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Transit City Plan

Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%

  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%
  • Total voters
    120
CanadianNational said:
"Exactly what Ford has in mind isn’t clear, but members of his inner circle say what has been discussed is a per-space fee, which would be passed on to owners of large parking lots — malls and movie theatres, which typically offer free parking, as well as pay lots. For the latter, the added cost would probably be passed on to drivers. Ideally, the strategy would be implemented across the GTA, so there isn’t a situation where parking lots on the city limits struggle to compete."
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So this would be to pay for Webster's severance?
 
Palma said:
And who really wants to work in NYCC and SYC as compared to downtown.
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Who really wants to work at Highway 7 and Leslie? It is an ugly location, the transit is a joke (and was on strike for 3 months) and the traffic is horrible. I would much, much rather work in NYCC (and would prefer working at STC as well) than working in some 905 office park. Downtown is a high cost location and realistically most lower paying jobs will not locate there because downtown office rent is expensive and even with tax cuts will always be expensive. NYCC and STC are intended to compete with Highway 7/Leslie and Airport Corporate Centre, and cutting taxes will encourage firms to move out of those locations.
 
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andrewpmk said:
Developers will not build transit oriented office buildings in the 905 unless there is decent transit. The easiest and fastest way to do this is to run GO trains more often and encourage office buildings near GO stations. Buses are not adequate, as is obvious from the lack of new office buildings in Mississauga Centre. Transit oriented development will not occur unless there is high quality rail transit. Otherwise employers will demand huge areas of surface parking such as the Loblaws headquarters at 407/Mississauga Rd.

As for the large amount of office construction downtown and the absence thereof in 416 suburbs I think it is an issue of taxes. Downtown office space is expensive because land downtown is expensive and downtown office buildings tend to be occupied by high paying financial services jobs. Downtown Toronto is competing with even more expensive locations like NYC so developers are willing to pay high taxes there. 416 suburbs office space is cheaper because 416 suburbs land is cheaper than downtown but high taxes mean there is almost no development there. Cutting taxes would encourage more development in these areas by making them cost competitive with the 905 for lower paying jobs. If lower taxes make NYCC competitive with Leslie & 7 then employers will move.
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Decent transit will never be built unless there is a critical mass of commuters who are willing to take transit. And around the carousel we go.

GO's operations (or business model) will never allow it to run trains from say MCC to RHC because there are far fewer rider than the capacity of a 12 (or 10) car GO train (capacity ~1400) who want to go to RHC. The suburban travel patterns are far more scattered and diverse than in the core where GO can run trains all day into Union station and people will ride. And as you said (GO) buses are not adequate.

No municipality should be building transit (of any form) in the hopes that transit oriented business development will follow. It's a recipe for disaster.
 
but does Ford not realize movie or other parking areas will pass on the cost to consumers - by charging for parking, Perhaps he thinks this is keeping his promise of no road tolls
 
Just out of curiosity, what would the savings be of running a 6 car GO train over a 12? From what I understand most of the cost is labour and trains must still have a minimum number of personell regardless of length according to Tranport Canada standards. I say this because it doesn't make sense to be running full 12-car trains reverse peak out to RHC or Brampton at this time.
 
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dunkalunk said:
Just out of curiosity, what would the savings be of running a 6 car GO train over a 12? From what I understand most of the cost is labour and trains must still have a minimum number of personell regardless of length according to Tranport Canada standards. I say this because it doesn't make sense to be running full 12-car trains reverse peak out to RHC or Brampton at this time.
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Realistically the trains running in have to be the same length as the trains going out. Generally there is no cost savings at all from running shorter trains, due to the labour costs of coupling and uncoupling train cars.

