[M II A II R II K]

I would intensify the Eglinton East corridor and have it as a subway, where the DRL and Eglinton lines can share tracks from when they intersect and lead to the airport.

Also intensify East York Centre to make it like a true satellite downtown complete with condos and a main shopping mall and extra sidestreets. Overlea Drive can be the main strip with an urban feel, and make the neighbourhood "The Islamic Quarter" and give the main shopping mall and the condos an Islamic feel to it to also make the area more interesting and act as an additional tourist attraction.

 

[Disparishun]

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet (didn't see it), but I would prefer our mayoral candidates not to disrupt the already approved, funded and under construction transit projects (Sheppard, Eglinton & Finch) and propose a slightly more palatable toll ($3) that could go to funding the DRL.

$5, $3 ... the important idea is tolling. The size of the toll is a whole other ball of wax, but setting it at a flat rate sounds about as current as running a major subway system using tokens. Surely we'd implement congestion tolling capable technology to price by distance and by congestion.

 

[EnviroTO]

Tolls should be equivalent to a TTC token each way. Every time the TTC fare goes up the toll should go up.

 

[Dan416]

Tolls should be equivalent to a TTC token each way. Every time the TTC fare goes up the toll should go up.

I think this is the simplest way to do it. And simple is a good way to keep things.

 

[Chuck]

I think that part of the funding plan should include a 25 cent levy on the cost of a TTC trip, or something like $10 added to the cost of a metropass. It's unfair to so blatantly charge drivers a $5 toll for subway expansion, while at the same time allow transit riders to contribute nothing.

For the record, I live car free and rely exclusively on the TTC. This just seems a lot more fair to me.

 

[EnviroTO]

TTC riders contribute already and the fares go up every year or two. Regardless of whether or not a TTC rider goes downtown from a location east of Pape, or a few blocks on the Queen streetcar, a TTC rider pays the same amount. Nobody will know the difference between a 25 cent levy and the normal increase in price for no measurable increase in service. Wait 10 years to start DRL construction and TTC fares will already be $5.

 

[kettal]

I think that part of the funding plan should include a 25 cent levy on the cost of a TTC trip, or something like $10 added to the cost of a metropass. It's unfair to so blatantly charge drivers a $5 toll for subway expansion, while at the same time allow transit riders to contribute nothing.

For the record, I live car free and rely exclusively on the TTC. This just seems a lot more fair to me.

This will probably be obligatory in the road toll scenario. TTC, in it's current state, can't handle any more passengers at rush hour. It will have to involve adding much more GO and TTC services to create a viable alternative.

 

[adma]

Also intensify East York Centre to make it like a true satellite downtown complete with condos and a main shopping mall and extra sidestreets. Overlea Drive can be the main strip with an urban feel, and make the neighbourhood "The Islamic Quarter" and give the main shopping mall and the condos an Islamic feel to it to also make the area more interesting and act as an additional tourist attraction.

And as any Jane Jacobs disciple will tell you, to force the "Islamic Quarter" issue is asking for disaster. And nothing to do with being anti-Islam, either; quite the contrary. Just let any Islamification happen spontaneously, and save the "Islamic feel" gestures for Disney...

 

[Fresh Start]

I would intensify the Eglinton East corridor and have it as a subway, where the DRL and Eglinton lines can share tracks from when they intersect and lead to the airport.

I've been expressing a similar concern to my SOS compatriates. Building the Eglinton Crosstown Line as a standard subway better allows for the opportunity of interlining trips between the DRL and Eglinton tracks. Commutes don't just end point-blank at Mount Dennis, so why enforce a transfer when we can route trains west along the Richview corridor to the airport (and beyond). Potentially if there's a wye installed at Don Mills-Eglinton it would be possible for some DRL trains to turn onto Eglinton (at least until we can extend the DRL north to Seneca College via Fairview; likely way, way into the future).

Also intensify East York Centre to make it like a true satellite downtown complete with condos and a main shopping mall and extra sidestreets. Overlea Drive can be the main strip with an urban feel, and make the neighbourhood "The Islamic Quarter" and give the main shopping mall and the condos an Islamic feel to it to also make the area more interesting and act as an additional tourist attraction.

I take it you haven't been through this neighbourhood in a while. Thorncliffe Park is very intensified with one of the largest concentrations of high-rise apartments in the region and a vibrant commercial strip running between both sides of Thorncliffe Pk along Overlea. The shopping plazas on the northern side, many of which were built just in the past decade, have plenty of ethnic stores interspersed with chain shops, so I don't know what else you feel should be added in. Furthermore you cannot paint a whole community with one sweeping generalization as there are a sizable number of Hispanic and Black African residents whom call Thorncliffe Park their home too.

I think if anywhere's going to get an "Islamic Quarter", it'll be Don Mills and Eglinton. The new $200-million Aga Khan Ismaili Muslim community centre being built nearby the Science Centre will feature all aspects of that culture and undoubtedly draw in visitors from all over. And there, like Thorncliffe, will be a stop on any future DRL line, so no worries.

 

[Mapleson]

Another case where I'm going to have to request you explain this math to me a little more clearly.

My calculator seems to insist on producing a total of $190,000,000 after 38 years, ignoring the net income efficiency. That's not even one el-cheapo $200m km.

