[Ed Drass]

take a deep breath before posting...

You won't see questions like those being asked by the Transit City camp! No way! They're very biased, do not compromise, and deserve to lose everything.

LAz, were you being serious, or perhaps overly indulging in the anonymity of this forum?

I'm sure many would put me in the Transit City camp ... although I'm not in a rush to be labelled. Do you wish to say that I -- for example -- am very biased, do not compromise and deserve to lose everything?

I'll repost from just a page ago: "those who advocate for better transit might do better to define where they agree than focus on the differences. Fiery debate is entertaining to take on, but is it a good use of limited energy?"

Ed D.

 

[quicksilver]

Also I don't know if I would detour the line to Sunnybrook Park, seems a little out of the way and might be better served by a bus connection. Finally, I've always questioned the merit of a Leslie station. There isn't much around there, unlikely to be much around there because of being in parkland/ravine, and always thought it might better to simply run the Leslie St bus out of Laird station.

I would also have the Sheppard and Scarborough lines meet up at Rouge Hill GO, the Scarborough line could run along Lawrence. Also, just wondering why you have the Scarborough line running out of Warden station, rather than extending the Eglinton line?

Still, very good plan and if this is what the debate was about I'd support it fully

The stop is supposed to feed both Sunnybrook Park and Hospital. They are both destinations in and of themselves and together I thought they warranted a slight detour off the road network. I'd like to think we are building for the next 100 years. Who knows in that amount of time how important it will be to be able to get to the hospital or some green space w/o a car. What's a little detour among friends?

You're probably right about Leslie, although there may be some more high density residential development happening where the "inn on the park" used to be.

Rouge Hill vs Port Union and Lawrence vs Kingston Rd are both tough choices, and probably reflect my own biases. I used to live south of the Guildwood GO Station so I'm more aware of the populations nearer Kingston Rd. One argument for Port Union over Rouge Hill is the ability to build a car park near the 401. Another reason is the ability to link east to Pickering, trans-municipal connections being so important politically these days.

A friend and I were having a conversation yesterday about the character of Kingston Rd, east of Birchmount. She mentioned how it felt like the community appeared as though it had lost something. And she was right. The street car used to run on Kingston Rd all the way out to the park just south of UT Scarborough. Given the opportunity, it would be nice to see local service restarted on the Kingston Rd car from Vic Park to parts further East.

 

[Ed Drass]

Snipped from John Lorinc's excellent piece in today's Globe:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...to/karen-stintz-new-ttc-chair/article1887074/

<<Despite her formal standing in council, Ms. Stintz has found herself in a tricky spot.

She backs the mayor's subway vision and dismisses the Transit City plan as nothing more than “an input” to the province's plan for a transit network across Greater Toronto. Yet she also strongly supports the $4.6-billion Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. A portion will operate in a tunnel under her ward, but much of the route will run on dedicated rights-of-way through Scarborough – just the sort of configuration Mr. Ford has vowed to eliminate.

Ms. Stintz, who tends to avoid the gravy train rhetoric, admits she's received thousands of e-mails from Transit City supporters, urging her to stay the course set by Mr. Miller. “She's the chair,” shrugs Franz Hartmann, a city hall veteran who currently runs the Toronto Environmental Alliance. “She is going to wear whatever comes out of this. I don't envy her job.”

Now she's been left with the task of squaring the circle. “Eglinton is a very important line for the city,” she stresses, sipping green tea at a Starbucks downtown. “I've been hearing that feedback. It would be a shame if Eglinton wasn't built again.”

Metrolinx is expected to release its response to Mr. Ford some time in February. It seems clear that there's not enough funding to build both.

In any case, her fingerprints won't be on the final deal. The mayor's office has left her out of the high-stakes negotiations with Metrolinx and the province over Mr. Ford's subway plan. Ms. Stintz gamely insists the talks “are taking place at the right level” and denies that she's trapped between the competing political agendas of the mayor and Premier Dalton McGuinty.>>

 

[Dan416]

I disagree that there isn't enough money to do Sheppard and Eglinton and the SRT. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't want Eglinton built. But Ford has made it clear Sheppard is his priority. The issue in my opinion is finding a funding strategy that can do both while replacing the SRT concurrently.

