The way coverage of transit systems, expansion, and projects often happens (at least in North America) is detrimental to a nuanced public discussion of the systems we have and want to build, and nothing highlights this more to me than discussion around some recent transit lines and projects in Canada.
So in this article, I’ll tell you about that and how I think we should be going about having these discussions.
Earlier this week, Toronto’s Scarborough RT (Line 3) suffered a derailment, just months before it’s set to be retired from service. This is all while we await the opening of the under construction Line 2 scarborough subway extension — for which tunnelling is underway.
What’s a little frustrating was that some of the first questions asked about the derailment (and to be clear, I’m not really talking about any particular outlet — I heard this from several people) seemed to imply that a derailment was simply inevitable because of the age of the trains and track, and this was all effectively the result of not accepting the previous plan to replace the Scarborough RT with an “LRT” line in the 2010s — which “would have been done by now”. I need to give a brief aside on that project before continuing, feel free to skip if you know my thoughts.
The Scarborough LRT plan that existed back in the 2010s effectively amounted to replacing the RT (through what would have been an expensive rebuild) with either a standalone tram line on the same corridor, or an extension of the Eglinton Crosstown. This would have reduced capacity on the line, wouldn’t have fixed the annoying transfer that has to be made at Kennedy (potentially you could have kept riding down Eglinton — but along a slow surface section), and still taken the line out of service. So my opinion was that while this was a viable option, it was a pretty bad one compared to other alternatives. But, Toronto had a moment in the 2010s when it was fixated on LRT as the solution to every transit problem.
Of course, we didn’t do the conversion, so it’s also quite generous to suggest it would have gone perfectly well while light rail projects in basically every major city in Canada are having huge (if seemingly avoidable) problems leading to huge delays and system shutdowns. I just find the reporting on it feels like it lacks balance. The issues with the Fords in the 2010s were huge, but alternative plans that were advanced were simply not all that good either.
This form of reporting on problems with the transit system feels like it lacks a couple key things that I think transit reporting needs to have if it’s going to build a conversation that’s critical but also actually helps build the knowledge that gets better transit built.
How do these problems break down?
For one, transit is covered in an incredibly localized way — which might make sense for some topics, but given the unfortunate small scale of transit systems and projects in Canadian cities (even the REM doesn’t feel that big when you consider how little rail transit Montreal has built in the last few decades), ends up missing out on the broader story and important opportunities to benchmark Canadian cities against others around the world (and even within Canada).
Take for example the many articles I’ve read at this point that talk about the (insert superlative) delays and cost overruns of the Montreal REM. These delays and overruns are certainly not good, especially because Canada pays more money for new rail transit than many of our global peers like Italy or Korea (though this is as you might imagine also basically never covered in media here), but in the context of big Canadian transit projects, the record of recent ones is not one of delivery on time and on budget. And not providing that context when talking about how a certain project is not on time or on budget is simply not helpful.
Relative comparisons are also super important, because even within Canada the delays to the REM are actually not all that bad. The Valley Line LRT in Edmonton is a tram and has been delayed similarly to the REM, despite facing much smaller technical challenges. The Eglinton Crosstown started construction years before the REM and remains unopened (it does have much more tunnel, but it also had a ~5 year head start!). At the same time, the talk of cost overruns without any mention that the REM is delivering more transit per dollar than any project in Canada for at least a decade feels misleading. Sure, the cost has gone above projections, but were the projections already high to start with — that’s a pretty basic piece of information that’s needed to understand the overrun!
Basically, in theory, the REM — a very cost effective project by Canadian standards — is being discussed for its overruns, while a far more expensive project which managed to stay within a high budget might get no attention! What’s crazy is that even right now in Montreal, the Blue Line extension is happening with a budget that is in the same order of magnitude as the REM — while delivering just 5 stations (underground yes, but the REM is also delivering 4-5 underground stations), and I don’t think I have ever heard the term comparison made in a news piece.
This doesn’t just turn people off transit, but off of plans that objectively deliver better results. If most people are unaware of the cost delta between the REM and the Blue Line extension but very aware of the noise concerns people have because the REM is above ground (the media covers this ad nauseum), then I’d certainly imagine discourse gets driven in a very unhelpful direction.
Note, it is worth considering why the Blue line extension is costing ~5X the Orange line extension on a per kilometre basis — there is little discussion of this happening either. In fact, broadly, the cost escalation problems for transit and infrastructure projects get very little sensible media attention in North America…
I also think what feels like default negative coverage of transit projects and systems really messes with people’s heads, especially when it comes to transit expansion.
For example, there is a ton of negative coverage of the transit projects that used P3s in Toronto, Ottawa, and Edmonton, which have faced serious problems and delays. But around ten years ago, there was similarly negative coverage of projects being done by the public sector that felt very similar. My point here is not that there aren’t differences in the ways projects have been executed, and that there is not a best answer (which, if you are wondering, is a series of capable public agencies based on the research coming out of the Transit Costs Project) — Ultimately, attitudes towards different models of procuring projects often just feel reactionary. There is a backlash against P3s today, and there was a backlash against public procurement 10-15 years ago — where are the neutral voices that can drive things in a sensible direction?
To a large extent, some might even argue the desire for risk transfer to the private sector (so they cover the cost of overruns and delays) was a byproduct of politicians taking serious media heat for delayed public projects, even as we get similar results with “privately-led” projects — but maybe we are now seeing that big infrastructure is just hard whether the public or private sector does it, and someone always needs to be held accountable if you want to maintain public trust. The public doesn’t seem to care so much about the cost overrun as the delays in being able to use projects — which new models certainly do not appear to be fixing.
And regarding existing systems, when was the last time a transit safety issue was seriously put into context by being compared to the health hazards of automobility? And can you ever say you’ve heard of a positive piece being written about transit for its climate change fighting greenhouse gas emission reducing power?
What I also notice, is a desire to tie coverage into long-running narratives, which creates unending problems. For example, there is little questioning of highly-expensive light rail projects with low benefits (as stated in studies from more than one government) being built in the GTHA, as trams became the accepted “default” rail transit mode accepted by a certain part of transit/urbanist discourse in the 2010s. This is even as cities like Vancouver and Montreal have delivered “heavy” rail projects for similar if not slightly higher prices in recent years. The lack of a nationalized look at transit systems, or a bucking of the existing narrative as to what cities should be building means this mostly goes unquestioned in traditional media.
I think all of our problems ultimately tie back into two main things: a lack of perspective and cross comparison of different geographies so that we can go “Hey, why can Vancouver get more for less?” and an understanding of our own history “Why did projects cost 20% as much at the beginning of the 2000s? Inflation hasn’t been 5X since then…”.
Looking back at the RT, I think the question we should be asking is why cities around the world manage to use old trains on old infrastructure without serious derailments or problems. It’s clearly possible, and it’s a more fundamental point about institutions that the “what-ifs” of various past transit plans.
Instead of trying to find an opportunity to make politicians of various stripes look bad for the collective mess we are in, we should be asking why something that should work is not working. Perhaps these questions are not so easy or interesting to ask, but I think they are the ones we need to be asking. Just as our collective ability to get transit plans locked in is clearly in question, or at least has been historically, maybe we need to start asking about our ability to run and maintain what we already have.