Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[sixrings]

Should the Transit City plan be revived? Now that the Liberals are minority, it could happen. Personally, I don't think it should because I think it is a waste of money and not a lot of ppl will use it. I will, however, support the Finch West LRT. Now that everyone has a say at Queen's Park, I think it's time to speed up the process.

With regards to the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT, and I've been thinking about this for quite a while now, would it be better if the western half (from Eglinton Station to Black Creek) was built first? Heck, if that can save some cash, they should just extend it to Pearson Airport. The eastern half can hold off till later cause it's not vital to have it built at this time,

I don't know why anyone would question if lines like sheppard jane or don mills would see higher ridership. They are already busy routes and with rail would come development which would bring even more riders. I agree drl is needed but to say the b usiest routes if converted to lrt wouldn't bring higher ridership doesn't seem to make much sense.

 

[DKsan]

I think what everyone needs to remember about Transit City that really caused a clusterfuck is that it was designed with regional connections in mind. Sheppard didn't connect with STC because it was to eventually connect with the Durham BRT. Jane and Don Mills LRT were to be extended north into York Region (with York paying for them as they went up).

If we're going to build a transit system, it needs to have regional, as well as local connections.

 

[sixrings]

I think the stop spacing of 400M was made for local transit use. I'd argue that for most people they would think that the stop spacing should have increased if anything. Larger stop spacing means faster ride which means shorten trips. In practice I think this is true if people are willing to walk 5mins to a stop. Sadly I think many people are too lazy to walk which is why we see so many stops so close to each other which ultimately increases travel times. Again I think TC was designed more locally and that's exactly why people had problems with it. They want to get downtown ASAP. General opinion Less stops the better.

 

[Rainforest]

I think there's a flawed premise frequently used in these transit-related threads, and that's to try and argue against LRTs by making subways into something they're not: commuter trains. The straw man invariably put forth is that streetcars can't travel quickly over 20+ km distances and therefore subways are required.

At the risk of stating the obvious, streetcars travel in mixed traffic while ROW LRTs do not. Stop spacing and the frequency of traffic lights are what ultimately determine how fast a ROW LRT can get.

Similarly if commuter trains are what's logically required by the basis of this premise, it's illogical to push for subways since, ownership issues aside, virtually all of the rail infrastructure is already in place and it would be far more cost effective to simply add commuter trains and enhance stations and transfer connections.

Realistically, a mix of ROW LRT, subways and commuter trains will probably be needed in the not too distant future. And bear in mind that the first and the last of these three will be by far the most cost effective to build.

Conceptually it is correct that commuter trains are better suited for long trips than subways. However, currently we don't know how much it will cost to upgrade the rail network to the point when it becomes a viable option for multiple trips patterns within the city.

At the Sheppard level, there is no E-W rail line for crosstown trips; hence I expect the Sheppard subway to become essential at some point in future (even though it should not be the #1 priority right now).

Quite a large number of E-W crosstown trips could be served by the Midtown line if it had train service on 15-min frequency or better. But the existing tracks are heavily used for the CPR freight traffic, and space to add more tracks may not be available for some sections of the corridor.

The inner suburb-to-downtown trips are in a better shape as there are multiple rail lines to Union. Still, a lot of issues have to be resolved before GO trains can play a role similar to that of S-Bahn in Berlin or RER in Paris:

1) Capacity at Union; they do expand it but not very quickly. There is a risk that all capacity growth will be eaten by the growing 905-to-downtown demand, with nothing left for 416.

2) Width / number of tracks in the corridors.

3) TTC route structure. Currently, getting to a nearby GO station by TTC often requires a transfer between two TTC routes, or a long walk from the "closest" TTC stop.

And then, of course, there is an issue of fare integration; but I'd think that it will be resolved if the above mentioned issues are resolved.

So, it is doable, but the costs might be considerably higher than they seem at the first glance.

 

[andrewpmk]

I think what everyone needs to remember about Transit City that really caused a clusterfuck is that it was designed with regional connections in mind. Sheppard didn't connect with STC because it was to eventually connect with the Durham BRT. Jane and Don Mills LRT were to be extended north into York Region (with York paying for them as they went up).

If we're going to build a transit system, it needs to have regional, as well as local connections.

Transit City would have been pretty useless for regional connections because it is slow and required far too many transfers. Transit City would have improved local bus routes somewhat but would have been totally useless in relieving highway congestion. On Sheppard, the transfer at Don Mills would have discouraged a lot of ridership, never mind the fact that travelling from west of Yonge to east of Don Mills would have required transferring three times which just encourages driving on the 401. Also I think that STC is the best place for regional connections because it has a big bus terminal, and GO buses to Durham Region stop there; STC to Brock Road tends to be just about the only section of the 401 that doesn't suffer from heavy congestion in rush hour. I can't imagine that many people want to suffer taking Sheppard subway to Don Mills, slow LRT from Don Mills to UTSC and then a Durham Region Transit bus.

