[scarberiankhatru]

With their lacky mayor's promotion of a white elephant subway in trouble, finally the "special interests" councilor Doug Ford alluded to at the February 8th meeting come scurrying out of their holes. Of course Leo DelZotto, CEO of Tridel, wants a subway. The 2,100 unit Metrogate community he's building just east of Kennedy would have its own special stop known in the Ford Subway Plan as Agincourt station. Local writers Mike Adler and Chris Hume have both noted how this 17 acre mega-development site is somewhat isolated from the Sheppard community to the north and Kennedy Commons area to the south. Were the place to have its own subway stop, immediately all the units become much more valuable to the developer. Margin baby margin!

It's one thing for developers to push for city infrastructure for their communities. That's waht they get paid for. It's unfortunate that Toronto has councilors like Norm Kelly, who represents the area, and a mayor that continue believe its Toronto's job to subsidize one of the city's biggest land developers. Essentially they are saying OK we'll tax Toronto and Ontario to pay for infrastructure transit planners say is unnecessary so you can charge more for your condos.

The 'Metrogate station' would actually be at the intersection of the CN/CP rail line. In other words, you'd have a subway line, the Stouffville GO line, and a potential Midtown GO line all converging in one place, a place that is textbook perfect for massive intensification as well. There's plans to build new roads around Metrogate, connecting it with the north and east by crossing the rail lines - not that a lazy journalist or two would bother researching such plans. It wasn't Tridel's idea to create a secondary plan for Agincourt and promote redevelopment and it wasn't Tridel who proposed the Sheppard subway. Metrogate is already well into construction and Tridel isn't going to make any more money off it, but there's plenty of industrial land in the area...room for Tridel to go from 6 towers to 16. The alignment of transit and development isn't "subsidizing developers"...it's a necessity and it's standard practice.

But some people would prefer to eschew this transit nexus at the triple rail interchange and instead spend over a billion dollars running a streetcar ROW to the Zoo.

 

[Electrify]

Just what we need, the subway to go further north

So what would you do with the line then? Cementing a permanent SRT 2.0 need less transfer is not good planning. If you have any ideas of what to do with the stubway, I'd like to here them - regardless of how outrageous they might be.

 

[Inkarnate]

A bit off-topic, but it does contain a little quip about the Sheppard Subway discussion being moved to the 21st...among other things...

http://www.thestar.com/news/cityhal...-crashes-head-first-into-21st-century-reality

By Christopher Hume
Urban Issues, Architecture

That dull thud you heard reverberating from City Hall this week was nothing to worry about. It was just Mayor Rob Ford crashing head-first into reality.

The poor guy clearly doesn’t realize he was elected Chief Magistrate of a big city that, unlike some, entered the 21st century some years ago. Ford invited a gaggle of real estate developers to his office on Wednesday, apparently in the expectation they would write him a cheque to start work on the Sheppard subway line.

Though he emerged from the meeting sounding elated at the results, the fact is the developers gave nothing and promised less. Ford should have known better; but again, he isn’t the sort to spend much time worrying about details.

Yes, the developers love subways. Who doesn’t? Are they willing to help pay for the project through development fees and/or parking levies? Of course not.

So what else is new?

Then on Thursday came word that the much-anticipated special city council meeting at which the Sheppard subway extension was to have been discussed has been delayed. Instead of March 15, it will be held March 21.

Though the change was announced quietly, it speaks loudly of Ford’s unraveling administration. He simply doesn’t have the votes he needs on council to get the Sheppard subway extension approved, and so he must play for time or suffer yet another humiliating defeat like the one council handed him on the Eglinton line last month.

None of this should come as a surprise. By now it’s painfully obvious Ford is ill-equipped to lead. As Torontonians have discovered, he is the self-appointed saviour of the little guy, temperamentally the furthest thing from a big city mayor. He has spent too much time trying to get even with the city to think about getting ahead with the city. For Ford, Toronto has always been the enemy, and transit one of its obstacles.

Word now is that Ford has been lobbying councillors still willing to listen to him. But because he has devoted the last year to bullying politicians and staff, there aren’t many at this point prepared to sit down with him.

Like Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Ford is a man profoundly out of touch with the times. For Harper, it comes in the form of law and order legislation — more jails, minimum sentences, etc. — that has failed repeatedly around the world.

For Ford, it’s transit. His dismissal of light rail in favour of subways flies in the face of experience gained around the globe.

The policies of both Harper and Ford resonate mainly with less well-educated male voters who are middle-aged and middle class. Not a particularly exciting or interesting demographic, but one used to getting its way.

The rise of these political dinosaurs may not bode well for the future of Toronto or Canada, but it provides a fascinating glimpse into a people who know less about who they are than what they like.

As we stumble towards the end of the longest uninterrupted period of prosperity in human history, it’s natural that those who enjoy this wealth should cling to it so tenaciously. What some have failed to grasp, however, is that the surest way to do exactly that is to pretend nothing has changed.

But it has, which may be why Ford’s approval ratings are low and getting lower. Fifty-three percent of Torontonians now disapprove of his performance. The main cause of this growing discontent is — what else? — transit.

 

[BMO]

A bit off-topic, but it does contain a little quip about the Sheppard Subway discussion being moved to the 21st...among other things...

http://www.thestar.com/news/cityhal...-crashes-head-first-into-21st-century-reality

Another Christopher Hume article criticizing the mayor...it's really kind of dull after a while.

