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If 10,000 passengers a day is considered good ridership on a line that cost $500 million then God help RER.

Even without electrification, if the UPX was simply a TTC fare then ridership would soar and would easily increase 10-fold if a logical station was built at HWY#7 servicing Humber with doubled frequencies. Why doesn't the city just take over the line and make it part of ST?
 
ssiguy2 said:
If 10,000 passengers a day is considered good ridership on a line that cost $500 million then God help RER.

Even without electrification, if the UPX was simply a TTC fare then ridership would soar and would easily increase 10-fold if a logical station was built at HWY#7 servicing Humber with doubled frequencies. Why doesn't the city just take over the line and make it part of ST?
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Ridership will soar
But the byproduct is that the line will be overloaded and eventually either equipment failures will catch up or people will begin to complain about overcrowding. Tbh the current fare is a decent medium....Maybe a it cheaper but certainly not down to the level of ttc. Besides with fare by distance coming in the medium term prices would be going up anyways
 
Streety McCarface said:
DRL north is technically in the suburbs. Should we revert to the Don Mills LRT? I think not. Should the subway west of Old Mill and East of Main St Station have been built? Absolutely. It may have not been full when it opened, but they most certainly serve hundreds of thousands of commuters daily. The demand along the Yonge Line and crowded Bloor, Danforth, and university lines would not be there had these subways not been built. No one here is denying that the DRL long needs to be built. It should have been built before the extension to Vaughan, we get it, we all agree. However, it is this mindset against planning for the future that got us into this transit mess we are in now, and will only continue unless we build for the future, and I'm not talking 20 years into the future, but 60 years into the future.
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The DRL north makes sense for numerous reasons that something like the SSE does not.

Streety McCarface said:
I am not against LRT, or alternate technology in the suburbs, and I am not for sheppard or scarborough subways before DRL long is completed. I just don't believe the ttc or the city is doing enough to plan for the future. We have a huge fare recovery ratio. It may seem impressive, but it shows that we're stingy and unable to provide a buffer of service to make commuting enjoyable. LRT lines should be built, but along corridors that won't see much growth and have significant ridership. I'm looking at York Mills, Wilson, Jane, Finch, Ellesmere, Lawrence, Even Eglinton East and West. Growth is expected in significant amounts along Eglinton, Sheppard, Don Mills, Dufferin, and the Portlands. Those corridors are perfect for subway building. They may not be full in 5 or even 15 years, but ridership will grow and they will be seen as worthwhile investments. I sent a video of the sheppard subway outside of rush hour. It was standing room only. I don't know about you, but for a stubway, that's incredible. Dozens of cities would beg for that kind of ridership. It's not good transit planning to build lines that will be at or near capacity when they open, it's actually a huge waste of resources because an inadequate system is built.
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I've been on the Sheppard Line outside of rush hour quite a few times and it was deserted. Anecdotal evidence doesn't really mean much. Between 2011 and 2015, ridership actually declined. The Spadina Streetcar has comparable ridership.

Sheppard is a great example of the kind of infrastructure we shouldn't be building.

Right now we need to address the core system and build subways where there is already sufficient demand. LRT lines in the suburbs would not only be effective, they'd serve those communities well for generations.
 
syn said:
I've been on the Sheppard Line outside of rush hour quite a few times and it was deserted. Anecdotal evidence doesn't really mean much. Between 2011 and 2015, ridership actually declined. The Spadina Streetcar has comparable ridership.
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I’ll add that the Spadina is the same length as the Sheppard Line. The fact that Sheppard doesn’t outperform it is pathetic.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I’ll add that the Spadina is the same length as the Sheppard Line. The fact that Sheppard doesn’t outperform it is pathetic.
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To be fair, Spadina streetcar has way better connectivity, it connects Union Stations with Spadina Station. The fact that Sheppard Line is a stub makes it rather useless. I would say that even if Sheppard Line had only been extended to connect with Spadina Line ridership would have been way up. Sheppard Line is not an example of infrastructure we should not build, it is an example of infrastructure we had not built properly at the first place.
 
hw621 said:
To be fair, Spadina streetcar has way better connectivity, it connects Union Stations with Spadina Station. The fact that Sheppard Line is a stub makes it rather useless. I would say that even if Sheppard Line had only been extended to connect with Spadina Line ridership would have been way up. Sheppard Line is not an example of infrastructure we should not build, it is an example of infrastructure we had not built properly at the first place.
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Of course it does. It's in a dense, urban environment - the kind of environment higher-order urban transit was designed for.

