[EnviroTO]

I suspect that once the Eglinton LRT line opens and people see how fast LRT can be (i.e. that it is the ROW protection and number of stops, not the volume of the vehicle that matters) there will be support to convert the Sheppard subway to underground LRT. I really suspect that there is a plan already to convert the Sheppard Line to LRT out there and deciding to (a) build Sheppard LRT as priority one, (b) having end-to-end subway-LRT platforms at Don Mills station, and (c) build the Eglinton LRT as a priority is a precursor to that. I see the SRT not being built as a subway to Scarborough Centre a far greater mistake (considering the volume of passengers) than the Sheppart LRT.

I don't understand why there is more support for a subway one block from the 401 going between Scarborough and North York than a subway which runs diagonal further away from the freeways from Scarborough to the north part of downtown Toronto.

 

[Rainforest]

Ignoring the studies that show that the demand is well below subway levels (particularly east of Victoria Park and west of Yonge).

But the demand east of McCowan will be below LRT level, yet we are going to build LRT there. Demand is not the only criteria; speed and connectivity matter, too.

Ignoring that a subway extension will do nothing to service the 2/3 of Sheppard East where no subway is proposed ...

It will. Many passengers travel all the way towards Yonge. If they can board the subway sooner, then the subway extension helps them, even though it is not reaching their area.

Sheppard East is about $1-billion. To complete STC to Downsview would be almost 12 km. Let's be generous and low-ball it $3-billion. But there isn't $3-billion available.

Sheppard East plus the Finch / Don Mills bypass is around $1.3-billion.

The subway extension could be staged, with the first phase (Don Mills - Agincourt) being around $1.3 - $1.5 billion.

By the time the election comes, construction will well be underway. Funding has been secured. Agreements have been signed between 3 levels of government.

The cost of cancelling contracts alone will be high. And then there is no guarantee of funding.

Those concerns are certainly valid; just throwing the funding away would be unwise. However, amendments to the plan can be considered.

One option, as Keithz mentioned, is to build LRT east of Agincourt, and subway west of it.

Another possibility is redirecting the Sheppard LRT funding towards SMLRT and given priority to the latter - although that would be a greater change.

 

[Rainforest]

I suspect that once the Eglinton LRT line opens and people see how fast LRT can be (i.e. that it is the ROW protection and number of stops, not the volume of the vehicle that matters) there will be support to convert the Sheppard subway to underground LRT. I really suspect that there is a plan already to convert the Sheppard Line to LRT out there and deciding to (a) build Sheppard LRT as priority one, (b) having end-to-end subway-LRT platforms at Don Mills station, and (c) build the Eglinton LRT as a priority is a precursor to that.

Such a conversion would eliminate one transfer, but won't improve speed east of Don Mills.

Besides, TTC is now leaning towards placing the Sheppard LRT station at the concourse level of Don Mills, to facilitate through routing with Finch LRT. If they do so, it will become very difficult to connect the LRT to the subway tunnel.

 

[nfitz]

The subway extension could be staged, with the first phase (Don Mills - Agincourt) being around $1.3 - $1.5 billion.

Now that's just daft. Extend the stubway another 4 stops, but don't get to the major node? Let's see, completion date for the stubway .... 2017 ... wait another 10 years, perhaps it will get to STC in 2030 ... but still doesn't get to Downsview?

In the meantime instead of 2030, you can have some major improvements by 2013 ... and THEN go push for a subway to STC. I see no reason why both can't exist if this demand is there.

(thought I don't know where it magically appears from ... EnviroTO is correct, it would make more sense to build from STC to Kennedy ... but that's a different issue).

 

[EnviroTO]

Such a conversion would eliminate one transfer, but won't improve speed east of Don Mills.

No, but Eglinton LRT will show it is possible. Maybe there would be a push to remove a stop or two, or do a later piecemeal underground extensions which as a part of the continuous LRT line would provide greater benefits to more riders than a short subway extension requiring almost as many people to continue to need to transfer. LRT lines support piecemeal extensions far more than subways which cannot continue on the surface.

 

[nfitz]

Oh no ... EnviroTO ... you keep talking sense. You can't do that here ... you have to stick your fingers in your ears and whine, whine, whine. Didn't you read the rules?

 

[kEiThZ]

I suspect that once the Eglinton LRT line opens and people see how fast LRT can be (i.e. that it is the ROW protection and number of stops, not the volume of the vehicle that matters) there will be support to convert the Sheppard subway to underground LRT. I really suspect that there is a plan already to convert the Sheppard Line to LRT out there and deciding to (a) build Sheppard LRT as priority one, (b) having end-to-end subway-LRT platforms at Don Mills station, and (c) build the Eglinton LRT as a priority is a precursor to that. I see the SRT not being built as a subway to Scarborough Centre a far greater mistake (considering the volume of passengers) than the Sheppart LRT.

