Sheppard ridership remains flat, TTC chair says
“We know when that happens — and it has happened in the city in the past — that results in a service level that demands a very high subsidy to operate because it just doesn’t have the ridership,” Keesmaat said.
That doesn’t discourage the Sheppard Subway Action Coalition, a group of residents and ratepayers who say a subway would draw more development and keep the road clear for cars. Add to that a rabid distrust of light rail and, “We would take a bus lane over an LRT,” said one coalition member, a city worker who didn’t want his name used.
“I looked at the brand new LRTs for these lines and the brand new streetcars that are downtown and they look identical,” he said. Besides, if it runs to the Scarborough Town Centre, he said, the subway will attract riders.
But the numbers don’t bear that out, said David Crowley, an internationally experienced transportation planner, who says he would retire if he could resist pushing data-driven transit solutions.
Only about 13 per cent of north Scarborough commuters work in downtown Toronto, and an extraordinary 78 per cent of those are already taking transit. By way of comparison, only 70 per cent of Manhattan commuters rely on transit, he said.
The remaining northeast commuters aren’t going downtown. Most actually work in Scarborough. Some of those would benefit from an extended Sheppard subway, including those heading toward North York Centre. But they account for fewer than 6,000 commuters, including about 2,000 transit riders.
“The folks travelling to non-downtown destinations generally do not drive or do not have access to a vehicle. They need improved bus service now — not in 2025.” DAVID CROWLEY TRANSPORTATION PLANNER
“The folks travelling to non-downtown destinations generally do not drive or do not have access to a vehicle. They need improved bus service now — not in 2025,” said Crowley.
Ridership studies show that the case for a Sheppard East LRT is actually stronger than the one on Finch West, which is now slated to be built first.
But both fall squarely in the range for light rail ridership.
Councillor Josh Colle, who chairs the TTC, understands the political desire along Sheppard for such a “tantalizating completion to a mapdrawing exercise.”
But with so many transit plans on the books for Scarborough — SmartTrack, GO regional express rail, a Bloor-Danforth subway extension — there’s little appetite to add another Sheppard study to the list.
Extending the Sheppard line east to the Scarborough Town Centre or drawing it west to close the subway loop at Downsview appear to make sense. But given the existing Sheppard subway’s performance, Colle says he can’t rationalize pouring more money into a tunnel. The existing four stops are already underperforming. While the rest of the TTC is bursting at the seams, Sheppard’s ridership remains flat.
In its first decade — from its opening in late 2002 to 2011 — it showed gains, from about 10.7 million riders annually to a peak of 15.9 million. Since then, the counts show a slight drop — to 15.1 million last year.
The TTC doesn’t consider that a statistically significant decline. Still, says Colle, you could put those riders in taxis for about the same cost as the $10-plus per ride subsidy he figures Sheppard requires.
The TTC doesn’t plan service based on profitability, although some lines, the King streetcar for example, are clearly more than pulling their weight.
“But when you’re so massively subsidizing an existing subway line — higher order transit that’s supposed to bring all those riders — it does make it more difficult to envision seeing a day when you would be investing more above and beyond that,” he said.
It’s politics that keep the Sheppard subway dream alive and leave LRT plans gathering dust, says transit advocate Cameron MacLeod, an IT worker who volunteers with Code- RedTO, a group that pushes for appropriate transit technology based on ridership.
It makes sense to use the latest construction postponement to analyze how an LRT line fits with more recent plans for electrified GO trains, SmartTrack and the Scarborough subway, he said.
“There’s the possibility that pausing on Sheppard gives us the chance to look at what the network is supposed to look like and what’s going to work best for Scarborough,” said Cameron.
He pauses: “That’s me dreaming in Technicolour.”
In truth, he said, politicians from all three levels of government are stalling on the Sheppard LRT. If they actually built it, they wouldn’t be able to keep promising voters a subway.