[gweed123]

I like the idea of making the base fare 2 zones of travel. It ensures that anyone living along a zone border is not made to pay extra for crossing that line. It also keeps the base fare sufficiently high to discourage relatively short transit trips that can be taken by bicycle. As such, I'd also keep zone boundaries fairly small (for instance between Spadina and Parkside south of Bloor)

This could just as well be calculated using a base fare+fare by distance system, although for simplicity's sake, a zone system could be favorable.

I agree. It's definitely a balancing act when it comes to fare zone sizes. Too big, and the difference in cost between a 1 and 2 fare zone trip is huge. Too small, and the map becomes complicated as heck (as I showed above).

I think the way to approach it is that local transit routes pass through no more than 2 fare zones, that way boarding a bus you know exactly what the fare will be, so basically tap on only. Rapid transit is much easier to get tap on and off to work. Again, I'm a believer in the refund model, so tapping onto a rapid transit route would initially charge you the maximum fare for that route, and then you would tap off when exiting and get refunded whatever part of that max fare that you didn't use.

Another thing that I tried to do where possible is to have a rapid transit line along a particular corridor (Hurontario, Eglinton, etc) be the fare zone boundary as well. That way that line is simultaneously in both fare zones. So if someone takes a bus from either side of Eglinton (north or south) up/down to Eglinton, and then end at a destination along Eglinton, it only counts as 1 fare zone. It's only when the passenger actually crosses Eglinton that a 2 zone fare is applied.

 

[DKsan]

I was bored. Started connecting rail lines in SWO. Imagine this system as multiple O-Train lines in SWO.
http://twitpic.com/b4kfz2

 

[gweed123]

I was bored. Started connecting rail lines in SWO. Imagine this system as multiple O-Train lines in SWO.
http://twitpic.com/b4kfz2

Nice map. The one thing I think is missing from it is another line to Niagara Falls. Somehow I don't think that GO will be electrifying quite that far, but it would definitely make sense as an O-Train like line. Almost as much as it would make sense in K-W & Guelph.

 

[DKsan]

Nice map. The one thing I think is missing from it is another line to Niagara Falls. Somehow I don't think that GO will be electrifying quite that far, but it would definitely make sense as an O-Train like line. Almost as much as it would make sense in K-W & Guelph.

My thought was there would be divisions. Hamilton would be the way to GO Central (the current network) and GO Niagara (a network for that area).

 

[balenciaga]

Still haven't quite figured out the pdf uploading, but here is a link to the map hosted on dropbox:

EDIT: Since dropbox link flopped, I tried Imgur again and it turned out a lot better: http://i.imgur.com/nwSXQ.jpg

Anyways, I've just went all out and rapid transit-ifyed nearly every possible corridor in the GTA in this map.
I've based it on Metrolinx's Big Move and bielawski's map that was posted here a couple of months ago: http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showth...ing-fantasy-maps)/page122?p=636193#post636193 , where I've made use of nearly all of the rail corridors.

It was partially inspired by London's Oyster Rail Network map: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/oyster-rail-services-map.pdf , both in the graphic style and in the matter that it is a whole regional transit network accessible with one fare card.

Some feedback and criticism is greatly appreciated!

Looks so exciting, but this is what a city the size of Toronto is supposed to have. Look at Berlin, a slightly bigger city with an even more extensive system than our fantasy map.

When we have this (somewhere around 2150?), we can truly say "Toronto is transit friendly and you don't really need a car".

One comment is that downtown is not sufficiently served, where density will increase dramatically. There is hardly anything downtown west. I would expect a N-S line going through Bathurst, and a E-W line through College. Now even popular area such as Chinatown, UofT (southern part) and Little Italy are not served.

 

[Memph]

Looks so exciting, but this is what a city the size of Toronto is supposed to have. Look at Berlin, a slightly bigger city with an even more extensive system than our fantasy map.

When we have this (somewhere around 2150?), we can truly say "Toronto is transit friendly and you don't really need a car".

