sacred
Active Member
We don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl yetWe're already talking about names?
Next up: A discussion on washroom locations
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
alexb
Active Member
Maybe this has already been posted before but I found this particular quote interesting from https://edrh.rhpl.richmondhill.on.ca//default.asp?ID=s6.8 :
"But the optimism generated by the new train service turned to gloom at Richmond Hill. The surveyors and engineers had run the line six kilometres (about four miles) west of Yonge Street to avoid the steep slopes of Gallows Hill and Cemetery Hill, Hoggs Hollow and Richmond Hill. Not until King City did the line angle northeast towards Yonge Street and Aurora. Topography cost Richmond Hill a steam railway."
It seems we are still facing this issue 150 years later
"But the optimism generated by the new train service turned to gloom at Richmond Hill. The surveyors and engineers had run the line six kilometres (about four miles) west of Yonge Street to avoid the steep slopes of Gallows Hill and Cemetery Hill, Hoggs Hollow and Richmond Hill. Not until King City did the line angle northeast towards Yonge Street and Aurora. Topography cost Richmond Hill a steam railway."
It seems we are still facing this issue 150 years later
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
So was anyone else at the consultation meeting? Overall, I thought Metrolinx did a good job, as much as one could. There were some good questions and some good answers.
Of course, there were also lots of antagonistic questions, like:
"Why did Markham not have better planning and are disrupting the ecosystem and well settled residents who have lived in the neighbourhood for 49 years and paid tax?" and
"Do any of the decision makers and enablers have a subway running under their house?"
I empathize with people concerned about tunneling under the neighbourhood and think there's an onus on Metrolinx to demonstrate it'll be fine, but at least give turn a chance to answer! (also, if you've been there 49 years, you probably bought your house for $15K and won't have trouble walking away with some equity). Having been to a lot of public meetings over the years, there are always people who are just there to vent, and not actually to hear an answer to their patronizing questions. The Metrolinx folks said they do have examples of subways tunnelled under neighbourhoods and best practices about vibrations etc. and all that info will be provided in a user-friendly format.
Several questions were along the lines of "how much will you pay me if I complain I feel vibrations?" or "What will you guys do when our property values tank and I don't want my house anymore?" but they just gave rote answers about expropriation (as they should), which is kind of a different issue.
They led off with some more practical/fair questions about "how come you can't dig under a cemetery because it's sensitive but you can dig under our neighbourhood?" and explained all the reasons they went with the alignment they did (which should also put a rest to the continued "I have my own alignment idea!" maps we see here. There's nothing you've come up with they didn't already test and reject.)
Someone asked about cut and cover but the guy didn't seem to understand the question (which was framed in terms of station depth rather than just a better option than tunnelling), so someone will have to try again next time there.
They had a pretty wide array of people on their "panel," and said all the right things about how they're listening, they're just starting the EA consultation, the details still haven't been set etc. And of course some people just wanted to say, "You're only consulting us after you've decided to destroy our homes!" but I guess that's all to be expected. So, it's contentious, but moving along.
Of course, there were also lots of antagonistic questions, like:
"Why did Markham not have better planning and are disrupting the ecosystem and well settled residents who have lived in the neighbourhood for 49 years and paid tax?" and
"Do any of the decision makers and enablers have a subway running under their house?"
I empathize with people concerned about tunneling under the neighbourhood and think there's an onus on Metrolinx to demonstrate it'll be fine, but at least give turn a chance to answer! (also, if you've been there 49 years, you probably bought your house for $15K and won't have trouble walking away with some equity). Having been to a lot of public meetings over the years, there are always people who are just there to vent, and not actually to hear an answer to their patronizing questions. The Metrolinx folks said they do have examples of subways tunnelled under neighbourhoods and best practices about vibrations etc. and all that info will be provided in a user-friendly format.
Several questions were along the lines of "how much will you pay me if I complain I feel vibrations?" or "What will you guys do when our property values tank and I don't want my house anymore?" but they just gave rote answers about expropriation (as they should), which is kind of a different issue.
They led off with some more practical/fair questions about "how come you can't dig under a cemetery because it's sensitive but you can dig under our neighbourhood?" and explained all the reasons they went with the alignment they did (which should also put a rest to the continued "I have my own alignment idea!" maps we see here. There's nothing you've come up with they didn't already test and reject.)
Someone asked about cut and cover but the guy didn't seem to understand the question (which was framed in terms of station depth rather than just a better option than tunnelling), so someone will have to try again next time there.
They had a pretty wide array of people on their "panel," and said all the right things about how they're listening, they're just starting the EA consultation, the details still haven't been set etc. And of course some people just wanted to say, "You're only consulting us after you've decided to destroy our homes!" but I guess that's all to be expected. So, it's contentious, but moving along.
Allandale25
Senior Member
^ Good summary
afransen
Senior Member
They covered elevated alignment north of the Don? I doubt it!
GenerationW
Senior Member
Oh, it was much, much worse than that. There was no DRL at all in Transit City, just a Don Mills LRT from Steeles to Pape Station. And even that was never prioritized.
