rfid
New Member
I want to generate some meaningful discussion about the state of public transit in Toronto. With Rob Ford's win in the municipal election and the political shift in politics, I feel we need to figure out the disconnect between the suburbs and urban core as it relates to transportation in the city. My hope is that some higher ups will take notice and once and for all put our city back on the right track, united in vision.
First of all, I believe that the utmost goal of the TTC is to provide practical public transit to the citizens of Toronto. Unfortunately for the nostalgic, it is not a museum nor should any policy be made on that basis, although the age of some vehicles may lead one to believe that is the case.
From a suburban perspective, no one desires to take public transit unless they have no other means or they are travelling to the downtown core. The geographers and physicists here know that larger, denser objects attract. It's retail gravitation. I don't intend for this to be another LRT vs. subway thread and I sincerely hope that is not the result, but the fact is suburbanites are not attracted to at grade LRTs. I stress "at grade", since I believe grade separated LRTs would have similar effects on transportation patterns as a subway. Suburbanites get "dropped off" at subway stations, not at grade LRT stops. For example, if you were coming from Markham, would you drop someone off at a street level LRT stop exposed to the elements or an enclosed LRT/subway station?
The TTC is influenced far too much by politics than by its engineers. You need some guidance from political vision, but that should never dictate planning. Planning comes from non-partisan studies. The TTC could request signal priority so that less bunching occurs on at grade LRTs such as Spadina. But that is not the case and LRTs are seen as prone to delays without the flexibility to pass other vehicles--the worst of all worlds.
Much of the same could be said about the highway network around Toronto. Highways that lead nowhere and plans never accomplished.
Ultimately, to resolve transportation issues in the Toronto area, we need development philosophies that respect both urban and suburban lifestyles, combines political vision, and employs sound engineering planning. We need to strike a balance between too much NIMBYism and too much developer influence or nothing will be accomplished. Smart growth would seem to be the way to go, and since we cannot always live where we work, we need to properly connect the nodes around the city. Obviously in the suburbs the nodes would be lower density, but there would still be a node with some higher order transit to connect it to other nodes and not only to downtown. There would be commuter lots at such nodes. We seem to be headed on that direction as much of us now belong to certain neighbourhoods, which could serve as nodes.
Since there will always be a desire for suburban and urban lifestyles, we need to work around that and rather than divisiveness we need solutions to move forward with a proper transportation plan for Toronto.
First of all, I believe that the utmost goal of the TTC is to provide practical public transit to the citizens of Toronto. Unfortunately for the nostalgic, it is not a museum nor should any policy be made on that basis, although the age of some vehicles may lead one to believe that is the case.
From a suburban perspective, no one desires to take public transit unless they have no other means or they are travelling to the downtown core. The geographers and physicists here know that larger, denser objects attract. It's retail gravitation. I don't intend for this to be another LRT vs. subway thread and I sincerely hope that is not the result, but the fact is suburbanites are not attracted to at grade LRTs. I stress "at grade", since I believe grade separated LRTs would have similar effects on transportation patterns as a subway. Suburbanites get "dropped off" at subway stations, not at grade LRT stops. For example, if you were coming from Markham, would you drop someone off at a street level LRT stop exposed to the elements or an enclosed LRT/subway station?
The TTC is influenced far too much by politics than by its engineers. You need some guidance from political vision, but that should never dictate planning. Planning comes from non-partisan studies. The TTC could request signal priority so that less bunching occurs on at grade LRTs such as Spadina. But that is not the case and LRTs are seen as prone to delays without the flexibility to pass other vehicles--the worst of all worlds.
Much of the same could be said about the highway network around Toronto. Highways that lead nowhere and plans never accomplished.
Ultimately, to resolve transportation issues in the Toronto area, we need development philosophies that respect both urban and suburban lifestyles, combines political vision, and employs sound engineering planning. We need to strike a balance between too much NIMBYism and too much developer influence or nothing will be accomplished. Smart growth would seem to be the way to go, and since we cannot always live where we work, we need to properly connect the nodes around the city. Obviously in the suburbs the nodes would be lower density, but there would still be a node with some higher order transit to connect it to other nodes and not only to downtown. There would be commuter lots at such nodes. We seem to be headed on that direction as much of us now belong to certain neighbourhoods, which could serve as nodes.
Since there will always be a desire for suburban and urban lifestyles, we need to work around that and rather than divisiveness we need solutions to move forward with a proper transportation plan for Toronto.
