leopetr
Active Member
Are you saying Pantalone would be higher in the polls if he had a different transit plan?
Personally, I don't think his performance has much to do with his transit plan.
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Transit City Plan
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
Are you saying Pantalone would be higher in the polls if he had a different transit plan?
Personally, I don't think his performance has much to do with his transit plan.
Dan416
Senior Member
Now there's a transit-oriented view if I ever heard one. Might as well just tell all the 905 to buy a car. Woops. They already did. And there's traffic gridlock. I'm sorry your viewpoint doesn't work. It's just status quo.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
Northwest Toronto's got some transit deficit. But then again, so does Jane and Eglinton, Don Mills and Lawrence, eastern Scarborough, and nothern Scarborough and North York. TC's proposing to give adequate at best transit to all of those areas. To be honest, I'd rather be assured that maybe 70% of everyone living near Eglinton or Sheppard take transit rather than 20% of people from all around Toronto take it. There, I said it. But that leaves space for people in northern Etobicoke to get Eglinton's type of transit in maybe 25 years (or less in SOS's plan,) and they could take regional rail or busses, or take the bus to Eglinton or Spadina subways.
Okay, I just did some quick calculations with the aide of Google maps, and it turns out that if you're at Finch and Highway 27, you're going to arrive at Eglinton West station at pretty much the exact same time whether you're taking the Finch LRT across to the Spadina Extension, or Highway 27 bus south to Highway 27 and Dixon.
Okay, I just did some quick calculations with the aide of Google maps, and it turns out that if you're at Finch and Highway 27, you're going to arrive at Eglinton West station at pretty much the exact same time whether you're taking the Finch LRT across to the Spadina Extension, or Highway 27 bus south to Highway 27 and Dixon.
Paleo
Active Member
Subways are great but ask those people if they're willing to eat 3% or more increases in property taxes to bring gold-plated service to Jane or Sheppard. Would the numbers change if people knew how much it would cost them?
kEiThZ
Superstar
Really? If we have $15 billion to build LRT, surely we have $15 billion to build subways. It's all in how you priroritize what gets built and what areas are served and how. You know that.
Nor do you have to bring the subway to Sheppard and Morningside to drastically improve commute times for Malvernites. Bringing the subway to STC chops as much as 10 mins from the average Malvernites commute. If they ever end up taking the subway upto Sheppard at McCowan or Markham, that might well knock off another 5 mins.
Ditto for the west end, Just watch how much easier commutes will be for west-enders once TYSSE is in operation.
That said, I am not necessarily advocating an all-subway or all-LRT approach. But I want people to understand the value of speed to the outer 416. They don't care about streetcars bringing TOD (to areas unlikely to see real TOD anyway). They want fast transit. I am betting you'll see that reflected in the coming election.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Yes, along with a more refreshing agenda than committing to being Miller 2.0.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
They definitely should have asked people that. I think the responses would have been surprising.
People don't mind paying higher taxes. They just like to see more tangible benefits from their higher taxes.
Take the plate tax. Most people in the inner burbs saw that as a tax on an essential: their car. Since transit isn't to the point yet where its easy to forego a car, people were upset about the tax on the car. But they would have swallowed it, had they seen substantial transit improvement or much better roads. The latter has not happened. The former effort has not been substantial all around.
But I am willing to bet that you'd easily get residents who'd be willing to take a 3% hit for a subway expansion program.
nfitz
Superstar
Really!
Last time I checked, we don't have $15 billion for LRT. It's about $8-billion (in current $) for LRT, of which about half of it is for the subway-section of the Eglinton RT line, and another $1-billion is for the SRT upgrade and grade-separated extension. The cheap Finch-like and Sheppard East-like LRT is only about $3-billion of that.
That doesn't make sense. Extending the subway from Kennedy to Scarbough Centre (SC) station can't drastically cut commute times; at best it removes the 3 minutes or so to change trains. For those boarding at McCowan the additional walk removes any gains. For those coming from north of the 401, extending the existing line north of the 401 would save more than the 3 minutes, for less $.
With outer 416, the real solution is GO, and regional express trains.
Will we? No one is promising subways to outer 416 ... other than the Spadina extension everyone is on board with (well I assume Ford is ...). I suppose there is Smitherman's short extension to Sherway ... but given how few people (especially outside of Mississauga) would use any of it, I can't see it swaying too many people. Much of the rest of Smitherman's plan brings subway to places that are not quite outer 416 that already have or are getting rapid transit (SC, Downsview, central Eglinton).
kEiThZ
Superstar
My point was that if we have money for one, we have money for the other. Be that $15 billion or $8 billion. Only the most hardened ideologue would see $8 billion only making LRT feasible, and subway too expensive.
You ever used McCowan station? It's a glorified Kiss n ride. I took the 134 for a decade. Always got off at McCowan just so I could get a seat. There's really very little walk in-traffic. And really, if you can walk to McCowan, it's not that much more to walk to STC.
