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Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

Paolo said:
why does everything have 2 stop at the scarborough/pickering townline? do these clowns not know that people in pickering have to drive WEST to mccowan stn or stc, and if their lucky to find parking and then take the ttc down town to where they work? if they maybe made the ttc even going as far to port union that would be better than nothing, lots of land there to make a parking. it moves people out of the city faster, the ppl in suburbs also take transit not just ppl in toronno
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depute at the next Metrolinx meeting. Any rapid transit line extended into Pickering will be a matter for them, not Toronto/TTC. Even if it were not, Toronto taxpayers will not be happy to be left holding the bag for costs on such a project as we did the operating deficits on the Sorbara Extension into Vaughan.
 
Why would anyone want the Eglinton LRT extended to Pickering? To be useful it would have to at least Liverpool and Kingston, near the existing GO station. That's another 19 km past Kennedy! Or 30 km to Yonge.

Surely the express buses from Pickering or GO Trains would be much, much, faster. Wouldn't Pickering residents who do want to go to points on Eglinton East be better served by simply extending the Eglinton line 2.5 km to the Eglinton GO station near Eglinton and Bellamy?
 
Exactly. Pickering is far away, further than most realize. Durham in general is well served already with the GO line, though its local transit is probably the worst in the GTA.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Exactly. Pickering is far away, further than most realize. Durham in general is well served already with the GO line, though its local transit is probably the worst in the GTA.
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Having attempted to genuinely use Durham Region Transit to get places around town I can agree with that statement. The buses all run at around 30 min frequencies (except maybe during rush hour when they're 20 min) and follow an annoying tendency to loop through multiple residential side streets rather than nearly any of them follow a main road. Ugh.

As far as it goes that we Pickeringites (?) want any sort of transit access other than the GO line, I hate to break it but we're not looking for Eglinton East. We're looking for faster access to jobs in North York, and above that even YORK REGION, where hundreds of Durham Residents work and have no choice but driving to get to. GO really needs to have a serious overhaul and re-think of the 407 bus services once the 407 East opens. No more meandering through Scarborough, and no more skipping certain GO Stations in Durham Region. For me to travel from Pickering to Unionville GO Stations as I did during the Markham Jazz Festival, I had to use the GO train to backtrack all the way to Oshawa before taking the 407 bus since the infrequent branch which does reach Pickering mindlessly skips Unionville in favour of Richmond Hill Centre. The other choice would've been GO train to Union and then Stouffville bus up to Unionville.

I know also that a sizeable chunk of Durham Region residents work in Mississauga, but AD2W GO on the Milton and Kitchener lines (preferably with a Hurontario LRT) would hopefully provide a better connection in those directions.

Now that's all a little bit off topic. Closer to topic, I would also like to say that I do support an Eglinton LRT extension at least to Eglinton/Kingston, and preferably up Kingston to Morningside or Guildwood GO.
 
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Can I ask a question? I'm not from Toronto and my experience with the city is pretty low (I'm an onlooker from Kingston). Why is Durham so low profile in Toronto? People seem to always talk about Mississauga, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, etc. but nobody really talks about Pickering or Ajax. On this forum, people debate about whether the subway extensions to Vaughan or Richmond Hill are worth it (some like the idea, some against) and some people talk/fantasize about subways to Mississauga... but the idea of a subway to Pickering would just make people laugh, even though Pickering is really the same as Vaughan or Miss... it's a municipality immediately adjacent to Toronto.

I'm not trying to criticize or judge, I'm just genuinely curious about this.
 
The reason why Pickering, ajax and whitby are so low profile in Toronto is that Durham regions cities are generally very small in comparison to Mississauga Vaughan and Richmond hill plus there are very few jobs in Durham region in comparison to other cities in the region also those 3 cities that you named are all relatively close to subway lines so it simply makes a hell of alot more sense to extend them into neighboring cities that are pretty close to them anyways
 
1overcosc said:
Can I ask a question? I'm not from Toronto and my experience with the city is pretty low (I'm an onlooker from Kingston). Why is Durham so low profile in Toronto? People seem to always talk about Mississauga, Vaughan, Richmond Hill, etc. but nobody really talks about Pickering or Ajax. On this forum, people debate about whether the subway extensions to Vaughan or Richmond Hill are worth it (some like the idea, some against) and some people talk/fantasize about subways to Mississauga... but the idea of a subway to Pickering would just make people laugh, even though Pickering is really the same as Vaughan or Miss... it's a municipality immediately adjacent to Toronto.

I'm not trying to criticize or judge, I'm just genuinely curious about this.
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The reason is population. Durham region has about 600,000 people, which isn't much bigger than Halton region (a bit more than 500,000 people). In comparison, York Region has a little over a million. Peel Region is about 1.3 million.

