[EnviroTO]

LRT is Fantastic in Calgary but they do many things that we have abandoned in Toronto.

A) Transit in Freeway Medians (Spadina is a Successful example)
B) Transit in Old Rail Right of Ways
C) Elevated Guideways (West LRT)
D) Crossing Gates (as you mentioned)
E) Trenches adjacent to major arterials (West LRT)

A) Transit in a Toronto freeway median is 8 lanes plus a buffer away from develop-able properties. Calgary is also building these transit in freeway medians when the freeway is built in a relatively suburban environment. If Calgary was doing the equivalent of the Spadina Expressway then 16th Ave NW would be a freeway with transit in the middle, or the transit mall would be a freeway with transit in the middle.

B) Which old rail ROW would Toronto build in? The rail ROWs we have are planned for the addition of tracks and all-day service. Still the line from Warden to Kennedy was in a rail ROW and obviously the SRT follows one.

C) The West LRT only has the LRT above grade in freeway and light industrial like environments, not in residential areas. The bulk of the route is still at grade. Transit City also proposed the SRT replacement to go elevated in light-industrial and highway areas.

D) Crossing gates aren't required when every at grade crossing has been eliminated except for the ones where there is a stop and the vehicle would be moving slowly anyways. Proper light sequencing is required and hopefully they would be able to do it better than they have in the past.

E) There is only a need for a trench when passing under something. Transit service does not improve simply by being in a trench. Transit City doesn't prevent trenches from being built in the future. In Calgary the trenches were built at streets which are virtually divided highways and there was obviously a concern for the impact on vehicular traffic movements. Streets in Toronto aren't built like divided highways.

 

[Electrify]

Metrolinx and the city are now involved in restructuring entire Toronto's transport plan. It is more than unplugging a proposed LRT network and replacing it with one/two subway lines. What is the larger transport direction of the mayor's office? When would it be revealed -- in concrete terms -- and when would council get to vote on a new city-wide plan?

Choosing to turn from surface transport improvements (which Ford has de facto declared) is a major policy decision -- it impacts every high-volume bus route in the city. Council and stakeholders (um, like people who live in Toronto) are obliged to consider the bigger picture before pulling the plug on a key component like Transit City.

The last administration put most of its efforts into steel-wheeled transit upgrades, with the Transit City Bus plan as a modest addition... the challenge of convincing neighbourhoods to accept BRT upgrades was left to a later date. The current regime has also focused on rail, with election-promised "express buses" still a hazy possibility...

When do we take a look at the huge portions of the city that were not covered by TC-rail, and are certainly not covered by a Sheppard-and-maybe-Eglinton plan?

These are not minor concerns and while there is an opportunity to revisit the whole process right now, one or two months may not be enough to think through the implications of the Ford team's intentions.

ed d.

As I've been saying all along, we shouldn't be looking at killing Transit City or saving it, we should be trying to FIX it. Is 400m stop spacing going to provide enough speed to make this investment worthwhile? Is the connection between the Sheppard subway and LRT sufficient, or should we try and find ways to combine them? Are there other corridors which need rapid transit priority, such as across downtown and through the Don Valley?

While I disagree with Rob Ford's shoot-first way of declaring Transit City "dead" without any discussion or debate on the matter, it has given us the opportunity to revisit the plans and see what we can do to better them. Ironically. while unlikely his intent, quite a bit of good appears to be coming out of Ford's rash behaviour.

 

[GraphicMatt]

I understand the virtue of thinking things through before acting, but I believe in this case that any delay to shovels hitting the ground brings us closer to a future where we'll get nothing. A provincial election that brings in deficit hawk leadership could drastically alter the amount of funding on the table.

 

[accura407]

Streets in Toronto aren't built like divided highways.

Yes, they are! Kingston Road? Eglinton is a divided highway on the suburban portions west of jane and east of leslie.
I get the feeling you've never been to Calgary... there is far more alike between both our cities but we in Toronto want to always think we're some kinda "New York"...
So many of Calgary's solutions would work so great in Toronto if only people would take advice from a smaller city...but we have too much pride cuz we're like "New York" yeah...

