If we're going to see another transit plan in the region, I'd like to see something a little less on-the-back-of-a-napkin-in-the-mayor's-office. We need real studies to find out where people are going, and how these trips are best served. We need to get out of this mentality that all transit routes must travel along existing streets and be upgraded steadily from bus to streetcar to subway. Toronto (and partially New York) aside, no city in the world hews its subway lines strictly to the streets above. The TTC has also shown no ability as of yet to design an LRT in the middle of the street that can operate reliably or significantly improve travel times over a standard bus route. By their own admission, they tried and failed with Spadina, and they tried and failed with St. Clair. That doesn't mean that LRT is a useless mode. It's successfully employed in many other cities, but the successful routes tend to be as separated from street traffic as possible. The C-Train in Calgary, for example, is worth emulating. That being said, LRT works best on separate corridors, urban distributors, or relatively short feeder routes. Toronto's subway backbone is meager and creaking from overcrowding.
The first and most important transit improvement, in my view, would spell the end of planning like Transit City: complete fare integration between TTC, GO Transit, and the 905 regional transit systems. How you design the fare system isn't the key here. Presumably zone fares will be required, but whether the 416 remains one zone or is divided like the rest of the GTA is a matter that would require a great deal of study. The important thing is that a person travelling from one point to another in the GTA will pay the same amount and purchase the same ticket regardless of what mode they choose to use. This opens up the entire regional rail network to serve as a rapid transit system. A simultaneous step would a comprehensive plan to upgrade all of the existing rail corridors to create a region-wide rapid transit network. It would receive unified branding, with route identification like that of the S-Bahn networks in Germany or the RER in France. A guaranteed service standard of, say, 15 minutes would be offered throughout the system, so that it provides genuine rapid transit. The current approach of Metrolinx is baffling, since it seems to separate track improvements from electrification, and electrification from rolling stock acquisition. All of these things need to be considered simultaneously. Imagine the wasted funds if electric locomotives were acquired for a newly-electrified Lakeshore line, only to have the system shift to multiple units as the rest of the system is electrified. The whole thing would be remarkably easy to do and affordable, and would revolutionize transit in the whole region. It would provide a rapid transit backbone for the 905, as well as dramatically expand the coverage of rapid transit in Toronto. Along with fare integration, it's the single most cost effective transit improvement available. Since some of the regional rail routes miss major hubs, some realignment would likely be necessary. For example, the route we currently call the Milton Line could be shifted to serve Mississauga City Centre, as has been discussed in other threads. It's also important to extend the network to areas like Queensville and Bond Head before they are developed and to make sure that they enjoy quality service right away rather than offering a lousy service in the hope that it will nevertheless someday become overcrowded and "justify" improvement, while meanwhile driving most people to the automobile.
Using the regional rail network as a backbone, 905 area transit systems can build improved bus service and LRT where appropriate. On the whole, many of Metrolinx's current plans are quite good, though a better understanding of the potential of regional rail would allow the transit networks to be centred on the regional rail backbone, as the TTC is very effectively designed around the subway network. I have very high hopes for the Highway 407 transitway. Those buses have already greatly exceeded expectations, and will only improve as the dedicated infrastructure provides better connections and faster trips. It would reach its full potential with fare integration. It might be a good candidate for replacement in the longer term with regional rail.
The regional rail backbone would require a complete restructuring of the City of Toronto surface network so that its routes are the focal point of the system the way the subway routes are today. I'd maintain and expand the admirable Ridership Growth Strategy and offer a minimum service standard on all routes. As Steve Munro has described more ably and in far more detail than I ever could, one of the major issues that the TTC faces is an increasing cultural laxity that no longer prioritizes strict adherence to schedules. This has decimated ridership on routes like Queen and risks the entire system. If the contagion spreads to the suburban bus network, it would devastate the entire system. Many of the former Queen riders have shifted to the B-D subway or have chosen to walk or cycle. Nobody's going to stand at Finch and Brimley waiting 45 minutes for a bus in rush hour, as Steve Munro has shown frequently occurs on Queen, and there the only alternative is the car. I'd like to see CIS replaced with a 21st Century GPS-driven system that can monitor all vehicles simultaneously, maintain headways, manipulate traffic signals, and inform waiting riders. None of it will be useful, however, without more rigorous schedule management on the part of drivers and supervisors.
The transit network in Downtown Toronto is severely over-saturated and must be relieved. That's why I've been pushing for the DRL for ages. It made sense in the 80s when we last did relatively apolitical transit planning, and it would work today. It would help extend the boundaries of the downtown area to the east and west, enhance the waterfront development, and relieve the Yonge and B-D lines. The new regional rail lines, with more frequent stops, would also help to serve the urban area of the former City of Toronto. A lot of the streetcar routes downtown are sadly failing to live up to their potential as distributors and for local trips. I suggest another one of my old plans (that is likely shared by many others): make Queen and King into a one way pair with two automobile lanes and two streetcar lanes. That would eliminate the congestion problem on those routes once and for all, and provide a rapid trip through the downtown core while still permitting on-street parking and access to the businesses along those streets. The plan to create a streetcar ROW on King from a few years ago had its heart in the right place, but the virtual total closure of the street to auto traffic made it a political non-starter. There are some other places where I think streetcar service could be expanded, even without a ROW if necessary. Much of the trackage is already in place for Dufferin and Coxwell, so those would be good places to start. When economically implemented and well-administered, streetcars are a pleasant and attractive way to get around, and are a part of Toronto's heritage. They consistently attract more ridership than buses, even when they don't offer a significant benefit in terms of travel time or reliability. We could also look at new technologies like moving rights of way that use signals to move cars out of the way of approaching streetcars without requiring two dedicated lanes. I'd love to see a return to the "Always a Car in Sight" policy of the old TTC. The main reason that I often ride the King car in the morning peak is because it is probably the only streetcar route left that adheres to that rule, at least for a few hours a day.
Beyond the blindingly obvious completion of the Sheppard subway from Scarborough to Downsview, and extending the B-D line from Kennedy to STC, there are a few other inner suburban subway projects that make a lot of sense. Foremost among them is Don Mills. As an extension of the DRL, it would play a major role in relieving the Yonge Subway, which is projected to be increasingly overcrowded even north of Bloor. It would also offer much better travel times to downtown for riders from the east end of the city, allowing them to transfer to the subway much sooner than they do now at Yonge. Passengers on Lawrence, in particular, would benefit as they wouldn't have to jog south to Eglinton to get to the subway. It would also serve one of the most densely-developed corridors in the city. Don Mills is lined, almost from end to end, with large apartment buildings and office complexes. A subway would also serve the Science Centre and Seneca College, among other major destinations. Best of all, much of it could be built elevated, as most of Don Mills isn't ever going to become a mixed-use pedestrian street and so wouldn't suffer greatly from the imposition. I don't have enough information to make a real informed judgement about Eglinton. There haven't been any serious studies about the ridership effect of a subway vs LRT technology, the relative travel times, nor about the real cost implications. All of that makes me quite nervous. While it may theoretically be possible to move 20,000+ riders an hour with LRT technology, it makes absolutely no sense to couple together two or even three LRVs when they cost three times as much for equivalent capacity as subway cars. If the ridership really could be comfortably accommodated with LRT, and the TTC can guarantee that the travel times and reliability will be rapid-transit-quality, then the LRT may be the way to go.