I would at least feel a little bit better if this was the case. However, nothing coming out from any official source even hints at conversion. Heck, Metrolinx wants to build a parallel LRT line on Finch. So we aren't assured same platform boarding necessarily.

I don't understand why there is more support for a subway one block from the 401 going between Scarborough and North York than a subway which runs diagonal further away from the freeways from Scarborough to the north part of downtown Toronto.

It's probably the case because nearly all of our subways follow streets and because both city centres are located close to the 401.

 

[kEiThZ]

No, but Eglinton LRT will show it is possible. Maybe there would be a push to remove a stop or two, or do a later piecemeal underground extensions which as a part of the continuous LRT line would provide greater benefits to more riders than a short subway extension requiring almost as many people to continue to need to transfer. LRT lines support piecemeal extensions far more than subways which cannot continue on the surface.

Have you been to Malvern? Sheppard is nice and wide and hardly all that traffic constrained most of the time. The buses are quite quick. They certainly above the 17 kph mark that's the TTC average. The only downside to the bus service on Sheppard East are bunching, service frequency and the traffic it encounters past Agincourt. I have a hard time seeing how LRT can improve significantly on all that. It'll solve bunching by reducing frequency. It won't solve frequency issues though. And it'll save a few minutes cutting through traffic...though it's doubtful if what'll save is worth nearly a billion bucks. And given that the implementation of LRT could see frequency reduced below that of today's bus service, I have a real concern that total travel time could go up.

Eglinton will only be successful because it's building a subway where there was none before. Comparisons to Sheppard East are misleading. We aren't going from bus to subway. We are going from a relative quick bus (east of Brimley anyway) to a less frequent and marginally faster at-grade streetcar.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

And it'll save a few minutes cutting through traffic...though it's doubtful if what'll save is worth nearly a billion bucks. And given that the implementation of LRT could see frequency reduced below that of today's bus service, I have a real concern that total travel time could go up.

Sheppard's up to $1.2B, if it connects with the subway at platform level. This will not be replaced by a piecemeal subway extension within our lifetimes. The SRT is literally falling apart and the subway isn't being extended, even though it's actually cheaper.

The tunnelled portion of Eglinton might be as fast as advertised, but only if the surface sections don't throw it under the bus...something easier said than done given this city's track record. There's several comparisons that people will be making: the middle stretch of Eglinton compared to the stretches running in the middle of the road and stopping at traffic lights, either segment compared to existing bus service it'll replace, and any/all three compared to the B/D line.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Have you been to Malvern? Sheppard is nice and wide and hardly all that traffic constrained most of the time. The buses are quite quick. They certainly above the 17 kph mark that's the TTC average. The only downside to the bus service on Sheppard East are bunching, service frequency and the traffic it encounters past Agincourt. I have a hard time seeing how LRT can improve significantly on all that. It'll solve bunching by reducing frequency. It won't solve frequency issues though. And it'll save a few minutes cutting through traffic...though it's doubtful if what'll save is worth nearly a billion bucks. And given that the implementation of LRT could see frequency reduced below that of today's bus service, I have a real concern that total travel time could go up.

I agree. One of the reasons I think Finch West would work very well as LRT is because Finch west is fairly wide, but it's congested at rush hour and can freeze up at other points of the day. The busses are already very popular on that route, and are almost at peak capacity, certainly in need of an improved service. Putting a LRT in place allows the transit vehicles to bypass the heavy traffic, and is the most logical way to improve capacity (I think that articulated busses would just be biding time, and might not be sufficient for increased passenger loads if a ROW is constructed.)

Finch East has about the same ridership as West, but from what I've seen, Finch East moves a fair bit faster than Finch West, which allows for more busses to operate on the route. That said, I think that Finch east is in desperate need of an improvement, and I think that articulated busses should be looked at, as well as bus lanes. Other than that, I wouldn't fix what aint broke; it's been popular because of the astoundingly high frequencies and close stops, and articulated busses and bus lanes would only make service better.

You're right, Sheppard only really gets slow and congested around Agincourt, generally west of Midland or Brimley. I'm not saying that LRT wouldn't give an improvement there, but a subway would give a substantially better improvement, and in terms of linking growth nodes and high density areas, Subway is vastly superior to LRT. As I said, this kind of LRT works well mainly as a feeder line to Subways and Regional Rail, not as a true Rapid Transit route.

