Advocates of pushing the Bloor-Danforth subway line farther into Scarborough with a six-kilometre tunnel say it’s good city building.

Proponents, including politicians and city bureaucrats, defend the pared-down, one-stop plan from Kennedy station to the Scarborough Town Centre, saying it’s justified by accepted principles of transit planning.

Critics counter that it’s a subway for a subway’s sake, political pandering that costs billions more, when cheaper options — like a seven-stop LRT that still has signed approval from the province — would allow the city to build more transit.

After the city recently released a new projection of expected ridership on the one-stop extension — 7,300 in the busiest hour — subway advocates such as Mayor John Tory and chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat doubled down on the benefits of the $2 billion project.

The Star fact-checked some of the claims in support of the subway.

Is a subway needed for the number of riders expected?

The claim: On CBC’s Metro Morning, Tory said: “The real point is that Scarborough is the only part of our city that does not have its city centre connected by higher order transit — a subway.”

For years, especially during the Rob Ford era, advocates argued a high-capacity subway is the best way to make that connection, and anything else would be less than Scarborough “deserves.” That argument was bolstered when staff suddenly offered an updated ridership projection in July 2013: 14,000 riders at peak hours — enough to just barely justify a subway’s higher capacity.

The facts: Ridership and capacity aren’t the only important factors in deciding choice of transit, but they do help determine the best value for money.

The more recent projection of 7,300 peak riders is lower than what was expected for the seven-stop LRT (8,000); lower than the TTC’s original projection for a three-stop subway (9,500); and little more than half of the 2013 projection of 14,000.

The one-stop extension could open in 2023. It’s projected to hit 7,300 riders by 2031 at best. And just 4,500 new daily riders would be drawn to the subway if it replaces the current Scarborough RT.

The ridership projection shrank with shifting plans for the overall transit network. Tory’s heavy rail SmartTrack plan, tied to GO Transit expansion plans, was designed to run parallel to the subway line, with stations just kilometres apart. Staff then removed two stations from the subway plan, avoiding duplication with SmartTrack and reducing costs, but leaving just one new station for subway riders.

The TTC says the Bloor-Danforth subway is currently running at capacity, at just under 26,000. With plans to upgrade signalling — which would allow for frequent trains — capacity could grow to almost 33,000 by 2031, when the subway would already reach into Scarborough.

But with 7,300 peak riders, trains would be 80 per cent empty between the Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy station. Even an LRT — with a maximum capacity of 15,000 — would be half-empty on that part of the route at rush hour.

Would the Scarborough extension perform as well as other end-of-line stations?

The claim: Tory said recently that the newest ridership projection must be looked at in the context of other terminal stations.

Kipling and Islington, at the western end of Line 2, have 7,300 peak hour riders, while Downsview, at the end of Line 1 has just 2,950.

Tory argued these numbers show the Scarborough extension is justified, because the new station would have at least as many passengers as today’s end-of-line stops. “I don’t hear anybody suggesting we should close down the Bloor-Danforth subway at Kipling because of inadequate passenger load,” he said.

Keesmaat echoed Tory’s end-of-the-line argument, telling the Star in an email that the Scarborough extension “is only one stop along a much larger corridor” and that in 2031, trains that begin in Scarborough will be more than 60 per cent full by the time they reach Main station.

The facts: Experts agree Tory and Keesmaat have a strong point. While capacity for a subway line is 15,000 to 36,000 riders per hour, it would be a big problem if that many people boarded at the first station, leaving no room for new passengers at subsequent stops.

“That’s a valid argument,” agrees transit expert Steve Munro. But he and others argue that an accurate comparison to other terminal stops should take into account that the Scarborough extension would be six kilometres long with just one stop.

Most TTC stations are much closer together. Within six kilometres of Kipling, there are four stops. Within the same distance of the two terminal stops on Line 1, Downsview and Finch, there are four and three additional stations respectively.

