TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I'd say that is very likely to happen in the near future. Especially if Chow or Stntiz is elected.
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denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
The above ground cost less than 1 billion an can be built in 2 years. It would be useful because the Pearson air link will cost an arm and leg.
ehlow
Senior Member
Well lower ridership can be a symptom of bad transit, if your transit is bad enough it'll scare people away
. If the transit system doesn't get you where you want to go effectively, or is undependable, that pushes you to use a car more. Similarly, if traffic is terrible, it pushes you to use traffic-immune transit like subways or LRT. I don't think LA would've voted to implement a transit tax and build LRTs, BRTs & subways if the traffic there wasn't bad and getting worse.Anyways you're right, people do what's easiest and fastest, and makes financial sense for them. That's why very few New Yorkers own a car, they don't need to, and it's inconvenient. In many situations in North America, transit is not an option at all, or it is so bad that it's horrible to use. If you make transit work better and more attractive, more people will use it.
Other factors include parking. In LA and outside of downtown in Toronto, parking is free and plentiful. In LA they have huge parking garages and valets, so you don't even have to park yourself. In more urban areas in Toronto, parking is expensive or not available at all, so you can't drive there even if you have a car.
Another factor is built form. If you're in a high rise building that's beside a subway station and your destination is walking distance from a subway, it seems more convenient to walk to the station than go 4 levels deep into the parking garage, then spend 5 minutes simply driving out of the garage.
If you live in a suburban home, it may seem easier to go to your garage without even having to go outside than walking 15 minutes to an infrequent bus station.
Btw, kind of funny that you said:
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doady
Senior Member
GTA is largely car-dependent, close to being as car-dependent as the LA area, but we should ignore the transit ridership statistics that say otherwise?
22.2% of the Toronto metropolitan area commutes by transit, compared to 6.2% for Los Angeles. That's almost 4 times more. How are the two places even remotely similar?
And yes, transit ridership is a major indicator of the amount of transit service. Transit ridership is the main source of revenue for transit agencies and therefore is a major factor of how much service they are able to provide. And of course, as denfromoakvillemilton pointed out, better service also draws riders.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
What the TTC has done exceptionally well is the surface routes. I can't think of anywhere else in NA where you can hop on a bus that arrives at regular frequencies, have all the busses take you to a subway where you can go practically anywhere on the system for a flat fare. This is the appeal of the TTC. People in other cities would kill to have this kind of service.
I also think it speaks to Toronto's rejection of American style car culture. Toronto wisely chose to build relatively high density suburbs rather than the car-centric sprawl we see in almost all American cities. This means that providing effective, high frequency transit to the subrubs is remarkably easy compared to other cities in NA
And the situation will only get better once we open Finch West LRT, Sheppard East LRT, Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Bloor-Danforth subway extension, Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, Relief Line and Yonge North subway extension.
I also think it speaks to Toronto's rejection of American style car culture. Toronto wisely chose to build relatively high density suburbs rather than the car-centric sprawl we see in almost all American cities. This means that providing effective, high frequency transit to the subrubs is remarkably easy compared to other cities in NA
And the situation will only get better once we open Finch West LRT, Sheppard East LRT, Eglinton Crosstown LRT, Bloor-Danforth subway extension, Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension, Relief Line and Yonge North subway extension.
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Johnny Au
Senior Member
With increased rapid transit expansion, it frees up buses, which can be used to boost the frequencies of busier routes, as well as having spares in case of emergencies.
denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
Toronto's modal share for public transit is 34 percent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
TTC busses are not late all the time. That said, with arrivals +/- 3 minutes from scheduled arrival time happening 37% of the time, the TTC needs to do a better job with punctuality. They need to lower that percentage by two points to achieve their service standards. I would very much like to see them do that. Hopefully Byford will be getting the tools he's requested from Council to do that.
That said, unlike with most cities, punctuality hasn't been a huge concerns for the TTC. This is because the TTC runs busses at very high frequencies. Missing a bus isn't a big deal when the next is only a few minutes away. What's far more important for TTC customers is service reliability. Can I walk out to any stop and know a bus is coming?
