News   Mar 28, 2024
 34     0 
News   Mar 28, 2024
 209     0 
News   Mar 27, 2024
 2.1K     1 

Transit City Plan

Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%
  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%

  • Total voters
    120
You make no sense. I remember people saying Spadina is not at capacity yet the trains run frequent on there

Maximum capacity (36,000 pphpd) is different from the subway construction threshhold (10,000 pphpd).

Many trains on Spadina have a regular short turn point before Downsview.

St. George is less used than Bloor-Yonge even though St. George is an easier transfer.

I read a post that the LRT was going to run service in non rush hour every 20-25 min and during rush hour 10-15 min.

That was an idiot official who doesn't have power to set schedules mumbling something he didn't know. Every LRT advocate you argue against on this forum expects no worse service than every 5 minutes.

Frequency of service will be set by city council and the TTC board after the line is constructed as it is a question of operating budget rather than any technical limitation. Existing Sheppard subway is already getting massive operating subsidies. I see no reason for Eglinton to not get a similar level, considering that it will be busier and require a lower subsidy level.
 
Maximum capacity (36,000 pphpd) is different from the subway construction threshhold (10,000 pphpd).

Many trains on Spadina have a regular short turn point before Downsview.

St. George is less used than Bloor-Yonge even though St. George is an easier transfer.



That was an idiot official who doesn't have power to set schedules mumbling something he didn't know. Every LRT advocate you argue against on this forum expects no worse service than every 5 minutes.

Frequency of service will be set by city council and the TTC board after the line is constructed as it is a question of operating budget rather than any technical limitation. Existing Sheppard subway is already getting massive operating subsidies. I see no reason for Eglinton to not get a similar level, considering that it will be busier and require a lower subsidy level.

The Sheppard Subway has 5± minute service in both the rush hour and non-rush hours. The LRT's are to have 5± minute service in the non-rush hour, and 2± to 3± minute service in the rush hour.

I have been in New York City in the non-rush hour, and experienced subway service in the 10± minute headway.
 
It's a moronic notion to try and sell LRT as subway. Don't bother. The people of Toronto aren't stupid. They aren't going to buy it. It's like people trying to sell St. Clair as LRT lite (both those for and against LRT). Yet, to the average person it's still a streetcar. And I will bet money that's exactly what most Torontonians will call the LRT: the streetcar. It'll not be the Sheppard LRT. It'll be known as the Sheppard streetcar.

People will live with it. They'll hate it. But they'll live with it. See the SRT. People hate it. I have never ever (and I'm not exaggerating) heard a single Scarborough resident say that was a good idea. The normail line goes something like this, "Why didn't they just extend the subway to STC?" The rest of the city should just hope that the anger manifested by Scarborough residents against Stintz the other night dissipates by election time.

I blame the province for this. The only reason this debate is on is because the province refuses to provide the funds to extend the subway in the first place. Or for that matter even provide the leadership for a sound regional transit plan (not the laundry list that MO2020). After all, why isn't GO electrification going first? Why aren't subways and LRTs being planned around improved GO service? And while they can find the money to build a subway to presently empty fields in Vaughan because the whims of a sitting minister must be fulfilled, the useless MPPs of Scarborough have the gall to cry poor to their constituents and tell them that they should accept the gruel given to them.

As for the city, it blows my mind that people complain about paying more for better transit. In Ottawa, a city of 900 000 people (metro of 1.25 million) is pitching in $900 million to build its LRT plan. And just like Toronto, their debate has focused on surface vs. sub-surface (in Ottawa terms tunnel or no tunnel). The residents voted in a mayor who pledged to raise the revenue to pay for the tunnel. In Toronto, it's unbelievable that both the left and the right refuse to talk about collecting the revenue needed to build a better network (at least a balanced plan with surface LRT and some subway expansion). Instead they only debate how to spend the funds that Queen's Park and the feds are providing. No talk at all about raising more so that some subway expansion can be undertaken.
 
The ONLY concrete difference between LRTs and subways/metros/MRTs is that the length of the car is shorter or that the articulations are closer together, thus allowing the lines to make tighter turns in the street. Everything else is simply a design choice based around its local implementation.

Power supply? Both LRTs and subways use a mix of electricity from overhead wires, third rail, battery packs, and some even fossil fuels.

Width? Many LRTs share similar widths to subways, in some cases even surpassing them. The LRVs for the Eglinton line are in fact the same as our subway trains.

Rails? Both use the same rail design. Since they use the same gauge, our streetcars can fit on our subway rails and vice versa. Of course, they wouldn't be able to move since they use different power supplies.

