[kEiThZ]

What did Karl Marx call it again? Oh right, the "false consciousness" of the masses.

Never knew you were a Marxist

 

[Fresh Start]

Miller caused the TTC and City Worker strikes by being too soft on labour! Ridership is at an all-time high and service levels have increased but transit is worse than it ever has been! Up is Down! Black is White!

Yes transit use is going up inspite of the TTC's incompetency because of other things going on in the society such as increased oil/gas prices, chronic gridlock from a lack of highways into the city to distribute loads, and greater eco-awareness.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I wasn't aware that anyone other than you find my posts laughable. I'm sure if others had a problem with my argumentative style they would've said something by now. But hey, it's cool man. I'm here to shock and entertain just as much I aim to enlighten and inform those amongst us who are too docile to think for themselves. What did Karl Marx call it again? Oh right, the "false consciousness" of the masses.

Just to back kettal up, I also find your posts laughable.

Maybe we should create a poll thread?

 

[Fresh Start]

^ Well, Miller has nobody but himself to blame for that. He chose to chuck all existing transit plans out the window when he got elected and run with Transit City. There is no other mayor but him with fingerprints on this plan. He made it worse by prioritizing routes solely on an ideological basis.

At this point, I think he's actually worried about his legacy than anything else. He'll be the mayor that did some nice stuff on business taxes, touched on waterfront development, cancelled a bridge in an attempt to stifle a highly successful Toronto based business, and didn't really do much for transit other than build two tram lines in suburbia.

He placed a big bet. He lost. Let him wear it.

Hear, hear! Let him reap what he sowed. Mel Lastman will always be the more renown mayor in my book because at least he saw through the build of a brand new subway line from scratch. Miller's lasting legacy will be putting 89 businesses along St Clair West out of business.

 

[Fresh Start]

Just to back kettal up, I also find your posts laughable.

Maybe we should create a poll thread?

The only reason you find them laughable is because you're in awe that someone can be so brutally honest about the issues and attempt to offer practical solutions (which even if I'm incorrect, at least by making suggestions I'm initiating dialogue and critical assessment) instead of choosing to deride and ridicule like others here are content to do because they have no answers and take the TTC's word for it on everything like scripture.

 

[nfitz]

Best mayor in many a year? The same one responsible for the TTC strike of '08 and the garbage collector's strike of '09? Seriously?

I was talking about your achievments.

But who has done a better job as Mayor ... or before almagamation, Chair. Lastman? Tonks? Flynn? I think you have to go back over 40 years to find anyone like Gardiner and Allen.

So it stands ... best mayor in many a year.

TTC strike of 08? Is that even an issue? It lasted about 40 hours, and didn't impact a single rush-hour. Get real! Compare it to a real Transit strike like they had in Ottawa, or the ones that lasted weeks in Montreal in the 1980s.

I wasn't aware that anyone other than you find my posts laughable.

Your kidding right? Surely many here find your posts laughable!

The only reason you find them laughable is because you're in awe that someone can be so brutally honest about the issues and attempt to offer practical solutions

What? You have offered some of the most impractical and naive solutions going!

 

[Fresh Start]

What? You have offered some of the most impractical and naive solutions going!

Trial and error. You have to come to the wrong conclusions sometimes before the right ones can present themselves.

Anyway, this is not about me, this is about the mayor throwing out the window every sound transit expansion plan from the past 25 years to pull out of his rear end streetcars-for-suburbia which lobbysists along Sheppard East have stated that they do not want, which concerned citizens along Finch West have expressed in town hall meetings that they do not want. If this is the everyday, repeat customer basis for these tramway lines protesting that they don't want it, then why on earth is the mayor shoving it down their throats? Elected representative gov'ts ought to be indebted to the people, NOT private interests and contractors.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

By "clearly needs to be built as a metro subway line", I presume you mean it will need to carry a subway line's worth of riders at peak. Might I ask where you sourced your demand numbers for this "clearly" conclusion?

What is clear is that if existing bus/streetcar/whatever-that's-not-a-subway service moved "a subway line's worth" of people, we probably wouldn't need a subway (though we still might want to improve transit and traffic by grade-separating the line). If a subway was built along Eglinton, yes, it would move "a subway's worth," but if we don't build a subway on Eglinton, these riders will not materialize unless the TTC decides to begin dumping bus riders off at Eglinton. Ridership is very, very malleable and there's absolutely no such thing as static "demand" for transit that can be predicted or moved around like chess pieces.