One comment is that downtown is not sufficiently served, where density will increase dramatically. There is hardly anything downtown west. I would expect a N-S line going through Bathurst, and a E-W line through College. Now even popular area such as Chinatown, UofT (southern part) and Little Italy are not served.

I would contest that Berlin's transit is more complex than the fantasy map.

Berlin has 331km of S-Bahn to GO's 444km, and this fantasy map would involve major expansions to GO/RR in addition to turning it into something more S-Bahn like. I would estimate the fantasy RR network to be about double that of Berlin's S-Bahn.

Berlin's U-Bahn system is 146km long. The proposed subway network would be 113km in length, so a bit shorter.

Berlin's tramway system is about 192km. The proposed LRT network looks absolutely huge, about 500km.

Berlin's core is a fair bit denser/more compact than Toronto's. That's why Berlin has a very dense transit network that looks big, but actually isn't as big as it looks. Imagine Toronto had midrises covering all the Old City, York and East York, and the urban area stopping just a bit beyond Toronto's city limits with a couple dense towns like Potsdam at similar locations to Square One, Markham Centre, Malton or VCC.

I suspect Toronto would have to do two things to become a truly transit friendly city.

i) Focus virtually all new growth (not 50% but more like 90%) within the existing built area, with most of the intensification occuring within Toronto proper in places like Willowdale, South Etobicoke, South Scarborough, York, East York, Golden Mile, The Junction and of course Downtown, both with highrises and low rise intensification. A single lot in places like Willowdale could easily be divided into 4-6 Tokyo style houses, or courtyard townhouses, or maybe a 10 unit walk up apartment. The rest of the intensification could be around the 905 growth centres and GO/Subway stations.

ii) Some transit compromises, with the Richmond Hill Regional Rail, the need for a Don Mills LRT is significantly reduced, same goes for Lakeshore West LRT and even the DRL due to the various RR lines. Having 4 rail rapid transit lines serving a relatively narrow corridor (Steeles LRT, 407 LRT, Hwy7 LRT and E-7 Regional Rail) seems excessive, I'd go with at most 1 LRT, 1 BRT and 1 Regional Rail corridor.

The inner 905 would have fewer rail rapid transit lines than proposed, because relatively little growth would happen there under my plan, they would have something similar to the outer 416 now, a couple rapid transit lines fed by a high frequency network of buses.
The average commuting distance for most of the GTA is around 10km, and then you have many shorter trips to get to third places and do some shopping, transit should be geared towards serving those needs.

The outer 905, so Halton, Ajax/Pickering and Northern York Region are places where the residents probably aren't interested in using transit unless it's to get downtown, so I would just go for something similar to Lakeshore West service on the GO lines and not much else.

 

[car4041]

Looks so exciting, but this is what a city the size of Toronto is supposed to have. Look at Berlin, a slightly bigger city with an even more extensive system than our fantasy map.

I dunno -- like Memph said, density is what matters, not size. You can't really judge from a city's population how extensive its transit network is "supposed" to be; it depends on whether that population is spread out in suburbs built for the car or concentrated in neighbourhoods built for transit. Not that we shouldn't aspire for a better network, but most cities, the GTA included, have just about exactly as much transit as their built form requires (and unfortunately for us, most of the GTA was built after the car took over, unlike, I would guess, most of Berlin).

 

[doady]

I dunno -- like Memph said, density is what matters, not size. You can't really judge from a city's population how extensive its transit network is "supposed" to be; it depends on whether that population is spread out in suburbs built for the car or concentrated in neighbourhoods built for transit. Not that we shouldn't aspire for a better network, but most cities, the GTA included, have just about exactly as much transit as their built form requires (and unfortunately for us, most of the GTA was built after the car took over, unlike, I would guess, most of Berlin).

Density and transit is not a one way relationship. Part of the reason Berlin is denser is because of its highly developed transit infrastructure.

