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2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Mayoral Race

the lemur said:
It won't, no. And yet they wouldn't bring that up if they were offered bus service where no transit existed before. I think Soknacki has a chance at winning people over to LRT if he can emphasize that it's achievable within a shorter timeframe at a lower cost and will still be an improvement over bus service in terms of frequency and capacity. But he needs to get in people's faces more. He's just not on the radar for some voters.

Tory doesn't seem committed to LRT in any meaningful way and it's easy to imagine him ignoring it altogether if elected. Ford is similarly hell-bent on 'subway or nothing', but it's no big deal to him if the result ends up being that 'nothing' or if he spends years dangling the prospect of a subway in front of his supporters. Sorry, folks: I tried, it can't be done, the lefty elites got in the way.
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Ridiculous article on Toronto Star:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/edit..._in_subways_at_tremendous_cost_editorial.html

Toronto has "overinvested" in subways? Seriously? 3 of our 4 subway lines are severely overcrowded. The other one, Sheppard was only half built but has population densities comparable to Yonge/Eglinton along it and there are massive car traffic jams in rush hour due to condo residents driving instead of using the subway. Even it can be overcrowded in rush hour now though it runs short trains every 5 minutes. And now Toronto is building an outrageously expensive LRT line on Eglinton (the tunnel costs as much as a subway, has 1/3 of the capacity). We have severely underinvested in subways, not overinvested in them. Vancouver is the only city that has built significant numbers of subways recently, mostly by building elevated rail everywhere, and Ottawa/Calgary are much smaller cities that are not at all comparable.

Also they do not count commuter rail as "rapid transit", probably because Canada doesn't have any high frequency commuter rail yet, but Toronto will have several hundred km of it if Metrolinx proposals go ahead as planned.
 
Actually no, only one line is severely overcrowded and it's the Yonge line. Toronto has overinvested in subways where the need/density/development patterns doesn't justify the investment.

The comment regarding the Eglinton line is also a bit misleading - to paraphrase, it's like arguing that Yonge can only handle 12500 pphpd because you are running 4 car trains even though the tunnel and the station can deal with double the load.

AoD
 
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the lemur said:
It won't, no. And yet they wouldn't bring that up if they were offered bus service where no transit existed before.......
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My sneaking suspicion is many of this "subway or nothing" rhetoric is from people who, like RoFo, get around by car and rarely if ever use transit. As far as they are concerned, it wouldn't bother them if nothing ever gets built while conveniently ignoring the fact that grid lock will get worse and worse. Short sighted to the max.
 
adma said:
If anything *could* kill Parker, it's the Redway Road extension proposal...but it seems rather low-intensity at the moment.

To repeat: I wouldn't put a lot of weight behind Parker's thus-far mediocre elected mandates as a barometer for whatever happens to him. And come to think of it, I'm not so bullish as Greg Banks re a lot of the "likely" winners and defeats that he's offering...
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Let's go over to the Councillors race thread to further discuss rather than pollute this one....
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Actually no, only one line is severely overcrowded and it's the Yonge line. Toronto has overinvested in subways where the need/density/development patterns doesn't justify the investment.

The comment regarding the Eglinton line is also a bit misleading - to paraphrase, it's like arguing that Yonge can only handle 12500 pphpd because you are running 4 car trains even though the tunnel and the station can deal with double the load.

AoD
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The Bloor line and SRT would certainly qualify as severely overcrowded much of the time. To say otherwise seems ridiculous to me.

Sheppard is certainly not "severely" overcrowded but it certainly can sometimes be standing room only at the height of rush hour, and I was in the end car the last time I used it. Have you noticed how many condos are being built there? The roads in that area (401 and Sheppard Avenue) definitely are severely over capacity in rush hour.
 
the lemur said:
It won't, no. And yet they wouldn't bring that up if they were offered bus service where no transit existed before. I think Soknacki has a chance at winning people over to LRT if he can emphasize that it's achievable within a shorter timeframe at a lower cost and will still be an improvement over bus service in terms of frequency and capacity. But he needs to get in people's faces more. He's just not on the radar for some voters.

Tory doesn't seem committed to LRT in any meaningful way and it's easy to imagine him ignoring it altogether if elected. Ford is similarly hell-bent on 'subway or nothing', but it's no big deal to him if the result ends up being that 'nothing' or if he spends years dangling the prospect of a subway in front of his supporters. Sorry, folks: I tried, it can't be done, the lefty elites got in the way.
Click to expand...
Of course they would not, because buses have wheels and don't take up or eliminate lanes according to them. I think you're right about Soknacki, especially, since really, we don't have any LRT's running yet (Sheppard was supposed to be up this year.) I also agree about Ford and Tory but I think John could care less if they are built or not. If Ford gets back in there is a very real chance the Sheppard subway could come back, and after that who knows.
 
andrewpmk said:
The Bloor line and SRT would certainly qualify as severely overcrowded much of the time. To say otherwise seems ridiculous to me.

