Surely you can eliminate SELRT entirely from the map of your proposals, if you feel it does not deserve funding. But in reality, if you plan gets traction, it will result in subway west of Agincourt and LRT east of it.
Which is still unwarranted but I suppose that we'll take it.
3. Ellesmere: not sure if this is a much better route than Sheppard E for higher-order transit. On one hand, Ellesmere has two significant trip generators: the hospital and UTSC. On the other hand, it is surrounded by ravines between Orton Park and the hospital, and between the hospital and UTSC. East of UTSC, it is backyards just like on Sheppard. Someone can buy property and re-develop backyards, but not ravines.
Continuing Durham's highway 2 BRT along Ellesmere towards STC might make sense - but then, won't the buses run faster on 401, even in mixed traffic?
No, no. The entire corridor doesn't need BRT ROW, only the section from SCC to UTSC. Lots of demand and trip-generators in that short stretch. The connection to Kingston Rd would be via Military Trail and the Highland Creek Overpass.
4. Kingston Road transit: no point trying to send it downtown. It is hard to provide a ROW all the way, and even if it was possible, the trip would take more time than cutting to Danforth subway via Eglinton or via Danforth Rd. If continuous service along Kingston Rd. is desired, it should be an additional route, which shares ROW north of Danforth with the routes that connect to subway.
A continuous route along Kingston Road is desired. It shouldn't take one a total of 6 different bus routes to get from Highland Creek to the Beaches. And what is so special at Coxwell-Queen to just abandon riders there when the service can continue onwards into the inner-city? Even splitting the service just once messes with continuity and ergo adds wait-times onto a one-way trip. Case in point, how the splitting of the 501 is affecting through-commuters right now. I don't like the idea of sending KR BRT into Victoria Park Stn when existing travel patterns indicate those heading westbound along KR would want to continue towards the downtown via that corridor. It's a direct and natural channel inwards, that alleviates the B-Y interchange from reduced transferees off the Danforth Line onto Yonge heading south. At Cliffside Stn, per my vision, a grade-separated interchange between the Scarborough-Malvern BRT and Kingston-Ellesmere BRT would allow for a direct transfer to/from the Bloor-Danforth's Main Street Stn.
Nfitz's assertion that Eastern's potential is limited is untrue. Road designations can change at the drop of a hat, especially bike lanes. Like I said before, there's ample room with which to expand out the road width to eight-lanes as most adjoining properties on the south side are wanton brownstones far back from curbside. Downtown's Richmond-Adelaide ROW is simplified by the one-way aspect of those streets where the designated bus lanes occur at side-of-roadway as opposed to median.
And to Paleo, Rouge Hill GO is nowhere near KR and Guildwood is a 300 m trek inwards from Celeste. Is that supposed to be considered
next door, especially for a corridor which runs on for over 17 kilometres through Toronto? We shouldn't be looking at inter-regional train services to do what local higher-order transit could.
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So anyway, I feel that it's high time for me to publish another map, since the imaginations here seem to be running wild. You guys may say that this veers a little too far from Transit City- but I'm sure not out to be some trans-wack scheme's doppelganger. The ideology behind the map is simple, utilize the corridors we've got in meaningful ways. The subway can't go everywhere but balancing it out with cheaper to implement, faster to become operational than LRT,
BRTs, would really put the $12-$15 billion to good use. Next time I'll do the West End but at the moment I'm swamped with like three essays approaching deadline. So without further a do:
And gweed, I hope you're paying attention...
