People are too fixated on the RTES. More troubling is how much of the RGS was ditched. The recent bus plan is ultra-lame and many of the seemingly great service improvements it offers are nothing more than adding literally one or two buses to a route, or one or two queue jumps, and calling it a day. Instead of incrementally adding and improving service and building ROWs over time, we've gone straight to the most expensive and unsustainable options available. An LRT-only plan means nothing can be done without investments of a billion dollars or more.
On a corridor like Sheppard, substantial and real transit improvements can be had for $100M, or we can reach identical transit goals, but get bike lanes and new streetscaping, by spending $1.2B. We can pay for this because of a record funding promise, but we can't afford this. By the time potential extensions to STC and the Zoo are added, the underground connection is built, the maintenance yard is built, the whole thing is finished, and the inflation is added, I'll be very surprised if the final cost comes in under $1.5B, and not surprised if it goes over $2B. We get bike lanes, a reduction in frequency, and a grade-separated GO crossing that would have been built eventually. Wow.
The one sticky point is the capacity, but, again, is it needed here and now? Subway-type demand levels are a chicken/egg scenario and will under no circumstances materialize without a subway extension. Everyone with any need to take the Sheppard bus is already taking it. The city seems to think Sheppard's ridership will double through the miracles of light rail, but this is very delusional. It would require well over 10,000 drivers a day
who live within walking distance of Sheppard to say "you know what, the bus portion of my commute has been slashed from 35 minutes to 32 minutes, so I'm gonna leave the car at home and get to work in only twice the time it takes to drive, for no longer will it take 2.1 times as long to take the TTC!"
Correct ... as we pointed out earlier in the thread, the actual speed for the first 10 km, is only 15 km/hr ... not including terminal time. And that's assuming it's running on time. I have heard comments that it does not always run on time.
This ignores reality and only looks at the 85 going eastbound at 5pm, with no improvements - no POP/fare cards, no queue jumps, no 85E or 85 Rocket, etc., etc. The 190 runs faster than that right now, as does the 85 at all other times and in all other directions (which means that most people along the corridor are already moving closer to 20km/hr, if not closer to 25 at times. A 190 can leave Don Mills sometimes 5 minutes after an 85 and catch up to it by Victoria Park...it doesn't take much imagination to see the potential speed hike by introducing an 85E. Some kind of swipe/scan fare card could slash minutes from the bus trip as well.