[kEiThZ]

I'd posit that Yonge-St Clair and Yonge-Eglinton and Yonge-Sheppard,etc. have all had their growth helped along by the subway underneath.

Have you entirely missed what's happened along the length of the Sheppard subway?

SCC is only getting going now. Give it a few years.

 

[howl]

Is it really? In 35 years downtown, the area with less vacant land than anywhere, added over 200,000 jobs. Yonge-St Clair, Yonge-Eglinton are also spots that have grown. By contrast areas with plenty of vacant or underused land like SCC, ECC, and East Danforth have had disappointing growth.

Available land matters when density is a negative, e.g. for single family homes. Where density is a neutral to positive factor, such as office towers and condos, availability of land is far less important. There are a million places in Toronto where a developer could have put in 200 units far more cheaply and efficiently than Trump Tower, but there is vastly more demand for units in that part of town. If an area is desirable enough, a shortage of easy to develop land is little hindrance.

You can add all the zoning incentives and transit lines you like, but if an area is not one where people have a strong desire to live and work, it's not going to be very successful.

Developable land does not mean vacant land. It also means lands that contains structure that can be replaced. Downtown Toronto has seen a lot of building replacement, plus a lot of development of vacant parking lots, waterfront, old industrial and railway lands. Tridel’s Republic at Y&E is an example of an “under-utilized” site that has added to the density of the area.

Growth will happen where it makes the most economic sense. The purpose of The Big Move and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe is to make the targetted Urban Growth Centres economically viable places that can compete with and take pressure off the existing nodes. The transit lines in The Big Move and the UGC’s in the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe work together to support each other. You need to build the (appropriately scaled) transit lines and then you will get the growth. You can’t wait for the growth and then build the lines. The transportation framework has to be in place first.

 

[Rainforest]

It isn't only to save 2 min by eliminating a transfer. LRT from Yonge to Morningside = $670M + $1.1B = $1.7B. Subway from Yonge to SCC = $4.1B. Savings on LRT option = $2.4B. You save more than 58%.

Converting to LRT saves $2.4 billion because the primary reason to build more subway on Sheppard is the existing subway. If that subway is converted to LRT then the LRT becomes the obvious choice west of Don Mills and $2.4 billion is saved as a result.

From the technical standpoint, there are only two sensible options. Either build the LRT starting at Don Mills, and leave the subway as is. This is the cheapest option, and a meaningful improvement to local travel. Or, extend the subway. This is the most expensive option, but at least it brings benefits not available in other options: speed and ability to serve as a trunk line.

Converting subway to LRT is definitely not cost-effective compared to just adding LRT east of Don Mills. If you don't want to extend the subway (and believe that the benefits do not warrant the cost), then don't extend it. But spending $670M extra just to twart the subway extension cannot be justified.

 

[SimonP]

Developable land does not mean vacant land. It also means lands that contains structure that can be replaced.

With the exception of heritage structures, and maybe a couple hundred buildings that are too large to be economically replaced, that means just about every part of the city is "developable."

I agree that growth will happen where it makes sense, but good transit alone will not turn an unpopular area into one where people want to live and work. There are plenty of areas that've had subway service for decades and haven't grown nearly as much as planners thought, such as East Danforth, ECC, and SCC.

To say that SCC is only now getting going is untrue, it's had more than 25 years, and has actually lost jobs over the last 5. At what point to we cut our losses and acknowledge that these types of projects are a failure? And not try to duplicate them with schemes such as Vaughan City Centre?

NYCC has been much more successful, and it's early going but it looks like Sheppard is going in the same direction. Developing along an arterial in a way that interfaces with existing streets is clearly a better strategy then the towers in a parking lot model. Being on the Yonge line that links several employment concentrations is also a real benefit, one that areas along the Bloor and Spadina lines don't have.

Does this mean the Richmond Hill plan will be a success? The NYCC model can't be reproduced infinitely as you go north. At some point there simply won't be the surrounding density to support it. But Richmond Hill seems a much better bet than VCC or continuing to try and resuscitate Scarborough City Centre.

 

[sixrings]

Converting subway to LRT is definitely not cost-effective compared to just adding LRT east of Don Mills. If you don't want to extend the subway (and believe that the benefits do not warrant the cost), then don't extend it. But spending $670M extra just to twart the subway extension cannot be justified.

I disagree. Why is it worth an extra 600 Million to convert the SRT LRT to SUBWAY so that there wont be SUBWAY transfer at KENNEDY.... BUt Spending 600 Million to convert the Sheppard Subway to LRT to eliminate the transfer doesnt make sense.

ITS WORTH 600 MIlLION because people HATE HATE HATE HATE transfers.