And Toronto has just about exactly as much transit as it's built form requires? The extensive overcrowding on Toronto's subways, streetcars, and buses (including in the 905) suggests otherwise.

Transit mode share (journeys to work)
Toronto: 34%
Berlin: 26%

 

[Markster]

Transit mode share (journeys to work)
Toronto: 34%
Berlin: 26%

According to this:
Berlin
Walk: 29%
Bike: 13%
Car: 32%
Transit: 26%
Toronto
Walk & Bike: 8%
Car: 67%
Transit: 24%

Transit mode share is statistically similar, but a much larger proportion of trips that are longer than allowed by active transportation are taken by car in Toronto.

 

[Memph]

I guess Berlin's transit infrastructure is better for its density/size, call it growing pains for Toronto. If Toronto had been growing as slowly as Berlin for the last 100 years, it would have only about 1 million people, and Toronto's current transit system would be pretty good for 1 million people. Anyways, my point was that the amount of transit proposed by Mafalda is likely not that realistic considering Toronto's built form (nothing wrong with that in a fantasy thread though). That doesn't mean Toronto's built form can't support more transit, just not that much. If we start with the higher priority projects though, that should lead to TODs and higher ridership, which can help support the lower priority projects, so after 50 years of transit oriented growth and incremental transit expansion our built form can support all that, just not now.

I'm not surprised at how much more Berliners walk and bike, although that link's numbers look off (NYC and Paris have the same car use but NYC has 10x more people walking?). A lot of the density Toronto does have is more spread out and autocentric, basically the towers in the park scattered across the suburbs but I'd even include the townhouses and small lot houses in places like Malvern. The assumption was that their residents would drive, and when that turned out to be wrong, walking wasn't really feasible for their residents because distances were too great, and walking was unpleasant. Transit does better than walking for longer distances though, so a lot of these people use it. LA has a similar problem with population density patterns except their employment is more scattered and autocentric so for LA it's even worse.

I think most cities with comparable transit use (not just Berlin) have much more people walking. The downside for Toronto is that walking/biking infrastructure costs virtually nothing compared to transit and driving infrastructure, so Berlin can focus a much higher percentage of its transportation funding on transit while Toronto has to split it between roads and transit.

I think Toronto might have a better bus system though, even though most here might not think of it as all that great. Toronto has a bus fleet of about 2000 buses to Berlin's 1300, which suggests either more frequent service or more routes.

 

[doady]

According to this:
Berlin
Walk: 29%
Bike: 13%
Car: 32%
Transit: 26%
Toronto
Walk & Bike: 8%
Car: 67%
Transit: 24%

Transit mode share is statistically similar, but a much larger proportion of trips that are longer than allowed by active transportation are taken by car in Toronto.

The numbers for Berlin are city proper. The numbers for Toronto are for the entire CMA.

I repeat: the transit mode share for work trips in Toronto is 34% vs. Berlin's 26%. And "Toronto" also includes Etobicoke (25%), North York (30%) and Scarborough (30%) [2001]. Yeah, that's right, both North York and Scarborough are more transit-dependent than the City of Berlin.

So cut this "Toronto is too car-dependent" crap. We live in a Canadian city, not some Texan city. Scarborough, ON is no Arlington, TX. Toronto could easily handle the kind of system that MafaldaBoy and others including myself have drawn up. We live in one of the largest and most transit-dependent cities/metropolitan areas on the continent. Nothing unrealistic about having a transit system that reflects that.

 

[Memph]

The numbers for Berlin are city proper. The numbers for Toronto are for the entire CMA.

I repeat: the transit mode share for work trips in Toronto is 34% vs. Berlin's 26%. And "Toronto" also includes Etobicoke (25%), North York (30%) and Scarborough (30%) [2001]. Yeah, that's right, both North York and Scarborough are more transit-dependent than the City of Berlin.