Taking distance into account, the single new stop proposed for the Scarborough Town Centre doesn’t compare well. The 7,300 peak riders projection is roughly on par with the 8,300 people who board the subway between Downsview and Glencairn stations during morning rush hour, but significantly less than the 11,200 who get on between Kipling and Jane, and barely one third of the 21,100 who board between Finch and York Mills.

The Scarborough extension fares worse when measured by the number of people expected to board all day, not just during the peak hour.

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City staff expect 31,000 people a day would ride the new subway from Scarborough Town Centre to Kennedy by 2031. The five stations from Kipling to Jane currently see 66,355 boardings a day, according to TTC statistics posted via the city’s open data site. That’s more than twice the number the new extension will carry in 15 years’ time. The four stops from Finch to York Mills see more than three times the Scarborough subway’s projected all-day boardings, at 96,660.

“Kipling only has one kilometre to the next station, and this is going to have five or six. So you’ve got a long stretch with relatively low ridership,” said Lee Sims, director of transportation for the IBI Group.

“There’s not enough demand” to build more stations along the Scarborough extension, he added. “The population is pretty sparse out there . . . those stations will be pretty puny, even if you did build them.”

The Scarborough extension does better when compared with ridership at the end of the Sheppard subway, but that line is by far the TTC’s least-used and is not considered a project to emulate.

So, is the cost justified?

The claim: Keesmaat says the subway extension “provides the most appropriate service to an urban growth node” and that it would be “faster and transfer free.” Tory has said the city spent “hundreds of millions of dollars” building previous subway extensions, including out to Kipling, and that he is “just trying to provide some honest leadership, honest in a sense that it says that we can get more transit for the same money and do better than the previous plan.”

The facts: In 1980, the extensions at both ends of the Bloor-Danforth line — Kipling in the west, spanning both tunnels and bridges, and Kennedy in the east — cost a combined $110 million — or about $330 million in today’s dollars. That’s a fraction of the Scarborough project’s $2 billion cost.

The seven-stop LRT previously approved by council would have cost $1.48 billion, fully funded by the province.

Switching to a subway also costs the city in other ways.

By cancelling plans for the LRT, the city lost at least $75 million in “sunk costs” — work already completed, which now has no benefit to the city.

The LRT agreement also included a signed commitment from the province on future operating and maintenance costs. But when council opted for a subway, it also assumed responsibility on behalf of city taxpayers to pay those costs. If the one-stop extension operates at just 20 per cent capacity by 2031, it’s clear taxpayers will be paying heftily to subsidize it. The city and TTC have so far provided no operating cost estimates.

Then there are unknown operating costs. The 7,300 ridership number is based on the assumption that every train on Line 2 goes all the way to Scarborough Town Centre. Making that possible will require upgraded signalling and additional subway cars that work with the upgrades to maintain the same frequency of service. While the TTC wants to build the extension with upgraded signalling, the next wave of subway cars equipped to work with it isn’t on order until 2026. The TTC would need to speed up plans to replace the fleet or upgrade trains, at an unspecified cost.

As to hopes of spurring future growth in Scarborough, it was Keesmaat herself who told council — during the July 2013 debate — that, “based on the criteria that we have for great city building, looking at economic development, supporting healthy neighbourhoods, affordability, choice in the system, the LRT option, in fact, is more desirable.” The LRT route would have put nearly twice as many people within walking distance of a stop.

As to her assertion the subway would be “faster,” the three-stop subway was predicted to travel just 4 km/h faster than the LRT.

The LRT would require passengers to transfer at Kennedy, unlike the subway, but with improvements over the current SRT. It would mean taking one flight of stairs, about 40 seconds of transfer time, plus the wait for the next train.

Even with plans to use savings from removing two of the subway stops to pay for an 18-stop LRT along Eglinton Ave. East, transit expert Munro says spending more than $2 billion on a subway is a net loss for transit users.

“Because you’ve said, ‘I must have a subway,’ you have spent a couple of billion dollars just to get to Scarborough Town Centre, and that money is not available to build additional capacity elsewhere in the network — and that’s the real trade-off.”

Correction- June 23, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version to that referred to IBI Group as IBI consulting group.

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