Officially Unofficial Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan Thread

This is hilarious, the lengths you people will go to support a subway extension for Yonge but bash any subway in Mississauga. I don't evne support a subway in Mississauga, at least not a Bloor extension, but this is gettign ridiculous.

Hipster Duck said:

A subway - which I think we define as a tunneled, urban heavy rail system - is pretty much only effective in an urban environment where the immediate surroundings are walkable.

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We could say the exact same thing about any form of mass transit.

Since all of Mississauga is not "walkable," we can take that idea a step further and trash all local transit in Mississauga and in all suburbs.

Hipster Duck said:

A string of condo towers along a suburban arterial like Hurontario does not fit this description.

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Yes, we all know condo towers are automatically unwalkable and that Hurontario is lined with condos.

scarberiankhatru said:

Density is not the best way to determine where rapid transit should be placed: ridership is the best way.

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Wow, i thought you said ridership is not important. Now suddenly it is.

Of course, density must not be important since Mississauga is denser than York Region. Mississauga also almost twice the ridership as York, so we really shouldn't consider that either.

But wait a minute, how does Hurontario, a route that does not connect to the subway, have the highest ridership in the 905 (according to the statistics) if walkability is so important (according to Hipster Duck) and if density is not important (according to scarberiankhatru)? I think you guys can come up with lots of reasons for this or at least come up with other double standards.

Yonge north of Finch station is by far the busiest bus corridor in the city and that subway extension would be very profitable. Vaughan deserves a subway extension because everything past Yonge & Steeles is Vaughan.

doady said:

Wow, i thought you said ridership is not important. Now suddenly it is.

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I said ridership isn't important? Prove it - without splicing my words together out of context.

I don't know how many times I've said that ridership is more important than density...I've always claimed that density is just the bonus cherry on top of the feeder bus sundae. All else being equal, a "denser" area is a better place to run a transit line, of course, but such things are never equal in the real world and I'd run a subway past a school, an office park, a mall, and 1000 acres of parkland before I'd run it through "dense" apartments if it results in a greater net benefit for riders.

I've also never bashed subway expansion in the west end of the GTA, but when you back up your argument with useless, abstract "facts" like "Mississauga is denser than York Region" and "Mississauga also almost twice the ridership as York," maybe I should start. Can't Mississaugers ever defend a Mississauga subway on *any* grounds other than "we deserve one because some other place is getting one"?

How is ridership an "abstract fact"???

Mississauga having more total ridership than York Region has absolutely no bearing on where transit projects should go. Regions don't earn subways by reaching arbitrary targets as if this were a game of SimCity.

Absolutely no bearing? Then what criteria do you use, exactly, if not ridership?

doady said:

This is hilarious, the lengths you people will go to support a subway extension for Yonge but bash any subway in Mississauga. I don't evne support a subway in Mississauga, at least not a Bloor extension, but this is gettign ridiculous.

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I don't remember saying that I wanted a subway extension up Yonge. I stated categorically that I didn't even want a subway extension to VCC. Believe it or not, you and I probably share the same idea as to what constitutes an acceptable mode of transit up Hurontario, namely a proper LRT.

Since all of Mississauga is not "walkable," we can take that idea a step further and trash all local transit in Mississauga and in all suburbs.

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I don't think Mississauga is terribly walkable or that there are any moves to make it any more walkable than it currently is but I don't want to trash the impact that transit has had in Mississauga. Yeah, the ridership on Hurontario is impressive but it doesn't justify building a subway. I don't believe in a hierarchy of modalities where a subway train is at the top of the wedding cake. I believe that different built areas justify different transit solutions, some of which might give areas with high ridership a perceived "lower" transit mode. For example, there is a higher ridership on the 506 streetcar than there is on Hurontario, but I don't think that there should be a College subway, because there is one on Bloor just a kilometer to the north and most of the 50,000 or so riders who use College use it as a short-distance urban circulator.

For the record, I think that the suburbs, characterized by long-distance commutes and the need for speed competitiveness over the automobile, should be covered by a combination of electric regional rail and a complement of express buses/BRT. I am not talking to you, doady, but more to Coruscanti when I say that sitting on a BD subway car for 36 stations from St. George to Square One is simply not going to be time-competitive with a car, even at rush hour. What would be competitive is an electric S-bahn service that ran every fifteen minutes out of Union station stopping maybe four times.

But wait a minute, how does Hurontario, a route that does not connect to the subway, have the highest ridership in the 905 (according to the statistics) if walkability is so important (according to Hipster Duck) and if density is not important (according to scarberiankhatru)? I think you guys can come up with lots of reasons for this or at least come up with other double standards.

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It has the highest ridership simply because there is nothing else that serves Mississauga reliably along a North-South spine.

Walkability needs to be important to transit or how would it be able to attract riders who would otherwise drive? When you get off a bus, streetcar, subway or even a GO train, at least on one side of your trip you'd be better be prepared to walk. How successful would a subway line be if it just shunted people between a succession of park and ride lots? We should realize that Mississauga has a high transit ridership despite not being amenable to pedestrians. I don't think it's cart before the horse thinking to believe that the best way to guaranteeing long-term transit improvements is to make communities more walkable first.

Coruscanti Cognoscente said:

Absolutely no bearing? Then what criteria do you use, exactly, if not ridership?

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Ridership scattered across a large region has no bearing on whether or not a particular subway line is viable.