I wasn't aware that anyone other than you find my posts laughable. I'm sure if others had a problem with my argumentative style they would've said something by now. But hey, it's cool man. I'm here to shock and entertain just as much I aim to enlighten and inform those amongst us who are too docile to think for themselves. What did Karl Marx call it again? Oh right, the "false consciousness" of the masses.

You're not a forum jester because most of your comic relief is accidental, not a "preformance."

 

[Asterix]

What is clear is that if existing bus/streetcar/whatever-that's-not-a-subway service moved "a subway line's worth" of people, we probably wouldn't need a subway (though we still might want to improve transit and traffic by grade-separating the line). If a subway was built along Eglinton, yes, it would move "a subway's worth," but if we don't build a subway on Eglinton, these riders will not materialize unless the TTC decides to begin dumping bus riders off at Eglinton. Ridership is very, very malleable and there's absolutely no such thing as static "demand" for transit that can be predicted or moved around like chess pieces.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is your conclusion basically a variation of "if you build it, they will come"?

I was under the impression that detailed studies of demand along the Eglinton corridor had been done, making use of the city's Official Plan for development and use of the area along the route, to determine whether there would be enough people wanting to use the line to justify it being a subway.

Now it is quite possible they cooked the numbers or the city's plan will not match what happens in reality or their accounting for drawing riders from other nearby routes is off, but I would think that methodology is slightly more valid than the assuming that the simple availability of a subway line will result in subway level demand.

If studies conclude that demand in the coming decades along Eglinton will remain within the levels serviceable by a grad-separated LRT line (with a central portion underground), then does it make fiscal sense to spend oodles more money to make it a full subway? Keep in mind that through the tunneled section, multi-car trains will be able to provide near-subway level capacity.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is your conclusion basically a variation of "if you build it, they will come"?

I was under the impression that detailed studies of demand along the Eglinton corridor had been done, making use of the city's Official Plan for development and use of the area along the route, to determine whether there would be enough people wanting to use the line to justify it being a subway.

Now it is quite possible they cooked the numbers or the city's plan will not match what happens in reality or their accounting for drawing riders from other nearby routes is off, but I would think that methodology is slightly more valid than the assuming that the simple availability of a subway line will result in subway level demand.

If studies conclude that demand in the coming decades along Eglinton will remain within the levels serviceable by a grad-separated LRT line (with a central portion underground), then does it make fiscal sense to spend oodles more money to make it a full subway? Keep in mind that through the tunneled section, multi-car trains will be able to provide near-subway level capacity.

You are wrong.

I'm not assuming the simple availability of a subway line will result in a full subway line. If you don't build it, they won't come - they literally *can't* come unless you force them to go there by dumping feeder route riders onto Eglinton and hoping they don't stop taking transit...this was what has always filled all of our subway lines.

If you build it and you want them to come, it can be done, but there's more to it and you need to create the right conditions. If you cut back the line and only build 5km of it, you're not going to get as many rides as you would have if it was 15 or 30km long. If you permit extensive redevelopment, you'll get more rides. If you divert feeder bus routes to the line, you get more. If you lower the cost of parking or expand roads and highways, you get less. If you build bike lanes everywhere, you get less. If you offer good connections with other transit routes, you get more. If you mismanage the service and reduce the frequency, you get less. You don't just build a subway, you do or don't do a hundred other things.

You need to realize that calculating a "demand" for transit on paper and then trying to match infrastructure and service to this "demand" does not work and is not good planning. That's not what they study. "Demand" should not be confused with predictions of how many people will actually use the service once it's up and running. Improved transit can create rides out of thin air, and changing it can kill rides and physically prevent people from travelling.

There's no such thing as a "subway line's worth of riders" and even if you do settle on an entirely arbitrary number of riders, this completely ignores quality of service, local context, and any number of spin-offs like changes to the tax base. Eglinton is such a long route with so many intersecting and parallel routes that even a small amount of post-subway redevelopment, a small amount of modal growth, and a small amount of diverted riders would probably easily put the peak volumes above whatever arbitrary threshold you feel like choosing. If there is a "subway line's worth," why is there no "LRT line's worth"?