Aside from which, why are we assuming that a subway station at STC would remain the current location? More than likely it would be in the parking lot between the theatre and McCowan.
As for the savings from Malvern, it cuts a lot more than the transfer. Aside from the transfer, which in most cases takes a lot more than 3 minutes, you'd be cutting out a few useless stops too (like Midland and Ellesmere). I think it's very realistic for the subway to travel from Kennedy to STC in 10 mins. That means a regular savings of between 7-10 for most people starting their journey by bussing to STC. Certainly, the savings for Malvernites are own slightly lower than what a LRT to MTC would provide. The trade-off being that the rest of northern and eastern Scarborough would benefit immensely too. And with the LRT now not terminating at Malvern, the originally projected time savings are debatable.
Well then, why'd they propose LRTs?
Rossi, Thomson and Smitherman (and maybe even Ford shortly) are committed to subway expansion. And I believe they all have plans for a BD extension to STC. So I don't understand where you get the idea that they aren't promising expansion to the outer 416. Is McCowan and Ellesmere the inner 416? Some are pledging extensions of the Yonge line. Is Yonge and Steeles the inner 416?
And if you think that a subway extension to STC would not be wildly popular in Scarborough, well, you just don't know Scarborough. The only way the popularity of this idea could be derailed is by somebody promising to build an LRT on Finch, Sheppard, Lawrence, Ellesmere and McCowan, and Markham. Otherwise, the idea that all of Scarborough is going to satisfied with an LRT on Sheppard is laughable and one on Morningside, years down the line, is laughable.
Voltz
Senior Member
Did you really not get that he was talking about transit for people heading from the outer 416 to downtown? The same trips that you say speed is important? Do you really think those trips are better served by a 30km/h so called "rocket"?
nfitz
Superstar
Uh ... we've done this, haven't we? Go back to the RGS. LRT was proposed because the predicted increase in traffic on suburban arteries will bring the city to gridlock, so we need to build a network of LRT and BRT on these arteries to keep the current transit system working.
This whole thing wasn't as much driven by the current situation, but what happens when you add 1-million people to Toronto.
Yes, I do use it ... it's a good stop if your heading to Sheridan Nurseries. The stop is the better used than Midland and Ellesmere, heck it's better used than Bessarion. But if one was to build a subway that stopped at SC, I certainly wouldn't advocate extending to McCowan.
I wouldn't have called McCowan station outer-416. Woudn't call it inner either. Besides, it already has rapid transit ... Yonge and Steeles is an odd-duck ... I suppose it's technically outer-416, but not particularily difficult to get to.
I do have a problem seeing why this would be preferable to extending rapid transit to Sheppard/Markham.
How have you managed to forget the other two LRT lines Scarborough has already been guaranteed? Eglinton from Victoria Park to Kennedy, and the SRT extension to Sheppard, and ultimately to Malvern Centre.
Scarborough seems to have come out particularily well in this project. Heck, the only line NOT serving in Scarborough is the Finch West line. I think the other parts of the city have a lot more to complain about!
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Monarch Butterfly
Superstar
Before New York built their subways starting in 1904, their city was already high density. No cars. People either walked or took an elevated railway around town. The subways were built to replace the elevated railway.
Only now is NYC building a subway that was to replace their 2nd Avenue elevated railway.
Transit City is being built to replace the buses that are currently running in lower density density areas of Toronto. With TC, the streets along they will be rezoned for medium density.
Only now is NYC building a subway that was to replace their 2nd Avenue elevated railway.
Transit City is being built to replace the buses that are currently running in lower density density areas of Toronto. With TC, the streets along they will be rezoned for medium density.
waterloowarrior
Senior Member
Note that generally only the streets the lines are on will be rezoned (based on the St. Clair Avenues rezoning), the surrounding area will stay as low density...
Rainforest
Senior Member
Not bad; but if the subway replaces SRT and is extended one stop north of STC to Sheppard / McCowan, the network will arguably be better than with SRT extension:
1) Most of people who currently take bus to SRT to subway, will have one transfer removed.
2) Sheppard / Markham Rd. stop would be within an easy reach from subway by SELRT. Moreover, a surface branch of that LRT to Malvern Centre can be built, and it would be cheaper than the grade-separated extension of SLRT.
3) People who board SELRT between Midland and McCowan get easy access to both subway and STC. With the SLRT extension configuration, they would have to backtrack to Markham Rd., or use a bus.
4) Bus routes from Sheppard / McCowan subway terminus can serve northern Scarborough and parts of Markham better than from Sheppard / Markham Rd. SLRT station.
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nfitz
Superstar
It would be ... but it adds about $1-billion to the cost in current dollars over what they are planning to spend to upgrade the existing RT and extend it to Sheppard and Markham. Is it the responsible thing for $1-billion where service demands can be met with LRT? We could build about 14 km of LRT for that ... from Steeles/Markham to Kennedy Station ... or from Leslie to Kingston Road on Lawrence. Or we could build a piece of the DRL from Danforth to Thornecliffe Park.
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