If people think that everyone in Mississauga could be funneled into a particular corridor that could then be upgraded to a subway that actually serves them well, back this up with logic and numbers, not with statements that Mississauga deserves a subway.

And, yes, I've seen people (more or less) seriously propose extending it to Wonderland/Vaughan Mills. Connecting all of the suburban malls is at least as sensible a plan as any other.

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crap. i meant innisfil. nobody in their right toque thinks the subway should go to innisfil.

everything south of there is worth debating, howev.

crap again. isn't there a candle factory outlet somewhere up there? that could be a stop.

--just teasing. what other suburb can i bait, apparently unconcerned about how my comments will be taken?

oh, Mississauga.
all they deserve is LINK. a fricking cable-car.

Hipster Duck said:

It has the highest ridership simply because there is nothing else that serves Mississauga reliably along a North-South spine.

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Nothing else? Have you been to Mississsauga? Every major North-South street has its own bus route! Winston Churchill, Erin Mills Parkway, Glen Erin, Mississauga Rd, Creditview for god's sake.

Many, many people never take the 19! I sure don't! It's useful to Bramptonians, and people who live along it. I don't know where you get this idea that everyone in Mississauga uses the 19, somehow inflating it's ridership.

scarberiankhatru said:

Ridership scattered across a large region has no bearing on whether or not a particular subway line is viable.

If people think that everyone in Mississauga could be funneled into a particular corridor that could then be upgraded to a subway that actually serves them well, back this up with logic and numbers, not with statements that Mississauga deserves a subway.

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why do we have to funnel everyone in Mississauga into one subway corridor? Toronto doesn't have ONE subway corridor. Why make up ridiculous standards for transit in Mississauga. Makes no sense.

Coruscanti Cognoscente said:

why do we have to funnel everyone in Mississauga into one subway corridor? Toronto doesn't have ONE subway corridor. Why make up ridiculous standards for transit in Mississauga. Makes no sense.

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It makes perfect sense. All surface routes in Toronto (except one!) lead to subway stations and this combination of routes is what feeds and justifies subways outside of downtown. No route in Mississauga can justify a subway. Hurontario is the busiest single route but even its numbers are misleading because Square One splits the ridership and lowers the peak crowds (greatly reducing the need to upgrade to a subway). If hundreds more towers are built and if it's used as a main trunk line from which many other routes branch off, then you can start building the case for a subway line. Now, if we're talking about a subway extension, like the Bloor line, it should cross the border only if the ridership justifies it, not to "give" Mississauga a subway...the exception is when funding hinges on the politics of crossing such a boundary, such as what happened with Spadina.

scarberiankhatru said:

Hurontario is the busiest single route but even its numbers are misleading because Square One splits the ridership and lowers the peak crowds

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Obviously you have never used Hurontario... it is an extremely crowded bus route with frequent closed-doors 7 days a week. Nevermind Hurontario, even Dundas has ridership comparable to Yonge.

Oh yes, I forgot that the stats don't matter because they favour Missisauga. Silly me.

scarberiankhatru said:

Ridership scattered across a large region has no bearing on whether or not a particular subway line is viable.

If people think that everyone in Mississauga could be funneled into a particular corridor that could then be upgraded to a subway that actually serves them well, back this up with logic and numbers

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Wow, you constantly dismiss the numbers, and now you tell us to present you with numbers (again?). You are the one who needs to back up your statements.

I don't even support a subway extension into Mississauga (I prefer diversion and upgrade of the Milton line), but I think this is getting ridiculous.

Hipster Duck said:

It has the highest ridership simply because there is nothing else that serves Mississauga reliably along a North-South spine.

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I don't think so, there are plenty of people using the other bus routes. Dixie is particularly busy...

I think a lot of people on this forum base their views on Mississauga on some kind of anti-Mississauga bias with no relation to reality.

You know what, maybe Scarborough doesn't deserve any subways at all. Be happy with your LRTs. If Mississauga doesn't need a subway, then Scarborough sure doesn't, especially since ridership doesn't figure into the equation at all.

No numbers have been presented, and when I wondered what the north/south split is on Hurontario, you haven't answered (or don't know). If the split is 50/50, route 19 is only half as busy as claimed. Does, say, even 3000 people per hour per direction warrant 20km of subway service on a corridor blessed with a wide (largely 50m) ROW for any reason other than "Mississauga deserves a subway"? "Busy" is a subjective reason.

The Bloor line could and maybe should be extended westward, but there's lots of reasons why it wouldn't make sense to continue all the way to Mississauga. Does Dundas in Mississauga run 120 buses an hour during peak times? Yonge Street north of Finch does, which is a main reason why the subway will be extended (and I'd be perfectly fine with it going only as far as Clark, by the way).

edit - and there's a huge difference between an extension of one subway line (like Yonge north of Finch) and an entirely new line (Hurontario). An extension cannot use the subway's full capacity but a new line should use a huge chunk of it to justify building that much. What percentage of a subway's capacity would Hurontario currently fill...10%? Maybe 15%? If you guys can find ways to boost that percentage (and "Mississauga deserves a subway" won't help) you might find more support for such a line. I've never seen a list of MT route ridership...it might be a useful exercise to add up any potential routes that a subway might replace, then account for growth and see what kind of real estimates are churned out.

i'm sure doady and/or drum have the ridership statistics. i do not have any such numbers unfortunately.

if the bloor line is extended westward, there's no destination OTHER than MCC worth going to!