Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[bobbob911]

Sixrings, your point is valid that there is an unrealistic expectation of what is possible with limited tax revenue.

You muddle it when you assume that there is any real mobility - moving to downtown for most inner suburb families is not realistic or possible for many reasons. The least of which is that they want a McMansion.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Do any TTC platforms have heated shelters/platforms?

nope. Most are pretty sheltered inside because they have a roof over the whole sation and only the ends where the tracks are open. Davisville and Rose dale are exceptions to that though

 

[ILuvTO]

Sixrings, your point is valid that there is an unrealistic expectation of what is possible with limited tax revenue.

You muddle it when you assume that there is any real mobility - moving to downtown for most inner suburb families is not realistic or possible for many reasons. The least of which is that they want a McMansion.

People move to the suburbs for many different reasons. More space and lower prices are usually the two big drivers when deciding to make the move. I don't believe people in suburbia should be punished with poor transit (heck, I am one of these people), but I also don't think these folks should expect 'subways, subways, subways' on every major road in their town. Just not realistic for many reasons, the two biggest that it doesn't make sense and it is not cost effective.

People in Scarborough shouldn't be angry about an LRT on Eglinton when it is a good solution to match the density and demand that exist. Likewise, York Region residents shouldn't be upset with the lack of subway on hwy 7 and in fact should be quite happy with the dedicated bus lanes. It's a solution that fits the demand.

At the end of day, if we want more subways we are going to have to get creative about paying for them. The feds and province are only willing to give us so much. If we want more we are going to have to accept alternative funding like road tolls and/or congestion taxes. We all love to look at the amazing transit in London, Paris, etc, but we don't bother to ask how it was paid for (answer: road tolls, congestion taxes, etc, etc).

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Ouch. I don't think of myself as Urban or Lefty (I'm kinda straddling the line on both counts). But this description hits home. It is definitely a city wide phenomenon. Scarberians should not feel singled out.

Here in Etobicoke the "system" (which in my viewpoint consists of Community Council, City Council, Committees of Adjustment, and the OMB) is happy to approve condo after condo on the premise that the existing roads will handle them, and no transit solutions are required.

The most gutless, unhelpful people in this are the City Transportation department, who issue absurd opinions that two-land arterial roads that are demonstrably full at rush hour can handle the additional volume. Once this opinion is on the record, there is little hope of blocking an appeal at OMB. Even the Council members know and admit this. Council's role becomes fighting for Section 37 funding, rather than deciding yea or nay.

Then, when one pushes for better transit, nothing happens. A few buses are added to these already full roads.



I'm an LRT fan, but these objections are valid. Spadina is even worse than St Clair. There is no shining example in this city that residents can look at and demand to their councillors "get me one of those" - except subways, unfortunately

Transit City's propenents did take an idealogical, we-know-better approach to promoting an LRT network. Considering that LRT was far less known or understood by the populace ten years ago, it's not surprising that it was not welcomed. A far more productive approach would have been to look at the existing lines and take some bold steps that would make them stellar. None of St Clair or Spadina or Queens Quay have done this.

I hope that Crosstown will work well enough to break that losing streak. I worry that we still aren't there, however - plunking LRT down in the middle of the street with de minimus shelters at each stop, and making it fight auto traffic for priority, is not leading-edge LRT thinking. It's just 1920 streetcar mentality. TTC especially needs to get out of the box here. "Center median is good enough, anything better is a waste of money" will be LRT's downfall.

It will be interesting to see if Hurontario and K-W and eventually London work well enough to turn heads. If they do not, we need to reexamine the whole thing before going any further. There is still a risk that BRT plus subway will present better value.

- Paul

It is a really weird thing to read, still, that Queen's Quay or Spadina or St. Clair still effect someone's thinking about the Crosstown. I get that this is the case with low information non-transit users, but it's really weird hearing it here.

And, why would Hurontario or K-W or London effect a Scarborough resident's total disregard for transit any more than Calgary or Vancouver?

 

[crs1026]

It is a really weird thing to read, still, that Queen's Quay or Spadina or St. Clair still effect someone's thinking about the Crosstown. I get that this is the case with low information non-transit users, but it's really weird hearing it here.

And, why would Hurontario or K-W or London effect a Scarborough resident's total disregard for transit any more than Calgary or Vancouver?

Why is it wierd to look at things from the lay person's view? The old saying is, the customer is always right. I don't see the public's attitudes as resulting from low information. I was talking about daily riders, not just non-riders.....the city has both. They have lots of data - their own - to work from. To change their views, they need to experince something different, not just hear that it exists elsewhere. People do get out to Mississauga and K-W,, and they think of these as 'here'.

We need to acknowldge that our streetcar network's reputation for slow and irregular operation has been earned. It is fixable, and Crosstown may demonstrate that - if we do it well. I'm fearful that the above ground portions may end up looking like just more of our traditional streetcar trackage.

Getting back to Scarboro, I was pointing out that the perception that LRT is a second rate solution may also have been earned. We may have to play that ball where it lies, even if on an analytical level we have data that says an LRT solution would be far better than more subway.

- Paul

 

[sixrings]

IF LRT is really loathed so much could we put ROW BRT down every street like Finch, Sheppard, Lawrence, Ellesmere? And then ROW BRT on streets like Kennedy, Victoria Park, Mccowan.... There is plenty of road space when you take out the grass between the street and the side walk to fit it all in. Then when people see transit not stuck in transit we can convert to LRT. Again I am OK with the bloor extension to STC it is everything else I think is a bit silly although I do think that Sheppard LRT would have been better received if the Subway had been converted to LRT eliminating the stop. It frustrates me that the place which needs transit the most, the suburbs, has the most road space to fit in BRT or LRT but no one thinks its good enough. When we were kids my father took the Agincourt GO downtown everyday. But you need a way to get to the GO stop which is what LRT or BRT would be perfect for.

