fiendishlibrarian
Active Member
Kind of a false question. The original Queen subway *was* a streetcar. It was actually going to act as a feeder line for other streetcar lines radiating from it, working in conjunction with the Yonge subway.
Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s
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Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Making note at the post before this re Queen being a Streetcar subway vs a full fledged subway.
I think that around the time that Streetcars for Toronto came around and the type of activism that it and Jane Jacobs seemed to encourage, a shift happened where streetcars somehow moved higher up the preference scale of public transt vs subways in the downtown core. Even the planning that supported nodal developments at mini downtowns (Y-E, North York Centre, etc) seemed to support the drive to move subways into the realm of the suburbs and, arguably, milk run commuter service vs actual public transit of the type that would be seen in the downtown. All the while keeping streetcars in the core. What was the reason for that? Well there was the existing lines, yes. However I constantly here how the streetcars add atmosphere to Queen and King and how moving the riders underground would kill the streets. The fact is that Yonge survived and is no worse with a subway running underneath it.
I personally think that the great fault of Streetcars for Toronto was that they stopped at simply saving the streetcar routes when they should have been proposing better ways to used the technology in an integrated fashion with the subway. It took us nearly 40 years to realize that streetcars could serve as the branches of a tranportation system where the subway served as the trunk. A sort of intermidiate service where demand is to high for simple bus service but not yet high enough to justify a full fledged subway.
My argument was not that the subways should not, eventually, be extended into the suburbs. Rather that perhaps we should have focused both our subway and development planning on creating a vibrant downtown area vs a rather spread out nodal development, which IMHO tends to have a higher modal split favouring private cars. I'm sure that once the queen line (and possibly a DRL) had been built that we'd eventually (or even cocurrently) begin expanding the existing lines out to their current termenii.
In the end to answer the question, was saving the streetcars worth losing the Queen streetcar-subway? I don't think the question is as cut and dry as it is being presented. As I've tried to describe above. Saving streetcars in Toronto should have meant integrating them into a transportation hierarchy where Subways sit at the top, then Steetcars, then busses (to put in simple terms). My response would be why couldn't we save the streetcars and build the yonge line at the same time?
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
Well to be fair, downtown streetcars would not have worked in the suburbs. They would have had to be like modern day LRTs to actually attract a lot of riders, or else people would just take their cars to the subway or even just drive to work. But going from where we are now, we can't continue with our obsession for Streetcars. Streetcars do seem to be at the top of the transit hierarchy in Toronto, and that's simply backwards thinking. Miller and Giambrone have successfully labelled subway as "off limits" to Toronto based off it's greatly exaggerated cost, and I think somebody needs to be there to remind Toronto just how good subway can be.
hkric88
Active Member
Giambrone is just a puppet of Steve Munro, and Miller is just Miller. The point you make cannot be ignored. Hopefully when brain-dead, dinosaur politicians are replaced with something better (we know it happens now), and geeky retired public library IT technicians cum 'LRT' fan boys either die or shut up, we might start to talk about transportation that works for the majority. It might be nice to look out the window when ur making the trip for the first time, but when I take the same route to work and home every day, I just want to get home, the quicker the better. Please and thank you.
rbt
Senior Member
The flood from the disturbed (and unmapped) underground river put it slightly (under $3M from what I can remember) over budget. I think the accounting adjustment was made after Sheppard opened, so perhaps the 2003/2004 budget?
Chuck
Senior Member
Shouldn't take much more than a trip to the nearest subway city. New York is only a 90 minute flight away.
rbt
Senior Member
You might choose a city that hasn't recently significantly reduced service levels on their system.
ShonTron
Moderator
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Do I have to remind people again to discontinue the ignorant, anti-Munro remarks here? Munro strongly supports a DRL. His blog is much more than supporting LRT, and he's been critical as well of parts of Transit City, a plan that I don't have a lot of faith in. Giambrone is fairer game, but keep the criticisms relevant and substantiated.