LNahid2000
Senior Member
LA's system may look nice on paper, but try actually using it. The distances between points of interest are so large that even with LRT's that have average speeds much faster than our subway, it takes forever to get anywhere. Add to that wait times which are much higher than ours (15 minute service is considered excellent service there) and transit isn't competitive at all with the car. Two points of interest, Hollywood and Long Beach for example, are 51km apart and going that distance on grade separated transit will take almost 1.5 hours! Alternatively, you can take the car and get there on their freeways in 40 minutes.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
+1
My thoughts: The TTC is horrible and needs plenty of capital investment. However, the TTC is one of the best systems in NA. Looking at a map and saying," aha, city x has y more of z" is nice, but once you actually ride the systems and see all of "human level" details that are missing from those allegedly better systems, you'll come to appreciate the TTC more. Believe it or not, the TTC has actually been doing a lot right which is why it's so successful. And this will only get better with the tens of billions of capitol investment happening right now.
My thoughts: The TTC is horrible and needs plenty of capital investment. However, the TTC is one of the best systems in NA. Looking at a map and saying," aha, city x has y more of z" is nice, but once you actually ride the systems and see all of "human level" details that are missing from those allegedly better systems, you'll come to appreciate the TTC more. Believe it or not, the TTC has actually been doing a lot right which is why it's so successful. And this will only get better with the tens of billions of capitol investment happening right now.
denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
Patdouville
New Member
LA suffers from the same low density sprawl as Toronto only in bigger proportion. It will make it very hard to have successful rapid transit. It's the same as trying to build rapid transit in GTA suburbs. Distances are so long that the cost way too high for the ridership. Because of low density, most people will not live close enough to rapid transit unless you overbuild. You can have feeder buses but when you add connections to the long distances traveled it results in way too long commute and low ridership.
A good commuter train system would serve them better.
A good commuter train system would serve them better.
ksun
Senior Member
true yet people don't seem to realise it. Most people automatically move to low density suburbs after they are married 20km away from where they work, and then complain about the lack of good transit and expect the city to build subway to their houses. it is not reasonable.
Even the city of Toronto itself is very very sprawling, not to say the GTA. We might have relatively high density in the NA context, but that's a very very low bar and isn't exactly something we should be glad about - most NA cities don't have and don't deserve good public transit because of the way people choose to live.
I am of the opinion that the entire 2.8M Toronto population should live on half of the land we now occupy (imagine Toronto without Scarborough and Etobicoke). With that kind of density, we can build efficient rapid transit much more cheaply and efficiently. With low density, it is very hard and expensive to do so.
For example, on the Yonge line, The stretch between Eglinton and Sheppard is of very low density, with mostly single family homes on both sides, yet we need to extend our subway that far in the north because people live there. If it had half of the density of downtown, it won't be that hard to build transit.
The Spadina line and BD line are even worse. Even with existing subways, nearby neighbourhoods are of much lower density than they should be - still largely low rise (under 3 stories tall), which means hardly enough people live within walking distance. Ideally the subway routes should be dominated by mid and highrise buildings providing shelter for 5 times the number of people.
Dupont and Castle Frank stations are quite close to the core, yet this is what you see after exiting the station
http://goo.gl/maps/j93FT
http://goo.gl/maps/RksLq
We are not using areas well served by existing infrastructure, yet complain about we don't have enough of it.
If we build more housing supply and amenities close to existing subway stations, and try to sacrifice some space in choosing a home by living in denser neighbourhoods, we won't have to complain about transit nearly that much.
Both the city and its residents are too blame for the problem. The former for its bad planning and latter for its insatiable appetite for space in the suburbs.
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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
LA is very likely the most sprawling cities in North America (I mean that in the most negative way possible). Toronto is among the least sprawling, if not the least sprawling citiy in NA. The two are hardly comparable.
LNahid2000
Senior Member
I'd say the areas outside of Old Toronto are pretty comparable to LA. Actually, LA's population density is actually higher than the population density outside Old Toronto.