Transit City Plan

[scarberiankhatru]

Again, I encourage people to actually read posts before responding to them. Try it, it's enlightening!

I'm not talking about building a BRT or LRT line along Hwy 2 in Durham...Durham can build whatever it wants and Hwy 2 is probably as good a place as any for a line. I'm talking about these vacuous statements about the need to connect the suburbs and change behaviour and how the needs of theoretical riders in Durham are partially dictating what gets done to the Sheppard corridor, where real and potential riders already exist. The only thing a Sheppard-Durham LRT would do is cost an obscene amount of money and compete for the same riders that would use existing GO bus and train services. Only it wouldn't compete, since the GO trains and buses would be much faster and would directly serve destinations like downtown, STC, or UTSC. I doubt there's a single person in Durham Region that would benefit from a one-seat ride to Fairview Mall. For that matter, there's nothing along Kingston Road in Scarborough that would generate trips from Durham. Existing ridership for a Sheppard-Durham line is zero because no service currently exists...of course, ridership really isn't zero since GO buses already ply these routes and will continue to do so.

Extending Sheppard into Durham would serve no purpose - and no riders, either. On the other hand, extending a Hwy 2 line into Toronto would be just as useless. Where would it go? Rouge Hill? Along Sheppard? Along Ellesmere? Why should a fortune be spent on such a line when GO trains and buses already serve these long distance markets? Must the need to play connect the dots always trump common sense? There aren't and never will be 5000 people an hour travelling between Altona and Meadowvale.

edit - I suggested a local service bus between south Pickering and Rouge Hill GO station, or perhaps along Kingston from Durham to UTSC. Yes, RR191, that will cut it. We can even double capacity and run buses every 10 minutes, or slash travel time by running them as Rocket/express routes. Convenient that you're ignoring all other existing and proposed GO bus and train service. The degree of permanance of transit has a negligible effect on development compared to rezoning. Maybe DavidH is deeply concerned about the several thousand Pickering residents that may not benefit much from GO improvements and might actually ride a busway through the Rouge Park...fine, but why does everyone insist every suburban transit rider deserves a "rapid transit" option before local service - let alone decent local service - exists? Most of the 416 will see no rapid transit improvements even after MoveOntario/Metrolinx is done, but every last 905er, every last subdivision (I say last even though said subdivisions aren't built yet) must have multiple rapid transit options to take them to every possible point in the GTA? I guess I'm the only one who sees the absurdity in this. How about we add some decent feeder bus routes in Durham to take people to GO nodes? They'd have to ride icky regular buses for a few minutes but they'd save half an hour of travel time overall!

 

[DavidH]

Maybe DavidH is deeply concerned about the several thousand Pickering residents that may not benefit much from GO improvements and might actually ride a busway through the Rouge Park...fine, but why does everyone insist every suburban transit rider deserves a "rapid transit" option before local service - let alone decent local service - exists?

Hey, don't put words in my mouth. I've never advocated for a route through Rouge Park. I've been very clear that the only short-term 416/Durham cross border route that makes sense is the Highway 2 BRT, and that will be a direct replacement for the GO bus services you keep mentioning. All that's happening here in the short term is that the GO service is being handed over to DRT, with some signal priority and stop improvements along Highway 2. Given that the service is primarily a local one, I see no reason why it should not be a DRT operation.

GO Train enhancements are critical, but unless getting Durham riders to the Scarborough GO Stations counts as improved connectivity compared to getting them to STC, we need the 401 corridor route as well.

We don't need an LRT through the Rouge area, although I suspect that in the long term a local route connecting Highway 2 to the Sheppard East LRT will be very useful - but that doesn't need any infastructure enhancements.

I suggested a local service bus between south Pickering and Rouge Hill GO station, or perhaps along Kingston from Durham to UTSC. Yes, RR191, that will cut it. We can even double capacity and run buses every 10 minutes, or slash travel time by running them as Rocket/express routes.

This route already exists, although it only runs during rush hour. It needs to be beefed up. The UTSC route is likely to come in the next year or two - if DRT sticks with their plans expressed last year, it should be there in the 2009 service plan to be unveiled next month.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Hey, don't put words in my mouth. I've never advocated for a route through Rouge Park. I've been very clear that the only short-term 416/Durham cross border route that makes sense is the Highway 2 BRT, and that will be a direct replacement for the GO bus services you keep mentioning. All that's happening here in the short term is that the GO service is being handed over to DRT, with some signal priority and stop improvements along Highway 2. Given that the service is primarily a local one, I see no reason why it should not be a DRT operation.

GO Train enhancements are critical, but unless getting Durham riders to the Scarborough GO Stations counts as improved connectivity compared to getting them to STC, we need the 401 corridor route as well.

