[Tulse]

I'm thinking for Sheppard, so we can extend the line to the surface rather than force a transfer.

But that would then mean that the TTC would have separate, specialized, customized trains that could only run on the Sheppard line. That seems like a huge expense just to avoid a bit of inconvenience.

 

[Admiral Beez]

But that would then mean that the TTC would have separate, specialized, customized trains that could only run on the Sheppard line. That seems like a huge expense just to avoid a bit of inconvenience.

Reminds me of the SRT? I remember the first time I saw the SRT back in the 1980s and thinking why didn't they just follow the example of the Allen Rd. subway run, where you bring the regular subway to ground level and run it along the same bed used by the SRT.

 

[Electrify]

But that would then mean that the TTC would have separate, specialized, customized trains that could only run on the Sheppard line. That seems like a huge expense just to avoid a bit of inconvenience.

But they are already are going to have to get new trains for Sheppard regardless. And once the Yonge line becomes fully equipped with ATC, then the Bloor-Danforth trains won't be able to use that line either.

 

[Tulse]

But they are already are going to have to get new trains for Sheppard regardless.

Sure, but it makes sense to have those usable on the other lines as much as is practicable.

And once the Yonge line becomes fully equipped with ATC, then the Bloor-Danforth trains won't be able to use that line either.

Right, but your suggestion means that the TTC would actually have three different train types running on three different lines, all of which are incompatible with each other. That would be a servicing and procurement nightmare.

I just don't think that, given the ridership, such extreme measures are necessary to avoid one transfer.

 

[Big Daddy]

I don't get it - If Ford (like him or not) was elected by the people on a platform of subway expansion, shouldn't council and TTC staff be following his lead?

How many times do the public have to make their opinion known before it is followed?

The poll on this thread is meaningless because so few have had an opportunity to reply.

Stintz and council should be working on behalf of the people of Toronto to find a way to provide the subway expansion the public voted for rather than pulling in a different direction. We should be fighting with the Province, not each other. You can't win unless all your horses are pulling in the same direction and the Premier knows this. If the city were united and went to McGuinty with demands for subway funding, he would have to listen. As it is right now, we is playing right into his hands. He doesn't have to commit more money than he already has and even that money is delayed while the city pulls itself apart.

Stintz hasn't helped the city or the transit issue; she has simply helped McGuinty cap his transit exposure.

We all know what a disaster the Scarborough Rapid Transit line was, why are we even thinking about repeating this fiasco? Ask the people on Spadina how they feel about their streetcar line and how it has added to traffic chaos there.

If you are going to do something, do it once and do it right.

 

[Tulse]

If Ford (like him or not) was elected by the people on a platform of subway expansion, shouldn't council and TTC staff be following his lead?

Many of the other councillors were not elected on that platform, and (like it or not) civic government in Toronto legally functions based on the will of city council, and not just the mayor. The mayor is just one member of city council, not the president of the city.

If the city were united and went to McGuinty with demands for subway funding, he would have to listen.

Seriously? Have you seen the provincial finances lately? There is no way that Toronto is getting more money for its local transit -- we're lucky that the province hasn't reneged on the originally-promised funding. The notion of any more money from Queens Park is a fantasy, especially when the mayor refuses to raise his own revenues through taxes, tolls, or fees.

 

[Palma]

Sure, but it makes sense to have those usable on the other lines as much as is practicable.



Right, but your suggestion means that the TTC would actually have three different train types running on three different lines, all of which are incompatible with each other. That would be a servicing and procurement nightmare.

I just don't think that, given the ridership, such extreme measures are necessary to avoid one transfer.

Just to avoid a transfer.

 

[Palma]

I don't get it - If Ford (like him or not) was elected by the people on a platform of subway expansion, shouldn't council and TTC staff be following his lead?

How many times do the public have to make their opinion known before it is followed?

The poll on this thread is meaningless because so few have had an opportunity to reply.

Stintz and council should be working on behalf of the people of Toronto to find a way to provide the subway expansion the public voted for rather than pulling in a different direction. t.

He was not elected because of subways but because he promised to cut the waste and it was a backlash from miller.

 

[BMO]

Rob Ford says he was elected as mayor to stop the waste in city hall, which includes the TTC. He said he wants the city to be run efficiently.

Is building a subway or underground electric railway a efficient means to move people across vast areas of city than light rail? Which would cost less? Which would provide rapid transit to more areas or section of the city?

