Miller will not be running for Mayor, How will this affect Public Transit?

[gweed123]

I was gonna say that you don't even have to widen the road .

In some places along Eglinton, you're right. Imagine that, BRT for the cost of a few buckets of paint.

Having grown up in Ottawa, I've seen the advantages and the disadavantages of BRT. In the more suburban areas of Ottawa, it works great. Woodroffe Ave south of Baseline has dedicated lane BRT for about a 2km stretch, and it's in several other places in the city. The main reason why BRT is being phased out in Ottawa is the limitations of the at-grade portion through downtown.

A definite advantage of BRT which you don't get with LRT is the ability for other bus routes to use the dedicated bus lanes for part of the route. This would be useful on Eglinton, which has several bus routes running on it. No doubt that Eglinton-Don Mills and Eglinton Flats stations would become pretty significant bus hubs, and these lanes might be useful for feeder routes on their way to the stations.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

But hey, that got us Sheppard and TYSSE! According to some, any subway is better than none because we haven't got enough!

If by some, you mean virtually everybody in the city, then you are correct.

 

[Paleo]

If by some, you mean virtually everybody in the city, then you are correct.

If the choice is to build subways that will be operational black holes that suck up hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 20-30 years and doing nothing, I'd rather sit and wait for something more sensible to come along.

This is one issue that the build subways everywhere crowd routinely glosses over and ignores.

 

[Ansem]

If the choice is to build subways that will be operational black holes that suck up hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 20-30 years and doing nothing, I'd rather sit and wait for something more sensible to come along.

This is one issue that the build subways everywhere crowd routinely glosses over and ignores.

DRL
Sheppard
Eglinton

is the least a city like Toronto needs. Our subway network is embarassing for a 1st class city...

 

[kEiThZ]

If the choice is to build subways that will be operational black holes that suck up hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 20-30 years and doing nothing, I'd rather sit and wait for something more sensible to come along.

This is one issue that the build subways everywhere crowd routinely glosses over and ignores.

Sheppard only has such low ridership because it wasn't finished as planned. The ridership curve for that line is logarithmic. The closer you get to the end, the larger and larger the ridership base gets. It's when we build 5 stop stubs that they become money pits....and even that's a rather poor choice of words because Sheppard is starting to show returns.

But why would you think the LRTs would be any different? Do you really believe that so many people would choose the SM LRT?

I really believe this whole comparison is a setup. The subways are setup to fail by the rather artificial thresholds the TTC employs. It then turns around and sets the bar ridiculously low for LRT. By the TTCs definition if the LRTs merely carry as many riders as the buses handle now, it's a success. If you look at it from another perspective: would you define spending a billion bucks to save less than 10 million or so a year in operating costs a success?

 

[Ansem]

Anyone thinking people will give up their cars for a glorified streetcar are dreaming on ACID....

A subway on Sheppard would make drivers leave their cars to take it,

York Routes would have faster access to Sheppard subway istead of going to Finch Station.

Drivers from Markam could drive to sheppard and park their cars and take the subway to Scarborough Center and take the B-D to downtown or take the Sheppard line to NYCC instead of driving on Yonge Street.

The Go train at agincourt would see many commuters that would take their cars to york at NYCC use the subway to go to work or go the Spadina line if they work in the University avenue area instead of overcrowding the Yonge line.

no one can seriously think that a ''glorified streetcar'' will draw as much.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

If the choice is to build subways that will be operational black holes that suck up hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 20-30 years and doing nothing, I'd rather sit and wait for something more sensible to come along.

This is one issue that the build subways everywhere crowd routinely glosses over and ignores.

Yeah, as if surface routes don't lose a ton of money...

There is no 'build subways everywhere' crowd - but there is a 'build subways nowhere' crowd and a 'build LRT everywhere' crowd.

 

[Ed Drass]

Build abolutely nothing anywhere near anybody

There is no 'build subways everywhere' crowd - but there is a 'build subways nowhere' crowd and a 'build LRT everywhere' crowd.

There are a few mode purists -- monorail uber alles!! -- but everybody else will consider a spectrum of technologies, even if it is skewed to 5%, 5% and 90%. However, does it not often appear that promoting a mode that one feels is overlooked helps create an image of 'build X only'? And so, TC bashers who rarely mention the LRT lines they do support (since others are promoting that mode already...) may appear subway-only.
Ditto, many supporters of TC.

If fiscal situations were different, I would probably push for more subway in my preferred mix. There is plenty of overlap in ridership requirements of various modes.

My reading of political and popular trends makes me much more tolerant of street LRT. Measuring ridership may be difficult, but measuring political support for technology choices, and the costs associated, is even trickier. Without detailed polls, it's much conjecture. For a hint at the meeting point of vision and reality, one must observe the politicians and power brokers who get stuff built, no?

