toronto and Metrolinx, the Scarborough Malvern LRT was not included.[7]

The Scarborough Malvern LRT is still included in Metrolinx's regional transportation plan The Big Move under the 25-year horizon.[8] Aspects of the Scarborough Malvern LRT were then incorporated into the new 198 U of T Scarborough Rocket express bus.

On January 20, 2016, City staff recommended revisions to the Scarborough Subway plan that would include reviving the original plan for the Scarborough Malvern LRT, to be rebranded as "Crosstown East".[2]

Route layout

The Scarborough Malvern LRT line would run for 13 km, estimated to account for 14 million trips in 2021. The southern terminus of the line would be built at Kennedy Station at Kennedy Road and Eglinton Avenue, with a connection to the Bloor-Danforth subway, the Scarborough RT, and the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. The whole line would be built within Scarborough. The line would run along Eglinton Avenue East until it reaches Kingston Road, then continues northeast until Morningside Avenue is reached, then continues north until Ellesmere Road is reached, then continues east until Military Trail is reached, then continues northwest until Morningside Avenue is reached. Finally, the line turns north at Morningside Avenue, terminating at Sheppard Avenue East where it will meet the future Sheppard East LRT line.

The original layout had the LRT continuing north along Morningside Avenue directly to Sheppard Avenue East, without a detour along Ellesmere Road and Military Trail to service the University of Toronto Scarborough.[1]

The original layout also had the LRT continuing west along its current terminus at Sheppard Avenue East, overlapping the Sheppard East LRT line to Neilson Road, where it would turn north and terminate at the Malvern Town Centre. This section was most likely cancelled as the Scarborough RT extension would already be servicing that area.

This layout was revised, and the northern section north of Sheppard was split into a new, independent LRT line called the Malvern LRT, which would continue from Sheppard station.[9] The Malvern LRT is classified a "Future Transit Project" in the 2013 "Feeling Congested?" report by the City of Toronto.[10]

The Scarborough-Malvern LRT was rebranded as the "Crosstown East" extension of the Line 5 Eglinton, potentially making the Malvern LRT connect with Line 5 Eglinton at Kennedy in the future.

Proposed stops

The TTC indicated that stops would be spaced on average 400 metres apart. The distances between the stops varies, but they were likely candidates, from north to south:

On Morningside Avenue

On Kingston Road

On Eglinton Avenue East

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Alessandra Harkness; Gabriela Ansari-Correa; Marcus Tutert (2014-03-17). "Questions remain on LRT lines through Scarborough: UTSC administration hopeful that issue will be resolved after municipal elections". The Varsity. Archived from the original on 2014-03-17. UTSC students held a campus-wide vote on whether to contribute a portion of the cost of the Olympic-sized pool for the Pan Am Games. Although not a direct LRT vote, students thought that building for Pan Am would allow for the construction of the LRT. This resulted in a commitment from students to contribute $30 million towards the building of the Pan Am/Parapan Am Games facility, which are being built on UTSC property. According to Arale, the main reason for the contribution was to get the two LRT lines to run through campus. Students have held to their commitment and blame Toronto city councillors and administration for not holding up their end of the deal.
  2. 1 2 Jennifer Pagliaro, City Hall reporter & Tess Kalinowski, Real Estate Reporter (16 January 2016). "New Scarborough transit plan ‘buys peace in the land’". Toronto Star. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  3. Request for Approval of the Scarborough-Malvern LRT Environmental Assessment Study - City Council Decision
  4. Minister's Notice to Proceed
  5. Carter, Tristan (25 February 2011). "Jane LRT goes off the rails". Town Crier. Streeter Publications.
  6. "Mayor Rob Ford: "Transit City is over"". Toronto Life. 2010-12-01. Archived from the original on 2010-12-04. Retrieved 2014-03-17. Rob Ford’s first few hours as mayor sure have been busy. As the dailies are reporting, Ford met with TTC chief general manager Gary Webster at seven this morning to let him know that Transit City, and its attendant “war on the car,” were kaput. “I just wanted to make it quite clear that he understood that Transit City’s over and the war on the car is over, and all new subway expansion is going underground,” Ford said, according to the Sun. “And that’s pretty well it.”
  7. Tess Kalinowski (28 November 2012). "TTC, Metrolinx finally sign off on LRTs". Toronto Star. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
  8. "The Big Move". Metrolinx. 2008. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  9. http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2013/pg/bgrd/backgroundfile-64550.pdf
  10. http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2013/pg/bgrd/backgroundfile-64550.pdf
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