Calgary's transit corridors dont hit all the dense spots but because it is so cheap to build and has a car-realistic mentality. it works!
You would think that they would have a slow tram LRT down 16th Avenue by now...but they don't. Why? Realism is the name of the game!
Toronto only thinks about how to build transit corridors that turn every suburban avenue into a starbucks latte sippin' sidewalk cafe "urban paradise"
Calgary is realistic. They know people will drive so they build stations with the car in mind. Freeway ramps into the station (Which we in Toronto did SO SO Well with Yorkdale far before Calgary...Best Example by far...Yet Today abandoned)
We went from Realism to Idealism. The Realistic view that people will drive so make it convinent to switch modes...

Again... The Original Spadina Subway Extension is the closest thing to Calgary Transit Planning we have in Toronto...then we abandoned it in favour of expensive utopia...
And let me iterate...i am talking purely about SUBURBAN Transit... For Urban Transit (Inner 416), Toronto has done very well.

We in Toronto Made ALL THESE GREAT IDEAS! Then Abandoned Them...

 

[GraphicMatt]

The Spadina line isn't a failure or anything, but it wouldn't be top of my list of Toronto transit success stories. The Sheppard line, for all its faults, seems to actually have been a better driver of development around stations than Spadina, probably owing to the centre-of-the-highway thing being a less-than-ideal arrangement.

 

[accura407]

The Spadina line isn't a failure or anything, but it wouldn't be top of my list of Toronto transit success stories. The Sheppard line, for all its faults, seems to actually have been a better driver of development around stations than Spadina, probably owing to the centre-of-the-highway thing being a less-than-ideal arrangement.

I don't think the highway median is the problem...although its always easy to blame it on that.

A) Downsview Airport Runway restricts significant development from occuring along the northern end of the line. This is why Yorkdale is such a successful mall without a single condo around it
B) The neighbourhoods along the subway line do not want more dense development. Its simply lack of high density zoning.

If the Spadina subway was built today, people would be crying even louder than Sheppard! The entire Spadina line is low density and yet it carries a decent ridership (I ride it daily). Imagine what the Sheppard Line (built as planned) would be like 30 years from now?

If Yorkdale alone had a dozen condo's around it, i'm sure that ridership on the subway would increase substantially! Think about it...who would not want a one-seat uncrowded ride straight to Downtown?

 

[EnviroTO]

Yes, they are! Kingston Road? Eglinton is a divided highway on the suburban portions west of jane and east of leslie.

Kingston road wasn't part of Transit City, and on Eglinton there was a stop at all intersections so how much faster would it really go?

I get the feeling you've never been to Calgary... there is far more alike between both our cities but we in Toronto want to always think we're some kinda "New York"...
So many of Calgary's solutions would work so great in Toronto if only people would take advice from a smaller city...but we have too much pride cuz we're like "New York" yeah...

Calgary is very different from Toronto. Toronto has high rise apartment buildings across the city... they are on Finch, Kipling, Sheppard, Jane, most major streets with residents on them. There aren't big grassy medians and super-wide ROWs (except for Kingston Road, a part of Finch between Kipling and Islington, and the part of Eglinton that was going to become a freeway at one point). Toronto is 3 times as dense. You drop yourself anywhere on a major street in Calgary and you are lucky to see a pedestrian or a tall building except near the city core. The C-Train is more like Toronto's GO train. If it wasn't for the huge parking lots at the stations and high downtown parking rates it would be hardly used. In Toronto due to the cost of land they even charge for parking at the subway station.

Calgary's transit corridors dont hit all the dense spots but because it is so cheap to build and has a car-realistic mentality. it works!

Like a GO train. The TTC is a local transit agency. If it doesn't serve the dense spots then what is the point? It makes no sense that I get taken to a station in the middle of nowhere and need to hitch a ride the rest of the way to a place with density.

You would think that they would have a slow tram LRT down 16th Avenue by now...but they don't. Why? Realism is the name of the game!
Toronto only thinks about how to build transit corridors that turn every suburban avenue into a starbucks latte sippin' sidewalk cafe "urban paradise"

When density comes people walk around. There is no point building a transit system that people drive to in Toronto when the problem they are trying to solve is traffic congestion in the same areas the transit system would serve. If there was space on the streets in the areas Toronto is building transit to handle cars going to the station there would be the same space available for buses to stay on schedule instead of getting backed up in traffic on their way to the subway.