That sounds so silly and stupid. But its the truth. People hate Transfers and less transfers causes more riders or at least less rider frusteration.

 

[Rainforest]

I disagree. Why is it worth an extra 600 Million to convert the SRT LRT to SUBWAY so that there wont be SUBWAY transfer at KENNEDY.... BUt Spending 600 Million to convert the Sheppard Subway to LRT to eliminate the transfer doesnt make sense.

ITS WORTH 600 MIlLION because people HATE HATE HATE HATE transfers.

That sounds so silly and stupid. But its the truth. People hate Transfers and less transfers causes more riders or at least less rider frusteration.

I see the point. I think the difference is that Danforth - SRT is a trunk corridor, and riders transfer to it from many local routes. Extending it as subway creates new travel options, that would not be appealing if transfer at Kennedy is retained. For example, if you are at Sheppard / Midland and want to get downtown, you can take Sheppard bus / LRT east to the BD subway terminus at Sheppard / McCowan, and then take the subway. But you probably won't take Sheppard bus / LRT all the way to Markham Road, transfer to SRT there, and then transfer again at Kennedy.

On the other hand, SELRT is designed as a local route (not fast enough for a trunk). You will use it if you are at Sheppard already, but it does not make sense to travel from Finch or Ellesmere via Sheppard. Hence, the number of people who benefit from removing the transfer at Don Mills is much smaller than for removing the transfer at Kennedy.

 

[nfitz]

If you said the lines you stated more often people wouldnt think you were solely LRT> But when you argue viligantly for LRT based on these stats and countless information that no one has time to dig up and in this case dont care to read, it comes off that you are not negotiable.

I argue for the subway line as well, just as frequently when people say we shouldn't build them.

However, we really don't have a lot of people here saying endlessly we shouldn't extend Yonge or build the DRL. So it just doesn't come up as much.

 

[sixrings]

I use to live at huntingwood and midland... I had three options getting downtown...

Option 1 (the fastest) take 57 midland down to Midland RT station, Transfer to RT, Transfer at Kennedy, Transfer at St. George or Yonge Bloor (3 Transfers about 60mins)
Option 2 (the second fastest) Take 57 Midland down to Kennedy, transfer at Kennedy, Transfer at St. George or Yonge/Bloor (2 Transfers 70mins)
Option 3 (slowest Option) Walk up to Finch, finch across to Finch Station, Transfer to Union (1 Transfer 80min includes 10 minute walk)

I almost exclusively took Option 3 because it was the least hastle. Transfering is a pain in the but when you are young. I feel sorry for 50 yr olds that have to do it daily. No wonder so many commuters look like zombies in the morning.

 

[LowerBay]

I use to live at huntingwood and midland... I had three options getting downtown...

Option 1 (the fastest) take 57 midland down to Midland RT station, Transfer to RT, Transfer at Kennedy, Transfer at St. George or Yonge Bloor (3 Transfers about 60mins)
Option 2 (the second fastest) Take 57 Midland down to Kennedy, transfer at Kennedy, Transfer at St. George or Yonge/Bloor (2 Transfers 70mins)
Option 3 (slowest Option) Walk up to Finch, finch across to Finch Station, Transfer to Union (1 Transfer 80min includes 10 minute walk)

I almost exclusively took Option 3 because it was the least hastle. Transfering is a pain in the but when you are young. I feel sorry for 50 yr olds that have to do it daily. No wonder so many commuters look like zombies in the morning.

I guess you guys are too young to remember the transfer-free subway system at St. George in the 60s. Surprisingly, a lot of people from the east still transferred because it was faster vs. taking the longer one-seat ride

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

With the exception of heritage structures, and maybe a couple hundred buildings that are too large to be economically replaced, that means just about every part of the city is "developable."

Not really. You need to have zoning that makes redevelopment palatable. No one is going to replace a two-storey plaza with another two-storey plaza BUT if they build an LRT out front and the zoning changes to allow for a mixed-use, 6-storey condo, well, that's a whole new ballgame. That's what official plans are for.

I think most people agree that SCC was not developed as well as NYCC and there are all sorts of reasons for that. I totally agree it shows that transit alone won't do the job. NYCC developed a bit later and did so with mixed-use development along Yonge Street, as opposed to around a mall an an isolated civic centre. The good news is that planning these days is focusing on similar corridors (especially Yonge Street, at Eglinton and at Hwy. 7) It's not really the NYCC model if for no other reason that they have a virtual blank slate to work with, but is an evolution of that idea and VMC is the same idea (as is Markham Centre).