 

[Dan416]

There are a few mode purists -- monorail uber alles!! -- but everybody else will consider a spectrum of technologies, even if it is skewed to 5%, 5% and 90%. However, does it not often appear that promoting a mode that one feels is overlooked helps create an image of 'build X only'? And so, TC bashers who rarely mention the LRT lines they do support (since others are promoting that mode already...) may appear subway-only.
Ditto, many supporters of TC.

If fiscal situations were different, I would probably push for more subway in my preferred mix. There is plenty of overlap in ridership requirements of various modes.

My reading of political and popular trends makes me much more tolerant of street LRT. Measuring ridership may be difficult, but measuring political support for technology choices, and the costs associated, is even trickier. Without detailed polls, it's much conjecture. For a hint at the meeting point of vision and reality, one must observe the politicians and power brokers who get stuff built, no?

I don't think you can ignore the reality of what is built already, which is what's happening on Sheppard East. We're not choosing a technology for a corridor. We're turning a subway into a stub by changing our minds after over a billion dollars has already been spent. That's a poor use of funds. That's why I'll settle (yes, SETTLE) for LRT on Eglinton, even though I think it needs subway more than Sheppard does (although ridership on these two subway corridors is hard to guage with all the politics involved). I was very anti-Sheppard when Harris cancelled Eglinton. Eglinton would have come a lot closer to Mississauga after all. When do I go to North York? Never, really. And Mississauga and North York were kind of in competition back when NY was a city. But those petty days are over. I wouldn't cut off the nose to spite the face (or whatever the phrase is), which is what is happening on Sheppard right now. You can't run a subway for a few stops, and then run LRTs, and then have buses. That's ridiculous.

 

[GenerationW]

Can you elaborate on this?

It's not mentioned in the literature they handed out at the summer open houses (I went twice) that the tunnels would also be able to handle subways, and when I asked a TTC engineer at one open house if the Jane-Leslie LRT tunnel would be subway compatible, he paused and said he wasn't sure.

Am I making too much of this or are they up to something?

 

[Paleo]

Yeah, as if surface routes don't lose a ton of money...

The current estimate is for a subsidy of $14.2 million annually to run near empty trains along an 8.6km extension for Spadina. How long do we wait for the area around York and Vaughan to intensify to the point where the system can sustain itself? 20 years? 30 years? 40 years?

This is the same trap as Sheppard. Now Sheppard won't ever be as bad as Vaughan because North York, while sprawling, isn't Vaughan-bad. Still, it has needed subsidies since inception (what is it? $10M a year now?). Will the neighbourhoods to the north and south of Sheppard ever intensify? 30 years from now maybe?

You can run a lot of new bus service with that sort of money (some of it could even be express!) and you wouldn't need billions in capital spending for the privilege to do it.

I mean if you're going to propose going to the highest order of urban transit for a corridor, don't you want to at the very least ensure that there's enough ridership so that the subway service doesn't lose more money than the deprecated bus service could ever dream of?

 

[kEiThZ]

Before talking about subsidies and subway ridership numbers, have a look at the methodology of how they calculate that stuff.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Before talking about subsidies and subway ridership numbers, have a look at the methodology of how they calculate that stuff.

Also, Paleo could look at the number of riders being subsidized and not the lengths of lines on a map being subsidized. Or, he could list the losses of surface routes for comparison...routes that all move far fewer people than the Spadina extension will. If reliable numbers can be found, that is.

How much money would the Sheppard bus lose if the subway stopped running? You'd need at least a bus a minute to move the crowds and, what, 80 buses for the whole route? 100? Maybe 120 once you factor in crippling traffic above where the subway runs. Though you might contain losses because some people would stop taking transit...wouldn't that be good for the city.

Every line loses money. If we did nothing other than minimize losses, we'd probably have to cancel routes like Steeles East or the Queen streetcar or the airport Rocket. The subways like Yonge are only 'profitable' because they are 'subsidized' by money-losing surface routes that fill them with riders.

 

[nfitz]

No choice after Metrolinx moved it up in priority. Let's see if anything comes out of it. ("a Downtown Relief Line (DRL) Subway [which would cost, by Metrolinx’s estimates about $2 Billion for a route from Pape to downtown via Queen Street] was downplayed and seen as only a “last resort” option by TTC staffers")

What are you talking about? Metrolinx didn't put the DRL in the 15-year time-frame in their final report. The City of Toronto then passed a motion earlier this year asking them to move it up in priority; but I've seen no indication that they have moved it up.

 

[kEiThZ]

^ Sure. But several accounts suggest the only reason it ended up in the 25 year plan in the first place was because Toronto's politicians were not warm to the idea.