Could New York City's
Staten Island be equivalent to Toronto's
Scarborough?
See
link.
It's sad that there hasn't been a proper definition of the problem.
Steve Munro always notes the absence of a demand flow analysis.
So many posts in this thread clearly show a lack of common understanding and ignorance of basic principles.
Scarborough has much suburban density housing but pockets of high density. There are three post secondary institutions that would be best served with adequate public transit. The Zoo is in Scarborough and is poorly served by public transit. The Kennedy subway is the end of the line of rapid transit and is in south Scarborough. For most of Scarborough, very long bus routes feed into the Subway, Victoria Park, Warden and Birchmount from Steeles. The most indecent bus routes are the 86 and 116 which have to go from Kennedy to north east Scarborough (like the Zoo). There is now an express bus to Scarborough College, but for many years it was the 86 or 116 that went there. Both routes serve pockets of very high density (Kingston Road and Lawrence) and the 116 has one of the most number of buses on it and a very heavy passenger load.
The roads department, which is independent of the planning department, never built any 6 lane north/south roads in Scarborough. This makes north/south bus travel very difficult especially Victoria Park, Birchmount and Kennedy.
To get to Kennedy station Eglinton East serves as a sink for all the buses. Lawrence is actually twice as long as Eglinton and has equivalent density. Instead of taking the 86 or 116, Lawrence would be heavily used if there were a subway station.
The Scarborough Rapid Transit (SRT) is an inconvenient connection between the Scarborough Town Centre (STC) and Kennedy Station. Many stops don't serve passengers, they just slow down the trip. The SRT platform at Kennedy is two stories above grade and passengers have to go two stories below grade to reach the subway platform (four level exchange). Whenever there is a snow storm you will see passengers lined up from the SRT platform, down three flights of stairs waiting for the SRT (prone to frozen switches.) While getting to the STC may be geographically the shortest route, in terms of time in transit, it is shorter to stick to buses that take you directly to Kennedy Station.
One added twist. Markham, to the north of Scarborough has built apartment complexes that have exponentially increased its density. Markham is a car society. Count on each apartment having two cars and the same for every house. The traditional routes into Toronto are so jammed, that there are drivers from Markham who go through Scarborough to get to Toronto. All the 4 lane north/south roads are now packed, not good for bus schedules.