I used a 50-week year and 400,000 AADT (peak volumes on the 401 between the 403 and 404) over a 5-day week making 2,000,000 trips per week (1,000,000 weekly AM/PM trip equivalents) and 100,000,000 trips annually. Making my yearly total collected $500,000,000 per year (as claimed by Ms. Thomson) and investing $176,500,000 per year in infrastructure (just under 1-km per year).

$5, $3 ... the important idea is tolling. The size of the toll is a whole other ball of wax, but setting it at a flat rate sounds about as current as running a major subway system using tokens. Surely we'd implement congestion tolling capable technology to price by distance and by congestion.

It doesn't matter how progressive your toll is, if it is not effective. In the end, people will still want to know the median cost per user, if not exactly how much it will cost them personally. There is not much difference between a $3 and $5 average cost per user, but debating a price point of $5 versus $50 is much more relavent when $5 already bites the pocket deeply and fails to provide adaquate funding. In addition, the more progressive a toll system, the more expensive it is to operate.

In my oppinion for any toll system to work effectively, it needs to be a city-wide initative and not limited to the highways. Otherwise, we shift the traffic back to the local transportation network that the highways were meant to attract traffic away from.

I think that part of the funding plan should include a 25 cent levy on the cost of a TTC trip, or something like $10 added to the cost of a metropass. It's unfair to so blatantly charge drivers a $5 toll for subway expansion, while at the same time allow transit riders to contribute nothing.

For the record, I live car free and rely exclusively on the TTC. This just seems a lot more fair to me.

TTC users and Toronto taxpayers already contribute funding for infrastructure expansion. However, I would like transparency on this issue. I would like to see a breakdown of TTC costs by operational personnel expenditures, administrative personnel expenditures, infrastructure expenditures, fleet servicing expenditures, and capital works expenditures.

An increase in TTC fares at the same time as a road toll introduction would ensure more people experience a somewhat diminished level of outraged. The main reason people object to road tolls is that they are now expected to pay for an equal or lesser level of service that they previously gained for free. If measures are taken to solve some surface transport issues along with transit issues, both would gain. Banning on-street parking and providing discounted 'Green P' parking are incentives to work with to make a road toll a less bitter pill to swallow.

 

[Asterix]

I used a 50-week year and 400,000 AADT (peak volumes on the 401 between the 403 and 404) over a 5-day week making 2,000,000 trips per week (1,000,000 weekly AM/PM trip equivalents) and 100,000,000 trips annually. Making my yearly total collected $500,000,000 per year (as claimed by Ms. Thomson) and investing $176,500,000 per year in infrastructure (just under 1-km per year).

Thanks for the updated explanation. I was just using your previous post as a basis where you referred to 1,000,000 trips a year, not 100,000,000:

"At a flat fee of $5 and assuming 1,000,000 trips a year with this efficiency, it would take 38 years to pay for just the 33-km Eglinton line or 66 years for the system at her assumed $200m per kilometre."

Still, as others have pointed out, that $500,000,000 doesn't just appear magically out of nowhere. It represents a significant bite into individual commuter's wallets (said as someone who commutes via TTC and has only filled up the car once this calendar year). I fear the result would be to push inordinate levels of traffic on neighbouring urban streets. Perhaps a toll closer to the rate of $2 on the DVP from the 401 to the Gardiner might be more suitable.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I guess it's a bit bold but isn't that Metrolinx's (ie the province's) decision, rather than the city's?
I don't know the details of the City of Toronto Act but it seems to me that everything on this list (the lines, the locations, the funding for them) would be out of the city's hands, though they could certainly request/nudge Metrolinx on them.

I'm down with the sentiment/ambition, I guess.

 

[Dan416]

I guess it's a bit bold but isn't that Metrolinx's (ie the province's) decision, rather than the city's?
I don't know the details of the City of Toronto Act but it seems to me that everything on this list (the lines, the locations, the funding for them) would be out of the city's hands, though they could certainly request/nudge Metrolinx on them.

I'm down with the sentiment/ambition, I guess.

IIRC road tolls are one thing that is explicitly available to Toronto city council that they have yet to implement. As for Metrolinx, if the City wants to change its mind on the lines within its borders, then I don't see what Metrolinx has to say about that. Thus far, Metrolinx has only put into its plans what every municipality has put in.

E.g. Eglinton on the Metrolinx plans was never explicitly stated to be LRT. From the Metrolinx documents it was pretty ambiguous if it was LRT, ALRT or metro. Would take no effort at all to change it to subway in my opinion. The only parts of Thomson's plan that conflict with Transit City are Eglinton being subway and Sheppard being extended to STC.

 

[ssiguy2]

Thank god someone has put subway expansion on the front burner which is where is should have been the whole time. Yes there are some extensions I would like but this a realistic mid-term expansion. people can reasonable compare it to TC costs and see how much for the money they are getting for their money. If it included a much bigger system costing twice TC that may help TC mandarines to show how much reasonable thee cost of LRT is.
I applaud her for finally having the balls to bring up the inevitable..road tolls.
Also I am very supportive of the DRL going down Queen as opposed to King or meet at Union........................already the best served transit centre in the city. Also Queen is Toronto's East/West main road with not just 9 to 5 ers but also shopping, restaurants, the arts, and nightlife.

 

[ssiguy2]

also meant to ask.............what is the time frame of this 58 km system. It shouldn't take more than a decade.