Not sure about now, but Willowdale was commonly used for decades. Canada Post did not allow the use of North York until Mel Lastman got it approved in the 80s after years of complaining.
You'd think transit genius David Miller would have foreseen the possibility of no above ground sections when he brought the motion to council for the City of Toronto to fund the Yonge extension EA in 2009. How did he miss that?
$11 billion for the OL is skimping out on investment? That will be, if built, the most expensive local transit project in Toronto history. By comparison David Miller decided to invest $5-6 billion on Eglinton and a big fat zero on a relief line. How many decades did he set things back? Gotta be neck-and-neck with the Fords on the relief line file.
No fan of Doug, but he has made a far bigger commitment to city's #1 transit priority than any other politician. And for the record, I prefer the city's DRL plan.
JSF-1
Active Member
*cough* *cough* just gonna leave this here if anyone wants some more context. I uploaded it last week.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Transit City was for the missing middle ground for public transit, reaching most parts of the amalgamated city at the time. Why do you think the Don Mills LRT southern terminal was at Pape? Because it would have connected to a proposed Downtown Relief Line.
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kamira51
Active Member
Another Kennedy station scenario?
syn
Senior Member
I see. So this is David Miller's fault for bringing a motion to fund an EA 12 years ago?
Yes.
Compared to the EWLRT and SSE, they are value engineering this project, the one project that needs as much capacity as possible. The other two do not.
It's kind of amazing that Miller is getting the blame here. Every transit project recently completed and currently under construction were/ Miller projects.
He also supported the DRL.
Miller was the only post-amalgamation Mayor who could actually get anything done.
Exactly. It wasn't perfect, but it had a lot of merit.
TJ O'Pootertoot
Senior Member
Obviously we can get off-track on a whole thing here but Transit City was, as @W. K. Lis said, a "missing middle" plan.
It wasn't perfect but it found a good way to cover a lot of ground for relatively little money. It'd be built now if the Fords hadn't messed it up, and while it wouldn't have been perfect, it would have solved a lot of problems that are now coming home to roost, the biggest being the end of the SRT in Scarborough, years before the subway will be there to replace it. (In addiition to the later-phase Don Mills LRT, there was a Jane LRT, that would have interfaced with the 407 subway station...)
But it's also correct it didn't have the DRL, in any form, which has since become Toronto's Holy Grail. As has been said here before (by me and others) DRL -which should have been built in the 80s, IMHO - was dead in the water until the Yonge Subway Extension put TTC's focus on the need to relieve Yonge/Bloor. If the Province (and then York Region) hadn't pushed for YNSE, Ontario Line wouldn't exist today. Thta's not to say Doug Ford is more of a Transit Champion than David Miller, but the latter didn't have DRL anywhere on his radar.
Now, sorting out cause-and-effect with transit in our region is a real headache. There's lots of blame to go around and more "What ifs" than anyone can count. Every plan has been politicized and every plan has been imperfect. It's deeply regretful that Rob and Doug derailed Transit City, even with its flaws. If the Province actually builds its 4 big projects (this + Scarb, Ont Line and Crosstown West) we'll have built some desperately needed projects.. but some them are versions of things that could have been built cheaper and many years earlier. We just have to take the goo dand band move on and hope this at least finally all gets built.
It wasn't perfect but it found a good way to cover a lot of ground for relatively little money. It'd be built now if the Fords hadn't messed it up, and while it wouldn't have been perfect, it would have solved a lot of problems that are now coming home to roost, the biggest being the end of the SRT in Scarborough, years before the subway will be there to replace it. (In addiition to the later-phase Don Mills LRT, there was a Jane LRT, that would have interfaced with the 407 subway station...)
But it's also correct it didn't have the DRL, in any form, which has since become Toronto's Holy Grail. As has been said here before (by me and others) DRL -which should have been built in the 80s, IMHO - was dead in the water until the Yonge Subway Extension put TTC's focus on the need to relieve Yonge/Bloor. If the Province (and then York Region) hadn't pushed for YNSE, Ontario Line wouldn't exist today. Thta's not to say Doug Ford is more of a Transit Champion than David Miller, but the latter didn't have DRL anywhere on his radar.
Now, sorting out cause-and-effect with transit in our region is a real headache. There's lots of blame to go around and more "What ifs" than anyone can count. Every plan has been politicized and every plan has been imperfect. It's deeply regretful that Rob and Doug derailed Transit City, even with its flaws. If the Province actually builds its 4 big projects (this + Scarb, Ont Line and Crosstown West) we'll have built some desperately needed projects.. but some them are versions of things that could have been built cheaper and many years earlier. We just have to take the goo dand band move on and hope this at least finally all gets built.
syn
Senior Member
This is excellent work, well done! Keep it up.
I agree that the DMLRT was Transit City's biggest flaw. For me, however, it was one aspect of the project that could've been updated to be a full subway - one would hope they would've gotten to that point. I know David Miller was a DRL proponent and the city was beginning the process in 2009/2010.