Eglinton will only be successful because it's building a subway where there was none before. Comparisons to Sheppard East are misleading. We aren't going from bus to subway. We are going from a relative quick bus (east of Brimley anyway) to a less frequent and marginally faster at-grade streetcar.

Basically true. However, I think that Eglinton would be better if the subway portion was real subway, and the extra money just spent extending it to Jane and Don Mills. From the outside of those points, there is a pretty big roadway that doesn't get super-congested. It's the central portion that really gets Eglinton, and I think it'd be best to work on improving service there to the max, while the peripherals can continue to use bus until subway is deemed appropriate (demand for a route to the airport, demand for a better service, demand for connection to Kennedy, etc.)

 

[Voltz]

Basically true. However, I think that Eglinton would be better if the subway portion was real subway, and the extra money just spent extending it to Jane and Don Mills. From the outside of those points, there is a pretty big roadway that doesn't get super-congested. It's the central portion that really gets Eglinton, and I think it'd be best to work on improving service there to the max, while the peripherals can continue to use bus until subway is deemed appropriate (demand for a route to the airport, demand for a better service, demand for connection to Kennedy, etc.)

I'm sitting here scratching my head trying to figure out how that could possibly provide better service compared to what is planned? Why do you think it is better, is riding anything other than a real subway train underground beneath you?

The rest of eglinton does get congested, really bad sometimes.

If you have ever uttered the phrase 'transfer city' then you are really contradicting yourself here.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

It's not like anyone is going to ride Eglinton from end to end. Maybe if they live at Martin Grove and work at Birchmount (though that's probably already a larger ridership base than some of the other proposed projects in the GTA, like a rapid transit line of any sort on Taunton).

 

[Rainforest]

Now that's just daft. Extend the stubway another 4 stops, but don't get to the major node? Let's see, completion date for the stubway .... 2017 ... wait another 10 years, perhaps it will get to STC in 2030 ... but still doesn't get to Downsview?

But that 4-stop extension (even prior to the STC and Downsview connections) would be more useful than the current plan. Yonge to Agincourt won't be a stubway anymore. It can anchor the Sheppard, Finch, Ellesmere bus routes, a short and very fast STC express, and bus / LRT routes from Markham. If needed, Sheppard LRT can be added east of Agincourt.

In the meantime instead of 2030, you can have some major improvements by 2013 ... and THEN go push for a subway to STC. I see no reason why both can't exist if this demand is there.

Building LRT and then subway is possible, but then we will end up with a more expensive network than if we extend the subway first. If they opt for concourse-level LRT station at Don Mills (rather than level platforms), then adding a parallel subway tunnel will be particularly challenging.

Furthermore, using LRT as a local route parallel to subway is not the best operational approach. A bus route running parallel to subway (think bus 97) is normally underused. If we run larger LRT vehicles, then either they are even more underused, or we have to reduce the frequency.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

A lot of people just can't deal with the spectre of a corridor having a subway leading directly into bus service...it removes light rail from the mythical transit hierarchy and throws their concept of a rational world totally off its axis. Better bus service for a place like Sheppard & Morningside would be liberating, not stressful, and it would liberate enough money to medicate all the spleeny LRT- and Avenue-philes who might be traumatized by keeping and building upon the existing bus service.

There's enough good places to put LRT lines in this city to keep us busy and broke for decades...Sheppard just isn't one of them.

 

[nfitz]

But that 4-stop extension (even prior to the STC and Downsview connections) would be more useful than the current plan. Yonge to Agincourt won't be a stubway anymore. It can anchor the Sheppard, Finch, Ellesmere bus routes, a short and very fast STC express, and bus / LRT routes from Markham. If needed, Sheppard LRT can be added east of Agincourt.

Not unreasonable ... but not happening. It's too late. But even subway to Agincourt would be about $1.5 billion. I don't see any point worrying about these fantasy plans. Is Sheppard East where I would have started ... no. Is there any point fighting it? No.

Building LRT and then subway is possible, but then we will end up with a more expensive network than if we extend the subway first. If they opt for concourse-level LRT station at Don Mills (rather than level platforms), then adding a parallel subway tunnel will be particularly challenging.

True ... with the design the way it is now, it would likely make more sense to cut back the LRT to Victoria Park, and build subway at Consumers Drive. But that's a debate for 2030.

Furthermore, using LRT as a local route parallel to subway is not the best operational approach. A bus route running parallel to subway (think bus 97) is normally underused. If we run larger LRT vehicles, then either they are even more underused, or we have to reduce the frequency.

If you only have subway stops at Victoria Park and Agincourt, then you'd still have significant local demand.