Operating environment? While LRT can run underground, elevated, or in the street, subways can do the exact same. While I have been unable to find a system where they do this, technically there is nothing stopping them. Chicago has at grade road crossings on lines powered by a third rail (a break occurs at intersections), and there are numerous examples of heavy freight and passenger lines operating in the street - in mixed traffic and right of ways. The only thing they wouldn't be able to do is turn at intersections, as the radius would be too tight due to car length as mentioned above. On straight roads like the ones in the Toronto area, this is not an issue however.
 
It's a moronic notion to try and sell LRT as subway. Don't bother. The people of Toronto aren't stupid. They aren't going to buy it. It's like people trying to sell St. Clair as LRT lite (both those for and against LRT). Yet, to the average person it's still a streetcar. And I will bet money that's exactly what most Torontonians will call the LRT: the streetcar. It'll not be the Sheppard LRT. It'll be known as the Sheppard streetcar.

People will live with it. They'll hate it. But they'll live with it. See the SRT. People hate it. I have never ever (and I'm not exaggerating) heard a single Scarborough resident say that was a good idea. The normail line goes something like this, "Why didn't they just extend the subway to STC?" The rest of the city should just hope that the anger manifested by Scarborough residents against Stintz the other night dissipates by election time.

I blame the province for this. The only reason this debate is on is because the province refuses to provide the funds to extend the subway in the first place. Or for that matter even provide the leadership for a sound regional transit plan (not the laundry list that MO2020). After all, why isn't GO electrification going first? Why aren't subways and LRTs being planned around improved GO service? And while they can find the money to build a subway to presently empty fields in Vaughan because the whims of a sitting minister must be fulfilled, the useless MPPs of Scarborough have the gall to cry poor to their constituents and tell them that they should accept the gruel given to them.

As for the city, it blows my mind that people complain about paying more for better transit. In Ottawa, a city of 900 000 people (metro of 1.25 million) is pitching in $900 million to build its LRT plan. And just like Toronto, their debate has focused on surface vs. sub-surface (in Ottawa terms tunnel or no tunnel). The residents voted in a mayor who pledged to raise the revenue to pay for the tunnel. In Toronto, it's unbelievable that both the left and the right refuse to talk about collecting the revenue needed to build a better network (at least a balanced plan with surface LRT and some subway expansion). Instead they only debate how to spend the funds that Queen's Park and the feds are providing. No talk at all about raising more so that some subway expansion can be undertaken.

Great Post Sir. Like I said before, the politicans are bad but the people are mostly to blame.
 
Subways and LRT are not the same - for one thing less capacity. Apparently people in Scarborough must be....(( won;t say it) because they fell for Ford pretending they were getting a subway for the Eglinton Crosstown and now think they are getting the streetcar. Though I see nothing wrong with streetcars and love them but it seems suburban people do not. The MP's from Scarborough should have pushed the agenda for Scarborough - actually all the MP's from Toronto should have pushed subways for Toronto and not Vaughan due to 1 guy. It should have been an election issue back in 2007. Afterall Vaughan has only about 260,00 while Toronto has over 2.5 million. Which side do you think would have won? But it seems MP's forget about Toronto once elected and that is the problem.
 
As for the city, it blows my mind that people complain about paying more for better transit. In Ottawa, a city of 900 000 people (metro of 1.25 million) is pitching in $900 million to build its LRT plan. And just like Toronto, their debate has focused on surface vs. sub-surface (in Ottawa terms tunnel or no tunnel). The residents voted in a mayor who pledged to raise the revenue to pay for the tunnel. In Toronto, it's unbelievable that both the left and the right refuse to talk about collecting the revenue needed to build a better network (at least a balanced plan with surface LRT and some subway expansion). Instead they only debate how to spend the funds that Queen's Park and the feds are providing. No talk at all about raising more so that some subway expansion can be undertaken.

The Fords seem to be the ones refusing to talk about taxes- the 'left' wishes to see some sort of realistic plan from the Fords, but hasn't seen one so far. And thus they have had to reject the notion of an unfunded subway on Sheppard so far.

I really do hope that some councillors step up to the plate and put forward a motion making Sheppard subway construction conditional on the raising of taxes and fees.
 
It's a moronic notion to try and sell LRT as subway. Don't bother. The people of Toronto aren't stupid. They aren't going to buy it. It's like people trying to sell St. Clair as LRT lite (both those for and against LRT). Yet, to the average person it's still a streetcar. And I will bet money that's exactly what most Torontonians will call the LRT: the streetcar. It'll not be the Sheppard LRT. It'll be known as the Sheppard streetcar.

People will live with it. They'll hate it. But they'll live with it. See the SRT. People hate it. I have never ever (and I'm not exaggerating) heard a single Scarborough resident say that was a good idea. The normail line goes something like this, "Why didn't they just extend the subway to STC?" The rest of the city should just hope that the anger manifested by Scarborough residents against Stintz the other night dissipates by election time.