To say that SCC is only now getting going is untrue, it's had more than 25 years, and has actually lost jobs over the last 5. At what point to we cut our losses and acknowledge that these types of projects are a failure? And not try to duplicate them with schemes such as Vaughan City Centre?

Planning philosophy has changed since SCC was developed. I'm not going to defend it - it's a blah place - but there is clearly major development going on now, particularly along the 401 side. That said, Vaughan Metropolitan Centre is (at least on paper) a totally different plan. It's a pedestrian/transit oriented 'smart growth' community. It's not "towers in a parking lot" though, clearly, parking lots are what's there now. Maybe 20 years from now those planning ideals will seem naive but I'll tell you this: It has a lot better chance of working with the subway opening in 2015 than it would if the subway was 20 years off.

 

[nfitz]

I use to live at huntingwood and midland... I had three options getting downtown...

Option 1 (the fastest) take 57 midland down to Midland RT station, Transfer to RT, Transfer at Kennedy, Transfer at St. George or Yonge Bloor (3 Transfers about 60mins)
Option 2 (the second fastest) Take 57 Midland down to Kennedy, transfer at Kennedy, Transfer at St. George or Yonge/Bloor (2 Transfers 70mins)
Option 3 (slowest Option) Walk up to Finch, finch across to Finch Station, Transfer to Union (1 Transfer 80min includes 10 minute walk)

I almost exclusively took Option 3 because it was the least hastle. Transfering is a pain in the but when you are young. I feel sorry for 50 yr olds that have to do it daily. No wonder so many commuters look like zombies in the morning.

I looked at it in Google Maps. For an 8 AM departure to King and Bay (not sure where you are going downtown).

Oddlly it doesn't give Option 1 ... it seems to prefer staying on the 57 to Kennedy (probably because it over-estimates transfer times, to it biases against less transfers).

However, it says their is a much faster way to do it. It says to take the Midland Bus to near Sheppard and walk to the Agincourt GO station. And take the GO train to Union and walk to King/Bay. Time is 50 minutes compared to the 67-68 it gives for Option 2. It also suggest just walking directly to Agincourt GO, though it notes it is a 25 minute walk. Personally if I didn't want to walk, I'd take the 51 Midland to Kennedy Station and take the GO train direct from there. Though I guess this doesn't work if your destination is much further north than King.

 

[kEiThZ]

I would suggest the middle way out: use the money to take Sheppard westward.

Sure people hate transfers. But I think what galls people about Sheppard is how useless the line feels when it's only 5 stops. This will get worse when the LRT is there. People will begin to wonder why the LRT wasn't just run underground. And then the Sheppard subway will become the new SRT.

However, if the subway goes to Downsview, people might be more forgiving towards the hated transfer....though I suspect not by much.

The second option for me would be to spend on the changeover to LRT. People will argue that it's a reduction in capacity, etc. But the reality is that Sheppard is never going to be Yonge and a fully segregated, grade-separated LRT with reasonable frequencies will meet demand on Sheppard for the forseeable future. So a changeover, I think, would be well received by most riders.

I wish people here thought more like regular folk than transit geeks. I doubt you'd find too many regular people who would argue for not converting when you tell them that $600 million is one more subway stop. They'd take one less transfer over one more stop.

 

[sixrings]

You could make a point for option 4. (Go train) Only problem is that I believe that train only runs twice in the morning and twice at night... That to me isnt frequent enough to be considered a viable option.

That being said, my dad use to drive to the go train and ride that to union everyday for the last ten years he worked in Toronto.

I havent lived in that area in about 6 years. If things have changed, I wouldnt know.

 

[sixrings]

i wish people here thought more like regular folk than transit geeks. I doubt you'd find too many regular people who would argue for not converting when you tell them that $600 million is one more subway stop. They'd take one less transfer over one more stop.

150% agreed....

 

[kEiThZ]

I looked at it in Google Maps. For an 8 AM departure to King and Bay (not sure where you are going downtown).

Oddlly it doesn't give Option 1 ... it seems to prefer staying on the 57 to Kennedy (probably because it over-estimates transfer times, to it biases against less transfers).

However, it says their is a much faster way to do it. It says to take the Midland Bus to near Sheppard and walk to the Agincourt GO station. And take the GO train to Union and walk to King/Bay. Time is 50 minutes compared to the 67-68 it gives for Option 2. It also suggest just walking directly to Agincourt GO, though it notes it is a 25 minute walk. Personally if I didn't want to walk, I'd take the 51 Midland to Kennedy Station and take the GO train direct from there. Though I guess this doesn't work if your destination is much further north than King.

The whole problem with that is the double fare and lack of fare integration.

And while Google Transit is nice and all....it's still not better than local knowledge. Quite handy if you are going to a new part of town though.