kEiThZ
Superstar
And it's interesting to note that the vast majority of stable areas or those with increasing incomes, cling to the subway lines.
Scarborough's ridership drop had more to do with recessionary employment drops than anything else.
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- Thread starter ssiguy2
- Start date
And it's interesting to note that the vast majority of stable areas or those with increasing incomes, cling to the subway lines.
Scarborough's ridership drop had more to do with recessionary employment drops than anything else.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Because the budget we are working with are the LRT allocations for Toronto. The improvements for GO are obviously required. It looks like the Georgetown line is in good shape with the Kitchener extension, the airport connection, grade separations all over the place, increases in the number of tracks, and VIA's plans to signalize and increase service. The only thing missing in the Georgetown line discussion is the Eglinton station which is being accommodated for but is not in any station building plans yet. The Barrie line also looks like it is on its way to improvements with the Dupont grade separation, a new St.Clair station, and a new Sheppard West station. The Milton line and Stouffville line are the least mentioned and look behind in studies.
doady
Senior Member
This thread essentially the same as last year's Alternatives to Transit City.
The problem many of these proposals is that the plans posted here all seem to be based on the goal of "how can we move the largest number of people downtown for any given amount of money." Getting people downtown is important, but isn't the top issue in the city.
For Miller and Giambrone the top concern for the future of the city is the fate of the declining inner suburbs. Specifically Malvern, Jane/Finch and Rexdale. Transit City sends lines, in some cases multiple lines, to all these areas. There are certainly routes that would get more riders, but areas like Southern Etobicoke and Riverdale are doing fine and don't need urgent intervention. The map below makes it pretty clear why Shepperd East and Finch West are such priorities.
The next priority is to build livable neighbourhoods. Ones that are walkable, mixed-use, and free of crime. The ideal is for people not to have to go downtown for their work and their shopping. The Avenues Plan hopes that streets like Eglinton and Sheppard will become more like Queen or St Clair. In the past neighbourhoods like this have almost always developed around streetcars, not subways. This was another impetus to Transit City.
LRT just reinforces the segregation between City 1 and City 3, and segregation and isolation is one of the main reasons for City 3. Just look at Scarorough, all red (City 3). Scarbrough City Centre does not have a single connection another Centre. No connection to Downtown or NYCC. The forced transfers at arbittary locations are the real reason for the divide as they act as barriers. Scarbrough RT is firmly red, and the subway is firmly white and blue on that map. It is not coincidence.
It is not just subways either. For example, just look the service that the TTC provides between Malton and Rexdale. Oh wait, the TTC doesn't provide any service between Malton and Rexdale, it just ends the routes at the Mississauga border in the middle of nowhere. And due to the city of Toronto Act, Mississauga Transit and Brampton Transit are not allowed to provide service in Rexdale, they are only allowed to pass through. So people without a car in Rexdale and Jane-Finch can't work in Brampton and Mississauga. It is no wonder that Rexdale has 3 times the unemployment rate of the City of Toronto as a whole. The Finch LRT will not help Rexdale socially in any way.
Chuck
Senior Member
It's not as cut and dry as that. There are specific historical reasons why Toronto's wealthier areas are located where they are, and these reasons predate the subway by generations. Wealth didn't follow the path of the subway, nor would it if the subway penetrated into the inner suburbs.
The driving force behind transit expansion should be demand. Build new lines where ridership demands it or where relief is needed.
Fresh Start
Banned
+1
Patchwork LRT schemes help no one. Better to have either a line that the City can afford to stretch right across the city (as Bus Rapid Transit along the Finch Hydro Corridor would grant) or extend the subway system as far outwards as possible resulting in shorter bus commute times between a trunk transit service and one's residence in the suburbs. That map clarifies what I've been trying to articulate here for months, that subways are density builders and given the incentive to set up business/residence within proximity of reliable and fast transit service, our inner suburbs can still be intensified to prevent a further mass exodus of citizens to the 905/519 areas. In light-rail's case, where the tracks stop so too does the urbanity; case in point contrasting St Clair West west of Gunns Loop and east of it.
Rexdale would be best catered to by an Eglinton subway that stretches as close as Highway 27 and Dixon, a location which can easily be accessed by MT, BT and YRT bus routes as well. From there frequent BRT service can occur north-south to serve Woodbine, Humber College, Etobicoke General Hosp., the shopping districts along Albion Road, and the Thinseltowne/Beaumonde Hts area in a grand loop bringing most area residents within 15 minutes bus trip to one's nearest subway. BRT can also extend down the median of Finch proper as far as Weston Rd before becoming its own private busway for trips clear across the city.
kettal
Banned
This thread essentially the same as last year's Alternatives to Transit City.
The problem many of these proposals is that the plans posted here all seem to be based on the goal of "how can we move the largest number of people downtown for any given amount of money." Getting people downtown is important, but isn't the top issue in the city.
For Miller and Giambrone the top concern for the future of the city is the fate of the declining inner suburbs. Specifically Malvern, Jane/Finch and Rexdale. Transit City sends lines, in some cases multiple lines, to all these areas. There are certainly routes that would get more riders, but areas like Southern Etobicoke and Riverdale are doing fine and don't need urgent intervention. The map below makes it pretty clear why Shepperd East and Finch West are such priorities.
