[LowerBay]

Yes, but whatever subways we are building are being driven by York Region, not Toronto.

We haven't built a real new subway line since 1966.

 

[unimaginative2]

Building LRT lines in Toronto is just another way of saying we dont have the funds to build a subway.

Of course we have the funds. The province is spending over $20 billion. Transit City alone is costing close to $10 billion. That's vastly more than Montreal and Vancouver are spending combined.

Lower Bay is right about the political motivations of the end of subway construction, but we certainly have built subways since 1966. BD to Kipling and Kennedy, the Spadina Line, Yonge north of Eglinton and, yes, Sheppard definitely count.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

It has absolutely nothing to do with funds or funding. We're going to spend more revamping the RT than we'd spend extending the Danforth line to STC, even though the latter project would be of more benefit to more people and, most importantly, be cheaper.

At the same time, though, we're vastly overbuilding the two subway projects underway, like tunnelling under empty land and building a near-$300M bus terminal that's twice as big as necessary.

 

[toraerach]

In this case, I simply don't see the need to get in to a pissing contest with Montreal. They've built more subway kms than us. Good for them.

At this moment in time Toronto still has a larger subway network and it has funding commitments from the province/feds for three new extensions (Spadina, Yonge, and SRT). These three extensions will probably all happen.

In Montreal, a few mayors got together and put forth a proposal that (as far as I know) has not been picked up by the province yet. There is no funding in place for them, which makes them more comparable to the DRL. Even then, the DRL has already been picked up by the city and figures into provincial (Metrolinx) plans. Fact is, the subway extensions we're getting plus transit city plus increased ridership in general will push our subway system over capactiy and something will have to be done about it.

When it comes to transit anywhere in Canada, any large justifiable project is good news. What it really comes down to is are these projects justified? When it comes to ridership levels, what is considered subway territory in Montreal vs. Toronto? And where is this money going to come from?

 

[kettal]

This is a philosophical matter. If it weren't for Miller, Giambrone, and Munro, we'd be building subways as well.

Yeah, in the years before Miller became mayor, subways were being built at a much higher pace

 

[GTS]

I have a book called Transit Maps of the World and it has maps of almost all subway systems in the whole world. Their are some stats with these maps and one stat that interested me about Montreal's system is that it is 100% underground, according to this book. Is their a reason for this? I know that Montreal has slightly harsher winters then Toronto and I was wondering is that the reason that it is completely underground. I imagine the fact that the Metro also runs on rubber air filled tires and maybe they wouldn't be able to handle the large temperature fluctuations that running outdoors would subject them to. I hope that Montreal's Metro stay underground if these future expansions happen- it is just a personal preference that I have for my Montreal where I am originally from. On another note I notice that Toronto's T1 subway cars are much larger and hold more people then Montreal cars hold, but, Montreal runs their Metro in 9 car sets while 2 Toronto Lines, the YUS Line and the BD Line run their subways in 6 car sets. Does anyone have the number on which configuaration moves more people? They are pretty even in route length in this book I mentioned above- it is all in Miles instead of KM's though.

 

[nfitz]

If it weren't for Miller, Giambrone, and Munro, we'd be building subways as well.

??? There's more subway construction planned in the next 10-years than in anytime in over 30 years. But as LRT costs $40-million a kilometre (above-ground) and subway costs $300-million a kilometre, then clearly your going to get a lot more LRT for the same amount of $. Would you prefer the 15-km Sheppard LRT, or the extra 2 km of subway you'd have gotten for that same $624 million.

 

[MisterF]

People have to realize that Montreal is much older and denser than Toronto overall, so it makes sense that has more subways overall. Montreal-Nord is probably denser than most neighbourhoods in the old city of Toronto, and it is not even served by the metro. And Montreal overall also has better transit ridership than Toronto (and better than New York City for that matter).

Central Montreal is denser, but only slightly. If you include employment along with residents it's a wash. Toronto's CMA is denser than Montreal's.

 

[W. K. Lis]

... Their are some stats with these maps and one stat that interested me about Montreal's system is that it is 100% underground, according to this book. Is their a reason for this? ...

The reason for Montréal Metro being all underground is because of their use of rubber tires which require protection against the snow. They don't work well in the snow. They also noted to generate a lot of heat.