Is building a subway for Eglinton Crosstown from Black Creek to Scarborough Town Centre for $8 billion better than building Transit City for Sheppard East to the zoo, Eglinton Crosstown from Jane to Kennedy station , and Finch West from Finch West station to Humber College and rebuild & extend the SRT from Kennedy station, through STC and extended to Sheppard East station (near Progress Avenue) for the same $8 billion?

Which would be a waste of resources for the transit users?

Stop the waste and build Transit City

All that is a waste, if you took the same vein of thought, you could just spend the $8 on decreasing headways on ALL bus routes in the city, which would amount to greater overall time savings across the city. That's the quick short term fix to the solution. Heck you could probably even put BRT on every single arterial for that money (something LRTistas seems to believe is the answer to capacity concerns; just build more LRT on parallel streets)

Building Eglinton alone underground would have a 66K capacity (not including sheppard subway in the mix) building the current transit city lines would have a max capacity of 60K.

It is expected that Eglinton will have a peak ridership of 12K if it was built underground. To put that in perspective, the Spadina line currently has a peak ridership of 13K. Not only this, but it would relieve the Bloor-Danforth line, and create a much needed redundancy in the system.

Everyone says Subway is not appropriate for the corridor, yet they toss out figures like 12K peak ridership which is well into subway area (starting peak ridership for considering subway is 10K, and max capacity for LRT is 15K).

Ok, fine don't believe me, let's look at the so called benefits of LRT. Wow it's going to improve the urban form, create a more human scaled development along the corridors, and it will promote local trips...Alright, how many people here would like to move to Birchmount and Eglinton, and not rather go to Downtown Toronto for entertainment? Yup, thought so.

Eglinton is NOT a destination, it is a corridor. People aren't travelling along Eglinton to go one or two blocks down, they're using it to get ACROSS Eglinton. What I'm saying is that LRT's benefits are only useful for gentrifying and developping an area, if that stops are closely/ reasonably spaced. Having Subway-like stop spacing will NOT foster the so called avenue style development. Why would anybody build between stations, if they're going to have car access cut off by an LRT line in the middle of the road, that will not stop there. You'll see development at the major intersections/stops.

Having said this, you need a reliable and completely segregated line on Eglinton. Like I said, it is NOT a local route, it is a means of getting to the core. I truly believe Scarborough doesn't really care whether it's subway or LRT, all they care about is if it will get them to the core quickly. A fact that at-grade LRT cannot deny, is that it is undoubtedly slower than subway, or any completely spearated line for that matter.

It's easy to say we want LRT in the suburbs if your own ward will get a subway regardless of which plan is chosen. Ppl on St. Clair still do not like the lack of car access on the street (talking about actual movement of vehicles) and that is further downtown than Eglinton, so why would you expect people in the suburbs to like it? I understand they will be expanding the road so that the LRT doesn't take away road capacity, but it will still create a number of issues for left-turns, etc. No one can deny that make turns on any street is a pain.

So before you start arguing that we should "Stop the waste and build Transit City" take a look and see what the real issues are. People in the suburbs just want to get to and from work as quick as they can. subway allows this. I understand that Finch West may have to wait longer for their transit, but look at how much less time they will have to spend to get on the subway once the Spadina extension is built. Building a proper backbone of subway (or completely grade separated transit) is what is NEEDED in this city.

Council is trying to take the easy option out of this whole debacle. Why should they look for alternative financing options, when it's political hot sauce? No, Josh Matlow and Karen Stintz just went for what's easy. Maybe saying, gee let's see what revenue tools we need for financing subways or any other transit are because we will never get this kind of money in the future for transit expansion, and then come up with a plan, and see what council thinks about it. Karen Stintz is always the first person to note that Ford cannot pay for his subways, but she doesn't say how anything else in the city will ever get built after this one time $8B grant.

If there's one thing you have to give credit to a lot of the subway supporters (not all ofcourse) is that many subway supporters are actually for AFP options and looking for other ways of financing a consistent and incremental expansion over a long-term plan.

You all bicker and argue about Ford and Stintz, but the real douchebags in this whole situation are McGuinty and his idiot Metrolinx agency, that came up with a $50B plan, without any way of financing it, just so that it wouldn't be an election issue. That's just as bad as saying we'll have subways on Finch (like what Ford is saying) and not having any numbers to back it up. So you get this whole situation where the city knows it only gets one chance to do something, and then, what ends up happening, is that NOTHING happens.

