If only we entered a vicious cycle of extending transit lines from awful terminus points to sensible ones...

Still, it's interesting to think about what would happen if the 407 station wasn't built. They're not planning to build a sea of parking at Jane & 7 and If the area around Steeles West saw even a moderate amount of redevelopment, you'd lose out on a lot of parking and those transit trips would go elsewhere or disappear completely. Sure, most transitway users may transfer to the subway in the short term and so GO buses can go to 7 or Steeles, but if the round trip from 407 to the subway and back to the 407 is more than a few minutes, you really hurt the long term potential of the transitway. There's no guarantee the trip from the 407 to VCC or Steeles West will only take a few minutes...the area is anything but traffic-free. Maybe the 407 station will only be used 10,000 times per day...so what?

Sheppard's western tail track extends something like 600m past Yonge because there's an east-to-south connection.
 
TJ O'Pootertoot said:
I know Toronto taxpayers loathe the idea of going north of their precious border but it really does make sense when you long at long-term development and transit plans.
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Well, it doesn't matter where it is, but if it costs lots of money to run, yet returns little benefits I wouldn't reccommend building it when there are so many better projects on the books. North of Steeles, the ridership woud drop below my threshold of being worth the investment. It's not just about looking good on a map.

TJ O'Pootertoot said:
Oh - and in answer to reaperexpress - I forget the exact numbers but the planners of the 407 Transitway expect the vast majority (something like 85%) of riders to use transfer south onto the subway.
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So maybe the extension would have OK peak ridership.
 
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reaperexpress said:
Well, it doesn't matter where it is, but if it costs lots of money to run, yet returns little benefits I wouldn't reccommend building it when there are so many better projects on the books. North of Steeles, the ridership woud drop below my threshold of being worth the investment. It's not just about looking good on a map.
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There's nothing at Steeles, so you mean north of York U. But you don't mean that or you would have said that, so you do mean it should stop at the 416/905 border.
 
It IS about looking good on a map. There's no drawing tool here, alas, but if we can all close our eyes and picture the U-with-a-couple-of-crosses that is the TTC subway map it might help.

It would be stupid to draw another cross line at Hwy. 7, above the U, and leave a gap there at both ends. It would be about as smart as shifting the Sheppard line east so it terminates at Bayview if, for some hypothetical reason, there was no real development between there and Yonge. Even if that were so, you close the gap to create seamless transfers.

This isn't about building viable, isolated lines in pockets of density - it's about creating a regional network so people can get from A to B.
TTC doesn't understand that, but that's Metrolinx's job.

Scarberian makes a good point about the need for the 407 stop and I think it's safe to say that the province would have been less enthusiastic about the whole effort if they didn't have their own plan for rapid transit along the 407. I don't see how you could argue it would be sensible for the province to fund the subway up to Steeles and then build a BRT line 1.5 km to the north.

And if York Region (and the province) didn't have plans for large-scale intensification at Jane/7 AND BRT along that corridor it might have made sense not to that 1km further. But they do, and they did.

Clearly there is not much north of Steeles and clearly it would be nice to have the DRL (for example) but there IS logic for going north of Steeles; plenty of it.
 
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Leaving aside entirely reasonable questions the overall value-for-money that the Spadina extension offers for a moment, one thing that bugs the hell of me are people complaining about subways running to "empty fields."

Subways to empty fields are considerably better things to have than subways running to built-out low-density residential neighbourhoods.

I know this example will sting some people, but along Sheppard East, for instance, we know that whether you have subway, LRT, BRT, what have you, that the kind of land use you see here is going to remain mostly in place. It's hard to assemble individual 1/4-acre home parcels to construct mid-rises. That's not to say that higher-order transit shouldn't go to these sorts of neighbourhoods period, only that simple math means its going to have to draw passengers from a pretty wide belt stretching out from stations if it's going to get substantial numbers.

But somewhere like Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, for all the crap we rightly give it for its faux-braggadocio, is at least likely to attract TOD, and in substantial developments that will convert land use from fields or warehouses or Future Shop parking lots acres at a time.

When Waterfront Toronto made much about how it was adopting a "transit-first" attitude to phasing, and wanted streetcar routes running through the portlands even before people began to move into new developments, we all (rightfully) applauded. Yes, that means years of leakage on the operating side, but at least that's the right thing to do from a long-term perspective. Let's at least extend the same courtesy to the Spadina extension beyond Steeles.
 
Platform 27 said:
Leaving aside entirely reasonable questions the overall value-for-money that the Spadina extension offers for a moment, one thing that bugs the hell of me are people complaining about subways running to "empty fields."