Miller is also a great example to me of why pacifying certain areas of the city to move on to more important projects will never work. I recall people suggesting we needed to just build the SSE and spend whatever money necessary so that people in other parts of the city would support the DRL.
That hasn't really happened.
In going along with the TYSSE and supporting the YNSE, there wasn't any new desire to support a 'downtown subway'. There was simply increased demand from another part of the city to get their subway. There's always going to be some area of the city that believes they aren't getting what they deserve (and often rightfully so).
Even with the OL, you'd think people would be universally livid that Ford is actively choosing to allocate billions to bury suburban transit projects, when that money could be used to build the higher capacity line the OL should be (and needs to be). I think it just goes to show money isn't as big of a factor as we make it out to be. It's available, they're just choosing to spend it where it's most politically advantageous for them to do so.
afransen
Senior Member
If the expectation would be to upgrade Don Mills LRT to subway, why not just use BRT until there is subway. LRT can be fine, but if the idea is to upgrade in 20 years, that seems like a massive waste. Finch LRT is fine, maybe, because we won't have a Finch subway in the foreseeable future. But then maybe BRT could have done the job.
ARG1
Senior Member
I think that's the biggest take away from Transit City. Most of the lines would've been better off as cheap BRT routes that would serve to build up ridership until the "real" rapid transit solution came in years later. One of the biggest aspects for LRT construction is that permanent infrastructure gives a sense of finality to the service, that the transit will be there for a long time untampered, which makes investments in those parts of the city more attractive, however its also a double edged sword. A Don Mills LRT with its own ROW including a tunneled segment and possibly an elevated/guideway segment along the Don Valley also means that the political will to replace it any time after opening is also extremely slim. If you build a Don Mills LRT to Pape, then build a DRL to Pape as well, there wouldn't have been a northern extension of the DRL for another 20-30 years being generous, and unless they built a western extension, the DRL would've remained a Pape-Osgoode shuttle rather than using its capacity to be a proper arterial to bring people downtown, you know, the thing metros are really good at.
Ye I made that comment before Metro6 made that video on the Don Mills LRT. I thought at the time that the DRL was part of it since I saw a few maps of TC that featured the DRL, so I assumed that while it wasn't part of Transit City, it was something that was being worked on alongside Transit City, and in hindsight it looks like I was giving TC too much credit.
I know you blocked me a long time ago, but this really needs to be called out.
No the Ontario line doesn't "need" as much capacity as possible, and it especially doesn't "need" full length TRs, at least for 40-50 years after opening. In Conjunction with projects like the Stouffville Line RER, the Ontario Line can easily run at its fullest capacity for several decades before capacity really becomes a problem, and at that point, it would just make more sense to build another relief line going along Victoria Park or something, instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket.
Miller gets a lot of blame because Transit City itself was not a good transit plan for numerous reasons. As a "missing middle" transit plan at best, it was okay, but it was the worst type of value engineering where the usability and upgradeability of the infrastructure was a serious concern. Even without Eglinton West being buried, the central tunnel section is long enough that the idea of replacing it with higher order transit if the demand becomes high enough is completely out of the question. Unless you want to shut down the entire line for 5 years to raise the platforms to high platforms so that you can run light metro stock like it should've from the start, you're stuck with low floor LRVs basically for the next 50-60 years, and that corridor will have capacity constraints 10-20 years after opening. People like to compare Transit City to the old streetcar network, about how it was meant to be a temporary solution until higher order transit is built, similar to the old Yonge and Bloor-Danforth Streetcars, but even then that's quite inaccurate. Building a subway under a surface streetcar route is easy. Building a subway that replaces an already underground streetcar line, not as much.
And before someone brings up the fact that in the same post I talk about how the Ontario Line doesn't need the capacity of full length TRs, meanwhile I'm complaining about the capacity on Eglinton, there's a massive difference between complaining about a line not having the ultimate capacity because of vehicles that are slightly narrower than the traditional subway network (Vehicles that form the foundation or play a major chunk of many different metro networks around the world such as Sydney, Paris, and soon enough Montreal), vs complaining about how lines will be run by low floor streetcars that struggle with internal circulation, accessibility, and are prone to delays by having sections interact with streets. The context between the Ontario Line and Eglinton Crosstown is quite different.
The existence of the DRL put in place the question of whether the Don Mills LRT could or should exist, you can't have both the DRL and Don Mills LRT, you have to choose one, and by the fact that under miller the major thought was that the Yonge Line would be able to handle all of its capacity issues forever, makes me really question this notion. Sounds like something you pulled out of thin air to defend your stance on Miller.
Except he didn't get anything done. To be fair it wasn't exactly his fault since Rob Ford cancelled all of his plans, but is Miller really to credit for Eglinton's existence when the reason it was built came long after Miller left office? It would be like if the DRL was built instead of the Ontario Line, its existence would be credited to the team behind Network 2011 rather than Metrolinx and the Wynne government. Seems sort of disingenuous.