W. K. Lis said:
The problem with Etobicoke are the cul-de-sacs along Eglinton West. The crescents, dead ends, and winding roads add a long distance if one has to walk to the stations. What is needed are bicycle garages at each and every station. Some could even be incorporated underground, next to the stations.

They don't have to big like in the Netherlands, but should be expandable for future growth of the bicycle garage.

The bad news would be that Toronto an Metrolinx will try for the cheapest and most inconvenient and poorest quality facility as possible.
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Those cul de sacs are for the safety of the children. I absolutely hate them… cul de sacs that is.
 
^What Cul de Sacs? I looked at the map and could only find six near Eglinton..... Adeno, Winterbourne, Maidacroft, Evesham, Royalwood, and Linstead. Those are rare exceptions to what is mostly just curvy standard suburban street layout..

I will grant your bigger point, the built form throughout the area is in no way what one would expect within 500 meters of a billion dollar subway station, but cul-de-sacs are hardly a big factor in that. The hard reality is, we will need to transition any area surrounding higher order transit to denser residential form, and Eglinton can't be exempt from that.

BTW - I guess you haven't read Dave Bidini's book on Keon. He waxes poetic about the joys of playing street hockey in central Etobicoke. That's the suburb I grew up in, and it was glorious. Cul de sacs are fantastic. But not the kind of community you can justify a subway in.

- Paul
 
W. K. Lis said:
The problem with Etobicoke are the cul-de-sacs along Eglinton West. The crescents, dead ends, and winding roads add a long distance if one has to walk to the stations. What is needed are bicycle garages at each and every station. Some could even be incorporated underground, next to the stations.

They don't have to big like in the Netherlands, but should be expandable for future growth of the bicycle garage.

The bad news would be that Toronto an Metrolinx will try for the cheapest and most inconvenient and poorest quality facility as possible.
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I've been to the Netherlands a few times, and love the way they handle the bicycles. Not just the bicycle parkings, but the amount of bicycle lanes they managed to create in their cities.

That said, a cul-de-sac isn't something totally incompatible with public transit, and you can walk to a bus stop even if you don't bike. I am living in a cul-de-sac, was taking a bus + subway to work pre-covid, and will be doing that again once the WFH ends. Many cul-de-sacs have pedestrian-only shortcuts to the next arterial, and the bus stop appears not too far away.
 
sixrings said:
This post almost makes me think that you believe that a subway to a place like Humber bay shores makes more sense then some of the suburban subway expansion projects you advocate for. Then I have to remind myself that someone driving from Humber bay shores to downtown is polluting a lot less than someone driving from the 905 so surely a subway to big box store suburbs is better for the environment. Plus those Humber bay shore people are probably rich and get to ride in fancy cars so why would they care. Maybe they even drive evs so it’s all good.
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I didn't mention Humber bay shores at all. Perhaps that's a good topic to discuss, I just don't have anything to say on that topic right now.

The subway routes are not chosen to intercept suburban or rural drivers. They are chosen to intercept the local bus routes, and that's the only chance to fill the subway. Neither the drivers nor the walk-in riders will come in the numbers neded for a subway.

Any parking options are secondary, and based on the subway route already chosen.
 
sixrings said:
Don’t worry so much about the 905. As you said a bus is somehow good enough for people of Mississauga and Brampton. Vaughan has a subway. Richmond hill is getting a subway and our wonderful premier promised a subway to Pickering too. Actually now I feel bad for Mississauga Brampton people.
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Doubly so because Milton Line is not getting full RER treatment.
 
Doug Ford, as an example lives on Tettenhall Road. By demanding underground stations in his neighbourhood, he forced intermediate light rail stops (IE. Wincott Drive/Bemersyde Drive) to be removed. This means a longer walk to the stations (IE. at Kipling or Islington). Even with walkways, it would still be a l-o-n-g walk. Not everyone would support the installation of a walkway near them. I'm sure even today, people "sneak" through parking lots of the townhouses, or holes in the fences, to get to the bus stops on Eglinton Avenue West.