We don't need an LRT through the Rouge area, although I suspect that in the long term a local route connecting Highway 2 to the Sheppard East LRT will be very useful - but that doesn't need any infastructure enhancements.


This route already exists, although it only runs during rush hour. It needs to be beefed up. The UTSC route is likely to come in the next year or two - if DRT sticks with their plans expressed last year, it should be there in the 2009 service plan to be unveiled next month.

A Kingston LRT/BRT combined with a line in the 416 like Sheppard or Kingston or Ellesmere would run through Rouge Park, too...not for a long distance, mind you, but the point was that it would be a very long and expensive line that duplicates existing (and scheduled to be improved) service, would take forever to get anywhere, and offers a connection that looks good as a planning arrow but solves no real transit problem, helping no one get anywhere they need to go.

The only people for whom this is really an issue is some people in Pickering. You insisted that I was "abandoning" 600,000 people by saying GO trains and buses are good enough for Durham-416 connections, but for virtually everyone in Durham, taking a GO bus or GO train for the bulk of their trip would be, by far, the fastest way to get to any point in the 416. With, for example, buses straight along the 401 to STC or trains to Eglinton station, what else would possibly be used by more than a dozen people per day that can't be handled by local service like that rush hour route to Rouge Hill station?

Your words were that GO trains and GO buses (and if DRT takes over and improves a GO bus route, it's still a GO bus route...that's kind of what I'm getting at by repeatedly mentioning "improved" GO bus routes) were not good enough for handling the Durham-416 demand and that additional transit lines serving mid-range trips were needed. Where else could new lines go...bus lanes to Durham on Kingston and the 401? That's just the kind of overlapping transit infrastructure that isn't needed.

 

[Whoaccio]

Must be a blue moon, the G&M has an editorial opining on the glories of modern tram transit.

Rethinking the need for speed

DAVID BEERS

From Monday's Globe and Mail

December 15, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST

Humanity is threatened by a global-warming crisis. Canada, facing the crisis of global financial meltdown, is looking for ways to keep people working. The time is ripe, it seems, for an era of massive, green public-works projects.

Projects like a 12-kilometre SkyTrain subway line connecting Vancouver to the University of British Columbia.

Imagine that train packed with smiling, eco-guilt-free students zipping on and off their secluded campus by the sea. The UBC subway line, which would run through the heart of the city, is already on the drawing board, slated for 2020. Provincial and Vancouver political leaders have voiced their enthusiasm. The price tag is set at $2.8-billion.

Well, hold on there. Patrick Condon, senior researcher at the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC, has run further numbers and believes he has a more sensible plan.

Instead of building that train, you could give every new UBC undergrad the keys to their very own Prius automobile. Year after year. Forever.

That's right. As Prof. Condon calculates in a new study, you'd start by putting the $2.8-billion price of the train into a trust that earns 6-per-cent interest. That would generate $168-million a year - about enough to give every full-time undergrad entering UBC a basic $25,000 hybrid vehicle. (No leather seats - we're in crisis mode, you know.) Now wouldn't the planet - not to mention UBC's recruitment officers - like that approach more than just one measly new subway line?

If your head is whirling, Patrick Condon has achieved his aim.

"We as a society are trying to stave off dual crises of environmental collapse and economic collapse," Prof. Condon says. "That means our cities have to run a lot more efficiently. In fact, we need a new order of economic and energy efficiency in order to compete and stay alive. If we blow the big decisions in the next handful of years, we will seriously cripple our ability to adapt. We have to get it right."

Actually, for Prof. Condon, getting transit right does not mean giving away Prius vehicles to 18-year-olds.

Nor, however, does it mean further funding the Cadillac of public transit, Vancouver's SkyTrain.

Prof. Condon strongly advocates a third approach - street-level trams on rails - as the most eco-friendly and cost-efficient way to move people within urbanized regions, such as Vancouver.

He comes to that conclusion in his study "A Cost Comparison of Transportation Modes," co-authored with Kari Dow, a master's student in landscape architecture at UBC. The modes compared include the modern tram (rail vehicles operating on existing right-of-ways); light rail transit (operating on separate right-of-ways); the heavier, automated SkyTrain (a mostly elevated rapid-rail transit system); the electric trolley bus; longer and shorter diesel buses; the Prius hybrid car; and the Ford Explorer SUV.

When Prof. Condon and Ms. Dow measured each for economic and environmental efficiency, they produced some surprising comparisons.

For energy use and cost per passenger mile, the tram and LRT bested the rest. Put four people in a Prius, though, and it's only a bit worse than a loaded diesel bus.

Carbon output? The tram, trolley bus, SkyTrain and LRT all run on electricity, so their outputs were vastly lower than the diesel buses and autos, especially given B.C.'s hydro power.