I do not buy the popular refrain that the City of Toronto has no money. The City can have as much money as it wants. It just needs to take the steps to get it.

 

[lafard]

Wtf do you bring that up??? Calgary is a million person metropolis vs Toronto which has about five million.

Why is this relevant? Calgary is a great model for LRT, and we should pay attention.
Is it capacity? The C-train once expanded to 4 car trains has higher functional capacity than the Sheppard line does, and in fact if operated correctly has a functional capacity approaching anything in Toronto. Calgary's primary limitation is the interlined segment on 7 Ave downtown, in Toronto such a limit does not exist as our lines generally don't interline.

How about speed? Well, again, look at the NE LRT. The planned Saddletown extension (circa 2014) will be 14km out of downtown. That's the same as Union to North York Centre. Incredibly, it goes most of the way on 36 St NE, in the median of a surface street! Look! the streetview car is even turning left across the tracks! . Note, however, that the trains get absolute priority at intersections, with crossing gates. This will never happen in Toronto. The car always wins here.

For distances much more than that, LRT is not the ideal mode. But neither is subway, when you think about it. Then it's time to consider more regional options, express buses or even regional rail.

Frankly, LRT works. When it takes priority over the car. I think Calgary's aggressive expansion, with a system that's getting expanded each time the terminus ceases to be an easy walk from farms, is a model we could perhaps follow.Given they pay a tenth per track-km what we pay for subways, it is something worth considering.

 

[ssiguy2]

No kidding. Despite what Torontonians think of Calgary as being "car oriented" it is Calgary that is a TRUE TransitCity.
The LRT is as fast as any subway because it has 100% priority over cars. Toronto likes to talk but it's Calgary that puts transit first and it's incredibly high transit ridership levels on it's CTrain is the result.
It also interesting that Calgary's true rapid transit CTrain costs consistently less than TC yet Calgary area wages and costs are higher.

 

[accura407]

For distances much more than that, LRT is not the ideal mode. But neither is subway, when you think about it. Then it's time to consider more regional options, express buses or even regional rail.

Frankly, LRT works. When it takes priority over the car. I think Calgary's aggressive expansion, with a system that's getting expanded each time the terminus ceases to be an easy walk from farms, is a model we could perhaps follow.Given they pay a tenth per track-km what we pay for subways, it is something worth considering.

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)

And as you mention the extension to Saddletown...Calgary has the foresight to put aside space when building a subdivision so that they can extend the LRT

Toronto is Run by Developers. The approach here is to build all the housing first and then worry about expensive transportation solutions later on...

Toronto also decides that Transit Lines MUST follow one particular avenue and be as straight as an arrow.

The Spadina subway is the only exception to all this and the closest example of Calgary LRT in most of the ways mentioned. No Surprise, it is also the cheapest line that was built overall...Especially from Eglinton West to Wilson.

But as long as the Developer Mafia controls Toronto...we are doomed to paying ridiculous costs for rapid transit!

No kidding. Despite what Torontonians think of Calgary as being "car oriented" it is Calgary that is a TRUE TransitCity.
The LRT is as fast as any subway because it has 100% priority over cars. Toronto likes to talk but it's Calgary that puts transit first and it's incredibly high transit ridership levels on it's CTrain is the result.
It also interesting that Calgary's true rapid transit CTrain costs consistently less than TC yet Calgary area wages and costs are higher.

Yeah...Which is why nobody can explain how short subway extensions are quotes as costing Billions upon Billions of dollars!

