Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group

Shaving hours of transit off the daily commutes of thousands of students for the next eight years seems like a pretty good use of $30 million to me, whatever happens after that.

(Spending $2 billion to run another subway to nowhere, however, does not.)
 
Man, I would have loved to have seen you guys back in 1949:

"What? You're planning a seperate streetcar transferway for Bloor Station? Are you insane!? There will be a subway there only 12 years after the station opens! Just keep the status quo in the meantime."

Or maybe back in the early sixties:

"Building a special streetcar transfer area at Keele and Woodbine? Are you nuts? The streetcar is going to be gone in two years! Just keep the status quo in the meantime."

Seriously. That busway is needed NOW. We can't afford to not build it with the assumption that the subway will be up and running by 2015. The Eglinton Line showed us that sometimes politics interfere. On top of that, a whole host of other things could delay the subway, such as funding problems, contractor disputes, etc. It is a cheap, interim solution to the severe problem of crowding on the York U bus.
 
Just open the busway to general traffic if it's no longer needed. Hopefully that would help reduce congestion on Finch with its streetcars a bit.
 
Panzerfaust said:
Man, I would have loved to have seen you guys back in 1949:

"What? You're planning a seperate streetcar transferway for Bloor Station? Are you insane!? There will be a subway there only 12 years after the station opens! Just keep the status quo in the meantime."

Or maybe back in the early sixties:

"Building a special streetcar transfer area at Keele and Woodbine? Are you nuts? The streetcar is going to be gone in two years! Just keep the status quo in the meantime."

Seriously. That busway is needed NOW. We can't afford to not build it with the assumption that the subway will be up and running by 2015. The Eglinton Line showed us that sometimes politics interfere. On top of that, a whole host of other things could delay the subway, such as funding problems, contractor disputes, etc. It is a cheap, interim solution to the severe problem of crowding on the York U bus.
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Indeed. If Toronto would have had the transit "foresight" it currently does fifty years ago, we would not have evolved into a global city.
 
Panzerfaust said:
Seriously. That busway is needed NOW. We can't afford to not build it with the assumption that the subway will be up and running by 2015. The Eglinton Line showed us that sometimes politics interfere. On top of that, a whole host of other things could delay the subway, such as funding problems, contractor disputes, etc. It is a cheap, interim solution to the severe problem of crowding on the York U bus.
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No contest. Besides, there will be operating costs savings from the busway (the buses do not idle in the traffic jam, so a little fewer buses are needed to maintain same service frequency).
 
Hipster Duck said:
Indeed. If Toronto would have had the transit "foresight" it currently does fifty years ago, we would not have evolved into a global city.
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QFT.

Vision is seriously lacking in this city from the municipal level. And I include Mississauga in that. e.g. the Mississauga Transitway. Also some councillors wanting to sell Enersource (Hydro Mississauga) for a cash infusion that won't last long and will probably just see prices rise for Mississaugans. But sparks of vision come along here and there, like Amacon's new MCC development, or the citizen-led plan for the former Lakeview site.
 
Hipster Duck said:
Indeed. If Toronto would have had the transit "foresight" it currently does fifty years ago, we would not have evolved into a global city.
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I think we used up most of our foresight when the Prince Edward Viaduct was designed to accommodate a lower deck...
 
Hipster Duck said:
Indeed. If Toronto would have had the transit "foresight" it currently does fifty years ago, we would not have evolved into a global city.
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In the '40s (pre-Metro days) the city finally woke up and did plan for the future. This lasted until the mid-70s when everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) died.
Look at the frenzy of infrastructure development that they acheived in those 25 years: both subway lines and the Spadina line, the DVP, Gardiner, 401, 427, 409, the Golden Mile, Don Mills, etc. - these were all envisioned and laid out. What a mess this city would be without those developments.

And what could have been? Queen subway? Eglinton subway? Allen Expressway to the Gardiner? A proper 400 extension, not Black Creek Drive stub?

