[Jonny5]

cannot possibly compete with driving on congested highways.

ROFL at tripping over your own rhetoric. Or are you one of the types who will never use transit unless there's an express subway stop in your basement.

 

[gweed123]

Also I seriously think that we should abandon the idea of LRT entirely for new lines and build either subways/elevated rail/commuter rail or bus rapid transit only. LRT is an "intermediate" method of transit that is problematic because it is much more costly to build than BRT; its construction is very disruptive (like subways), but it is not much faster than BRT and cannot possibly compete with driving on congested highways. The only benefit is that the capacity is a bit higher than BRT, but much much lower than subways and is easily overwhelmed; also it is beyond absurd to ever put two methods of rail transit on one road like Sheppard. If there is not enough demand/enough money to build a subway line on a road then just build diamond lanes and buy articulated buses, which we should be doing for every major bus route in the city.

I agree completely. LRT's main advantage is it's flexibility to operate in a variety of different configurations. For me, LRT makes the most sense when it has a tunnelled section through a higher density area, and then can operate at-grade in lower density areas, possibly as a branched service. That way you get the increased capacity compared to BRT, and less cost than subway through low density areas. A perfect example of this is the Green Line in Boston.

In my opinion, the best way to take full advantage of LRT on Eglinton is to have at-grade LRT branches heading up Jane and Don Mills.

And the supposed operational cost advantages of LRT compared to BRT only really come to fruition when the BRT is running buses at very high frequencies. For most of the LRT lines proposed in TC (in particular Sheppard East), you'd be running trains at 15 minute frequencies that would be 3/4 empty most of the day. At least with BRT you can scale it down to 1 bus every 10 minutes and still keep a decent level of service.

Build it as BRT, that way you don't need to build the yard, etc along the line. If the ridership eventually reaches a point where the BRT is operating at very high frequencies during rush hour and decent levels off-peak, an upgrade to LRT can be considered.

 

[Paleo]

Build it as BRT, that way you don't need to build the yard, etc along the line. If the ridership eventually reaches a point where the BRT is operating at very high frequencies during rush hour and decent levels off-peak, an upgrade to LRT can be considered.

It's not quite that simple. The yard for Sheppard was going to be used for Sheppard, the SRT+extension, and any future lines like the Morningside line to UTSC.

 

[andrewpmk]

I agree completely. LRT's main advantage is it's flexibility to operate in a variety of different configurations. For me, LRT makes the most sense when it has a tunnelled section through a higher density area, and then can operate at-grade in lower density areas, possibly as a branched service. That way you get the increased capacity compared to BRT, and less cost than subway through low density areas. A perfect example of this is the Green Line in Boston.

In my opinion, the best way to take full advantage of LRT on Eglinton is to have at-grade LRT branches heading up Jane and Don Mills.

And the supposed operational cost advantages of LRT compared to BRT only really come to fruition when the BRT is running buses at very high frequencies. For most of the LRT lines proposed in TC (in particular Sheppard East), you'd be running trains at 15 minute frequencies that would be 3/4 empty most of the day. At least with BRT you can scale it down to 1 bus every 10 minutes and still keep a decent level of service.

Build it as BRT, that way you don't need to build the yard, etc along the line. If the ridership eventually reaches a point where the BRT is operating at very high frequencies during rush hour and decent levels off-peak, an upgrade to LRT can be considered.

Having Eglinton branch up Jane and Don Mills makes no sense. (a) Jane is too narrow for LRT in dedicated lanes+2 car lanes each way, so this means streetcars in mixed traffic which is a bad idea. (b) Don Mills should either have a subway as part of the downtown relief line or the Richmond Hill line should be upgraded. I generally see Eglinton as a crosstown suburb to suburb line that competes with the Bloor-Danforth line, driving on the 401 and driving on congested arterial roads, so I think it needs high capacity.

My opinion on LRT is that it might be OK on medium-capacity routes which are very unlikely to need subways AND which are not intended to compete with faster methods of transportation such as 400-series highways and other subway lines. It will basically be similar to the St. Clair streetcar i.e. not very fast. Finch West, for example, is a local service line which serves Jane/Finch & Rexdale, it wouldn't really ever compete with 401 (Eglinton is the line which will compete with the heavily congested stretch of 401 between Yonge and 427, serving the massive Pearson Airport employment areas). Scarborough-Malvern replaces parts of buses #86 and #116 and high density development seems unlikely here. Waterfront West improves streetcar #501 and acts as a feeder to the Lakeshore GO line. Nevertheless, in a lot of these cases, building BRT would be cheaper and less disruptive, and there is the possibility of building BRT on every big arterial in the city which is too expensive with LRT. However, Eglinton and Sheppard are 401 relievers and serve the densely populated Yonge/Eglinton and North York Centre areas; and Don Mills needs a subway as a Yonge Line/DVP reliever. LRT will be slower and lower capacity.