Subways to empty fields are considerably better things to have than subways running to built-out low-density residential neighbourhoods.

I know this example will sting some people, but along Sheppard East, for instance, we know that whether you have subway, LRT, BRT, what have you, that the kind of land use you see here is going to remain mostly in place. It's hard to assemble individual 1/4-acre home parcels to construct mid-rises. That's not to say that higher-order transit shouldn't go to these sorts of neighbourhoods period, only that simple math means its going to have to draw passengers from a pretty wide belt stretching out from stations if it's going to get substantial numbers.

But somewhere like Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, for all the crap we rightly give it for its faux-braggadocio, is at least likely to attract TOD, and in substantial developments that will convert land use from fields or warehouses or Future Shop parking lots acres at a time.

When Waterfront Toronto made much about how it was adopting a "transit-first" attitude to phasing, and wanted streetcar routes running through the portlands even before people began to move into new developments, we all (rightfully) applauded. Yes, that means years of leakage on the operating side, but at least that's the right thing to do from a long-term perspective. Let's at least extend the same courtesy to the Spadina extension beyond Steeles.
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very true, low density residential areas are so full of NIMBYs (such as the areas around NYCC) that the area will never develop in 50 years or sometimes even ever. Sometimes it is easier to start with a clean slate(farmland) or like VCC, industrial land, which is really easy to develop. As factory and vacant field owners don't care if they have to move out as long as there is a profit to be made from.
 
Sheppard East has plenty of strip malls and low-density commercial areas that area easy to redevelop. It intersects arterials with good ridership and connects central Scarborough and central North York which are dense and further developing. The development opportunities along some stretches are minimal, but some spots have the land for massive development. Look at the first stretch already built. Some of it is lined with low-density housing built a few decades ago, but then you have the likes of the NY Towers or the Concord development. A line doesn't have to be lined with density at every point to be useful and successful.
 
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exactly, subways do bring lots of changes to an area especially easily intensafiable (is that a word?) areas which at the moment are not very promising but in the future they will be.
 
My one concern is the pay structure that will come into place once this extension opens and GO, Viva buses start dropping people off at 407 stop or Steeles. This will require people to take the subway 1 or 2 stops to York U to reach campus and be close to most buildings. With the current fare structure the students would pay GO fare to 407/Steeles and then pay another fare to ride the subway. This would be a huge cost escalation over what we have today, where students from 905 areas just pay the GO fare, as the buses come into campus.

The current structure would only benefit students living in Toronto at the expense of students living in 905. I can't really think of how this will be resolved in 5 years, as it seems that Presto is stalled in it's implementation and the TTC is still not fully onboard to implement it.
 
Platform 27 said:
I know this example will sting some people, but along Sheppard East, for instance, we know that whether you have subway, LRT, BRT, what have you, that the kind of land use you see here is going to remain mostly in place. It's hard to assemble individual 1/4-acre home parcels to construct mid-rises. That's not to say that higher-order transit shouldn't go to these sorts of neighbourhoods period, only that simple math means its going to have to draw passengers from a pretty wide belt stretching out from stations if it's going to get substantial numbers.
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You're not wrong, but you need to know that your example is not an example of what you're talking about, which kills your argument and stings no one.

There is exactly one block of Sheppard with houses on both sides and you linked to that one single block. The houses in question that front Sheppard total about 15, and acquiring them would be easy...you wouldn't even need to acquire all 15 to add mid/highrises. Go one block east or west and you end up at plazas and highrises, with several more project proposals within two blocks. There also wouldn't be a station at Abbotsfield Gate, so these handful of houses already *are* the edge of the belt from which other stations will draw riders.
 
(I am not a transit expert, so I might not use the correct terminology)

York University's VP Finance and Administration today sent out the second internal communication related to the work on Keele campus associated with the TYSSE. It says that work will commence in May 2010 in the area of the Northwest gate (Steeles Ave. W.) on the Advanced Launch Shaft. This shaft is due for completion in Nov. 2010 and the Tunnel Boring Machines will arrive on site late 2010/early 2011. And so it begins.... :)

AmJ
 
Puzzles my mind why they are burrowing all the way to Vaughn... must be all the high density housing... .. we could save a easy billion if we simply built it like the current line from yorkdale to Eglinton west... aboveground!
 
js97 said:
Puzzles my mind why they are burrowing all the way to Vaughn... must be all the high density housing... .. we could save a easy billion if we simply built it like the current line from yorkdale to Eglinton west... aboveground!
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Check out google maps, and superimpose the alignment. It does make sense to tunnel, especially under the 407.
 
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