The Complication of Cummer Station and the Case Against It
The subway station Toronto wants but can't have.
The Yonge North Subway Extension is one of the 3 major subway extensions being pushed forward by the current Ontario government, and in some ways, it’s the best of the three projects.
While the Eglinton West Extension is good, it should have been elevated along the wide right-of-way along that part of Eglinton, and while the Scarborough Subway Extension is also good, the fact that the project doesn’t reuse the Scarborough RT right of way is comical given that line has already permanently closed.
Meanwhile, Yonge Street north of Finch is primed for redevelopment and constantly filled with buses from both TTC (Toronto) and YRT (York Region), and I would know as I’ve taken the routes shuttling down Yonge street into Finch station for years of my life! Given how popular the Yonge subway already is, extending it further is a no brainer, especially as it should have some significant relief thanks to the Ontario Line as well as expanded & electrified GO services. Replacing a corridor filled with buses with electric trains running faster along the exact same route is about as logical a transit project as one can find (though some of the changes to the plan — like diverting in-tunnel over a large distance to use a surface corridor when you might has well have gone to the terminus in-tunnel — are head scratchers).
But if you’ve followed the news or the project itself for a long time, you’ll know something is missing from the current plan (for which tunneling has not yet started, unlike the other projects) — a station at Cummer Avenue.
As you can see from Metrolinx’ current plan, Cummer/Drewry station is listed as “potential”, contingent on the city of Toronto finding the funding for the station itself. On writing this article, I actually couldn’t remember the quoted price for the station, and assumed it would be roughly $100-200 million — the actually supposed cost is >$400 million, which is nuts and a good reminder how severe Toronto’s transit price inflation is. Cummer station should be pretty simple to build and could absolutely be done cut and cover given the width of the right-of-way.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, I used to live in the Yonge and Cummer area, and so I am sympathetic to the idea of a station here. There is a big development already being built on the southeast corner of the intersection called the M2M condos, which even advertised being located at a station (which was, well, dishonest when the Yonge Subway extension had not even been confirmed), and there are several more in other stages of development.
After several news stories this week about how the local councillor (who, for the record also pushed against a modular housing project not far away on Cummer, because of NIMBY concerns) is pushing the province to fund the station (which really should be pushing the government to get their costs down so all stations are cheaper). I decided I should register my takes on this issue.
The local councillor shouldn’t be asking for funding while blocking housing projects in the area. Asking for huge transit investments while stopping affordable housing is baffling and absolutely the opposite of what we should be doing.
The hilarious argument has been made that “Finch and Cummer are farther apart than College and Wellesley” (you can see the councillors remark in the first link) this is crazy because College and Wellesley are downtown and their local area looks like this:
While the area around Cummer station looks like this:
Now, as I mentioned before (and as you can see in the second image) several condo towers will be built in the area of Cummer Avenue (there are others that aren’t as advanced as well), but if this is the only requirement we have for a subway station, then at least 10% of major suburban intersections in the city justify a subway station! And what’s worse is that this is in Willowdale, a pretty affluent area!
Then there is the fact that Cummer is just really close to Finch. The northernmost entrance to Finch station is located in the building at the bottom left of the above picture — just about 350 metres from the intersection of Yonge and Cummer. While you will have to walk for a few minutes indoors, that’s still a very good deal. It also further highlights why the situation is not the same as on Yonge Street downtown. The density in North York is really concentrated along Yonge, and since the major development at Cummer is south of it, it’s already in the walkshed of Finch! At the same time, most of the Cummer walkshed would be single family homes (the Cummer bus is a consideration and I used to use it regularly, but it’s a quiet service that doesn’t run all that frequently and its passengers will barely save any time getting on the subway at Cummer vs. Finch!).
And then we need to look at the cost, which as I discussed before is extremely high at over 400 million dollars — that’s several times the cost of what a station like Don Mills or Bessarion cost a couple decades ago.
So ultimately, I think this station is a bad idea with our circumstances. I would like to have a station here, but I doubt that would be for the greater good.
Others have pointed out that York Region is getting a similar station at Royal Orchard (possibly because York Region is politically important or because Royal Orchard is a wealthy influential area?) where there is less density and transit service and that the case for Cummer is better, and I agree! However, both are bad, and there being other bad stations on the project doesn’t justify the existence of more bad stations.
The story of Cummer station is a beautiful example of why basically every project goes through a CBA or Cost-Benefit Analysis process. In this process, planners try to quantify the costs and benefits (environmental, social, economic, etc.) for a project. I think it’s pretty obvious that the ratio of benefits-to-[costs is going to be low for Cummer station because it adds little benefit — Cummer bus riders can still easily go to Finch, and most people in the Cummer walkshed will also be a short walk of Finch, while also being extremely expensive. This relates to the “but we are building Royal Orchard!” point, because both projects likely have poor cost benefit ratios, it’s just that the government is happy to spend the public’s money on the station in York Region. Basically, we can make relative comparisons all we want, but really all that matters here (to simplify) is that both of these stations probably bring the public less value than the public will have to pay for them.
What’s sad is that if our construction costs were not so extremely high, local development might actually be able to pay for a station, but at half a billion a station that just isn’t happening. The best bet for those seeking this station is probably to push for a provision so the station could be built later should we get our costs under control and should the area significantly densify.
Now, before you think I am saying this out of a desire for some Reagan-esque economic rationale, that is not the case. I think we should spend enormously on public transit, but looking at cost benefit allows us to most effectively utilize public funds. This subway station has a poor cost-benefit ratio, but imagine what the cost-benefit ratio for a new GO station in a dense area might be (low construction cost and high value) or a massive series of cycle lanes and pedestrian improvements. You could build a lot of extremely valuable stuff for nearly half a billion dollars!
Lesson learnt: Yonge & Cummer is the place to go for Korean food.
Have to laugh at the 'Reagan-esque economic rationale' line... you're posing fair and necessary questions, and critiquing politicized transit planning that will be a future taxpayer burden of incomprehensible magnitude. All this imposed by an ostensibly conservative government. Would love to see a cost benefit analysis of the actual cost of transit as it benefits the parties, i.e. how much will we pay in transit costs for the last provincial election?