But here's the zinger: Add up all costs for each form of transportation - capital, operating and energy - and guess which is most expensive per passenger mile? SkyTrain — even more than the gas-hogging SUV and nearly twice the winner, which is - you guessed it - the tram.

In a previous study, Prof. Condon's team created a map showing that for the same cost, you could have the single UBC subway line or dozens of tram lines running all over the region. They noted that in Portland, Ore., trams have enlivened neighbourhoods, bringing a rise in property values.

So why would super-efficient trams still be a hard sell? Speed. SkyTrain will whisk you across town, or across the region, nearly twice as fast as the tram.

But Prof. Condon says we're missing the point. As dual crises force us to adapt, we'll have to let go of something. Let it be our dream of effortless speed. The Space Age is passé. Take it easy and learn to enjoy the practical, if pokey, ride. Value connectedness, democracy, the way that trams, by costing less, can place public transit within walking distance of far more people. Instead of building bullet trains, use land intelligently, "so people already are close to where they want to go."

Prof. Condon's study starts a needed conversation as leaders rush to promise change, big and green, in scary times. U.S. president-elect Barack Obama's massive stimulus package could produce myriad smart, appropriate fixes.

Or if wrong, it truly could be the last great American boondoggle.

Here in Canada, we need people, like Prof. Condon, who prod us to think more deeply about how best to seize the opportunities that crises provide.

I disagree with almost every point (people's time isn't valuable all of a sudden?) but I will just remark how the 'grass is always greener on the other side.' Here we are panting for their swanky new Canada Line, and there they are going on about how trams are the way of the future. I'm also surprised he specificly referred to trams like Toronto's, mixed street operations. Normally people try to use the mini-metro like LRT systems as poster boys for LRT, not glorified buses. And what is it with streetcar fetishists and the Portland Streetcar? Its almost as if no one cares it has ridership lower than any number of low use bus routes in Toronto and has an abysmal cost recovery.

 

[hkric88]

I disagree with almost every point (people's time isn't valuable all of a sudden?) but I will just remark how the 'grass is always greener on the other side.' Here we are panting for their swanky new Canada Line, and there they are going on about how trams are the way of the future. I'm also surprised he specifically referred to trams like Toronto's, mixed street operations. Normally people try to use the mini-metro like LRT systems as poster boys for LRT, not glorified buses. And what is it with streetcar fetishists and the Portland Streetcar? Its almost as if no one cares it has ridership lower than any number of low use bus routes in Toronto and has an abysmal cost recovery.

You said it just right: STREETCAR FETISHISTS. It's what I've always been saying. People who actually want to use transit to get places (the people we SHOULD be caring about) want three things primarily: 1. To get there fast, 2. to not have to wait long; and 3. to do so comfortably. Streetcars, especially those operating in mixed traffic, consistently offer NONE of these things. Even the proposed transit city system will offer some combination of these factors only some of the time.

1. To get there fast:
A. You have a driver who feels he is in no rush, because he's not going anywhere really, so whatever, and drives at a swift jogging pace.
B. You have to stop for traffic lights.. way too often
C. Stops are way too close for anything else than short local trips
C-1: When will people learn that live-work is a utopian fantasy and will NEVER happen at a level which justifies local-only based transit systems.

2. To not have to wait too long
A. See A above.
B. See B above
C. See C above
D. Mixed traffic operations are always a pain in the ass: Performance of service degrades in-step with demand, since demand rises during peak periods, so does traffic, and so does traffic based delays

3. To do so comfortably
A. See 2. waiting too long
B. Waiting outside in shelters designed by architects who honestly believe either A. we live in England or B. every day is ALWAYS sunny and 22.5 degrees, with a mild southerly breeze not to exceed 10 km/h.
C. Because of constant stop and start, and electric traction, the ride can be very jerky, if your standing, it can be very uncomfortable.
D. See section 1. Wasting your day to get somewhere that would have taken not even half the time by subway, or (god forbid) REAL LRT.
E. Tiny vehicles that cannot accommodate demand mean two things: Over-crowding, and delays, both which lead to additional discomfort.

And I can hear steve munro's whiny blog in my head 'but subway is SOOOOO EXPENSIVE' yea well, suck it up, because subways work. That's the bottom line. they work. they work really well. we need more of them. That is the truth of the matter.

People like him are too old and too out of touch with reality, they are insecure and afraid that they might not to experience the rush of riding on their fantasy transit system of useless streetcars everywhere. They know their life is coming to an end, and anything but 'LRT' (streetcar) would take too long to build, and they wouldn't get to see it finished.

BOO HOO

 

[ShonTron]

Must be a blue moon, the G&M has an editorial opining on the glories of modern tram transit.