The next priority is to build livable neighbourhoods. Ones that are walkable, mixed-use, and free of crime. The ideal is for people not to have to go downtown for their work and their shopping. The Avenues Plan hopes that streets like Eglinton and Sheppard will become more like Queen or St Clair. In the past neighbourhoods like this have almost always developed around streetcars, not subways. This was another impetus to Transit City.
A few points:
1. Yes, non-peak direction transit is important, but let's remember that peak-direction is the main cause of traffic and congestion, and additionally is the easiest to convert to transit. Ask anybody who does a reverse-commute, they have nearly-empty highway lanes, and serving such trips by transit is difficult due to the lack of high-density employment nodes.
2. The map shows income change since 1970, it does not represent wealth per se. An area going from a slum to middle-class would show blue in that map, and a wealthy area going to middle-class would be red. Maybe there is a geographical income gap, but that map does not show it.
kettal
Banned
How good are the transit connections in Bridle Path? How about Oakville? Yeah, it's totally transit transfer points that are scaring the wealthy away.
doady
Senior Member
How good are the transit connections in Bridle Path? How about Oakville? Yeah, it's totally transit transfer points that are scaring the wealthy away.
Where exactly in my post did I say that transfers are scaring wealthy people away??? Really, there is no point arguing with you.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Kennedy is firmly red and not because of transfers or LRT. Don Mills station on the Sheppard subway shows red. The Beaches along Queen Street, even at Queen and Victoria Park and they have slow streetcars, is blue. The SRT and Sheppard LRT would make the Queen streetcar look like a rocket. Maybe LRT isn't what Scarborough needs... maybe they need slow Queen streetcars.
doady
Senior Member
I don't agree with you that we should "extend the subway system as far outwards as possible." I don't even support subway extension into Mississauga. I support LRT and subway equally.
Both LRT and subway can encourage intensification and urbanity. I just don't see what that has to do with the problem of poverty...
Eglinton subway will not bring down any of the barriers surrounding Rexdale. Eglinton subway will no nurther than current TTC buses do, and MT, BT and YRT already serve Humber College, which is actually near Rexdale, unlike Dixon Rd. Dixon is a bad alignment for a subway in any case.
kettal
Banned
I apologize if I had misinterpreted you. Please tell me what you meant by "Scarbrough RT is firmly red, and the subway is firmly white and blue on that map. It is not coincidence." Thanks.
This thread essentially the same as last year's Alternatives to Transit City.
The problem many of these proposals is that the plans posted here all seem to be based on the goal of "how can we move the largest number of people downtown for any given amount of money." Getting people downtown is important, but isn't the top issue in the city.
For Miller and Giambrone the top concern for the future of the city is the fate of the declining inner suburbs. Specifically Malvern, Jane/Finch and Rexdale. Transit City sends lines, in some cases multiple lines, to all these areas. There are certainly routes that would get more riders, but areas like Southern Etobicoke and Riverdale are doing fine and don't need urgent intervention. The map below makes it pretty clear why Shepperd East and Finch West are such priorities.
The next priority is to build livable neighbourhoods. Ones that are walkable, mixed-use, and free of crime. The ideal is for people not to have to go downtown for their work and their shopping. The Avenues Plan hopes that streets like Eglinton and Sheppard will become more like Queen or St Clair. In the past neighbourhoods like this have almost always developed around streetcars, not subways. This was another impetus to Transit City.
My argument to this is that social planning doesn't necessarily make good transit planning. Yes, sending rapid transit lines into the 'declining areas' makes some sense in a social planning way, seeing as how it gives increased access to and from these areas.
However, there is a very clear link between increase in rapid transit and increase in land values. This has been well documented. That may seem like a good thing, unless you're on a tight budget. Increased land values = increased property taxes = increased rents (although the increases may be delayed for existing tenants, but for new tenants it could be a problem).
The main purpose of these lines is to establish the regentrification of these areas (just look at the renderings, the nice European boulevard with the Starbucks on the corner). Do you think that type of development is beneficial for lower-income residents? Where is the No Frills or Price Chopper in those renderings? The list of neighbourhoods in Toronto where this has happend is well documented as well: Parkdale, Queen West in general, the Annex, and now it's happening in Cabbagetown. These neighbourhoods would have qualified very well as having "Social Transit City" potential 10-15 years ago.
The neighbourhoods getting these proposed TC lines will have increased pressure on them for redevelopment, and unless the redevelopment is done a-la Regent Park, it will end up pushing the lower income people out into other areas. So while it may seem like a good 'egalitarian' idea on the surface, it will just end up pushing people out into other areas.
There are many ways to try and social plan to increase the incomes, quality of life, and reduce the number of people who need to rely on public housing to live. Transit planning is not one of them.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
The issue I have with the idea of this idea of idea of residential growth in some of Miller's plan is that it is either too late or not even possible. Some streets are primarily commercial or industrial but there is nothing wrong with that. They are as much a part of the urban fabric as Yorkville or Queen West. European cities also have their commercial strips. No matter what the excuse it doesn't change the fact that people still need auto malls to buy their cars, gas stations to fill them, the Brick to buy the furniture, movie theaters to go to the movies, schools to send their kids to, and even McDonald's to pacify them.