Please, keep things on topic and lay off the ignorant attacks. Read the blog properly. You'd be amazed as to some of the things you'd read.
Please, keep things on topic and lay off the ignorant attacks. Read the blog properly. You'd be amazed as to some of the things you'd read.
The post-war plan was, but the 1980's DRL proposal wasn't. The plan for the streetcar subway under Queen was first postponed (it was intended to be built along with the original Yonge subway), and then cancelled completely before the construction of the University and B-D subways (hence why Osgoode doesn't even have the streetcar platforms underneath like Queen does).
The proposed cancellation of the streetcars came after those subways opened.
LowerBay
Active Member
Now you're contradicting yourself. Why is Giambrone *fairer* game? ... because you don't like him but you like Steve Munro?
Anyone who is as vocal and influential as Steve Munro is fair game, whether you agree with him or not.
Two things happened in the early 70s that forever changed our transportation system -- Jane Jacobs, and Streetcars For Toronto. The death of Spadina killed all expressway expansion in Toronto, and Streetcars For Toronto indirectly killed the Queen/downtown subway.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
Since Toronto hasn't had any notable rapid transit expansion since the 70's, I actually wouldn't be unhappy if the Toronto Expressway Plan was at least partially fleshed out.
Some cities decided to rely on cars by building large roads and expressways, and others decided to rely on transit by building Subway networks. Others even chose to go with both, but Toronto seems to have chosen option D. First they knocked down the expressway plan, then when public transportation would have been able to provide relief, that got knocked down too.
Some cities decided to rely on cars by building large roads and expressways, and others decided to rely on transit by building Subway networks. Others even chose to go with both, but Toronto seems to have chosen option D. First they knocked down the expressway plan, then when public transportation would have been able to provide relief, that got knocked down too.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Well Giambrone is a public figure holding a public position. He can be criticized because of the position he holds, not to metion that he is a key decision maker as well. Steve OTOH is just a blogger, albeit a blogger with much greater influence. He is still a priivate citizen though and I think that is what Shon was trying to explain.
That said I do think someone with the amount of influence and following that Steve does should be open to critique. Just because he hasn't written any books (Jane Jacobs) or held significant positions within the field (Giambrone) doesn't mean that we can ignore the fact that his views carry far greater weight than any of us on this board.
nfitz
Superstar
Umm ... there's no bedrock anywhere near the tunnel. Virtually the only way you can have an underground river, is to have some kind of Karstic bedrock that has been slowly dissolved to form a cavern system. I'm not saying there wasn't issues with groundwater ... but it certainly wan't an unmapped underground river!!
Whoaccio
Senior Member
Would it be possible to devise a 3 track DRL? Every now and then the idea of a 4 track, New York style, express/local gets floated around and I always strikes me as terribly impractical considering the relatively unidirectional Toronto transit situation. Even in NYC the express/local always sounds better than it works, from my experience. For the DRL though, why not have a regular milk run subway running from like Don Mills/Eglinton to Downtown with stop spacing of 500-800m and an extra track which would carry a limited stop (i.e. Eglinton->Pape->Downtown) train in the direction of peak travel.
Instead of building a system (rolling stock, route, station size) around somewhat unrepresentative peak travel demand, it could better handle average daytime usage. The reality being that stations along even 'well used' parts of the subway, like Wellsley, can be rather empty most of the time. That could sort of kill two birds with one relatively affordable solution.
Instead of building a system (rolling stock, route, station size) around somewhat unrepresentative peak travel demand, it could better handle average daytime usage. The reality being that stations along even 'well used' parts of the subway, like Wellsley, can be rather empty most of the time. That could sort of kill two birds with one relatively affordable solution.
rbt
Senior Member
Old documents seem to disappear from the TTCs website so I went from memory.
Sheppard Subway's overrun was officially $12.5 million (General Managers report, November 2004) likely expressed 2004 dollars since they're speaking about the current year.