Ppl all-over the city want to be able to move quickly. I think something better than LRT is needed, not just on Eglinton, but also on Sheppard, DRL, and Yonge. Instead of saying, let's just invest in LRT so that it has short term benefits for everyone, we should really look at what Toronto SHOULD have, and what plan we can create to achieve that. A line that hits 4 growth nodes including the Airport, one highway terminus, two town centres, is NOT where LRT should be built, it's the perfect candidate to be a backbone subway for across the city.

One last thing to note is that transit planning isn't always about ridership or density, or making a profit off of your investment. Transit is much more complicated than that. Transit is affected basically by everything. It is an integrated system that relies on various things. Ignoring highway traffic patterns (especially the most heavily used highway in NA) and just looking at existing bus routes and density is NOT a comprehensive model for transit ridership projections, the 401 is a very sophisticated transit system that has a multitude of start and end locations, but there is not doubt that it is the primary east-west route across the city in the north, in fact many areas in the suburbs with the lowest densities are in employment districts. There is no existing option that comes anywhere close to the 401 in terms of transit. Think of building a subway across eglinton as a transit highway. the buses are the arterials, and the pedestrians and cyclists are the collectors.

LRT is more like highway 7 or kingston road; it's fast, but still stops for lights.

 

[Dan416]

Yeah the lack of long term planning on council's part is astounding. There's still no final plan for the DRL. The last mayor and every mayor before that prioritized everything BUT the DRL and now that we have $8 billion we're squandering it on non-DRL projects.

If we were thinking long-term, we'd build the DRL first (as soon as the study and EA are done) and then focus on the other major corridors.

What's stopping us from deciding we'd rather build the DRL first? I'd rather do things right the first time than do something quickly that doesn't give the most bang for the buck.

Don't get me wrong, an LRT on Finch is nice to have. But is it necessary? Let's not kid ourselves here.

 

[johnwood]

I was against subways before because they were too expensive but now that know that they are cheaper in the long run, subways are the best bet. If the tax payers want subways, and if they are willing to pay for them, and if they are cheaper in the long run, then the answer is simple...subways it should be.

 

[jeffreym]

I was against subways before because they were too expensive but now that know that they are cheaper in the long run, subways are the best bet. If the tax payers want subways, and if they are willing to pay for them, and if they are cheaper in the long run, then the answer is simple...subways it should be.

Since when are they cheaper in the long run? Ford & Co. keep saying that, but it just isn't true. Matt Elliot points out that the capital costs alone are 3.9M/km/year now that the lines aren't new.

 

[Palma]

Well Ford think there should be a subway on sheppard and finch which are so close to each other that it doe snot make sense and Mammoliti is perpetuating this myth that finch will ever get a subway

 

[Tulse]

What's stopping us from deciding we'd rather build the DRL first?

In a word, amalgamation.

A multi-billion dollar line that is perceived to only serve downtown just isn't politically feasible, not without doing something for the suburbs first.

 

[Palma]

All t

B Wow it's going to improve the urban form, create a more human scaled development along the corridors, and it will promote local trips...Alright, how many people here would like to move to Birchmount and Eglinton, and not rather go to Downtown Toronto for entertainment? Yup, thought so.

Eglinton is NOT a destination, it is a corridor. People aren't travelling along Eglinton to go one or two blocks down, they're using it to get ACROSS Eglinton. What I'm saying is that LRT's benefits are only useful for gentrifying and developping an area, if that stops are closely/ reasonably spaced. Having Subway-like stop spacing will NOT foster the so called avenue style development. Why would anybody build between stations, if they're going to have car access cut off by an LRT line in the middle of the road, that will not stop there. You'll see development at the major intersections/stops.

s.

Well perhaps Eglinton at Birchmount can become more developed and i don;t mean just condos but develope businesses closer to the street, shops, restaurants, other retail. I would think having the LRT at grade level will make Eglinton out there not seem so wide. When you have cars zooming on a road (not sure what speed is out there) but if its above 50km its too fast to develope the kind avenue that people like.

You cannot say that Egltinon is not a destination - perhaps not yet on some parts of Eglinton. I mean the businesses along Eglinton between Keele until Bathurst are not the greatest but from there to Yonge it picks up. And as far as I have read, the spacing along eglinton will not be spaced far. If anyhting there are businesses along the central portion that will be underground that wopuld rather it be at street level only because you can see the shops as you go by and they feel that brings more business. And what is wrong with transit being for local travel? Why must it always be to bring someone from point A to a long distant away to point B?