Sheppard is certainly not "severely" overcrowded but it certainly can sometimes be standing room only at the height of rush hour, and I was in the end car the last time I used it. Have you noticed how many condos are being built there? The roads in that area (401 and Sheppard Avenue) definitely are severely over capacity in rush hour.
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Sheppard appears overcrowded because the frequency is so low which allows much more time for Sheppard passengers to gather and wait at stations. (and even then, stations like Bessarion are still ghost towns)

Sheppard's frequency is so low because it's ridership itself is so low that it doesn't warrant any higher frequency.

Also I would critique the condos sentiment. Most ridership comes from connecting bus routes, not from condos. And those condos on Sheppard are next to the biggest highway in North America, how many of those condo-dwellers drive to work?
 
WislaHD said:
Sheppard appears overcrowded because the frequency is so low which allows much more time for Sheppard passengers to gather and wait at stations. (and even then, stations like Bessarion are still ghost towns)

Sheppard's frequency is so low because it's ridership itself is so low that it doesn't warrant any higher frequency.

Also I would critique the condos sentiment. Most ridership comes from connecting bus routes, not from condos. And those condos on Sheppard are next to the biggest highway in North America, how many of those condo-dwellers drive to work?
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The trains on 4 Sheppard run 5-6 minutes, everyday, all day, using 4-car trains. On both 1 Yonge-University-Spadina and 2 Bloor-Danforth, they run 2-3 minutes during the rush hours and 4-5 minutes outside the rush hours, using 6-car trains.

Should the 4 Sheppard get too crowded (insert laughter here), they have two options. One: increase frequency during the rush hours. Two: add two more car to make them 6-car trains.
 
andrewpmk said:
The Bloor line and SRT would certainly qualify as severely overcrowded much of the time. To say otherwise seems ridiculous to me.

Sheppard is certainly not "severely" overcrowded but it certainly can sometimes be standing room only at the height of rush hour, and I was in the end car the last time I used it. Have you noticed how many condos are being built there? The roads in that area (401 and Sheppard Avenue) definitely are severely over capacity in rush hour.
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Andrew, you're completely off the mark wrt Bloor. I got on at Woodbine, therefore after the SRT 'influx', and it was never full, even during rush hour. Only Yonge is crazy full. I used to skip Yonge and change St. George to St. Andrew as it was a longer walk but quicker trip.
 
Greg Banks said:
Let's go over to the Councillors race thread to further discuss rather than pollute this one....
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And speaking of polluting this thread, I'd recommend that the heavy-duty transit talk be taken over to the Transportation forum...
 
Sarah Thomson drops out of mayoral race


From this link:

Sarah Thomson will run for a councillor seat in Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) and wants to see Rob Ford defeated.

Two-time mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson is again dropping out of the race ahead of election day.

She will instead join a crowded race for a council seat in Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) where 27 people are already on the ballot.

“We all have to come together as a city and stop Rob Ford (Open Rob Ford’s policard) from getting in,†Thomson told reporters at city hall Tuesday. She acknowledged she didn’t have a chance to win with polls showering her trailing at 1 per cent of the vote or less.

In 2010, Thomson also withdrew from the race a month before the vote and instead backed Ford’s main competition George Smitherman. Still technically on the ballot, she received 1,883 votes in that race.

The newly signed-up councillor candidate has run in Trinity-Spadina before for the Liberals in the 2011 provincial election. She lost that race by just 1,139 votes to long-time incumbent Rosario Marchese.

Since then Thomson has made news for a variety of stunts, like riding a white horse into the annual Ford Fest BBQ. Last year, she claimed Ford grabbed her butt at a downtown event in what became a prolonged scandal that the mayor denied.

Thomson said she isn’t backing any specific mayoral candidate, just anyone who has the best chance of beating Ford.

Her main competition in Ward 20, which was vacated by Adam Vaughan when he won a Liberal seat in the last provincial election, now includes Vaughan’s main competition, NDP frontrunner Joe Cressy.
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David Soknacki next?
 
I saw Thomson a couple of days ago walking along Dupont Street, near Christie. She asked me if I had a moment to talk and I said sorry, I didn't, I was in a rush (I was). She smirked and said, "Oh, really?" What an odd duck.
 
Crazy said:
I saw Thomson a couple of days ago walking along Dupont Street, near Christie. She asked me if I had a moment to talk and I said sorry, I didn't, I was in a rush (I was). She smirked and said, "Oh, really?" What an odd duck.
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She doesn't seem to realize people see her as 'annoying crazy' rather than 'charming, quirky crazy'. Saw the Fiat in my neighbourhood and then the next day I happened to spot it in a driveway in Rosedale. She's delusional if she thinks she can be elected in Trin-Spa.
 
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