Sheppard does not provide such an environment. Extending it would make little difference. It does connect with the Yonge Line and Fairview Mall/404, and that's why it gets rush hour riders. Unfortunately there's no density in between, so it can't sustain ridership outside rush hour.

This is why building subways in the suburbs is a terrible idea. They won't be able to justify them for generations. A 'built it and they will come' approach to subway construction doesn't work - this has been demonstrated time and time again.

Higher order transit is not just subways - LRTs are a great solution for suburuban transit needs. We can focus subway construction on areas of need too - dense, urban environments & connections that require such infrastructure.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I’ll add that the Spadina is the same length as the Sheppard Line. The fact that Sheppard doesn’t outperform it is pathetic.
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Most of the ridership numbers for the Spadina line include the Harbourfront line, which in itself serves about 15-25K PPD. Together, the line lengths are about the same and the ridership is about the same. Factor in that we're planning on building a subway along a good portion of the Harbourfront Line (Relief Line West) and a relatively similar path to the Spadina line (North and south) (Again, Relief Line West), and it becomes evident that a subway is being planned for a similar length of line with a similar amount of traffic. 50K passengers for 5 km of track. It may not be a priority but it most certainly seems fair, especially with huge amounts of growth projected for both corridors.

syn said:
Of course it does. It's in a dense, urban environment - the kind of environment higher-order urban transit was designed for.

Sheppard does not provide such an environment. Extending it would make little difference. It does connect with the Yonge Line and Fairview Mall/404, and that's why it gets rush hour riders. Unfortunately there's no density in between, so it can't sustain ridership outside rush hour.

This is why building subways in the suburbs is a terrible idea. They won't be able to justify them for generations. A 'built it and they will come' approach to subway construction doesn't work - this has been demonstrated time and time again.

Higher order transit is not just subways - LRTs are a great solution for suburuban transit needs. We can focus subway construction on areas of need too - dense, urban environments & connections that require such infrastructure.
Click to expand...

The video was taken off peak, at around 2:30-3 (I don't remember exactly what time I was there, I had to finish the subway challenge and it wasn't really on my mind). Compare it to a peak time, say, 4:30-6. It would most likely be even more full. 2-3 car LRV trains would be inadequate with that level of traffic. (450 crush load vs about 600-700 people on just one train). Sure, you could run trains twice as frequently as the Sheppard line currently runs trains, but that would require twice the amount of rolling stock, double the number of drivers, double the number of mechanics, and double the wear on tracks, therefore, more track maintenance. That seems illogical since it might cost the same but most certainly more to run light rail over a subway on the corridor. If you wanted to save money on traction power costs, then during the severe off-peak times, you run 2 car t1s in the late evenings and weekend middays. I must ask why other lines don't use this system: run TRs on all lines during peak times, and shortened T1s during off-peak times. Would it require too many spares? The trains we currently use are huge and even the Yonge line doesn't require that type of capacity during off-peak times.
 
There's an easy way to sell Sheppard as LRT. And again people are ignoring the obvious. Conversion.

Once, Eglinton is finished, people will have a great example of a tunnel and surface LRT. Sheppard can (and should) be pitched the same way. Sell it as a transferless ride. From the zoo to Downsview.

Or everyone can watch a subway being pushed by Ford, if he wins. The lack of willingness to compromise on this one blows my mind.
 
It's interesting how the Yonge Line is at or over capacity while the spadina line is not. If the Sheppard line is connected to spadina will it be easier for commuters to utilize the spadina line?
 
hw621 said:
It's interesting how the Yonge Line is at or over capacity while the spadina line is not. If the Sheppard line is connected to spadina will it be easier for commuters to utilize the spadina line?
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Yes it will, and people will do it, resulting in both lines being over capacity due to induced demand.
 
Did the Liberal throne speech make any mentions of transit?

I just saw that they are offering more Pharmacare, home care and child care support.
 
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