Rainforest
Senior Member
There is no way that a LRT will bring high density, mixed use development to Eglinton west. It won't provide rapid transit to the airport, and might not even be able to support the weight of 5 feeder bus routes.
I believe that LRT will be quite adequate as a premium local route for Eglinton and surrounding areas. Note that many passengers will take it as a feeder service to Yonge or Spadina subway (or future DRL at Don Mills), and spend no more than 15 min on LRT. Even for a fair number of crosstown trips, Eglinton LRT would be faster than riding all the way south to Bloor subway and then back north.
It certainly can support higher density, especially around the tunneled portions of the line, like Oakwood to Keele. (In some areas, like Bathurst to Avenue Rd, which is north of Forest Hill, residents will try to prevent density growth - but they will do so regardless of the LRT / subway choice.)
Feeder bus routes would not be an issue, either: 3-car trains on 3' headways (20 trains per hour) means 3 x 175 x 20 = 10,500 pphpd, and the headways can be shortened further if needed. There are no feeder bus routes that can fill even 1/3 of that capacity. In the west: 52 Westway / Lawrence, or 58 Dixon? - certainly under 2,000 pphpd. In the east: 54 Lawrence west and 51 Leslie? - this is more serious, but only until DRL reaches Eglinton / Don Mills.
Regarding the transit to airport, you are right in principle, as subway would be more effective (not just due to being faster, but also for convenience - people don't want to carry luggage into a rush-time packed LRT train). However, the financial burden of such plan would be very high, and for sure would have negative impact on several other transit projects.
The smart thing to do would be to have a plan for Eglinton. Build a subway along the central stretch so that it immediately relieves the many bus routes that get totally bottlenecked along the central portion between about Keele and Laird. With the Don Mills LRT/DRL and Jane LRT though, extending it to Jane and Don Mills could have a lot of merit.
Once that gets done, start planning for Eglinton West. Get some developers who will commit to planning some areas at intersections like Eglinton and Islington, and then follow through with your plan. Once you get anchor points like that, the corridor's pretty well set.
Honestly, I don't like this plan. In the short term, it will result in less efficient transit along Eglinton than the existing LRT plan: too many transfers. The bus transit to airport from a subway terminus at Keele or Jane, likely in mixed traffic, will not be appealing at all (I'd rather take 192 Rocket from Kipling, or 401 GO bus from Yorkdale).
In the long term, if we keep investing in Eglinton subway, it will eventually create better transit in this particular corridor. However, the extra cost (over LRT) would be at least 3 or 4 billions, which can build a lot of other projects.