Wow. That proves my point incredibly effectively. St. Clair is the model for Transit City. It takes 50 minutes to cover the 6.5 kilometres from St. Clair Station to Gunns Loop.
That. Is. Normal. Duration. Of. Time! How on earth do you expect a surface route to accomplish that length any faster in mixed traffic, without a private right-of-way, several stops without island bus stations, 10 stops to a concession, etc.? The forever loop at St Clair West Stn and the long layovers at Gunns Loop contribute to longer wait times as well. TC is not a reflection of the 512 because spacing will resemble subway spacing and alot of it be located in private rights-of-way inclusive of tunnels for Jane, Don Mills, Eglinton and Lakeshore West.
Don Mills is 17.6 km. At the same average speed as St. Clair, the model for these lines, covering that distance would take 135 minutes, or two and a quarter hours. Sheppard East from Don Mills to Morningside (13.6 km) would take 105 minutes. Even at a more reasonable figure of 30 minutes for the 512 St. Clair travel time, Don Mills would take 81 minutes, Sheppard East would be 63 minutes.
Unlike St Clair with storefronts immediately behind the sidewalks, both Sheppard and Don Mills for the most part have density affixed mainly to the major intersections only. Meaning this allows for more infrequent stops on a less density-concentrated roadway equaling faster travel.
What's your point? If you got rid of the Sheppard East and Morningside streetcars, you'd save more than a billion, too.
Of course if the subway were built instead there'd be no need for SE LRT.
Not everything about TC makes sense, the point is it makes sense for alot more commuters than only those who daily rely on the Sheppard Line.
What on earth are you talking about?
Condos, man, condos, pay attention! The points I bolded in the Star artricle explain the reality of what impact Sheppard's had on the lives of residents there. If you're still in denial that the cons far outweighed the pros what more can I say?
A line isn't really successful unless it's leaving people behind on the platform.
It will be called 'underperforming' until 2 or 3 trains routinely pass by before you can get on...partially because Sheppard-haters will persist for a long time and partially because of a preoccupation with 'efficiency.'
No, no, no. That's not the only criterion for underpreformance. Look at daily station usage. If a train arrives at a station and only 3 people are there to board it, something's drastically wrong with the planning of the route. You complain that I favor straight lines like Eglinton but fail to see the infinite wisdom in routing it. Eglinton though a straight line effectively bisects several major areas, bringing increased levels of service to where it's needed. Sheppard another straight line on the other hand is the proverbial white elephant, the entire line, with nothing but endless condos and two shopping malls, Fairview and Agincourt, to show for its entire length of service.
Eglinton is kind of a question mark...if they built it as a subway today, it could be well-used, but its riders can easily be cannabalized by other projects. The one sure thing is that going all the way across the city is totally irrelevant.
Ditto on Sheppard or a number of other TTC projects. Going all the way across is extremely relevant for too many reasons to count. The spacing would be nowhere as tedious as BD so in the end not much longer duration spent travelling while intercepting numerous important nodes and transfer points.
If the busy travel corridors happen to be straight, then straight subway lines make sense.
Except Eglinton IS one of the busiest local routes in the city with no less than 30 bus routes operating out of it's corridor stations. The airport and Don Mills hinge heavily on Eglinton. In fact no transit plan can truly exclude mass transit on Eglinton because of sheer length and accessibility.
There's no way an Eglinton line that's the same length as the B-D line would have the same ridership. The B-D line hits way more trip generators, including downtown, and goes through denser and more congested parts of the city. Exactly what a subway line should do.
BD is a fluke of its timing. Were the subway built sooner it would've gone along Queen Street. There is no major trip generator along Bloor except U of T and Yorkville. Just because it's close to downtown doesn't mean it is downtown. Ever attempted to get to Queen Street along one of the south routes? Time consuming isn't it? Eglinton from Kipling to Kennedy would have between 100,000-250,000 easy, I did the calculations. However remember BD curves up east of Main St. Hammer that out and you've got length to Bellamy/Eglinton GO. If extended to Pearson and UTSC Eglinton would indeed outpreform BD leaps and bounds by the extraction of passengers formerly bound for BD and covering twice the network area.
