denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
You guys must think the NYC subway is awful then. Elevated almost everywhere outside Manhattan, Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.
You guys must think the NYC subway is awful then. Elevated almost everywhere outside Manhattan, Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.
You guys must think the NYC subway is awful then. Elevated almost everywhere outside Manhattan, Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.
#3 Road in Richmond near the SkyTrain stations actually has a lot of pedestrian traffic and far more than it di before the Canada Line. Also there has been huge infill in the area and due to taking away traffic lanes the road is easier to cross as before it was like trying to cross Sheppard. #3 Road was never a nice street but now it now has a lot of people walking along it which it never had before.
Eglinton West now:
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Suburban section of Skytrain:
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Blech. I agree, a 21st C narrow elevated guideway is identical to a hulking six-lane 1950's-era expressway, and it does nothing but sully the pedestrian-friendliness of a suburban arterial.
How big of a deal is not stopping at traffic signals?
NYC and Chicago look quite different from the newer Vancouver style elevated structures. They're metal instead of concrete, and in my opinion have way more character. But I personally like the grimy gritty aesthetic, so I prefer NYC elevated subways to Vancouver. They also have much less elaborate stations.
That's all true. The major point, though, is that elevated LRT would still take away traffic lanes,
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If you mean, by example, this streetview at [url]https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.171252,-123.136465,3a,75y,155.4h,84.57t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sz7fzlaTXxATgmlZAL-eXdw!2e0[/URL] then it should be remembered that the concrete is "new". I'm sure the Gardiner Expressway looked "nice" when it was "new".
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Give it a couple of decades.
Thinking about this more, I think a Skytrain-style elevated guideway would actually 'enhance' the walkability of suburban Eglinton -- a modern guideway provides optional shelter from the sun & rain if you want to walk underneath it -- and I agree there's been a huge increase of pedestrians underneath Skytrain lines, which show that a modern guideway can be integrated well into a suburban landscape, and be an attraction into itself for pedestrians. The Shanghai-style would be too much clutter, but the Skytrain-style would be perfectly fine in low-density suburbania, especially if a nice pedestrian walkway is well-integrated underneath. And the 30-year-old Skytrain guideways have survived pretty well, probably not going to go into true ugliness anytime soon if maintained well. And nowadays, they can put a nice continuous strip of nice LED lighting to brightly illuminate the path at night, too.For Canada Line in particular, I quite like walking under the SkyTrain tracks in Richmond. It uses newer technology so you almost couldn't hear the train above you, it's extremely quiet. Also, it's a great weather shelter. In the summer it blocks the sun, in the winter it blocks the rain. Lastly, there has been art installations under the tracks and on the pillars making it very very pleasant to walk through. Some people say "The elevated tracks are not that bad on Canada Line", I would say, it's a fantastic addition to No. 3 Road, making it much much more walkable.
That's one thing that puzzled me always - why Toronto does not consider ANY elevated rapid transit outside the central area? In all discussions it's the battle between underground and at grade.