[lead82]

Well, that whole complex around the AMC (including Dave & Buster's, Yuk Yuks etc.) is in VMC. Obviously more will come - those 50-storey towers they announced are going to have a Buca and they're building a YMCA too. So, that's something like Empress Walk. (Though it's also worth noting that Empress Walk's main storefront - an Indigo, a Tower Records, a Staples ,now a Pet Smart) has had a lot of instability. Still, no question it provides an anchor.

EDIT - I'd somehow forgotten what it was called, despite the cheeky name but this is the "Hopefully Like Empress Walk" condo...
http://transitcitycondo.ca/
Looks like it's adjacent to the YRT terminal.
The barely-in-English website says it's already sold out which is certainly encouraging for those doubting the subway will create sufficient density etc.

(I'm personally curious why they haven't done anything with the AMC itself yet since it's a real blight on the landscape. But it'll go soon enough, I'm sure.)

Generally, it's not surprising there isn't a lot of off-peak travel coming from up north yet. Indeed, it might even be desirable, given how it's repeatedly explained on the Yonge North forum how the trains arrive at Eglinton full now and that's why it can't be built. An extension that doesn't cause downstream issues might be cause for celebration from some but now we're COMPLAINING trains arrive at Eglinton West and still have room? So the worst thing about the Spadina extension is somehow the opposite of the worst thing about the Yonge extension?

What is it what we want to see from our transit system, exactly?

I think I've driven by all the new stations at some point. I need to actually get down in em soon.

Personally I would like to see our tax dollars well spent. The focus on last few decades was to splurge on grand stations in the suburbs to support future growth while starving the system of new capacity downstream - downtown. I’m not saying that all new stations need to be packed. Of course not. However, the amount of money we spent on TYSSE could have been spent on new bus garages and new buses to improve service on overcrowded routes. Did we really need to have two separate and massive bus stations at PV? Was 407 station a mistake as it’s too close to PV and has zero development opportunities. The line is built so we have to make the most of it.

As for my comment about Spadina line, yes it was a mistake to build it where it was. It should have been built under Dufferin where it would have been much more useful. We cheaped our there and built it in middle of highway with limited access and development around.

In my mind the focus should be on getting our transit system on its feet. Downtown is bursting at seems and beyond capacity. Here are some ideas.
1)Get funding and do full DRL build out from Dundas West to Science Centre via Queen. Open it in phases sure but get funding secured and start this multi-decade project ASAP.
2)Get existing streetcars moving faster - make all street car routes team priority and remove all street parking on those streets from 7-7 M-F.
3)Buy more streetcars and double existing service so a streetcar is always in sight - subway like frequencies.
4)Scarborough should get a subway but don’t bury it. Build it at or above ground and use the hydro corridor. Build several stations and get to Malvern. Also build Scarborough -Malvern LRT to UTSC. Aka Eglinton LRT east.
5)Extend Eglinton LRT west to airport.
6)For suburbs, build express bus routes and BRTs like we had to YorkU. They are cost effective and will be sufficient to meet suburban demand. Steeles, Sheppard and other routes would do great with BRT. City can fund that without much provincial support.

Cancel Sheppard E LRT and do it as BRT as a first trial. Cancel Smart Track and leave RER per GO/ML original plan.

 

[adrianaliu]

[/QUOTE] 6)For suburbs, build express bus routes and BRTs like we had to YorkU. They are cost effective and will be sufficient to meet suburban demand. Steeles, Sheppard and other routes would do great with BRT. City can fund that without much provincial support.

Cancel Sheppard E LRT and do it as BRT as a first trial. Cancel Smart Track and leave RER per GO/ML original plan.[/QUOTE]

I would like to see toronto try something like the select bus services in nyc. we don't need to spend time and money building a brt row with nice stations like viva, all that's needed is better signal priority, bus lanes in some places frequent service and off board fare payment. viva was built to be so nice to attract riders to the service, the ttc already has the riders they just gotta improve the service.