ROFL at tripping over your own rhetoric. Or are you one of the types who will never use transit unless there's an express subway stop in your basement.

I am not one of those types, I don't even own a car. My point is that most people who own cars will not take transit if it is much slower than driving. If transit is much slower than driving on the 401 in rush hour (and the 401 gets very congested in rush hour), people will drive. Example: I know someone who commutes from near Bathurst/St Clair to near Scarborough Centre. Currently this is about 1 hour 30 minutes each way by transit (via Bloor-Danforth/SRT or via various combinations of buses). Driving in rush hour traffic via Allen & 401 takes about 45 minutes according to Google, 30 minutes with no traffic. (Driving the reverse direction takes considerably longer, probably over an hour in rush hour). Via underground Eglinton line this would probably take 1 hour. Via the Transit City Eglinton line it would probably be about 1 hour 15 minutes due to the slower travel time and transfer at Kennedy/Eglinton. If the Eglinton line can at least match 401 in rush hour on speed for many trips, it will have much higher ridership.

 

[Rainforest]

Example: I know someone who commutes from near Bathurst/St Clair to near Scarborough Centre. Currently this is about 1 hour 30 minutes each way by transit (via Bloor-Danforth/SRT or via various combinations of buses). Driving in rush hour traffic via Allen & 401 takes about 45 minutes according to Google, 30 minutes with no traffic. (Driving the reverse direction takes considerably longer, probably over an hour in rush hour). Via underground Eglinton line this would probably take 1 hour. Via the Transit City Eglinton line it would probably be about 1 hour 15 minutes due to the slower travel time and transfer at Kennedy/Eglinton. If the Eglinton line can at least match 401 in rush hour on speed for many trips, it will have much higher ridership.

1) St Clair is halfway between Bloor and Eglinton. If the fully-underground Eglinton runs at the same speed as Bloor subway, there is no way for that trip to take 1 hour via Eglinton if it takes 1 hour 30 minutes via Bloor.

2) The travel time difference between the Transit City Eglinton and the fully underground Eglinton will be about 7 min (9 km between Laird and Kennedy / 34 kph => 16 min; 9 km / 23 kph => 23 min.

 

[unimaginative2]

Wow...so the TTC's own figures have a 50% travel time savings with the undergrounding. And that's not taking into account reliability effects and the TTC's record of overestimating LRT travel time savings (i.e. St. Clair).

 

[nfitz]

2) The travel time difference between the Transit City Eglinton and the fully underground Eglinton will be about 7 min (9 km between Laird and Kennedy / 34 kph => 16 min; 9 km / 23 kph => 23 min.

34 km/hr seems a tad high. And 23 km/hr might be correct if they do build all the stations - but it wouldn't apply for the entire route. There'll be only one traffic light between the DVP and Laird (at Leslie), given that the plan was to bury Don Mills station ... and perhaps none, if they use some common sense and put the track south of Eglinton through Leslie.

Also it's only 8.5 km from Laird to Kennedy. And less than 8 km from the Brentcliffe portal to Kennedy (Laird is the last station, the portal is east of Brentcliffe). Closer to 7.5 km from the Brentcliffe portal to the Kenndy portal. But what really counts here is the distance from the portal east of Don Mills road - it's less than 6 km from here to the Kennedy portal. Though there's already talk that it might be simpler to move the portal east of the DVP (not sure why - they can easily avoid any crossings there ... and then it's about 5 km. Even with 23 km/hr versus 34 km/hr the time savings is now only 4 minutes. (13 minutes at 23 km/hr to go 5 km, compared to 9 minutes at 34 km/hr). Now get rid of some of those extra stations and use the underground stops instead of the original Transit City stops ... and your looking at about 30 km/hr vs 34 km/hr. Suddenly you are at 10 minutes at 30 km/hr compared to 9 minutes at 34 km/hr. So what do you really save by going underground? 1 minute. That's it. The rest is simply the stop spacing.

Wow...so the TTC's own figures have a 50% travel time savings with the undergrounding. And that's not taking into account reliability effects and the TTC's record of overestimating LRT travel time savings (i.e. St. Clair).

Where are these TTC figures? I haven't seen them.