So cut this "Toronto is too car-dependent" crap. We live in a Canadian city, not some Texan city. Scarborough, ON is no Arlington, TX. Toronto could easily handle the kind of system that MafaldaBoy and others including myself have drawn up. We live in one of the largest and most transit-dependent cities/metropolitan areas on the continent. Nothing unrealistic about having a transit system that reflects that.

The City of Berlin includes more than 3/4 of the metro area though, if you looked at the central 3/4 of the Toronto CMA (Toronto, Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham and maybe Brampton), the transit ridership would be fairly comparable to Berlin's. Those numbers for Berlin seem to be for all trips too, it's likely that a higher percent use transit for communiting. Lets say that Toronto and Berlin have relatively comparable levels of transit ridership though, Toronto still walks a lot less and drive a lot more, which means a larger percent of the transportation budget has to go to serving cars instead of transit compared to Berlin.

I'm not sure what Arlington has to do with it, it probably has much lower quality transit than Scarborough.

Anyways, I agree that Toronto can support more transit than it has currently. I think most of the Transit City lines, as well as a DRL from Bloor to Danforth and a Yonge line to Steeles should already be in operation, along with all day service on most of GO with a few additional infill stations, but that's still a lot less than what MafaldaBoy proposed, which is also a lot more than what Berlin has. What he proposed might be realistic by the time the GTA has 10 million people and if most of the growth has been transit oriented. These are good long term plans, and we should be heading in that direction, but I don't think we can support all that now, in 2012.

 

[doady]

Oic, 26% for transit all trips for Berlin vs. 24% for Toronto. I was confused by the 22% in that graph (22% is the mode share for work trips for whole CMA). So they are around the same. Still, it is hard to argue that Toronto can't support more transit, especially when more transit will increase transit more share even more. Transit expansion isn't just to serve existing riders. If Toronto is too car dependent, it is partly because of lack of infrastructure for active transport, including transit. So to not build transit because Toronto is too car dependent makes no sense to me. The whole point of transit is to reduce car dependence, including influencing built form. What do people think is the purpose of transit?

The system shown on MafaldaBoy's map isn't even really that ambitious. A bunch of LRT lines, modest subway expansion, beefed up GO service, it's pretty much what the GTA is already working toward very slowly.

 

[Memph]

Oic, 26% for transit all trips for Berlin vs. 24% for Toronto. I was confused by the 22% in that graph (22% is the mode share for work trips for whole CMA). So they are around the same. Still, it is hard to argue that Toronto can't support more transit, especially when more transit will increase transit more share even more. Transit expansion isn't just to serve existing riders. If Toronto is too car dependent, it is partly because of lack of infrastructure for active transport, including transit. So to not build transit because Toronto is too car dependent makes no sense to me. The whole point of transit is to reduce car dependence, including influencing built form. What do people think is the purpose of transit?

The system shown on MafaldaBoy's map isn't even really that ambitious. A bunch of LRT lines, modest subway expansion, beefed up GO service, it's pretty much what the GTA is already working toward very slowly.

It calls for 470 km of LRT, and 42km of new subway (not counting current spadina extension), as well as 370km of new GO train lines in addition to the 444 km of existing lines that would presumably be electrified. You could be looking at $70-100 billion of transit expansion. It's very likely that major increases in operational subsidy will also be needed, at least at the beginning when ridership on new lines is not as established.

 

[Rainforest]

The average commuting distance for most of the GTA is around 10km, and then you have many shorter trips to get to third places and do some shopping, transit should be geared towards serving those needs.

I'm not so sure about that. Ideally, every new line should support multiple travel patterns; but a case can be made for prioritizing commuting trips.

First of all, such trips tend to occur during peak hours and be longer. Therefore, shifting them to transit is more beneficial, both to reduce traffic congestion and to reduce pollution.

Secondly, such trips largely influence people's car-ownership choices. People who can easily get to / from work using transit are more likely not to own a car, or keep just one car in the family. But if people must own a car to commute to work, then they really have no incentive not to use the same car for shopping trips.