Calgary is realistic. They know people will drive so they build stations with the car in mind. Freeway ramps into the station (Which we in Toronto did SO SO Well with Yorkdale far before Calgary...Best Example by far...Yet Today abandoned)

Freeways serve long distance drives, not local traffic. The people that use freeways are going a distance better served by GO transit.

Again... The Original Spadina Subway Extension is the closest thing to Calgary Transit Planning we have in Toronto...then we abandoned it in favour of expensive utopia.

That section has a poorly performing Glencairn station, Lawrence which gets the bulk of its ridership from bus links (not the freeway), and Yorkdale which is a mall on the 401 so it would have had access to the freeway without needing to be built in a freeway. I don't see any sign that ridership is better on the Spadina line due to it being in a freeway.

We in Toronto Made ALL THESE GREAT IDEAS! Then Abandoned Them...

We abandoned them because they are bad ideas.

 

[nfitz]

Kingston road wasn't part of Transit City

The Transit City LRT plan clearly shows light rail on Kingston Road for over 3.5 km from Eglinton to Morningside. And the Transit City bus plan has over 6.5 km of BRT from Danforth to Eglinton.

 

[Rainforest]

The Spadina line isn't a failure or anything, but it wouldn't be top of my list of Toronto transit success stories. The Sheppard line, for all its faults, seems to actually have been a better driver of development around stations than Spadina, probably owing to the centre-of-the-highway thing being a less-than-ideal arrangement.

However, what is the main purpose of a subway line: create / support density around the stations and walk-in riders, or serve the wider area with the help of feeder routes?

I believe that every subway line in Toronto, even Yonge with all its highrises, gets the majority of riders from the feeder routes.

 

[Rainforest]

Kingston road wasn't part of Transit City, and on Eglinton there was a stop at all intersections so how much faster would it really go?

Even with stops at all intersections, speed could be somewhat higher for the trenched (or side-of-the road) configuration. If the LRT has to clear a traffic light, there is a chance that it will spend more time at the stop: first serving the passengers, and then waiting for the green. Transit signal priority can reduce the second part, but not eliminate it completely.

And furthermore, removal of some minor stops could be considered if the line is trenched.

At least, that option should have been analysed / modeled. If it did not predict a significant improvement, it could have been dismissed, but we would know details.

For SELRT, they modeled two configurations: 400m-average stop spacing, or 800m-average with a parallel bus service. They estimated the speed of LRT to be 22-23 kph in the first case, or 26-27 kph in the second case. And then they chose the first option; that could be right or wrong but at least the rationales are known.

However for the outer portions of Eglinton, they did not bother to consider alternatives; even though Eglinton has the 3-rd option (trenching) not available on Sheppard, and the cost of modeling is peanuts compared to the construction cost.

 

[lafard]

Much as Toronto wants to be like New York and distance itself from its Canadian roots, there are comparisons to be had between cities. Calgary and Toronto are more alike than one would believe. They're both way more urban than their size indicates. For example, despite the lack of suburban commie blocks, there is a great deal of density being built around newer transit stations, and this is where the majority of the city's condo stock is being built. In fact it is an example of what happens when you get laissez faire regulation combined with Canadian urban culture, and is increasingly a symbol of what Canadians want their cities to be. In this case it is better than Vancouver, which is overburdened with regulation, or Toronto, which has been damaged possibly irrepairably by political squabbling and empire-building.

Metrolinx and the city are now involved in restructuring entire Toronto's transport plan. It is more than unplugging a proposed LRT network and replacing it with one/two subway lines. What is the larger transport direction of the mayor's office? When would it be revealed -- in concrete terms -- and when would council get to vote on a new city-wide plan?

If Rob Ford wants to develop something like Translink, he is going to have to have some serious talks about it being self-financing. I don't think he realizes it but doing so would open the gates for a future, more forward-thinking mayor to implement regional transportation taxes akin to road tolls or Metro Vancouver's gas tax.

Re: stop spacing: On Sheppard at least, I do think a closer to 600m stop spacing would be a good balance between speed and local service. However, it would be a poor fit with the road grid. We're pretty much stuck with what we've got at this point. Of course, I doubt the locals that rallied against wide stop spacing are aware that the subway proposal has a stop spacing substantially wider than the LRT, and even those right on top of the Ford line might benefit less from it than they think.