Extending Don Mills LRT and Jane LRT to Markham and Vaughan respectively is total overkill. First YRT needs to run routes 90 and 20 more than every 51 minutes and 45 minutes respectively on Sunday.

 

[sixrings]

Nothing is going to reduce traffic on the 401. The subway might help marginally more then "LRT but still it won't help reduce significant traffic off of the 401.

 

[Rainforest]

McGuinty won't do anything unilaterally. But as Mihevc seems to suggest in that article, it's entirely open to Council to formally reinstate more or all of it. If passed by Council -- even over its mayor -- McGuinty would likely feel obliged to respect its will.

So this could potentially get very interesting.

McGuinty will be inclined to support the City Council if the Council wants all of Transit City back. However, just one vote for TC, or against a mayor's proposal, is not sufficient, given that the current TTC board is made postly of RF's allies.

If the Council actually replaces the current TTC board to empower the TTC Chair, it might work: the province gets a willing executive counterpart at the City level. Otherwise, the matter will be in limbo till the end of RF's mayoral term in 2014.

This is where Jarvis could potentially enter the discussion: it's quite arguably the only major street between Yonge and the Don River where you have a little extra space, albeit probably not quite enough.

Is there enough courage among any of our councillors to put a ROW down Bay, Jarvis or Church at the expense of two lanes for cars, even if it would likely help take some pressure off the Yonge line?

Certainly not right now, but after another 2-4 years of stasis and increasing gridlock? Who knows?

This might work in the form of a "soft" ROW: inner lane is for transit; no on-street parking so the outer lane is normally free; cars must travel in the outer lane under normal circumstances, but may briefly enter the inner (transit) lane if there is a disabled car or a repair vehicle standing in the outer lane.

 

[Rainforest]

I don't understand why NS lines like keele or dufferin or jane can't have basically street cars in traffic from bloor to eglinton the ROW from eglinton to steeles. It can still have LRT spacing. It would carry more passengers then a bus and be a more comfortable ride. And it would drastically change these streets. So again in traffic when not enough space to widen and ROW when there's is enough space. Seems like much more sense then going underground. Anything btw would be a improvement on dufferin.

The mixed traffic sections with congestion would affect reliability of the whole route. It is still not cheap to put rails on the street, and then you will hear people complaining "they spent $500 million for this streetcar line, and I still have to wait 20 min for the vehicle because it is caught up somewhere".

For Jane, perhaps a better solution is to build LRT only north of Eglinton, and direct it to the Eglinton West subway station via the Eglinton tunnel. Section between Eglinton and Bloor would then be served by bus.

For Dufferin, most of demand is south of Eglinton. Congestion is guaranteed to take placed there: the street is largerly residential and people park their cars in the outer lanes since they do not have other parking options. So, I see no option for LRT on Dufferin other than running it in tunnel, which of course won't happen any time soon.

 

[Dan416]

I'd prefer if the western Eglinton LRT portion to Pearson was going ahead rather than the eastern portion, but the eastern portion connects to/merges with the SRT. On the bright side it gives Eglinton blue as its colour

 

[Justin10000]

I think the stop spacing of 400M was made for local transit use. I'd argue that for most people they would think that the stop spacing should have increased if anything. Larger stop spacing means faster ride which means shorten trips. In practice I think this is true if people are willing to walk 5mins to a stop. Sadly I think many people are too lazy to walk which is why we see so many stops so close to each other which ultimately increases travel times. Again I think TC was designed more locally and that's exactly why people had problems with it. They want to get downtown ASAP. General opinion Less stops the better.

And this is why that opinion is flawed. The TOTAL trip from door to destination is never taken into account, only time spent on the vehicle. Larger stop spacing means a longer walk(longer than 5 mins, that's for sure) which must be taken into account. You have to also consider dwell times. You take out a stop, the passengers are going to board at other stops, which will increase dwell times. So longer walk + longer dwell times, and a passenger isn't necessarily saving any time on the vehicle.

It's as easy as saying less stops means a quicker ride time. Imagine if stops on the Yonge subway south of Eglinton were taken out. The dwell times would be unnacceptably long. I know from experience using the Finch Bus with it's short stop spacing, many of the stops are used. The Finch LRT would have double the spacing, I do not see how tripling the spacing would have improved the trip for many riders.

 

[sixrings]

The mixed traffic sections with congestion would affect reliability of the whole route. It is still not cheap to put rails on the street, and then you will hear people complaining "they spent $500 million for this streetcar line, and I still have to wait 20 min for the vehicle because it is caught up somewhere".

