[innsertnamehere]

Now if only the revenue tools can happen. They will give us the backbone network, and politicians can still tack their political vote buying lines on top of that.

 

[rbt]

On a brighter note isn't it worth pausing and taking note of the fact that EVERYONE is now talking about transit. Transit is the new gravy train and every level of government is jumping to get on board. Whatever problems there are with details of funding and alignment, and however dumb you think the solutions are, Toronto is and will continue to be building a lot of Tansit in the next decade.

It is great. I'm a little nervous that we might run into money constraints (political, not fiscal) before building some of the more useful pieces.

 

[M II A II R II K]

We can expect nothing better than this:

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Now if only the revenue tools can happen. They will give us the backbone network, and politicians can still tack their political vote buying lines on top of that.

The revenue tools will come. The people have demonstrated that they want them and I feel that the momentum is in our favour. Once Metrolinx's tools are implemented in the next budget it should be a done deal.

What I'm really excited about is to see what the candidates in the next municipal election have to say. The Big Move really doesn't go far enough for this city. Stintz will likely be proposing a set of additional revenue tools exclusively for Toronto. I wouldn't be surprised if Chow does too.

 

[innsertnamehere]

We will see. By Election Day, the tools will be implemented (presuming they happen) so it will be interesting what politicians propose to get a piece of the "transit pie" I don't expect additional tools however, as at that point people will already be paying for the Scarborough subway as well as the revenue tools. Increased TTC funding in general wouldn't surprise me however, and some things such as additional streetcars and the queens quay streetcar will probably be discussed.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Well Stintz did propose her OneCity funding plan knowing that the province intended to implement their own. So I wouldn't say that its iimpossible. And I expect Chow to have big transit plans as well. She seems to be positioning herself as a city builder and I doubt she wants to be outdone by stintz.

But this is all just wild speculation. We'll see in December/Janurary.

 

[RPM]

I like the idea of merging the Sheppard line into BD.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

double post

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I like the idea of merging the Sheppard line into BD.

I do too in a parallel universe where money, ridership and urban planning doesn't matter at all.

I'm curious with the Scarborough subway happening (I'd love to see how FordNation reacts to the taxes) what would happen to the Sheppard LRT. One of the benefits of a Scarborough LRT were that is would seamlessly connect the Crosstown, Scarborough and Sheppard into one connected line. Personally, if this B-D Scarborough expansion does come to pass, I hope that the only thing that happens to the Sheppard line is that it get's delayed and the funding for the project goes directly to the more urgently needed DRL. Knowing our luck though, Ford will somehow spin that the proposed Sheppard LRT needs to be replaced with subways, subways, subways. =\

On a brighter note isn't it worth pausing and taking note of the fact that EVERYONE is now talking about transit. Transit is the new gravy train and every level of government is jumping to get on board. Whatever problems there are with details of funding and alignment, and however dumb you think the solutions are, Toronto is and will continue to be building a lot of Tansit in the next decade.

I don't see how our transit becoming the gravy train and having every level of government jumping on board is good at all. All this means is that transit is now a tool the politicians at various levels of government have at their disposal to play party politics and win votes.

What needs to be done if we want our city to have intelligent transit built and actually improve our city, is to take transit out of the hands of the politicians and into the hands of experts. It's great that we have Metrolinx to serve that exact purpose.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

What needs to be done if we want our city to have intelligent transit built and actually improve our city, is to take transit out of the hands of the politicians and into the hands of experts. It's great that we have Metrolinx to serve that exact purpose.

Metrolinx has now been hijacked by Murray.

 

[rbt]

I do too in a parallel universe where money, ridership and urban planning doesn't matter at all.

Not to mention line reliability or operations efficiency. Long lines are a pain in the ass and prone to outages and service gaps, even as a subway.

 

[Electrify]

No. The tracks are incompatible with the Light Rail Vehicle. The whole line needs to be replaced. The stations need to be rebuilt as well since the LRVs are larger than the ICTS Mk. 1 vehicles. They're essentially rebuilding the entire line from almost nothing.

I'm not a civil engineer, but looking at the rails and bogies it appears that the actual actual contact surfaces are of standard rail components. Though admittedly the stations will need to be renovated to support low floor trains, an issue which could have been avoided if the TTC had opted for a high floor solution with ramps up to the stops.

What? Ford never proposed such a thing. And I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "efficient". How are you measuring this?

Under the agreement Ford had with the province the Eglinton line would run from Scarborough Town Centre to Black Creek. The Pulse buses could connect at STC and Mississauga could easily run a route from the transitway to Black Creek - at least until the LRT is expanded west to the transitway.

This comment was more about how if Stintz was going to push the original Transit City agenda, she shouldn't have come up with her own map a year later. Of course if we are to discuss changing plans, we can go back a loooong way...

Of course we could come up with a better solution for Sheppard. Converting the Subway to underground LRT would be wise, but not worth the ~$1 Billion extra cost. We have more urgent priorities. An eastward extension of the subway is out of the question, as has been shown by every single study done on the route.

Absolutely Sheppard is not a priority. That's why I say if we went with Ford then we can wait to get our priorities straightened out before we do anything with that corridor.

Funny enough, we may end up having to convert Sheppard to an LRT anyways. In 50 years when the tunnel is beginning to collapse it will probably make more sense to convert and connect it with the light rail line while refurbishing the tunnel.

Of course we can also do what we've done with the SRT and just let it rot away as well.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I'm not a civil engineer, but looking at the rails and bogies it appears that the actual actual contact surfaces are of standard rail components. Though admittedly the stations will need to be renovated to support low floor trains, an issue which could have been avoided if the TTC had opted for a high floor solution with ramps up to the stops.

Perhaps. And the tracks are the same gauge as the LRVs we've purchased. But people smarter than me have said that the whole thing needs to be replaced

Under the agreement Ford had with the province the Eglinton line would run from Scarborough Town Centre to Black Creek. The Pulse buses could connect at STC and Mississauga could easily run a route from the transitway to Black Creek - at least until the LRT is expanded west to the transitway.

Makes sense. I assumed that ECLRT would have had a terminus closer to Mississauga when he mentioned that.

Funny enough, we may end up having to convert Sheppard to an LRT anyways. In 50 years when the tunnel is beginning to collapse it will probably make more sense to convert and connect it with the light rail line while refurbishing the tunnel.

Of course we can also do what we've done with the SRT and just let it rot away as well.

We'll probably let it rot away. It's how we do things in Toronto (Gardiner, SRT...

 

[Electrify]

Let's start a countdown: If it was finished in 2002 and has a 50 year lifespan, only 39 more years until the Sheppard subway is no longer a burden on the TTC and city planning!

 

[innsertnamehere]

at that rate the yonge line would have shut down 9 years ago.