I blame the province for this. The only reason this debate is on is because the province refuses to provide the funds to extend the subway in the first place. Or for that matter even provide the leadership for a sound regional transit plan (not the laundry list that MO2020). After all, why isn't GO electrification going first? Why aren't subways and LRTs being planned around improved GO service? And while they can find the money to build a subway to presently empty fields in Vaughan because the whims of a sitting minister must be fulfilled, the useless MPPs of Scarborough have the gall to cry poor to their constituents and tell them that they should accept the gruel given to them.

As for the city, it blows my mind that people complain about paying more for better transit. In Ottawa, a city of 900 000 people (metro of 1.25 million) is pitching in $900 million to build its LRT plan. And just like Toronto, their debate has focused on surface vs. sub-surface (in Ottawa terms tunnel or no tunnel). The residents voted in a mayor who pledged to raise the revenue to pay for the tunnel. In Toronto, it's unbelievable that both the left and the right refuse to talk about collecting the revenue needed to build a better network (at least a balanced plan with surface LRT and some subway expansion). Instead they only debate how to spend the funds that Queen's Park and the feds are providing. No talk at all about raising more so that some subway expansion can be undertaken.

Well said
 
Subways and LRT are not the same - for one thing less capacity. Apparently people in Scarborough must be....(( won;t say it) because they fell for Ford pretending they were getting a subway for the Eglinton Crosstown and now think they are getting the streetcar. Though I see nothing wrong with streetcars and love them but it seems suburban people do not. The MP's from Scarborough should have pushed the agenda for Scarborough - actually all the MP's from Toronto should have pushed subways for Toronto and not Vaughan due to 1 guy. It should have been an election issue back in 2007. Afterall Vaughan has only about 260,00 while Toronto has over 2.5 million. Which side do you think would have won? But it seems MP's forget about Toronto once elected and that is the problem.
Capacity has just as much to do with the number of cars in a train set than with technology. Los Angeles' Blue line has a higher capacity than Cleveland's subway line which has trains only two cars long. Of course, generally speaking it makes more sense to run a six car subway than it does to run a 9 car LRT to achieve the same capacity.

On this note, the capacity demands for Scarborough are in line for light rail trains than subway trains, so we we should probably use them instead.
 
Last edited:
This is not a stupid design flaw, but a requirement of the Roads department. The Roads department is concerned that if the through phase precedes the left-turn phase, then pedestrians who have not finished crossing during the through phase could be hit by left-turning cars rushing to complete the turn. Therefore, they require the left-turn phase to precede the through phase.

You can question the validity of such reasoning, but the streetcar planners had no choice in the matter.

Maybe what they could do is put in 3 light signaling for pedestrians as well. Green would mean walk, yellow would be to finish walking (with an accompanied countdown), and red would mean do not cross. I think most people would respond to not crossing with the streetcar if they had a universally understood red light in front of them, rather than the red hand which is known to show up at intersections even if it is safe to cross.
 
Before this conversation goes any further, here are the definitions kids.
Streetcar or LRT has nothing to do with capacity, ROW, POP, or changing the lights. St. Clair is a strretcar route nothing more nothing less. TC is an LRT regardless of what people think of it. Why? Because LRT vehicles have three thind that streetcars don't........the vehicles can be driven from both ends of the train, can be joined together to form a longer train a longer train, and have doors on both sides of the train. Enough said.
As far as subway/metro/tunneled LRT conversation there is only one difference between what is considered a subway/metro and standard LRT and it has nothing to do with capacity, frequency, or whether or not it runs at grade, elevated, tunneled, or can fly to the money.................they are elctric vehicles that can run potentially automated.
This is why the SRT.Vancouver SkyTrain, monorails, Docklands, BART, and the Manilla LRT are considered subways/metros and DART, CTrain, and the Houston, Phoniex, Edmonton, Minneapolis systems aren't. In other words they have total and complete grade separation for the entire length of the system.
If the Eglinton line using LRT trains but is tunneled along Eglinton, at grade using SRT corridor, and elevated at STC it is a standard subway/metro. If the system has even one level crossing it is not a subway/metro. This is why Edmonton LRT eventhough having a far larger undergrouund section than Vancouver's Expo and Millenium lines is considered LRT. It has grade interaction while Vancouver's SkyTrain doesn't hence it is considered metro/subway.
End of that conversation.
 
Before this conversation goes any further, here are the definitions kids.
Streetcar or LRT has nothing to do with capacity, ROW, POP, or changing the lights. St. Clair is a strretcar route nothing more nothing less. TC is an LRT regardless of what people think of it. Why? Because LRT vehicles have three thind that streetcars don't........the vehicles can be driven from both ends of the train, can be joined together to form a longer train a longer train, and have doors on both sides of the train. Enough said.
A.
Basically then still a streetcar - that can be driven from both ends of the train and can be joined together to form a longer train and has doors on both sides of the train
 

Back
Top