It's the lack of vision in the '30s and '80s that we are paying for now.
 
Hipster:

While nice, I highly doubt that a "global city" is predicated the general presence (or absence) of subway lines.

Dicotomy:

And add to the illustrious list of achivements - Regent Park, St. Jamestown, Thorncliffe Park, Flemingdon Park, Jane-Finch, etc.

And what could have been? Annex - gone; Chinatown/Kensington - gone; Garment District - gone; St. Clair-Davenport - gone. etc; the general urban fabric of downtown - gone (Central Area Plan circa 50s/60s); a significant stock of historical architecture - gone.

AoD
 
The TTC uses a terminal station which has track crossovers in front of the station, and tail tracks extending beyond the station. This results in trains slowing down or crawling along between the terminal station and the next station. A train comes into the terminal station on an empty track and discharges passengers. It then waits as new passengers enter the train for the return trip. The tail tracks are used for storage of disabled trains.

Couldn't they build three tail tracks beyond the terminal station, with the middle track used to change directions? They could discharge passengers as normal, enter the center tail track to change directions, and then on the return trip use the normal platform to load passengers.

At St. Clair West station, they currently use the middle tail track to change directions for the short turn trains at rush hour. However, at Downsview they don't have that set up. I don't like the crawling the trains have to do as they approach Downsview.

I would like to see the tail tracks on the extension used to change directions.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Hipster:

While nice, I highly doubt that a "global city" is predicated the general presence (or absence) of subway lines.
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Alvin,

I don't think I could name one important city in world history that didn't evolve simultaneously with its transportation infrastructure - indeed, because of it.

Even in the very poorest of global megacities, the transportation infrastructure is impressive for the region: Mumbai has a web of electric suburban railways streaming out of it; Lagos has three parallel freeway bridges that criscross its lagoon. If it isn't a show-stopper by first world standards, it at least sets these cities apart from others in the region.

The most successful of world cities stopped at virtually no obstacle to knit transportation networks to feed their growing ambitions. That's why, perhaps, the most dynamic cities evolved despite being located on some of the least logical plots of land: Manhattan a granite island, Hong Kong a mountain in the sea, Tokyo an alluvial plain hemmed in by the hills, Los Angeles a desert plain, Venice a dismal swamp, Rome seven hills jutting above the malarial Tiber.

In Toronto, our big city ambitions were asserted twice: once during the 1920s when RC Harris spanned the impossible ravines with his bridges, thus bumping the population above the 500,000 mark and then during the heady days of 1949 to 1977, a time when Toronto went from a middling town on Lake Ontario to the economic powerhouse of Canada. A time when virtually the entire transportation infrastructure that our city travels on today was built. It was remarkable for its time and we rested on our laurels without much effect. Now that the population of the region is twice what it was at the end of our great infrastructure boom, things are starting to get strained. However, none of that would be a problem if we rolled up our sleeves and started digging and building again. Instead, we have sunk into this culture of timidity where everything is about cost and nothing is about opportunity. Transit City is the best symptom of this current malaise, a severely compromised plan that saves a couple of bucks but doesn't serve the transportation needs of a region and is not an adequate plan for growth.

If Toronto had the mentality we do today at that pivotal point after the second world war, we would have built a Yonge LRT that would have probably maxed out at 150,000 daily riders and a ride from Eglinton would probably take 30 minutes. It would have been the limiting reagent to growth and development along this busy corridor. Similarly, the 401 would be something similar to Lakeshore Blvd., a surface road with a 70 km/h speed limit and priority signaling, but not the main transportation funnel of Ontario.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
And what could have been? Annex - gone; Chinatown/Kensington - gone; Garment District - gone; St. Clair-Davenport - gone. etc; the general urban fabric of downtown - gone (Central Area Plan circa 50s/60s); a significant stock of historical architecture - gone.

AoD
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Meddlesome politically-correct urban leftys - gone.
 
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