 

[Observer Walt]

It also allows for the Montreal subway cars to be built to much "lighter" specifications, as they don't have to stand up to weather, and they last longer. The entire system in Montreal including storage yards is underground or at least covered.

 

[golodhendil]

The lines between subway, LRT, commuter rail, streetcar, etc. are all blurred. I'd tend to agree that a subway is grade separated, high capacity, third rail powered rail transit. So the SRT and Skytrain aren't subways.

Mass transit is more general. The Skytrain and SRT are definitely mass transit, and so is much of the Ottawa transitway. So is frequent regional rail, like the Lakeshore line will be eventually. So are the Edmonton and Calgary LRTs, even the on-street portions. Not the Spadina or St. Clair streetcars though - I'd say the dividing line is whether or not the vehicles get stuck at red lights. Let's hope the Transit City lines are built as real rapid transit.

So this is clearly not talking about the vaunted "Toronto context" anymore. In that case, by suddenly adding another criterion for the nomenclature (mode of electricity collection), are we being so Toronto-centric that, not only are we stripping the "subway" status of the well established light rail subways in European and American cities, but we are also declaring that the subways of Hong Kong and Tokyo, etc, to be unworthy of the "subway" moniker, even though their Chinese/Japanese name literally means "underground railways", are fully grade-separated and have capacity that is magnitudes higher than Toronto's, but collect power by pantographs and overhead wires? Intriguing.

HK MTR:

Tokyo Metro:

 

[LowerBay]

Yeah, in the years before Miller became mayor, subways were being built at a much higher pace

The funding didn't exist before. It does now. Had TC not been announced, Metrolinx and the TTC would have come up with an entirely different plan -- guaranteed.

While the TTC was never a fan of the Sheppard subway, they certainly weren't fans of LRT or streetcars either.

 

[kEiThZ]

The funding didn't exist before. It does now. Had TC not been announced, Metrolinx and the TTC would have come up with an entirely different plan -- guaranteed.

While the TTC was never a fan of the Sheppard subway, they certainly weren't fans of LRT or streetcars either.

^ Agreed 100%. At the very minimum we would have finished the Sheppard subway....and maybe (its a big maybe) extended Bloor-Danforth to STC. We might have even gotten started on an Eglinton subway which we could have progressively added to over time (maybe focus solely on Eglinton west (Yonge-airport) first).

Instead, we ended up with Transit City which may actually make things worse for some parts of the city. In Malvern it wont reduce transfers at all and could actually make some trips more time consuming. We also get illogical hubs and transfer points. Don Mills as a Sheppard eastern terminus instead of Agincourt GO and Bloor-Danforth terminating at Kennedy instead of the provincially mandated urban growth centre a few kms to the north-east at Scarborough Town Centre. Just when we were starting to get our hopes up about more subway lines in Scarborough, Transit City comes along and crushes those dreams.

 

[taal]

In terms of density it really depends what your comparing.

I find it hard to believe that downtown Montreal is denser then downtown Toronto ... downtown Toronto is probably considerably denser actually. But here when I say downtown I simply mean Bloor south, maybe out to Jarvis / Spadia or University. In terms of residential and comerical densities I'm sure Toronto is much denser here compared to a similar downtown area in Montreal.

But the outer downtown of Montreal of Toronto is denser then Toronto.

 

[MisterF]

So this is clearly not talking about the vaunted "Toronto context" anymore. In that case, by suddenly adding another criterion for the nomenclature (mode of electricity collection), are we being so Toronto-centric that, not only are we stripping the "subway" status of the well established light rail subways in European and American cities, but we are also declaring that the subways of Hong Kong and Tokyo, etc, to be unworthy of the "subway" moniker, even though their Chinese/Japanese name literally means "underground railways", are fully grade-separated and have capacity that is magnitudes higher than Toronto's, but collect power by pantographs and overhead wires? Intriguing.

Well like it or not that's what the word subway tends to mean in this country. None of the pantograph or linear induction powered systems in Canada are usually called a subway.

Of course, if you can call the pictures you posted subways then you can call the Eglinton line a subway too. Nobody's calling it that so far though. Common uses of the words can change.