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Transit City Plan

Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%
  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%

  • Total voters
    120
Have to study for a test right now but I am considering starting some form of letter writing campaign to at least consider making the Sheppard subway line compatible with low floor LRVs to make extensions to the east and maybe the west more affordable and without an obscene number of transfers.

The reason why I say maybe for the west is because there are still plans on the table to extend the line east to Yonge. Unfortunately to get across the city from the north, there will have to be two transfers to get from Sheppard to Finch regardless. Whether they should take place on the Yonge line or Spadina line is the question.
 
torontosubwaynow-w-transitcity_full2.jpg


So, here's what we got yesterday, with the old Transit City Plan lines superimposed.

The built - and definitely being built - Y-U-S lines and Bloor Lines are visible, along with Sheppard so far.
Light Blue shows the set routes for the Finch LRT (from Humber to Finch West), and the Eglinton Crosstown LRT (from Black Creek to Kennedy).

All other previously proposed Transit City extensions are marked with dotted green lines. Some of these were proposed to be looked at for building in the future yesterday in Stintz's memo 3 section 5, some were not.
I've included Sheppard extensions in the company of the dotted green lines, because the format and length it will take are still uncertain.
The Scarborough RT, I've depicted as a solid green line, because it is up for replacement, though the format has not seemed to have been settled on.

Please feel free to let me know if there are any errors with this.
 
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what about finch west? ford said after he was elected something along the lines of when we are done sheppard and finch wants subways we will build subways there too. he neglected to mention that a drl and a yonge extension would take priority. so if finch wants to wait until 2050 for a subway thats not wise. the problem is that people like the fords make it sound like a subway can be built everywhere and it doesnt cost that much more. the reality is that many people on these corridors wouod be retirement age before these plans get done. people complain that 2020 is too long for lrts but somehow 2050 is a better option for subways?

finch lrt is a solid plan. it is the lrt which has the most support. it has the ridership today.p and needs relief immediately. to wait for a subway is akin to saying my first car will be a ferrari. wed all love ferraris but in the mean time a lexus seems like a dang good comprimise. unfortunately people have made lrt to be more like a used ford then the lexus it actually is.

I meant finch east! So sorry! I still think Finch East was a better option then sheppard.
 
I meant finch east! So sorry! I still think Finch East was a better option then sheppard.

by the time finch west is complete finch east will warrent a extension as well. the good thing about lrt lines is that they can be extended for less money. ill assume that they will get to don mills and finch by 2030 and then the complete line by 2040.
 
I really want to see the YUS loop closed at the north end.
Either Sheppard to Downsview via LRT, or Finch West to Finch-Yonge via LRT or subway would do it. I think this should be a priority, equal with getting Eglinton extended out to the Airport.

A subway to link Downsview to Sheppard makes wonderful sense for convenience, but I wouldn't want to the funds that would be needed for it to diminish the possibility of either getting Eglinton to the airport, or getting to work on the DRL.

As for the DRL, I do fear that either the proposed Jane line or the Pape-Don Mills line could get funded before it does.
 
I personally think that Toronto and it's metro area should stick with subways and not try to implemant LRT, as I find the Crosstown compromise of making it an LRT instead of a regular rapid transit like the other subway lines in TO is going to cause headaches. And I'm not the only one who feels this way, as many Scarborough city councilors want to keept the Englington line underground. I'm fiscally conservative when it comes to this issue, and I see trying to maintain two different forms of transportation for a single city to be a bad idea as of now, maybe in the future, but not now.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2012/02/08/toronto-transit-debate-city-hall.html?cmp=rss
 
I find that that trying to mantain two different forms of transportation simultaneously will cost a hell of a lot in the long run and will be extremly hard to pay for unless taxes are raised and there be some budget cuts in other sectors, which I find will not likely happen.
 
I find that that trying to mantain two different forms of transportation simultaneously will cost a hell of a lot in the long run and will be extremly hard to pay for unless taxes are raised and there be some budget cuts in other sectors, which I find will not likely happen.
Rob Ford's plan uses the same type of vehicles as Transit City.

And it's really not going to make much difference. It's not like we are building a small line with 30 vehicles. They are already planning 2 yards for Eglinton. Economy of scale is a big issue if you've only got a few of each type, but it's not that significant for such large fleets.
 
I find that that trying to mantain two different forms of transportation simultaneously will cost a hell of a lot in the long run
Yes, because operating both the subway and Spadina LRT has broken the budget. Oh yeah, and the Harbourfront LRT... And wait, there are buses as well, so that's three different forms of transportation! And streetcars! OMG!
 
I think we can all agree that the real debate is not subways vs. LRT. It is about grade-separated transit vs. mixed traffic to save on cost. We all want a better transit system, but we have to live within our means.

The problem I have with surface transit is they get stuck at traffic lights. That can be resolved with transit priority signals, but let's face it, have we implemented it in any other corridor? I noticed in Jersey City, their LRT uses railway crossing to cross some roadways.

There's also a perception that surface transit does not work in snow, and when they do, they vehicles bunch up. Well that is true for the open sections of the subway as well. Vehicles bunching up, especially along Spadina when I used to take it was probably related to signal timing and again transit priority. The fact that future LRTs will operate with the driver operating the vehicle more like a train (not collecting fare, doesn't have to interact with passengers who hold up the vehicle by running for it, etc.) may alleviate scheduling problems.

I would really like to see LRTs succeed, but past experience in this city makes it not the ideal environment. I find that a lot of projects are not fully completed and you do not end up with the expected performance or results. Those types of failures do not convince people to switch from the convenience of their cars. Perhaps what we need to do is have a marketing campaign to highlight the benefits of a completed LRT project and actually complete the project, with signal priority and all.

On the topic of cost, how do other cities accumulate the debt to build subways? Does the city or transit authority have the ability to issues bonds like the MTA? New York is finally building their Second Avenue subway line right in Manhattan.

I think we need to use some reasoning with the models we use to determine where we place transit in this city. I come from an engineering background as well, and one of the first things I learned from was of knowledge separated from experience vs. knowledge embedded in experience. The person designing a transit system has a different view than the person using the transit system. Our models cannot account for every aspect of a system, from psychological to socio-economic. It would be a very difficult problem to solve!

Perhaps fantasy subway maps have some basis in the psychological aspect of the system. Whereas our numbers from a purely usage based standpoint dictate build an LRT along a particular corridor. However, if you think like a transit user, wouldn't it make sense to connect Sheppard to Downsview, allowing east GTA users to get to York University or other employment districts?

When the Sheppard subway opened, the experts believed that people would take an express bus along Finch to Don Mills. The route did so poorly, they boosted express bus service along Finch to Finch Station instead via the 199.

We have limited funding and we need to make sure we are looking at the total picture in the long-term even though one method may seem to be the cheaper alternative to fix the problem quicker.
 

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