Which would you choose: Sheppard Subway Extension or Sheppard Crosstown LRT?

[Dan416]

I don't mind incremental expansion of the Sheppard Subway. But pushing the date for connection to STC would just hamper it even more. Only when it reaches from Downsview to STC will it reach it's full potential. Before then, it'll still require too many transfers for it to be regarded as a true "crosstown" Sheppard Subway.

 

[Eug]

Converting the Sheppard subway to LRT makes about as much sense as demolishing a room in your house because you don't need it anymore. It costs (a lot of ) money and then you have less room to play with.

Funny you should mention that. This year I demolished a room in my basement and then re-made it smaller... because it was overbuilt for its purpose... It was a laundry room that was over 200 square feet. The room is now is closer to 1/3rd the prior size, but the space is being added to the rest of the basement's livable space.

Cost me a lot of money, because I had to get architectural drawings, engineering specs, HVAC assessments, knock down support walls, put a new large steel support beam in (since that support wall actually held up the centre of my two-storey house and the roof), shore up the foundation, revamp the HVAC ductwork, re-direct the gas lines, re-route the electrical wiring and cable, re-route the plumbing and drains and get all sorts of inspections. But hell yeah, it was worth it. It was a painful process to make that room smaller, but the overall project will be MUCH better because of it.

If Transit City were up to me though, I'd just add BRT for now on Sheppard East, and spend the money on Eglinton and Bloor Danforth.

 

[Dan416]

Funny you should mention that. This year I demolished a room in my basement and then re-made it smaller... because it was overbuilt for its purpose... It was a laundry room that was over 200 square feet. The room is now is closer to 1/3rd the prior size, but the space is being added to the rest of the basement's livable space.

Cost me a lot of money, because I had to get architectural drawings, engineering specs, HVAC assessments, knock down support walls, put a new large steel support beam in (since that support wall actually held up the centre of my two-storey house and the roof), shore up the foundation, revamp the HVAC ductwork, re-direct the gas lines, re-route the electrical wiring and cable, re-route the plumbing and drains and get all sorts of inspections. But hell yeah, it was worth it. It was a painful process to make that room smaller, but the overall project will be MUCH better because of it.

If Transit City were up to me though, I'd just add BRT for now on Sheppard East, and spend the money on Eglinton and Bloor Danforth.

Sorry, you seem to have misunderstood me. I did not mean breaking down a wall and rearranging the living space. I meant actually demolishing a room and basically reducing the square footage of your home. The opposite of an addition. A subtraction lets call it. Although I've never seen anyone say they have too much living space.

In your example, you said you're adding that space to livable space, so it doesn't really mesh with my example at all, since I'm talking about reducing living space.

That said, I'd agree with you on adding BRT on Sheppard and using money on Eglinton and BD.

 

[Eug]

Well, obviously I understood it, but the analogy wasn't exact. However, the point here is it was a painfully expensive change, but it made the overall project much more usable.

The question here though is would LRT with no transfers be that much more usable than BRT plus subway for a few stops or LRT plus subway for a few stops. I think most would prefer the LRT with no transfer after real life usage, but it would be very difficult to justify politically. I think that's probably the real barrier.

However, this presumes it MUST be done all at once, but we both agree it doesn't need to be done this way.

That said, I'd agree with you on adding BRT on Sheppard and using money on Eglinton and BD.

Yes, as you said in the other thread, politically we can justify keeping Sheppard as subway, but just add to it bit by bit.

The thing I don't understand is why both Miller and Ford made Sheppard a priority. Well I guess I do sort of understand. The Sheppard fiasco weighs heavily on the minds of much of the public.

 

[gweed123]

Yes, as you said in the other thread, politically we can justify keeping Sheppard as subway, but just add to it bit by bit.

The thing I don't understand is why both Miller and Ford made Sheppard a priority. Well I guess I do sort of understand. The Sheppard fiasco weighs heavily on the minds of much of the public.

That's the great thing about BRT (or BRT-Light, which I advocate for Sheppard between Vic Park and Agincourt), is that it's a relatively low-cost implementation of rapid transit (or in the case of BRT-Light, semi-decent rapid transit). Doing queue jump lanes on Sheppard between Vic Park and Agincourt would be pennies on the dollar compared to the current LRT proposal for that section, but would likely provide 70% of the same service quality.

Couple that with the fact that once the subway is eventually extended, express buses and the like can continue to use the queue jump lanes, which means that the modest infrastructure investment doesn't mean superfluous once the subway beneath opens. How much use would an in-median LRT corridor be when there's a subway running right beneath it? Not very much. Queue jump on that section is a modest investment that would work great as a stop-gap measure until the funds are available for an overlapping subway extension.

 

[EnviroTO]

LRT tracks aren't that expensive for a 30 year life span and for the amount of passengers that will flow over them. At the end of the 30 years they can become a boulevard of trees or converted into lanes of traffic. Only the tunnels are so expensive you wouldn't want to build them without the ability to upgrade them to subway in the future. If the tunnel between Keele and Leslie cannot handle the current subway car fleet due to tunnel diameter or grade then it should be redesigned because that is a sizeable investment you would not want to throw away. Surface LRT is not in the same ballpark. Building a new suburban 4 lane road is probably not that much different from adding tracks in an existing ROW, yet it can handle far more passengers. Personally I believe the evolution of Bus -> LRT -> Pre-Metro -> Metro is preferable to an evolution of Bus -> BRT -> Metro because I see LRT as being far more desirable to BRT and Pre-Metro being almost the same as Metro for convenience. There is no Pre-Metro option for the all-bus path since Bus tunnels don't work unless the buses are able to run electric.

 

[GTS]

I was on the 85 this a.m. and the bus went through the diversion just north of Sheppard! The road narrows to one lane for each direction for this construction project. Hope that Dufferin Construction completes this needed project on time! Glad its moving forward!