I disagree with almost every point (people's time isn't valuable all of a sudden?) but I will just remark how the 'grass is always greener on the other side.' Here we are panting for their swanky new Canada Line, and there they are going on about how trams are the way of the future. I'm also surprised he specificly referred to trams like Toronto's, mixed street operations. Normally people try to use the mini-metro like LRT systems as poster boys for LRT, not glorified buses. And what is it with streetcar fetishists and the Portland Streetcar? Its almost as if no one cares it has ridership lower than any number of low use bus routes in Toronto and has an abysmal cost recovery.

It's an op-ed, not an editorial (the G&M has a pro-intercity rail editorial today though), and yeah, it's ridiculous. It comes out of the downtowner school of transportation planning, where people shall not live too far from their place of work, and students must live on the Endowment Lands or Point Grey. Staff, including janitors, are expected to live in Arbutus or Shaughnessy.

I am sure the author was referring to the Portland MAX LRT, not the streetcar, but could have used Calgary or Edmonton as well if he was thinking of real light rail. The provincial government has already committed to long-term Skytrain technology for Broadway from VCC west, he's a bit late coming out of the gate.

HKRIC: Feel free to criticse Munro's positions, but his opinions and thoughts are far more nuanced than the real LRT 'fan-boys'. He has said that DRL will likely have to be built as a heavy-rail subway, and has been critical even of how Transit City is being planned (Jane in particular), which did come from a somewhat different proposal that Munro developed a little while ago. Your language and tone in the last two paragraphs is not constructive and weakens your arguments. I suggest reading his blog properly. I certainly do not agree with some of his viewpoints, particuarly some of the LRT promotion, but he is worthy of respect.

 

[Hipster Duck]

You said it just right: STREETCAR FETISHISTS.

I prefer the term "streetcar evangelist". You see, streetcars were born, they were killed by a bunch of conspirators in the 1950s, at which point they ascended to transit heaven in the minds of foamers and were resurrected in cities like Portland and Seattle. They are also known to perform miracles, like allowing urbanity to blossom amid the dead wastes of suburbia.

 

[BMO]

I prefer the term "streetcar evangelist". You see, streetcars were born, they were killed by a bunch of conspirators in the 1950s, at which point they ascended to transit heaven in the minds of foamers and were resurrected in cities like Portland and Seattle. They are also known to perform miracles, like allowing urbanity to blossom amid the dead wastes of suburbia.

lmfao amen, thanks be to Bombardier

 

[ShonTron]

There's an illegal billboard at 150 Bridgeland (facing the 401) currently displaying an ad for Transit City!

 

[Dan416]

lmfao amen, thanks be to Bombardier

Except Bombardier wins whether we build LRT, SRT or subway. We buy everything from them.

As for the article, I think it's a load of crap. Speed and frequency are transit riders top needs. Not the methods' carbon emissions.

 

[jswag]

Re: the Sheppard arrow to Durham.

It's nothing more than politics. Pure politics. If you've seen a Metrolinx board meeting then you know.

 

[DavidH]

Re: the Sheppard arrow to Durham.
It's nothing more than politics. Pure politics. If you've seen a Metrolinx board meeting then you know.

Bingo.

Nowhere does a firm plan to extend Sheppard into Durham get mentioned anywhere in the RTP, nor is it mentioned in the Sheppard BCA list of options. It's not happening.

DRT may want to give consideration to running a connection to the Sheppard LRT at Morningside once it's built, but that's their responsibility. There is no need to extend the LRT into Durham, given that the choice connection points for the Durham Hwy 2 BRT will be either STC or Kennedy Station - the latter makes no sense to me but it keeps showing up as an option.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Re: the Sheppard arrow to Durham.

It's nothing more than politics. Pure politics. If you've seen a Metrolinx board meeting then you know.

Yes, everyone knows that it has not been seriously proposed. However, I'm not looking at it from the perspective of regional transit needs but from the perspective of Toronto's need to justify a $9B LRT plan: the arrow has been presented as a real benefit of the Sheppard LRT, as a feature (connect the suburban dots) of what an LRT line can do cheaper than what a Sheppard subway extension can. "Cheaper" being a relative term, though, since no one has ever proposed a $9B subway plan.

Of course, Metrolinx has also proposed running Steeles and Dundas rapid transit lines beyond the suburban fringe and through kilometres of greenbelt, so anything's possible...we'll have to wait until 2025 or later to find out which projects are "for political purposes only" and which projects are "actually gonna get built." With so much money being tossed around it's almost assured that a few political lines will get built.

Rapid transit: coming to a farm near you!

 

[Whoaccio]

Rapid transit: coming to a farm near you!

Low income cows may turn to gangs if we don't bring them LRT, don't ya know

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Low income cows may turn to gangs if we don't bring them LRT, don't ya know

But gang violence will turn cows into burgers, so I hope the farms never get LRT. Mmm, burgers...