For Jane, perhaps a better solution is to build LRT only north of Eglinton, and direct it to the Eglinton West subway station via the Eglinton tunnel. Section between Eglinton and Bloor would then be served by bus.

For Dufferin, most of demand is south of Eglinton. Congestion is guaranteed to take placed there: the street is largerly residential and people park their cars in the outer lanes since they do not have other parking options. So, I see no option for LRT on Dufferin other than running it in tunnel, which of course won't happen any time soon.

Ok why not build LRT on streets like keele jane and dufferin that simply stop at EGLINTON. At least it gives the suburban people a better option which would result in probably higher ridership. Its the suburbs which is causing all the congestion because of the love for cars. In the future when its more viable you can build underground extensions. I do understand that the future may be 50 years away. In the mean time run a infrequent bus between eglinton and bloor on these routes. Same thing with don mills. It can run LRT till eglinton and then DRL south of that to union. Again transit city seemed like a good idea because of the cost savings. People like to make it sound so expensive but that's when you qoute the central eglinton section. Instead where TC was poorly executed was that there simply weren't enough lines and the spacing could have increased to 600M.

 

[Amy Rose]

For Dufferin, most of demand is south of Eglinton. Congestion is guaranteed to take placed there: the street is largerly residential and people park their cars in the outer lanes since they do not have other parking options. So, I see no option for LRT on Dufferin other than running it in tunnel, which of course won't happen any time soon.

You can always build Dufferin as a streetcar route until Bloor or St Clair, since it obviously crosses the E-W streetcar routes (College,Dundas, Queen, King) and it saves us from complications between TTC and standard gauge

 

[Rainforest]

You can always build Dufferin as a streetcar route until Bloor or St Clair, since it obviously crosses the E-W streetcar routes (College,Dundas, Queen, King) and it saves us from complications between TTC and standard gauge

You certainly can build it (in fact, streetcar tracks already exist south of Queen and down to the bridge). But in mixed traffic, the route will suffer from congestion and the improvement over buses is questionable (a more comfortable ride, but likely larger gaps between the vehicles because streetcars cannot pass each other).

At the same time, the residential character of Dufferin makes it very difficult to impose even a partial transit priority (residents park their cars on street since they have no driveways, and then all traffic must share a single line in each direction).

 

[Rainforest]

Ok why not build LRT on streets like keele jane and dufferin that simply stop at EGLINTON. At least it gives the suburban people a better option which would result in probably higher ridership. Its the suburbs which is causing all the congestion because of the love for cars. In the future when its more viable you can build underground extensions. I do understand that the future may be 50 years away. In the mean time run a infrequent bus between eglinton and bloor on these routes.

Many riders want to get to subway that goes to downtown, and they won't appreciate if they have to transfer to Eglinton LRT first, and then again to subway. There would be a lot of negativity about those routes if they are cut at Eglinton.

For Jane, a possible solution is to build the LRT north of Eglionton, and then join the Eglinton tunnel and run to Eglinton West subway or to Yonge. Same might be possible for Keele, although Keele LRT has not been discussed anywhere.

Dufferin has a gap between Wilson and Sheppard, which reduces the demand north of Eglinton. So, improving Dufferin north of Eglinton only does not make much sense.

 

[sixrings]

Many riders want to get to subway that goes to downtown, and they won't appreciate if they have to transfer to Eglinton LRT first, and then again to subway. There would be a lot of negativity about those routes if they are cut at Eglinton.

For Jane, a possible solution is to build the LRT north of Eglionton, and then join the Eglinton tunnel and run to Eglinton West subway or to Yonge. Same might be possible for Keele, although Keele LRT has not been discussed anywhere.

Dufferin has a gap between Wilson and Sheppard, which reduces the demand north of Eglinton. So, improving Dufferin north of Eglinton only does not make much sense.

first anyone heading downtown via a NS street have to currently transfer onto the bloor line anyway. so transfering sooner in the eglinton line would not create additional transfers but instead create a faster trip then currently. currently someone traveling from jane transfers once onti bloor and ince onto the younge university lines . thats a total of two transfers. the new system would have the first transfer onto eglintin and the second on the yonge university line. again two transfers.

second i mentioned a keele line simply because i think tc missed the mark by not being expansive enough. the inner suburbs and suburbs need something like the legacy line. 5 lrt lines is not the same impact.

third i could agree that a jane line that turns onto eglintin could be a good idea. it could turn north again at don mills. i like the thought. however we can only redirect so many trains through the egljnton central section before there is serious confusion managin the lines. calgarys c train all share the same central portion despite some trains going NW others NE and others SW.