 

[Electrify]

Another Christopher Hume article criticizing the mayor...it's really kind of dull after a while.

In fairness, like getting laid by Lindsay Lohan, it is pretty easy

 

[andrewpmk]

If there is to be a subway going north on Don Mills it should be a separate line going along Don Mills down to the downtown core. Sheppard needs to be extended east.

 

[quicksilver]

Metrogate is already well into construction and Tridel isn't going to make any more money off it, but there's plenty of industrial land in the area...room for Tridel to go from 6 towers to 16. The alignment of transit and development isn't "subsidizing developers"...it's a necessity and it's standard practice.

Sorry but in one sentence you say depending on interest Tridel could build as few as 6 or as many as 16 buildings. And then in the very next sentence you say a subway through Metrogate wouldn't be subsidizing the developer. But what exactly is it that determines whether there are fewer buildings or more, and increased profits per sq. ft.? Transit might. If you and I the taxpayers were to spend $4 billion on a subway across Sheppard when the consensus is that a $1 billion solution is sufficient, what do you call that. I call it a massive transfer of wealth from the public to private interests. I call it subsidization. Leo DelZotto has enough money. He doesn't need mine or yours. I would prefer to keep my subway dollars for where they're needed like the DRL or a Queen/King line, thanks.

 

[CDL.TO]

I was wondering about "destinations" on Sheppard and Eglinton, so I finally crunched the numbers from the 2006 Transportation Tomorrow Survey.

(Trips generated by destinations OTHER than place of residence. 650m buffer around corridors.)

The Sheppard Corridor from Downsview Stn to STC generated 154,800 trips.
The Eglinton Corridor from Jane to Kennedy generated 156,100 trips.

The two are clearly well within any margin of error!

 

[Palma]

So what would you do with the line then? Cementing a permanent SRT 2.0 need less transfer is not good planning. If you have any ideas of what to do with the stubway, I'd like to here them - regardless of how outrageous they might be.

LRT. Thats the answer. Whats the issue with having to transfer? You get on at Bloor and head west or east you transfer at St. George or Yonge. Or go siouth on Spadina and transfer at St. george and again at Yonge. Its happens all the time. You get on the Lawrence West bus and want to go east to Yonge, guess what? At Lawrence West station you need to get off and transfer bus. And I bet once you get to Yonge and Lawrence and you want to continue further east along Lawrence you probably have to transfer bus again. It happens all the time with buses yet someone Sheppard is so special that its a big hassle to get off the LRT and get on the subway. How lazy are people because thats what this is all about

 

[EnviroTO]

I love these people/entities that have the "wants" of a young child... gimmie, gimmie, gimmie; the difference is these are supposedly adults.

The best are the quotes like "we don't want LRT, we would rather wait 50 years for a subway". Its basically an admission that they don't have any real problem with the transit that exists in terms of trip times or capacity. Of course in that case we should just take the money and build LRT on other routes.

 

[Palma]

If Finch does not want it (which I do not believe) put the LRT along Jane

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I am completely for the Sheppard LRT. But if the Sheppard subway was extended east (to about Jane) and west to the RT would it have nearly enough ridership to justify a subway. I personally think that it is very important to have some sort of east-west rapid transit in the northern areas of the city.

 

[GenerationW]

I was wondering about "destinations" on Sheppard and Eglinton, so I finally crunched the numbers from the 2006 Transportation Tomorrow Survey.

(Trips generated by destinations OTHER than place of residence. 650m buffer around corridors.)

The Sheppard Corridor from Downsview Stn to STC generated 154,800 trips.
The Eglinton Corridor from Jane to Kennedy generated 156,100 trips.

The two are clearly well within any margin of error!

And likely more growth on Sheppard than Eglinton since 2006. So that means Christopher Hume was right -- the Eglinton LRT should be a surface route in its entirety! If it's good enough for Sheppard...

If Finch does not want it (which I do not believe) put the LRT along Jane

Which part of Jane?

 

[GenerationW]

I am completely for the Sheppard LRT. But if the Sheppard subway was extended east (to about Jane) and west to the RT would it have nearly enough ridership to justify a subway. I personally think that it is very important to have some sort of east-west rapid transit in the northern areas of the city.

Extending it east to Jane and west to the RT would make for the greatest subway ever!

 

[Northern Magus]

I am completely for the Sheppard LRT. But if the Sheppard subway was extended east (to about Jane) and west to the RT would it have nearly enough ridership to justify a subway. I personally think that it is very important to have some sort of east-west rapid transit in the northern areas of the city.

But paid for with what? Already there's roughly a $2 billion funding hole (or roughly $1 billion if you believe Fordists' math) in the pie-in-the-sky plan to just extend it eastward to STC.

All the Sheppard stubway extension plans will essentially do is divert time and money away from building the DRL -- which should be the bigger priority here. Even some of the revenue-raising tools being bandied about by Dougie Ferris Wheel are, at least in theory, all on the table regionally or provincially to pay for the next phase of the Metrolinx transit plans.

Siphoning them off to fund Robbie's favourite vanity project would likely throw our regional plans into a state of uncertainty and disarray. And guarantee at least another decade lost to gridlock.