 

[GraphicMatt]

Snipped from John Lorinc's excellent piece in today's Globe:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...to/karen-stintz-new-ttc-chair/article1887074/

<<

In any case, her fingerprints won't be on the final deal. The mayor's office has left her out of the high-stakes negotiations with Metrolinx and the province over Mr. Ford's subway plan. Ms. Stintz gamely insists the talks “are taking place at the right level” and denies that she's trapped between the competing political agendas of the mayor and Premier Dalton McGuinty.>>

I wrote about this on my blog, but to reiterate it here: I think it's absolutely insane that the TTC chair is completely uninvolved with the Metrolinx negotiations. There's a good chance that the future of transit in this city currently lies in the hands of a guy who, earlier this year, argued that the entire TTC should be completely privatized.

 

[nfitz]

It is bizarre ... on the other hand, if the solution they come up with is too far out of this world, it's hard to see how council will support it. Will council agree to killing the Eglinton RT?

 

[GraphicMatt]

They may stick with the argument that a council vote isn't necessary.

 

[nfitz]

Even in the unlikely event that they would do that, then I'd expect another councillor to simply call for a vote on the issue in council. At least if the proposed plan was bizarre enough that it wouldn't get 23 votes.

 

[Asterix]

The stop is supposed to feed both Sunnybrook Park and Hospital. They are both destinations in and of themselves and together I thought they warranted a slight detour off the road network. I'd like to think we are building for the next 100 years. Who knows in that amount of time how important it will be to be able to get to the hospital or some green space w/o a car. What's a little detour among friends?

I'd suggest you actually visit the location and not just base your assumptions on a map. There is no way a single station can reasonably service both the hospital and the park, plus there is a deep ravine between the North Leaside neighbourhood and the hospital.

The hospital is on a plateau, level with the surrounding developments. There is a deep ravine to its immediate south and then along its eastern boundary. To get from any hospital building down to the stables and snack bar in the park is over a km down a winding park access road and across a branch of the Don River. More like 2km if you go from the main hospital entrance where the buses current go.

To get from the edge of North Leaside where you have your station to the main part of the park that is used, you'd have to go down a steep hill behind Lyndhurst rehab hospital and around the off-leash dog flats to that same bridge mentioned above. Again, at least a km there as well.

Access to the playing fields on the heights from either the hospital or your station location are at least as far as currently getting off an Eglinton East bus at Leslie and walking in.

And that's all not accounting for convincing hundreds of North Leaside residents to let you dig a tunnel right under neath their houses.

 

[Rainforest]

I disagree that there isn't enough money to do Sheppard and Eglinton and the SRT. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't want Eglinton built. But Ford has made it clear Sheppard is his priority. The issue in my opinion is finding a funding strategy that can do both while replacing the SRT concurrently.

I do not buy the popular refrain that the City of Toronto has no money. The City can have as much money as it wants. It just needs to take the steps to get it.

A lot of money are circulating in the city. But:

1) By provincial statutes, the city is prevented from imposing its own income tax, sales tax, or fuel surtax.

2) All revenue tools that the city controls: property tax increases, road tolls, parking surcharges, vehicle registration fees, facility usage fees - are hugely unpopular. And in some cases, their fairness is questionable (think of a senior couple living on a fixed income in an established neighborhood, where the house prices climb up quickly - now they have to either pay a much higher property tax, or uproot and move elsewhere).

3) And most importantly, the current administration is vehemently against any new taxes or tax increases.

If it was easy to raise local taxes and fund transit expansion from the city's own coffers, we would see that already happened under the left-leaning Miller's regime, and a couple of new subway lines would be under construction right now.

 

[Rainforest]

Snipped from John Lorinc's excellent piece in today's Globe:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...to/karen-stintz-new-ttc-chair/article1887074/

<<Despite her formal standing in council, Ms. Stintz has found herself in a tricky spot.

I wonder if that Ford - Stintz alliance will last for long. They might be close enough in the political spectrum, but seem to have very different personalities and approaches.

And if Stintz quits the TTC Chair job over Ford's refusal to build Eglinton line, it will likely create a solid City Council majority that opposes Ford's approach to transit.

 

[Ed Drass]

There's a good chance that the future of transit in this city currently lies in the hands of a guy who, earlier this year, argued that the entire TTC should be completely privatized.

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.