 

[Ed Drass]

when will Finch W. get its subway line? BRT? brt lite? anything?

A must-read for those willing to sacrifice city-wide bus riders to subway-only obsession.
Transit Crunch on Finch W: http://t.co/whRdxLA

-discusses Hydro ROW, lane loss, etc.

http://torontoist.com/2011/01/the_pinch_on_finch_west.php

snip:

Councillor James Pasternak (Ward 10, York Centre), whose ward includes a portion of the troublesome stretch of Finch, spoke with us following a meet-and-greet he hosted for constituents recently. Pasternak believes that "Finch West is not on the radar screen" at City Hall, but said little to indicate that he himself considers improving the route a priority.
He spoke at length about his opposition to an LRT on Finch, saying repeatedly that the plan would "remove [traffic] lanes from system roadways." Pasternak seemed genuinely surprised when we insisted that the environmental assesment for the Finch LRT [PDF] contains no lane reductions, as the roadway would be widened to accommodate the rail line while preserving the existing number of traffic lanes.

>>

Never mind home-owners, how in-depth would the Transit City marketing have had to be in order to reach bus riders like those on Finch West, so they would know what was offered? Were TC flyers distributed on hooks in TTC vehicles?

ed d.

 

[Tewder]

Obnoxious or not, it seems it will take the bluster and determination of a Lord Ford to break the stalemate of a polarized discourse on transit. No plan will please everyone or serve everyone but this doesn't mean we shouldn't be getting started, somwhere and somehow. Toronto needs to break this inertia, at all cost, and the motivation generated may just perpetuate itself, resulting in even wider and better plans. TC missed the boat, rightly or wrongly, and its time has passed. The main thing is that something replaces it, which will take enormous political motivation. Fortunately this motivation seems to be there, whether we like the details of it or not. No point looking back though. We cannot be all that surprised if a new regime, with new political motivations, does not pick up the transit vision of previous one... but lets see what will be on offer. For all the vision of TC, questionable or not (and any plan will be), nothing ever materialized. If Ford proves himself enough of a bully to break the lull of decades, and if he proves himself more successful in creating lucrative provincial and federal alliances on transit, we could just end up happier with the results, and in the long run 'results' would be nice.

 

[Ed Drass]

how many steps forward, then back?

Toronto needs to break this inertia, at all cost, and the motivation generated may just perpetuate itself, resulting in even wider and better plans. TC missed the boat, rightly or wrongly, and its time has passed. The main thing is that something replaces it, which will take enormous political motivation.

Tewder -- I don't dispute that, in general, violent shake-ups have resulted in better results, but they can also result in something even worse than the status quo. Further, having watched both good and bad projects die, I would suggest that TC did break the inertia you speak of.

It has funding invested and promised, it has many, many hours of detailed planning -- and now Ford is trying to break the first inertia-breaker in decades. For all its compromises and flaws, TC is a major component of the Big Move. Do we acknowledge how much enormous political motivation it took to permit a regional plan process that was demonstrably more open and public than ever before -- and now we appear to be returning to behind-closed-door political planning between the mayor's office and the provincial cabinet?

The fact that Ford has appeared to ignore the fate of every other stressed route except Sheppard and perhaps central Eglinton may indeed kickstart the debate over surface transit improvements across the city, but how do BRT and even minor transit upgrades fit with Ford's "vision"?

Declaring a major plan like Transit City dead and past seems super-risky when you have no comprehensive scheme to replace it.

-ed d. "a bird in the hand..." vs. "we learn only from our mistakes"

 

[Asterix]

For all the vision of TC, questionable or not (and any plan will be), nothing ever materialized.

You'd be correct if you ignore the facts that Sheppard and Eglinton and Finch West had funding in place as well as detailed plans.

Sheppard has actually started construction and Eglinton was slated to start construction in early 2011, with actual tunneling starting within a year.

But then just before shovels could go in the ground, we are back to a stalemate with no defined plan (just some vague 'subways for all' statements) and many areas of the city looking at having major transit improvements pulled out from under them.

Is that the fault of Miller or Ford?