New TTC report recommends shutting down Scarborough RT in 2023, running buses instead

Those who regularly rely on the Scarborough RT will be stuck on buses for seven years before the new subway extension opens if the TTC approves a new staff report.

The detailed, 35-page report, released on Thursday, recommends shutting down the SRT in 2023 which has been operating since 1985.

The report also says the TTC considered extending the life of the 35-year-old SRT until 2023 but staff determined an overhaul wouldn’t be worth it.

TTC spokesperson, Stuart Green explains, “the RT is not going to be reliable beyond 2023 — we’ve spent a lot of money keeping it going to this point already, and to keep it going until 2030 would be another half a billion dollars.”

“Customers use the SRT primarily for home-to-work and home-to-school trips. Currently, 52 percent of SRT customers are travelling between home and the workplace while an
additional 24 percent are travelling between home and school,” the TTC says.

“According to the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, it says 18 percent of SRT users come from households with an income below the StatsCan low-income cut-off for families of $40,000 per year. The stations at Kennedy and Scarborough Centre are significant transit hubs in the TTC’s multi-modal network, accounting for over 75 percent of all ridership on the SRT line.”

The report says the best thing to do for reliable transit, and to keep costs down, is to stop running the SRT in 2023, and move to all-bus transit for all of Scarborough for the following seven years.

The staff report says the SRT trains are already way past the end of their service life, so the best thing to do for cost and reliable transit, is to switch to all-bus service in Scarbrough, in 2023.

Green says, “we need somewhere in the area of 60 to 80 buses that would be dedicated to this service. We could move people, we would have frequent service, it would run approximately every minute at the busiest times of day.”

A new TTC staff report says the most reliable transit option for Scarborough — and the least expensive — is to shut down the Line 3 SRT in 2023, and change to all-bus service until the Scarborough subway extension opens in 2030. Details now on @680NEWS pic.twitter.com/JM9p9zkUlo

— Mark Douglas (@DouglasCityNews) February 4, 2021

The report lays out three options:

Option 1 –  keep the SRT running with bus support right through to 2030, when the Scarborough subway extension is set to open. This is the most expensive option and most unreliable because the SRT trains are so old.

Options 2 and 3 – have the current SRT trains stop running in 2023; bus routes take overall service and destinations.

The difference is, Option 2 uses all brand new buses until 2030; Option 3 goes half and half, with existing buses until 2026, then buy new buses to take over.

Eight current major bus routes would be expanded.

The Scarborough Transit Action, a grassroots volunteer organization that speaks up for transit riders in Scarborough, says Premier Doug Ford and Mayor John Tory “owe it to Scarborough” to replace SRT with a bus lane and move forward with the Eglinton East LRT.

“If we don’t order more buses ASAP, service levels across Scarborough and the rest of Toronto will suffer when the SRT is shut down in 2023,” said Zain Khurram of Scarborough Transit Action.

“Letting us transfer between GO and TTC for free would also give Scarborough residents more travel options. The SRT arrives every 5 minutes on the dot. Scarborough deserves the same service and better for the bus replacement.”

Councillor Josh Matlow – who has opposed the three-stop subway extension – has made some bold comments on Twitter following news of the report.

Scarborough’s politicians lied to them. The 7-stop LRT plan would still serve far more people, be less expensive, and get built sooner than the 3-stop subway fiasco. To quote Mitt Romney, "The best way we can show respect for the voters who were upset is by telling them the truth https://t.co/UUF8BcNHxK

— Josh Matlow (@JoshMatlow) February 4, 2021

Matlow says, “Scarborough’s politicians lied to them. The seven-top LRT plan would still serve far more people, be less expensive, and get built sooner than the 3-stop subway fiasco.”

“To quote Mitt Romney, ‘The best way we can show respect for the voters who were upset is by telling them the truth.'”

Organizations representing Scarborough residents, students, and transit users are calling for a “dedicated” bus rapid transit lane with frequent service to match current SRT service levels.

These groups say that the provincial government should pay for additional buses, frequent service, and fare integration between the TTC and GO network.

Scarborough councillor Paul Ainslie also issued a statement, saying he’s “thoroughly disappointed but not surprised.”

“The SRT should have closed in 2015 at the end of its useful life. Now, it will close before a better, more viable service is in place, negatively impacting Scarborough residents and businesses.” the councillor wrote.

“If we had built the Scarborough LRT as announced in 2007, it would have been operational today serving multiple communities and thousands of residents.”

To date, the SRT has been renewed twice with continuous maintenance needed to keep its trains running.

This all comes up for discussion at the TTC Board meeting next Wednesday.

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680 NEWS reporter Mark Douglas contributed to this article