 

[Dan416]

Also Hume's idea of putting LRT on the surface along Eglinton between Laird and Black Creek is absurd. It seems that his sole reason for proposing this is because he is strongly anti-car and he wants to discourage driving on Eglinton. This is ridiculous because an Eglinton streetcar above ground would either have to be in mixed traffic or the road would have to be narrowed to 2 lanes making it near-impossible to drive on Eglinton which is horribly congested as it is. This would make the Eglinton streetcar extremely slow, and it would take forever to get through this section due to having many stops and stopping at a zillion traffic lights; would reduce the line's capacity; would reduce ridership; and would make the Eglinton line useless as a reliever to Highway 401 in rush hour. Everyone knows how the #32 Eglinton West bus takes absolutely forever to get from Jane St. to Yonge St; do we really want a streetcar that is this slow? Plus many people need to drive for a variety of reasons (coming from areas of the suburbs that have bad/no transit; coming from out of town; making deliveries or carrying heavy stuff, etc.)

I lost a lot of respect for Hume in that video. Not even Miller and his cronies wanted to build a streetcar on the central portion of Eglinton. WTF would be the point of that?

Can you imagine the white elephant Hume would give us? That would be a far, far bigger tragedy than any Shepard subway.

If they plan to join the Eglinton line to the SRT, it can't be stopping at traffic lights in between. That'd be absurd.

 

[BMO]

Interesting article by John Lorinc at Spacing http://spacingtoronto.ca/2012/01/30/lorinc-whos-going-to-be-the-grown-up-on-the-eglinton-crosstown/

Thought I'd quote this little part, seeing as how most people on these forums seem to think that it's only Toronto tax payers who have to pay for all these transit expansions that supposedly "only benefit 905ers"...

...Real fiscal conservatives would demand crisp answers to these questions before proceeding, simply because they’d want solid assurances that scarce taxpayer dollars are being deployed efficiently and effectively.

Now consider this: if Greater Toronto accounts for half of Ontario’s economic activity, and the City of Toronto half of that again, as is conventionally estimated, then 416 taxpayers are putting up about $500 million of the funds required to bury the line completely – i.e., roughly $200 for every man, woman and child.

By the same logic, however, taxpayers in the rest of the province are anteing up 75% of that extra $2.1 billion in burial fees. If the brothers Ford were genuine, as opposed to phony, fiscal conservatives, they’d be especially attentive to the externally-generated portion of the Crosstown budget, because the bulk of that money – i.e., other people’s money – will not benefit those who foot the bill...

 

[k10ery]

Interesting article by John Lorinc at Spacing http://spacingtoronto.ca/2012/01/30/lorinc-whos-going-to-be-the-grown-up-on-the-eglinton-crosstown/

Thought I'd quote this little part, seeing as how most people on these forums seem to think that it's only Toronto tax payers who have to pay for all these transit expansions that supposedly "only benefit 905ers"...

Lorinc is thinking about it the wrong way. McGuinty has made it clear that there is $8 billion for transit in Toronto, and the Mayor and Council decide how it is spent. If they choose to waste it on a tunnel to nowhere, then there is less money for Sheppard, Finch etc.

In other words, Toronto taxpayers and transit users are paying for 100% of the Eglinton East tunnel, not 25%.

 

[ssiguy2]

Tell that to the people of London, Lindasy, or Listowel who have to contribute atleast one third of all their infrastructure needs while Toronto get's a $8.2 billion cheque from Queen's Park and the only thing required from them is that they have to spend it.
Maybe Torontonians would get more value for their hard earned tax dollars and demand better accountability about these "cost estimates" if they had to put their one third contribution in.
It's easy to foot loose and fancy free with other people's money but when some of your own is on the line you demand better results and far more bang for the buck.

 

[nfitz]

Tell that to the people of London, Lindasy, or Listowel who have to contribute atleast one third of all their infrastructure needs while Toronto get's a $8.2 billion cheque from Queen's Park and the only thing required from them is that they have to spend it.

Hang on - I was up in Port Sydney recently, and I saw new sidewalks, parking lots, community centre additons, and I was told the money came 100% from the federal government. No municipal contribution required. The locals told me all the towns around there had gotten the same deal.

 

[origin]

Look at what streetcars did to St. Clair and the waterfront. Completely destroyed the communities. I pray that not one single bit of Transit City is built. Do it right the first time or don't do it at all. Subways all the way, 100%. Tear up the whole transit city document.

 

[sixrings]

Look at what streetcars did to St. Clair and the waterfront. Completely destroyed the communities. I pray that not one single bit of Transit City is built. Do it right the first time or don't do it at all. Subways all the way, 100%. Tear up the whole transit city document.

Origin, where do you live????

people can debate if St Clair ended up better or worse but I have never heard anyone say that the waterfront LRT destroyed the community.

 

[junctionist]

Streetcars provide the medium-capacity local transit needed on the waterfront and make it distinctly Torontonian, with a reliable underground link between Union Station and the ferry docks. St. Clair has never been more attractive, and it remains vibrant. The streetcar service has proven quite popular.