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Transit City: Finch-Sheppard Corridor

There's also the consideration of a downgrade if Sheppard is being really underutilized. It would cost in the order of 250-300 million to continue the Sheppard E LRT on the surface to Yonge. The subway could be retained as an express line or it could be scrapped...the latter more likely.

Any LRT connection via Sheppard/Yonge will have to deal with narrow section of Sheppard west of Yonge (up to West Don river), so a tunnel will be needed.

There is no dirt-cheap way to connect Finch W and Sheppard E LRT, but if we want to do it anyway, I think the Finch E / Seneca College option is the best. It will deliver more transit infrastructure at about same cost.
 
Any LRT connection via Sheppard/Yonge will have to deal with narrow section of Sheppard west of Yonge (up to West Don river), so a tunnel will be needed.

I was only referring to the eastern portion here, along the current Sheppard subway route. The west is a different matter entirely.....
 
So much nonsense. I'd ask where all these ridership and cost figures came from if I didn't already know they were either extrapolated linearly from the TTC's own nonsense figures or divided up proportionally from some mythical fixed pot of money that I'm sure McGuinty himself will be driving over to city hall in an LRT car (with a pantograph!).

This isn't SimCity where you can just paste track segments end to end at a fixed cost with linear results. You also can't simply eyeball the ceilings and floors at Sheppard station and know exactly how much changing them is going to cost.

Embarrassing.
 
Ridership estimates may be dubious, but existing ridership counts are a matter of fact. Those can be used to help make decisions about technologies.

Linear cost extrapolations are not precise of course, but give reasonable estimates, especially for longer routes.
 
Ridership estimates may be dubious, but existing ridership counts are a matter of fact. Those can be used to help make decisions about technologies.

Huh? Matter of fact? Come now. Anybody who believe that TTC ridership numbers are much more "estimate" than fact. Consider the following:

1) How frequently they are updated -- most routes get recounted every 3 or so years.

2) How subway ridership is calculated. They're not exactly counting everybody who enters/exits every gate. There are only counters on the turnstyles. Most passengers do not use turnstyles they use open gates with a farebox or transfer from another route -- this is barrier free.

The way subway ridership is updated is to

3) Even when routes do get counted, they're not counted very well. They have a person with a clipboard and calculator sit near the entrance / exit and count per stop. They do this for a couple of runs in the morning and a couple in the afternoon, then assume that this vehicle had the average ridership for all runs of the route. Counts vary by easily 15% from count to count. These counts are smoothed against farebox figures.


Annual changes are calculated based on funds from the farebox multiplied by a factor which accommodates reduced fares and pass holders.


The TTC reported route count may be accurate to +- 10% from actuality (close enough for fleet planning) but to say they're fact is pushing it a bit. You'll notice I said "may be" since drivers often dispute the official numbers based on their own day to day observations of growth.
 
Understand that; however, +- 10% or even +- 15% from actuality, is good enough for planning subways or LRT lines.

Two inherent uncertainties are involved anyway: how many new riders will the higher-order transit attract, and how much the travel patterns will change by the time the line actually opens (at least a few years after the construction commences).
 
Understand that; however, +- 10% or even +- 15% from actuality, is good enough for planning subways or LRT lines.

Maybe, maybe not. At the low end that 10-15% could be the difference between a nearly empty subway with low frequency and a quasi-full LRT with high frequencies....and billions in capital expenditure. Accurate numbers matter, and I am surprised to hear how vaguely they are approximated, based on what's at stake here.
 
Maybe, maybe not. At the low end that 10-15% could be the difference between a nearly empty subway with low frequency and a quasi-full LRT with high frequencies....and billions in capital expenditure. Accurate numbers matter, and I am surprised to hear how vaguely they are approximated, based on what's at stake here.

Speaking of which - the original "draft" draft version of the RTP indicated that a set of supporting documents would be made available, including details of the ridership analyses. The "final" version of the draft RTP contains no such mention.

Does anyone know if these documents are going to come out, or are we all taking Metrolinx's word that the demand is there for their chosen routes?
 
Oops, I need to correct my above post about the Concord Park Place development. According to the website they are only planning to build 5,000 units, not 10,000.

And I did not mention that the development is right next to a GO station that gives an express trip downtown, further reducing subway ridership. And if they bring in all day two way service with fare integration, then I'll just be laughing at every one who claims LRT would be full from day one.

The other large condo development, at kennedy and 401, is also right next to the future crosstown go line, which would be much more attractive to riders than the subway would be for downtown and midtown commuters. There is also a possible stop on the Stouffville GO line.

I know there is a few more buildings planned for bayview, donmills, kennedy(near GO as well), some others as well. But how many riders would they actually bring to a subway line?
 
Understand that; however, +- 10% or even +- 15% from actuality, is good enough for planning subways or LRT lines.

Two inherent uncertainties are involved anyway: how many new riders will the higher-order transit attract, and how much the travel patterns will change by the time the line actually opens (at least a few years after the construction commences).

Sure. Projections within an order of magnitude would be close enough. I had an issue with the word "fact" being thrown around. I miss the old meaning of fact when it meant a provable value rather than "in our opinion" or "in our estimation".
 