If you look at the density statistics for the four regions;

Durham is at about 241 / km2
Halton is at 540 / km2
York is at 506 / km2
Peel is 1040 / km2
Toronto 4149 / km2

It seems simple why people laugh at the idea of a subway to Durham. It is kind of ludicrous.
 
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And for the record, I think an Eglinton Crosstown link to Eglinton GO Station would be a good idea for riders from Durham.
 
jtnathan said:
The reason why Pickering, ajax and whitby are so low profile in Toronto is that Durham regions cities are generally very small in comparison to Mississauga Vaughan and Richmond hill plus there are very few jobs in Durham region in comparison to other cities in the region also those 3 cities that you named are all relatively close to subway lines so it simply makes a hell of alot more sense to extend them into neighboring cities that are pretty close to them anyways
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Another reason is distance.

If you go to the old centre of the city for measurements - City Hall. Queen and Bay. The distance to Region of York is about 17 km. This distance to Mississauga is about 16 km. This distance to Durham (Pickering) is about 28 km. Heck, it's only 30 km to Halton (Oakville)!

I think people forget how much further Scarborough reaches, compared to Etobicoke. We're talking about extending the Danforth subway to Sheppard and McCowan - 22 km from downtown; it currently goes to Kennedy 16 km from downtown. But no one says anything about the west, where Kipling is less than 14 km from downtown. If we were to go 22 km in the west, it could meet the Cooksville GO station on Hurontario. If you went for 24 km, it would get to Square One - the same distance away as the proposed terminus of the SRT extension at Sheppard East and Markham Road!
 
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Distance is one factor, especially considering how there's a very marked physical barrier between Metro and Durham in the form of the Rouge Valley.

But from what I've seen I think the biggest factors which keep Durham on a low profile are the relative smallness of it all and, more importantly, the lack of jobs. Travelling through Durham really feels like the most suburban possible experience in the GTA (parts still feel like small-town Ontario even), and it doesn't extend far north at all - Ajax Whitby and Oshawa all transition to rural just north of Taunton Road, which is the same latitude as Steeles (keep in mind that the lake shore is far further north out here too; at the minimum further north than Lawrence). Pickering is rural mostly north of Finch even. And as for lack of jobs, that can't be underscored enough: Pickering has a smaller industrial area and a few offices, as does Ajax, and Whitby and Oshawa both have some good old-fashioned manufacturing, but by and large Durham is a series of bedroom communities. Couple these factors with extremely low density and we become pretty obscure, at least so far as transit goes.

I would also like to note that I disagree with the idea that Durham is centred around Oshawa. Whitby and Oshawa are closely tied together, being as they're older and from the same small manufacturing town stock (also more conservative and whiter), while Pickering and Ajax are quite starkly different, being developed mostly as post-war bedroom community suburbs (and accordingly more diverse as well).
 
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wopchop said:
The reason is population. Durham region has about 600,000 people, which isn't much bigger than Halton region (a bit more than 500,000 people). In comparison, York Region has a little over a million. Peel Region is about 1.3 million.

If you look at the density statistics for the four regions;

Durham is at about 241 / km2
..
Toronto 4149 / km2
..

It seems simple why people laugh at the idea of a subway to Durham. It is kind of ludicrous.
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I'm certainly not agitating for a subway to Durham, but your comparison is flawed. Durham Region is four times the size of the City of Toronto, and most of it is very much rural or small town. Those areas can be ignored for this discussion; no one is advocating for a subway to Port Perry.

The fairer comparison would be to look at the core "urbanized" area near the lake where most of the population lives. While I'm sure the density of that area still isn't equal to the city of Toronto as a whole (given the density of central Toronto), it's surely in line with other suburban areas.

Also, traditionally Durham region is focused around Oshawa, the same way the Hamilton CMA is focused around Hamilton the city. Peel, Halton and York region are more centered around Toronto.
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"Traditionally", yes, but that's hardly true any more. There are far more people headed westward in the morning than to Oshawa.
 
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Oshawa however is still a major job centre which detracts from the atypical "Toronto suburb" form that York and peel are. Oshawa contains roughly 1/2 of Durhams urban population and has well over 50% of its residents working within the region.

Durham is also the cheapest part of the GTA, and just in general is the "lowest common denominator" in the hierarchy of GTA suburbs. And this is coming from someone who lives in Durham.
 
Thanks for the response everyone, it all makes sense now.

I wonder if with the 407 extension & Pickering Airport in the works, Durham will start to grow more.

One thing that I find interesting looking at Toronto's transit plans is that there seems to be no rapid transit of any kind between Durham & York, other than through Scarborough. With Pickering Airport coming to the Durham/York border area its really starting to look like a hole in the long term transit plan.
 
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