As much as I agree with the vehicle speeds point - Toronto has not yet seen a proper light rail
While I concur w/this, we also have a vehicle speed/commute time take from the people designing this route/project.
I'm loathe to spend that much money simply for the public realm benefits; we can invest in those, by all means w/o the LRT
I think if we're going to do higher order transit here, we need to establish that it provides a material time savings to riders and will materially boost ridership volume. I'm not entirely convinced it will do either.
Reliability is better than buses
We can shift the RapidTO lanes to the centre lanes and physically curb them just like we might for an LRT at much lesser cost if we're not building rails and a power system.
, higher passenger capacity
Have we established that the a desirable capacity couldn't be achieved through :
a) More frequent service?
b) Articulated buses?
, improved streetscape/urban realm, spurred development etc.
See above comments, I support the public realm aspects but they can be delivered independent of any higher order transit project and/or with BRT; and at much lesser cost.
I do think that this project would be revolutionary for Scarborough + Malvern - especially now that disconnecting it from Line 5 actually allows it to be built slightly easier...
I'm not really convinced that fixed rails on this route are all that revolutionary; I agree the public realm would be (cycle tracks, nicely streetscaped sidewalks and at least one lane reduction of vehicle lanes on most roads (6 to 4, or 4 to 2))
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I really want to see an analysis of who we are doing this to benefit and whether ridership patterns support that.
It strikes me that the key beneficiaries appear to be UTSC, and arguably Malvern residents.
I'd like to see a comparison of:
Malvern to Line 4 only.
Malvern to UTSC via Neilson to Ellesmere and Ellesmere to UTSC. (pro argument, this serves more residents and delivers a connection to Scarborough Centenary Hospital, also a major employer)
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Serving UTSC by direct subway connection from Line 4 via Centennial College campus
Serving Centennial College only, by elevated rapid transit from STC Station, using the SRT's Right-of-Way/Progress (mostly intact)
Extending same on to UTSC.
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Finally, compare the cost to:
Adding an infill station to the SSE at Eglinton/McCowan (or Brimley) and having current Eglinton East bus services to UTSC terminate there instead of Kennedy.
(pro argument, probably the cheapest investment at about 300-400M; reduces the travel distance by ~1.3km, avoids at least 3 traffic lights, likely reduces travel time by 2-3M per direction. ) The negative argument being that it is still a considerable distance to UTSC and doesn't improve the balance of the trip.