Walmart, McDonald's, car dealers, light industrial business, gas stations, and grocery stores aren't going to move out because Miller wants them to. It is the city that allowed to them to open so the city should be the last one's to ask them to move.
Walmart, McDonald's, car dealers, light industrial business, gas stations, and grocery stores aren't going to move out because Miller wants them to. It is the city that allowed to them to open so the city should be the last one's to ask them to move.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
The city isn't going to ask them to move. They will zone the area for density, the property values will go up, expensive properties pay more taxes, filling 2/3rds of the property with parking will be too expensive, the big box model fails and big parking lots will be developed on.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Yes, Simon, we know that Transit City is a plan to bring streetcar ROWs to certain priority areas, not a plan to effectively move people and solve pressing transit issues.
That Three Cities map is completely useless for transit planning. The map itself is sufficiently methodologically flawed that it isn't really useful for much other than fearmongering. The map should put an ad in the Star saying "Desperately seeking crisis."
Malvern's median income (ward 42) is above the city's median income. Morningside Heights (and other subdivisions in Scarborough and elsewhere) is filled with brand new half million dollar homes with SUVs sitting in the driveway but it's all red because it was uninhabited in 1970 and the income change can't compete with the gentrification seen in inner city areas. Throw in almost everything north of Huntingwood and that's over 10% of the city. It can't compete with the aging families and widows who lived in the central areas in 1970 dying and moving and being replaced by yuppies or people that buy teardown McMansions. When you tear down a little bungalow and build a monster house or convert a rooming house back into a one family home, you dramatically raise the value of the house attract different people to the area, people whose income may not have changed much over the decades...demographic change is much more powerful than income change, but this map ignores that. People that buy a $1 million house just might have a higher income than those who buy a $400K house.
Most of the red areas were contained within vastly larger census tracts back in 1970, so whatever characteristics existed for the small portion that was built up (middle class, almost exurban in some cases) have been applied to all future census tracts split off from the first one. Hell, in some spots the only people living there in 1970 were farmers who ended up selling their land for unknown millions to developers. Also, the 905 was a fraction the size it is now, so city-wide social and economic patterns have become far more complicated.
There are some red areas south of the 401 and those generally include actually poorer and troubled areas...Weston, patches along Don Mills, along Eglinton in Scarborough...although for places built in the 1960s it may only be a matter of years before demographic shifts make their income levels balloon. The red areas also include large industrial tracts, York U, the Rouge Park, etc., so they dominate the map visually. Rental apartment clusters on the subway are red, too, like Crescent Town, High Park, Yonge & Eglinton...renters are renters and apartments don't go through the same demographic or life cycle shifts that houses do. Apartments can be renovated to attract wealthier tenants, but the effect is nowhere near what you get when you replace a dilapidated shack with a McMansion.
That Three Cities map is completely useless for transit planning. The map itself is sufficiently methodologically flawed that it isn't really useful for much other than fearmongering. The map should put an ad in the Star saying "Desperately seeking crisis."
Malvern's median income (ward 42) is above the city's median income. Morningside Heights (and other subdivisions in Scarborough and elsewhere) is filled with brand new half million dollar homes with SUVs sitting in the driveway but it's all red because it was uninhabited in 1970 and the income change can't compete with the gentrification seen in inner city areas. Throw in almost everything north of Huntingwood and that's over 10% of the city. It can't compete with the aging families and widows who lived in the central areas in 1970 dying and moving and being replaced by yuppies or people that buy teardown McMansions. When you tear down a little bungalow and build a monster house or convert a rooming house back into a one family home, you dramatically raise the value of the house attract different people to the area, people whose income may not have changed much over the decades...demographic change is much more powerful than income change, but this map ignores that. People that buy a $1 million house just might have a higher income than those who buy a $400K house.
Most of the red areas were contained within vastly larger census tracts back in 1970, so whatever characteristics existed for the small portion that was built up (middle class, almost exurban in some cases) have been applied to all future census tracts split off from the first one. Hell, in some spots the only people living there in 1970 were farmers who ended up selling their land for unknown millions to developers. Also, the 905 was a fraction the size it is now, so city-wide social and economic patterns have become far more complicated.
There are some red areas south of the 401 and those generally include actually poorer and troubled areas...Weston, patches along Don Mills, along Eglinton in Scarborough...although for places built in the 1960s it may only be a matter of years before demographic shifts make their income levels balloon. The red areas also include large industrial tracts, York U, the Rouge Park, etc., so they dominate the map visually. Rental apartment clusters on the subway are red, too, like Crescent Town, High Park, Yonge & Eglinton...renters are renters and apartments don't go through the same demographic or life cycle shifts that houses do. Apartments can be renovated to attract wealthier tenants, but the effect is nowhere near what you get when you replace a dilapidated shack with a McMansion.