Nice boosterific copy there, but everyone's reaction to this is "Oh, please."
Most of the transit we're building in Scarborough is buses on rails and it's costing us billions of dollars. Sheppard east of Agincourt, Eglinton west of Kennedy, and the Progress bus are some of the lower ridership corridors in Scarborough, largely running through industrial land and/or avoiding concentrations of people. There's new building developments in Scarborough every year, but anything built after this point will surely be undeniable proof of the miraculous transformative power of light rail, right? Yet just like infill along Lawrence, the Bridlewood Mall complex, or condos at STC, what we will actually see is the miraculous transformative power of rezoning and a demand for square footage in a growing city. Watch out Mississauga, taking transit in one quarter of Scarborough is now only 3.2 times as long as driving instead of 3.5 times!
It's not a small feat, it's a complete waste of time and money that will be of no benefit for transit users in Scarborough.
Even if this was a single length legacy streetcar route in a right of way this would be a monumental change for this busy suburban corridor in capacity, transit priority, and time of travel. But it's not. It's far more than that because of the type of LRV that will be used. And it's reflected in transit capacity and speed of travel whether you decide to ignore the facts or not.
Sheppard east of Agincourt does not run through industrial lands and I'm not sure what gave you this impression considering your username. It runs through the south side of Malvern. If you took the 85 Sheppard East, which I'm assuming you don't considering your ignorant posts,
you'd know that the bus is packed during AM rush before even getting to Morningside heading westbound. You'd also know that Sheppard Avenue East from Markham to Brimley is gridlock especially during the AM rush.
If you knew as much as you think you know about Scarborough you'd know that the 116 Morningside, one of Scarborough's busiest routes, would feed heavily into this route, giving people an alternative to the long ride to Kennedy station. You'd know that the 133 Neilson, 134 Progress, the 131 Nugget, the 132 Milner, the 102 Markham would probably all see route changes rerouted to Markham and Sheppard station.
These routes are to encourage development and provide connections to areas of Scarborough that are exceptionally far from high order transit. They will relieve some of the busiest routes in Scarborough (116 Morningside, 85 Sheppard East, 35 Finch East).
The Eglinton Line through Scarborough will really lead development through a relatively big box-industrial area.
It will provide an alternative for those heading west from Scarborough that are heading Midtown as opposed to downtown and this connection will encourage development in several nodes, especially between Mt Pleasant and Allen Road.
Hahaha, you're pretty funny. The entire old city of Toronto was built around Light Rail lines. So deny the "transformative power" of LRT if you will. But it won't get you anywhere, you'd only be lying to yourself.
Connectivity is the word. We need to build a network, not just routes. It's just that type of planning that left us with the Yonge-Bloor fiasco. Finch East will eventually get it's time to shine, but for now, it's Sheppard's time.
You need to ask yourself three questions about this corridor:
1. Are enough people traveling to North York city centre to justify the elevated cost of grade separation. The answer is no.
2. Is the corridor dense enough to support a higher order of transit. The answer is no.
3. Do we want to build an efficient model of transit? If the answer is yes, this is the perfect solution. If you want a subway lobby for a DRL up to Sheppard. Now that's something to argue for.