What I mean by improving GO service to encourage transit oriented development along GO lines is that if GO spends the money to upgrade lines to high frequency operation (e.g. trains every 5 minutes in rush hour and 15 minutes offpeak), which needs to be done anyway to deal with traffic congestion, this will encourage transit oriented office development near stations. So for example, if GO were to run the Lakeshore line every 15 minutes instead of every hour, then we might start to see office buildings sprout up at Oakville GO station for instance, instead of the car oriented business parks along the QEW we see now. The new office building at Pickering GO is an obvious example of this (though obviously GO needs to run the trains more often if it wants people working in that building to use transit, because the GO train and bus service in that area is currently poor).
 
andrewpmk said:
Realistically the trains running in have to be the same length as the trains going out. Generally there is no cost savings at all from running shorter trains, due to the labour costs of coupling and uncoupling train cars.

What I mean by improving GO service to encourage transit oriented development along GO lines is that if GO spends the money to upgrade lines to high frequency operation (e.g. trains every 5 minutes in rush hour and 15 minutes offpeak), which needs to be done anyway to deal with traffic congestion, this will encourage transit oriented office development near stations. So for example, if GO were to run the Lakeshore line every 15 minutes instead of every hour, then we might start to see office buildings sprout up at Oakville GO station for instance, instead of the car oriented business parks along the QEW we see now. The new office building at Pickering GO is an obvious example of this (though obviously GO needs to run the trains more often if it wants people working in that building to use transit, because the GO train and bus service in that area is currently poor).
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Not that I expect to see those types of headways until we are running EMUs, but if you increase service to 15 minute headways, will it still be economical to be running full 12 car-sets? Why not just keep a certain number at 6?
 
dunkalunk said:
Not that I expect to see those types of headways until we are running EMUs, but if you increase service to 15 minute headways, will it still be economical to be running full 12 car-sets? Why not just keep a certain number at 6?
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I think part of the reason is that passengers at the station platforms are dispersed expecting a 12 car train, having a train half the length will mean half the passengers will need to walk to the train rather than have a train stop in front of them. That might increase dwell times at the stations???

Of course all you need to do is keep the schedule predictable and mark on the platform where a 12 car train and/or a shorter 6 car train will stop and passengers will quickly adjust.
 
I think it's awesome that Ford is finally coming to the realization that more revenue sources will be needed to fund subways. I see this is a victory for all of Toronto in the making.

Looks like Nixon is taking baby steps to China :)
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
I think part of the reason is that passengers at the station platforms are dispersed expecting a 12 car train, having a train half the length will mean half the passengers will need to walk to the train rather than have a train stop in front of them. That might increase dwell times at the stations???

Of course all you need to do is keep the schedule predictable and mark on the platform where a 12 car train and/or a shorter 6 car train will stop and passengers will quickly adjust.
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Put a strip of lights on the edge of the platform. If it's a 12 car train, the entire length of lights is lit up. If it's a 6 car train, only where the train will stop will be lit up (i.e. the outer 1/4 on each end won't be lit up).

Relatively cheap to implement, and would reduce confusion, not to mention clearly demarcate the platform edge.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I think it's awesome that Ford is finally coming to the realization that more revenue sources will be needed to fund subways. I see this is a victory for all of Toronto in the making.

Looks like Nixon is taking baby steps to China :)
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If a conservative leader with a decent management record came to that, I would applaud.

But when it is Rob Ford, I do not know what it is really worth. He messed up his transit file entirely, losing even on the winnable bits. Now he is willing to change the course, but will likely just make a fresh bunch of enemies (this time, on the right) and accomplish nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I support dedicated taxes for transit, but doubt that Ford is the right leader to handle this rather delicate issue.
 
Rainforest said:
If a conservative leader with a decent management record came to that, I would applaud.

But when it is Rob Ford, I do not know what it is really worth. He messed up his transit file entirely, losing even on the winnable bits. Now he is willing to change the course, but will likely just make a fresh bunch of enemies (this time, on the right) and accomplish nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I support dedicated taxes for transit, but doubt that Ford is the right leader to handle this rather delicate issue.
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If John Tory was mayor the Sheppard would already be in the process of being expended.
 
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