Subway extension to Vaughan

Table A5: Subway to Vaughan

Estimating the Costs of TTC Schemes

TTC provides a data sheet "Ridership and cost statistics for bus and streetcar routes, 2011."[1] This gives the number of passengers, vehicles, hours of service and bus-km, and the "Cost per day Mon-Fri." This table can be used to estimate the bus costs that will be saved, by partially or wholly replacing bus routes with new LRT or subway services.

Unfortunately, TTC provides no comparable data for the subway. This is further complicated because subways have high fixed costs to maintain and operate tunnels and stations, which do not vary in proportion to traffic volumes.

We can estimate total costs to operate the entire subway system by subtracting the costs of surface routes from TTC's total operating budget, as disclosed in its annual report. We can then calculate a cost per kilometre, recognizing that costs will be higher for the downtown sections with more stations and more trains, and less for outer sections with fewer stations or trains.

The sum of costs for all surface routes is $3,521,900 per weekday. Applying an annualization factor of 300, which assumes expenditure on weekends and holidays is at half the weekday rate, gives a figure of $1,056,600,000. Of this, $186 million is for streetcar routes, and $871 million for bus routes.

We estimate incremental O&M cost for the subway extensions based on total costs to operate the existing subway system, per route km.

According to the 2011 Annual Report,[2] Note 14, TTC's total expenditures excluding Wheel Trans, depreciation (assets funded by capital subsidy), and pension fund society income totalled $1,529,054,000. Applying 2% inflation to get the 2012 figure, and subtracting the surface route costs implies costs to operate the subway and RT are about $503 million per year or about $6.8 million per route km.

We can check this figure against the Eglinton Crosstown BCA, which gives annual cost of $68 million for a 19-km LRT from Weston Road to Kennedy, or $3.6 million per km. About two-thirds of this line is in subway, with closely spaced stations, however it would be operated with much smaller LRT trains and we would expect operating cost to be about half as large.[3]

The subway extension to Vaughan will increase the length of system by about 8.6 km. Applying the rate of $6.8 million per route km would give incremental O&M costs of $55 million per year. We assume a lower figure of $25 million per year (about $3 million per km) or $575 million NPV because:

• the $6.8 million per km figure probably includes substantial fixed costs, including transit control, and various engineering functions that should not grow proportional to subway mileage

• the line will probably be served at a lower peak headway
• stations are relatively widely spaced.

O&M costs on the Richmond Hill extension should be less, as the new line is only 6.8km in length. We assume the cost is $20 million per year or $460 million NPV.

We estimate costs to operate more intensive services based on current average cost per subway train km.

According to TTC operating data for 2011, TTC operated 76 million subway car-km and 3.3 million Scarborough RT car-km. Subway trains have 6 cars and two drivers while RT trains have 4 cars and one driver. Treating each RT train as half a train, TTC operated 13.5 million train-km.

This implies an average cost of about $26 per train-km. The incremental (marginal) cost for increased services would be lower, as the subway has substantial fixed costs relating to stations, track, and control centres. The cost per incremental train-km might be $20.

Assuming an incremental cost of $20 per train km, the cost to operate 35% more subway train at all times would be about $86 million per year or $1,978 million NPV.

Incremental O&M costs for buses should be similar to average costs, as buses do not have large fixed costs.

TTC has not provided any data on expected O&M costs for the new LRT schemes. We assume they will be similar to streetcar lines, about $2.5 million per km, but with additional costs for stations and tunnels. As the new lines will not connect with the rest of the streetcar system, and will use incompatible technology, there will be few synergies.

For LRT lines running underground, we add $1 million for each km of tunnel and $1 million for each underground station, per year. For elevated stations, or stations which are likely to require escalators or elevators, we add $0.5 million per year. These are fairly crude estimates; they reflect the total cost to operate the subway of about $6.8 million per route km, of which perhaps half relates to stations and tunnels and half to trains. While LRT stations are somewhat smaller than subway stations, tunnel costs for LRT and the subway will be similar.

Subway extensions and LRT lines will usually replace one or more bus routes. The offsetting saving will depend on how TTC chooses to modify the bus network. The Vaughan and Richmond Hill subway extensions will each replace about 6 km of frequent bus services. Using the same rate of $30 million NPV per km, we assume savings on each of $180 million NPV.