VMC and York University = highly trafficked successes
Pioneer Village and Finch West = Just ok
Hwy 407 and Downsview Park = Omg! The GO Transit connections better come online soon or else we've got duds on our hands
Once again. Some leaping to conclusions after six days....
But taking the comments below in three groups, some thoughts thereupon.
1. Outperforms. But we don't have optimal conditions for ridership yet. A good thing can be better.
i) VMC - YRT bus terminal not finished yet.
ii) York U is on Christmas break - let's see what it looks like when everyone is back at school. Let's also take another look next September when - for example - someone living in the city can say - would I rather take the subway to UofT St George campus, or subway to Ryerson U, or subway to York U ? Now the choices are apples-to-apples. Faced with a long bus ride, I'd have gone to Ryerson or UofT any day. I'd have written York off. I always considered it in the middle of nowhere. We're all going to have to change our attitudes about this because it ain't in the middle of nowhere any longer.
2. Average.
i) Pioneer Village. Let everyone get used to this. It's a huge bus terminus. Again, school's out.
ii) Finch West. Sub-optimal conditions. Can't wait to see another interchange station on the growing network in the city. When the FWLRT is funneling riders both ways through this station, I doubt anyone will have to worry about it. Mark this - check in 2022. Argh - to the date at least.
3. Needs Improvement..
i) Hwy 407 - connections in GO's court. TBD. Could be a Jane LRT terminus. Shovels in the ground everyone.
ii) Downsview Park- GO Station open December 30. Great. Barrie AD2W coming... Remember everyone. If you thought nothing of taking the train to Union to your downtown job. Why shouldn't you be able to take the train to Downsview, go down to Cedarvale and then arrive at your midtown job? I think this opens a world of possibilities as the GO network deposits people in only (mostly if we are going to quibble about Danforth and Kipling) one location (downtown) up until now.
In March, I will have been reading the threads here for two years. Allow me one paragraph. We need to gain some rapid transit momentum here. With zero additional meaningful transit options for two generations (call that 30 years - if you grow up with it, and take it through high school the pattern is set), the car has been the only practical choice for much getting around.
The logjam has been broken - 8.6 km of subway helps. Nineteen km of Eglinton helps more. The concept of a network needs to be built out - and the populace has to see it in practice. Although there has been a subway for 60 years, there has been little more than a rudimentary hub and spoke structure. The very first meaningful network piece is Eglinton. The integration of GO to the TTC with a co-fare in 2018 is huge. As is the coming ability to access GO rail in a place other than Union station - nowithstanding Danforth and Kipling which never really registered for me. Bring on Mount Dennis and Caledonia.
I think I wrote the preceding paragraphs because on its own the Spadina subway may not be considered much by some. But linked into a much stronger rapid transit and regional rail network, all of the baloney about 'failure' and 'subway to nowhere' can probably be done away with. The focus on building out the rest of the network needs to remain strong, and the timelines need to accelerate or another generation will view the car as a (the) primary transit choice when it is but one.