Oops, I need to correct my above post about the Concord Park Place development. According to the website they are only planning to build 5,000 units, not 10,000.

And I did not mention that the development is right next to a GO station that gives an express trip downtown, further reducing subway ridership. And if they bring in all day two way service with fare integration, then I'll just be laughing at every one who claims LRT would be full from day one.

The other large condo development, at kennedy and 401, is also right next to the future crosstown go line, which would be much more attractive to riders than the subway would be for downtown and midtown commuters. There is also a possible stop on the Stouffville GO line.

I know there is a few more buildings planned for bayview, donmills, kennedy(near GO as well), some others as well. But how many riders would they actually bring to a subway line?

I agree that downtown-bound passengers should be encouraged to use enhanced Stouffville GO line. Traveling from the area to downtown via Sheppard and then Yonge is inefficient, no matter which technology is used on Sheppard.

However, extended Sheppard subway line can help E-W trips quite a bit. Agincourt would get feeder routes from Sheppard, Finch, STC and Ellesmere, plus other stations would connect to a number of N-E routes. Their passengers could then use Sheppard subway to get to Yonge / Eglinton, North York, Thornhill, York U, Yorkdale, and almost any place in the north-west connected by a bus or LRT to Spadina subway. Plus, the western part of extended Sheppard subway would act as a link between Yonge and Spadina lines.

The relation between a subway line and the local development is complicated. A subway line can encourage high-density development (especially if the stops are reasonably frequent), and that might be one of reasons to build subway. But any local build-ups will not, on their own, generate enough rides to justify a subway line. To be really useful, the line must be attractive for transfers from feeder routes.
 
I agree that downtown-bound passengers should be encouraged to use enhanced Stouffville GO line. Traveling from the area to downtown via Sheppard and then Yonge is inefficient, no matter which technology is used on Sheppard.

If that's the case, why build a subway. Scarberian used the same argument against LRT for NE Scarborough. Since GO is faster and more efficient and is going to see improved service, do we really need to upgrade Sheppard services at all?

However, extended Sheppard subway line can help E-W trips quite a bit. Agincourt would get feeder routes from Sheppard, Finch, STC and Ellesmere, plus other stations would connect to a number of N-E routes. Their passengers could then use Sheppard subway to get to Yonge / Eglinton, North York, Thornhill, York U, Yorkdale, and almost any place in the north-west connected by a bus or LRT to Spadina subway. Plus, the western part of extended Sheppard subway would act as a link between Yonge and Spadina lines.

That's the only good rationale for the Sheppard subway; it's a really good connector line.

The relation between a subway line and the local development is complicated. A subway line can encourage high-density development (especially if the stops are reasonably frequent), and that might be one of reasons to build subway. But any local build-ups will not, on their own, generate enough rides to justify a subway line. To be really useful, the line must be attractive for transfers from feeder routes.

If that's the argument though, how different is a LRT from a subway? What we are debating here is the question of degree. A LRT would bring development too. And LRTs have far more stops than a subway, providing more walk-on service and connecting to more feeder routes.

If we have the money finish the subway. But since it's likely we won't, switching to LRT or using surface LRT along all of Sheppard should at the very minimum be studied.
 
If that's the case, why build a subway. Scarberian used the same argument against LRT for NE Scarborough. Since GO is faster and more efficient and is going to see improved service, do we really need to upgrade Sheppard services at all?

No, keith, I used that argument against two LRT lines and an SRT extension costing over $3B in total, all three of which will compete with GO for ridership in an isolated area with less than 100,000 people.
 
No, keith, I used that argument against two LRT lines and an SRT extension costing over $3B in total, all three of which will compete with GO for ridership in an isolated area with less than 100,000 people.

Yet on the same point does not the same argument hold for areas near the Stouffville line. There may not be a 100 000 people in Malvern, but there aren't a 100 000 residents along the rest of the Sheppard route either.....can't many of those folks use GO to get downtown?

Now I support the extension of Sheppard based on network connectivity and the potential for development, but I am skeptical we'll ever see significant ridership. And if the province is not willing to put in money into completion of the subway, I don't see what's bad about converting it to LRT.
 
No, the argument does not hold the same way for Sheppard, which is one line, not three, that runs east/west through dense and growing areas and with a catchment area of hundreds of thousands of people...GO trains won't even offer travel time advantages for much of the corridor. The Agincourt-STC segment would be more for connectivity and development than for taking people downtown, though.

Also, no one ever bothers to note that it is an extension of an existing line that is proposed, not an entirely new line. Building the Transfer City line and converting the Sheppard line to LRT means that LRT line would effectively cost well over $2 billion to build. Putting aside stuff like network connectivity and development potential and the public's clear preference for grade-separated transit lines, keep in mind that the TTC will undoubtedly run longer vehicles at lower frequencies on the LRT line compared to the existing buses, creating/perpetuating [artificial] crush loads, and no one from Finch or other routes is going to transfer to another line that stops at red lights...much of the ridership "demand" for a subway extension would *only* materialize with a subway extension.
 

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