Nope - I didn't see that. It's amazing how much effort has been put into the wrong things, and so little in the right things. The are adamant that this thing will be at-grade on-street, not matter what. It's almost like a repeat of the LRT through Leslie, where everyone and their dog was saying that the south side alignment was the way to go - but they forced it on-street just to ensure that rapid and reliable service would not be possible to the DRL (maybe it was there secret way of sabotaging the DRL).

The single point interchange I am familiar with is in St. Catharines (I think there's one in Ottawa too). For a City of 125,000, the interchange is likely the worst traffic in the City.
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see option 4 deemed too expensive and return to grade separation at major intersection
Nope - I didn't see that. It's amazing how much effort has been put into the wrong things, and so little in the right things. The are adamant that this thing will be at-grade on-street, not matter what. It's almost like a repeat of the LRT through Leslie, where everyone and their dog was saying that the south side alignment was the way to go - but they forced it on-street just to ensure that rapid and reliable service would not be possible to the DRL (maybe it was there secret way of sabotaging the DRL).

The single point interchange I am familiar with is in St. Catharines (I think there's one in Ottawa too). For a City of 125,000, the interchange is likely the worst traffic in the City.
They basically said one thing, traffic is doomed with no way to improve driving times. I could see the backlog spilling on the 401 way before the Eglinton exit ramp with this alignment. I highly doubt MTO will approve such an idea to shorten the Eglinton exit ramps.

Traffic on the Hwy 27 alignment is pretty light but an intersection at that location is pretty dangerous. People do drive 130 km/h over that curve over Eglinton. It'll make one of the most dangerous intersection for sure with this plan.

I believe if option 4 is chosen, the LRT will be underground along this section. This plan is just shown for option 1. Not all hope is lost yet.
 
I believe if option 4 is chosen, the LRT will be underground along this section. This plan is just shown for option 1. Not all hope is lost yet.
I guess that's why I never looked at it before - Option 1 seemed to be a non-starter. My sketch was for a fully grade-separated option. I think it may be possible to have the LRT along the median of the 401 ramps - with it somehow elevating above the main 427 to reach Renforth. Off course fully grade-separated. I need to think about that a bit more. (again, I can't seem to get that EB to NB movement to work).
 
The team member didn't have a specific reason why it was eliminated but tried to tell me a bunch of stuff about noise carrying further from an elevated structure being a concern.
This just reads to me as them admitting they don't want to have to maintain the system beyond the bare minimum. You look at the elevated section of the SRT and you would see the reason its loud is beacuase A) the MK.I trains have a louder motor then there modern counterparts, and B) the rubber Rail Dampeners that are meant to reduce rail vibration have never been replaced. Sound will always be an issue but it can be mitigated easily by using trains with quiet motors which the Bombardier FLEXITY's have already proven to have (have these people not ridden the new streetcars?) and by properly maintaining the infrastructure. Sound is only as big a problem as we make it. It's not like we're bulding the elevated structure out of Iron.
 
Same thing as calling the employee tunnels at Magic Kingdom Disney World underground tunnels. If the park is built on the second story, does that make the paths at-grade and the park elevated?

Are you sure we aren't building Etobicoke Disney Kingdom? Ford would love that place.
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see option 4 deemed too expensive and return to grade separation at major intersection

They basically said one thing, traffic is doomed with no way to improve driving times. I could see the backlog spilling on the 401 way before the Eglinton exit ramp with this alignment. I highly doubt MTO will approve such an idea to shorten the Eglinton exit ramps.

Traffic on the Hwy 27 alignment is pretty light but an intersection at that location is pretty dangerous. People do drive 130 km/h over that curve over Eglinton. It'll make one of the most dangerous intersection for sure with this plan.

I believe if option 4 is chosen, the LRT will be underground along this section. This plan is just shown for option 1. Not all hope is lost yet.

I was really disheartened to see the ridiculous report on grade separation a year ago. With huge over the top structures and a misunderstanding of grade separation, where the LRT was raised above the intersection, rather than the intersection lowered like at most rail crossings, or a combination of both.

Its honestly like anytime a proposal goes though the city that they don't want, they purposefully sabotage it by making it ridiculously over the top as to bring costs to an extreme, thus killing it off.
 
This is a conservative government. It was one thing when people had left wing miller conspiracy theories to prop up lrt unions but now we have had tory for 4 years and Ford previously for another 4 years. At some point people are goingto haveto admit that governments want to spend the least on transit which is why surface lrt will always come up. It's the middle ground. Better than a busbut cheaper than a grade seperated solution.
 
The way the options were set out, it seems like they were designed in such a way to favor Option #1. From the last council meeting my impression was that we were supposed to get an option similar to #1 with above/below grade at key choke points to better enable traffic flow which I thought would be a good compromise.
 
The way the options were set out, it seems like they were designed in such a way to favor Option #1. From the last council meeting my impression was that we were supposed to get an option similar to #1 with above/below grade at key choke points to better enable traffic flow which I thought would be a good compromise.

Right. A fly-under at Martin Grove Road and the 401 ramp to Eglinton, avoiding the worst congestion and simplifying traffic operations. That was a good compromise which I really don't see here.
 
Conservatives don't like spending money and liberals don't want to appear to spend like drunken sailors. Which is how we get to this situation. On the other hand I would rather have something than nothing.

Conservatives don't like ballooning debt, or does $340+ billion the Province owes to its creditors not alarm you in the least?

The time the liberals spent doing countless EAs, soil tests, ruling out grade separation from early in the process with little consultation, and deferring this project by over 10 years over versus just building the thing is how we got here.
 
Conservatives don't like ballooning debt, or does $340+ billion the Province owes to its creditors not alarm you in the least?

Well, so alarming that it felt the need to provide tax cuts to make it worse - and add to that, Conservatives have absolutely no qualms spending money on projects of dubious benefits where it suits them.

AoD
 
Well, so alarming that it felt the need to provide tax cuts to make it worse - and add to that, Conservatives have absolutely no qualms spending money on projects of dubious benefits where it suits them.

AoD
Tax cuts are always argued as a means of stimulating the economy, and not a reduction in revenues. Considering that Ontario has lead the jobs growth these past 9 months, there has got to be some truth to it. And this after Ontario created no jobs in the 1st 5 months of 2018 - which just happen to be the Liberal months after minimum wage increases were enacted and future ones coming.
Conservatives don't like spending money and liberals don't want to appear to spend like drunken sailors. Which is how we get to this situation. On the other hand I would rather have something than nothing.
If the money is just going to be wasted, better to not spend anything and wait for smarter people to be in charge.
 

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