Of course, a study for an LRT line will conclude that "demand" fits an LRT line, just as a study for a subway line would conclude that "demand" fits a subway line. When the city has to fight an ideological battle to win people over to light rail, the last thing they'd do is tailor an LRT cost/ridership model to spit out numbers that support anything other than the LRT line as proposed. The only methodology involved here is choosing which buzzwords and phrases will be used to justify each choice. "Is warranted," "is not affordable," and so on are meaningless.

You're also wrong about the relative cost of a completely grade-separated LRT line with multi-car vehicles and a "full subway." But we're not getting a grade-separated LRT line, we're getting a 1/3 grade-separated LRT line. A fully grade-separated multi-car LRT line can do pretty much whatever a subway does...it *is* a subway with somewhat different cars, and it doesn't really matter which of the two we build on Eglinton. Grade-separation vs waiting at red lights outside the tunnel is the real issue, not LRT vs subway.

 

[Asterix]

You are wrong.

Fair enough. I understand the case you are making with respect to a re-working of the system to provide incentives to riders to feed to the new subway. Since I don't know the way the planners came up with their forecast demand numbers, I don't know whether they took this into account or not.

You're also wrong about the relative cost of a completely grade-separated LRT line with multi-car vehicles and a "full subway." But we're not getting a grade-separated LRT line, we're getting a 1/3 grade-separated LRT line. A fully grade-separated multi-car LRT line can do pretty much whatever a subway does...it *is* a subway with somewhat different cars, and it doesn't really matter which of the two we build on Eglinton. Grade-separation vs waiting at red lights outside the tunnel is the real issue, not LRT vs subway.

While Eglinton will not be fully-grade separated the entire length, even the non-tunneled portion still will be grade-separated to a degree. Provided transit signal priority is properly implemented, the surface line will run significantly more efficiently than other non-subway options.

And cost is an issue since there would be a sizable difference to either bury or elevate the line currently planned to run on the surface. An LRT would not NEED to be completely separated whereas a subway would (which is both good and bad).

 

[gweed123]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. My biggest beef with the Eglinton line is not the fact that it's LRT, it's the fact that it's not using the Richview corridor in the west. Even when the line was being planned as a BRT route in the early stages of Network 2011 planning, it was still going to use the Richview Corridor. That land was set aside for transportation, USE IT! The cost of digging a trench beside Eglinton is only marginally more than ripping up the entire street, all the underground infrastructure under it, and putting an LRT line down the middle.

The main reason I'm advocating for subway over LRT along Eglinton is the interlining opportunities that could exist with the DRL. But I would certainly settle for a grade-separated LRT. Knowing the TTC, they would find some way to screw up signal priority and the line would end up being only marginally faster than the bus service it's replacing, if it was done at-grade in the west I mean.

 

[nfitz]

Anyway, this is not about me, this is about the mayor throwing out the window every sound transit expansion plan from the past 25 years to pull out of his rear end streetcars-for-suburbia which lobbysists along Sheppard East have stated that they do not want, which concerned citizens along Finch West have expressed in town hall meetings that they do not want.

25 years where the plans went all but unfunded. The plans were clearly never going to get anywhere. Instead we have an affordable transit plan ... though about half the current funding for what ... 75 km or transit or so, goes to the 12-km subway-like piece of Eglinton.

And as for pulling it out of his rear end ... that's a very naive description, given it was his election platform. He had an election platform, he was elected, he carried through. Isn't this what politicians are supposed to do?

 

[nfitz]

My biggest beef with the Eglinton line is not the fact that it's LRT, it's the fact that it's not using the Richview corridor in the west. Even when the line was being planned as a BRT route in the early stages of Network 2011 planning, it was still going to use the Richview Corridor. That land was set aside for transportation, USE IT!

That's absurd. We're supposed to create a scar in the landscape that will be there for a hundred-plus years, instead of building something interesting? The last thing we need is another Allen Road type scar.

 

[fanoftoronto]

Technically the Eglinton LRT is not gonna be there in a 100 years. We're building the tunneled portion of the LRT to be easily converted to subway, which means the entire Eglinton LRT has to be changed to subway technology before around 2060.

That's one of the main reasons to build it as a subway right now or else, Eglinton Avenue will be affected by transit based construction twice in 50-60 years.