1622922675323.png

From link
 
W. K. Lis said:
Doug Ford, as an example lives on Tettenhall Road. By demanding underground stations in his neighbourhood, he forced intermediate light rail stops (IE. Wincott Drive/Bemersyde Drive) to be removed. This means a longer walk to the stations (IE. at Kipling or Islington). Even with walkways, it would still be a l-o-n-g walk. Not everyone would support the installation of a walkway near them. I'm sure even today, people "sneak" through parking lots of the townhouses, or holes in the fences, to get to the bus stops on Eglinton Avenue West.

View attachment 325487
From link
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That's still a 10 minute walk from his house in the worst case scenerio. The thing that's important about these suburban environments is that the ideal setup for RT is sometimes counterintuitive to its vast sprawling design which is that in order for the line to be attractive to use you have to have a large station spacing to accomodate the fact that the trips you are making are gonna be quite long. Etobicoke is actually quite lucky in this regard that each of the major N/S streets are only a km apart. This means that if you're using public transit, worst case scenerio you only have to walk 500m, or about 5 mins, to reach the nearest arterial where you can take a frequent bus to reach the subway stop. All of those proposed intermediary stops that would've arrived with the LRT are completely unnecessary.

- This is from someone who has to walk 2km to reach their nearest RT stop.
 
EnviroTO said:
Wow, I had seen some large bike parking areas at stations in the Netherlands but I had never seen anything like that. We have so far to go.
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At the Mt. Dennis station there will be 40 outdoor and 80 indoor bicycle parking spaces. The indoor bicycle storage will be located at the main entrance.

Compared with the Utrecht parking garage currently housing over 12,500 parking places, I have to just shake my head. o_O
 
W. K. Lis said:
At the Mt. Dennis station there will be 40 outdoor and 80 indoor bicycle parking spaces. The indoor bicycle storage will be located at the main entrance.

Compared with the Utrecht parking garage currently housing over 12,500 parking places, I have to just shake my head. o_O
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I used to rent a bicycle locker at sheppard west station. There might have been six of them there. Really progressive Toronto.
 
sixrings said:
I used to rent a bicycle locker at sheppard west station. There might have been six of them there. Really progressive Toronto.
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It really sucks because Sheppard West (Formerly Downsview) is such a great spot for bicycle parking. It's a shame our city doesn't see the advantage of it, especially in suburban areas.
 
Streety McCarface said:
It really sucks because Sheppard West (Formerly Downsview) is such a great spot for bicycle parking. It's a shame our city doesn't see the advantage of it, especially in suburban areas.
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I’ll never understand how our suburban roads can easily have a bus only lane and a bike lane don’t have either. So you have busses fighting with cars for road space and poor cyclists taking their lives in their hands biking in the suburbs fighting off busses, trucks and cars.
 
W. K. Lis said:
The problem with Etobicoke are the cul-de-sacs along Eglinton West. The crescents, dead ends, and winding roads add a long distance if one has to walk to the stations. What is needed are bicycle garages at each and every station. Some could even be incorporated underground, next to the stations.

They don't have to big like in the Netherlands, but should be expandable for future growth of the bicycle garage.

The bad news would be that Toronto an Metrolinx will try for the cheapest and most inconvenient and poorest quality facility as possible.
Click to expand...

This is exactly why you can't just drop higher order transit in certain areas and expect density and accessibility to come with it.

A lot of our suburbs were designed for motorists - not pedestrians, cyclists or efficient transit.

Culturally speaking I think we still have a ways to go before something like that (the bike garage) is considered a sensible investment for a suburban transit station.
 
syn said:
This is exactly why you can't just drop higher order transit in certain areas and expect density and accessibility to come with it.

A lot of our suburbs were designed for motorists - not pedestrians, cyclists or efficient transit.

Culturally speaking I think we still have a ways to go before something like that (the bike garage) is considered a sensible investment for a suburban transit station.
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Yet one of the main arguments proponents use for LRT (and the primary reasons cities seek to build LRT) is to build cheap transit and expect density and accessibility to come with it. So does TOD and a changed streetscape come with transit infrastructure or not?

I can use these same arguments to argue against LRT as a whole, our suburbs are vast, sprawling, and were designed with motorists in mind, so our best course of action should be a fast Rapid Transit line that gets people from A to B as quickly as possible, or in short, not an LRT. I'm getting mixed messages from you.
 
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