The original ML plan for RER is missing alot of toronto stations so we shouln't get rid of those

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Current status of Highway 407 Station. Notice the cars illegally parked on the roadway.

 

[Sandpit]

View attachment 133951

Current status of Highway 407 Station. Notice the cars illegally parked on the roadway.

I wonder if it would still be this busy once free parking ends. Luckily there's plenty of space to expand parking.

 

[Edward Skira]

Notice the cars illegally parked on the roadway.

Nothing that a fine couldn't cure.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

View attachment 133951

Current status of Highway 407 Station. Notice the cars illegally parked on the roadway.

We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this station, only to create greater car dependance and to subsidize increasingly sprawling communities. The era of building commuter parking lots needs to come to an end. It's counterproductive.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this station, only to create greater car dependance and to subsidize increasingly sprawling communities. The era of building commuter parking lots needs to come to an end. It's counterproductive.

How many of those cars would be clogging up roads farther into town? Removing car dependence would require affordable housing options in denser neighborhoods that support transit, something that's getting increasingly scarce. It's a hard problem to solve, commuter lots on outlying edges isn't a horrible thing in my opinion, assuming they disappear as density and transit creeps farther out

 

[Sandpit]

Nothing that a fine couldn't cure.

I imagine a driver would be less inclined to use public transit after receiving a fine, even if he was completely in the wrong.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I mentioned this a week or so ago, and it seems to be getting worse.

 

[Megaton327]

We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this station, only to create greater car dependance and to subsidize increasingly sprawling communities. The era of building commuter parking lots needs to come to an end. It's counterproductive.

I agree, let's have people drive all the way downtown instead! It's so much better to have them causing congestion and spewing pollutants into our air all the way downtown, and cause congestion that cripples TTC surface routes! That's so much better!

 

[Leo_Chan]

I would assume that some people who used to park at Sheppard West, Wilson, or Yorkdale are driving north to get free parking. Even it is out of their ways.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this station, only to create greater car dependance and to subsidize increasingly sprawling communities. The era of building commuter parking lots needs to come to an end. It's counterproductive.

How many of those cars would be clogging up roads farther into town? Removing car dependence would require affordable housing options in denser neighborhoods that support transit, something that's getting increasingly scarce. It's a hard problem to solve, commuter lots on outlying edges isn't a horrible thing in my opinion, assuming they disappear as density and transit creeps farther out

Induced demand is a thing. Whatever road space was freed up by the building of this station, will quickly be replaced by cars taking new trips. The result is that our transportation system as a whole (roads, trains, etc..) are now moving more people, but with the downside of encouraging even more people to build and locate in these transit-hostile, ultra-low density, sprawling suburban communities. This is not sustainable transportation development, and in the long run it will bite us in the ass.

This is the exact same catch-22 faced with GO RER. Yes, RER will "remove" million of trips from the roads. But those millions of trips will be immediately replaced by other people taking more car trips, leaving us with no less road congestion. And because RER is making it possible for more people to travel to/from these low-density suburbs, there will be more people wanting to locate in those suburbs, and thus increasing pressure to develop in these suburbs. But these suburbs cannot be effectively served by transit, so in the long run we're building a region that's even less transit accessible. You see the catch-22 we're in? Building car-depdant transit only increases car-dependance across the region.

Fun fact: Over the coming decades, transit modal share in the GTHA is expected to decrease, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in infrastructure.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I agree, let's have people drive all the way downtown instead! It's so much better to have them causing congestion and spewing pollutants into our air all the way downtown, and cause congestion that cripples TTC surface routes! That's so much better!

Read up on induced demand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

 

[Megaton327]

Read up on induced demand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

Read up on climate change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Read up on climate change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

Are you suggesting that these commuter parking lots are somehow reducing GHG emissions? If that's the case, you'd be wrong, because of induced demand. As I mentioned before, whatever space is "freed" on highways, due to people not taking trips all the way downtown, will just be replaced by other people making new trips.