 

[bobbob911]

People move to the suburbs for many different reasons. More space and lower prices are usually the two big drivers when deciding to make the move.

Well, let's be honest here for a second. We aren't talking about the suburbs in general, we are talking about Scarborough. The reasons people move to Scarborough are clearly different than the reasons people move to Oakville, for example.

 

[sixrings]

Well, let's be honest here for a second. We aren't talking about the suburbs in general, we are talking about Scarborough. The reasons people move to Scarborough are clearly different than the reasons people move to Oakville, for example.

Bobbob911... Ive been in bed the last day with a serious neck injury so I may have been a bit hostile towards people in the suburbs. Really I have no problem with the Toronto suburbs and they should have transit. It is the im moving to outer 905 (far brampton, ajax) and then pretending that you would really like to take transit but there just isnt any that really irritates me. I really wish though that Toronto Eglinton and north would really jump on the LRT wagon and say this could be our version of the downtown legacy streetcar network. Instead there is a lot of Subways Subways Subways.

 

[Hairball]

IF LRT is really loathed so much could we put ROW BRT down every street like Finch, Sheppard, Lawrence, Ellesmere? And then ROW BRT on streets like Kennedy, Victoria Park, Mccowan.... There is plenty of road space when you take out the grass between the street and the side walk to fit it all in. Then when people see transit not stuck in transit we can convert to LRT. Again I am OK with the bloor extension to STC it is everything else I think is a bit silly although I do think that Sheppard LRT would have been better received if the Subway had been converted to LRT eliminating the stop. It frustrates me that the place which needs transit the most, the suburbs, has the most road space to fit in BRT or LRT but no one thinks its good enough. When we were kids my father took the Agincourt GO downtown everyday. But you need a way to get to the GO stop which is what LRT or BRT would be perfect for.

BRT is also pretty my second rate if you look at it that way, I guess it'd probably take a little more space than a LRT. However one advantage of BRT is the ability to run bus branching off from the BRT lanes to other destinations, not sure how exactly it'd be done, but this can be something to reduce the amount of transferring.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Why is it wierd to look at things from the lay person's view? The old saying is, the customer is always right. I don't see the public's attitudes as resulting from low information. I was talking about daily riders, not just non-riders.....the city has both. They have lots of data - their own - to work from. To change their views, they need to experince something different, not just hear that it exists elsewhere. People do get out to Mississauga and K-W,, and they think of these as 'here'.

We need to acknowldge that our streetcar network's reputation for slow and irregular operation has been earned. It is fixable, and Crosstown may demonstrate that - if we do it well. I'm fearful that the above ground portions may end up looking like just more of our traditional streetcar trackage.

Getting back to Scarboro, I was pointing out that the perception that LRT is a second rate solution may also have been earned. We may have to play that ball where it lies, even if on an analytical level we have data that says an LRT solution would be far better than more subway.

- Paul

See, Paul, you just did it again. You keep using the word 'streetcar' and 'LRT' interchangeably, and cite Spadina as an LRT. That's not a 'layperson's view' -- that is just wrong. Why it continues to happen is due to the unbelievable white noise that old school right-wing politicians put up as a smoke screen. Spadina is no more an LRT or an equivalent to Eglinton crosstown as a bird is a squirrel. Sure, they're both animals that move from tree to tree. But a bird is not a squirrel.

So -- how to convince Scarborough that a bird is not a squirrel. I'm honestly stumped, because the biologists in Scarborough keep saying a bird is a squirrel -- so what we need is a bat, bien sur!

I actually kind of like what Her Plannership came up with here. The subway does the one thing it needed to do to draw the venom of the Councillors -- eliminate the change at Kennedy. Because, when it comes right down to it, this whole billion-dollar boondoggle comes down to the perception that Scarborough is a lesser transit area, and that comes from the change at Kennedy with the current RT. So, what the heck. Let's eliminate that change. At least this way, the change is eliminated and yet heavy transit users (most notably UTSC students) actually get connected to better transit.

 

[kEiThZ]

For context sake i live near eglinton west station and many of the houses are bungalows. If someone wants to buy one and rip it down and put up a mansion they are still going to be close to transit. My point is the the outer suburbs which was made to accommodate these houses were not designed with transit in mind. And now we are at a situation where the people in the suburbs need to use transit which is good. All I am saying is that there has to be a realistic expectation of how fast and how much money all that will cost. Im tired of people from the suburbs saying it is the ones from the city who are looking down on them, when in reality they are the ones saying there is no way I could possibly live in a denser area with less square footage.

I am sympathetic to the argument that Canadians could stand live on a little less space. I moved to Canada at the age of 11. I didn't know what a backyard really was till that age. I, personally, don't have much of a desire to live in a large house. Neither does my wife. The most either of us would ever do, would be a small townhouse. However, I am also sympathetic to the fact that most dense residential construction in central Toronto is simply not geared towards families. Let alone families with kids. And it's actually getting worse as most builders try to cash in on single millenials. Trying to shoehorn families into that space won't work. And trying to do it while charging them hundreds of thousands more in shelter charges is a definite recipe for failure.

Let's discuss this in practical terms. As in, with respect to reality. Average home prices are north of $1 million in Toronto. With the general trend of prices in core costing more than the suburbs, this means that many couldn't afford to live in core even if they were willing to trade space. We are reaching the point where two bedroom condos in the core are costing as much as houses in some suburbs. That's problem one. The second is simply availability. Developers have fought long and hard against "family sized" spaces. Such as three bedroom condos. The newer condos are even worse. A two bedroom is now 700 sqft. This automatically means that the suburbs will exist. Like it or not.

Now you can either choose to serve the suburbs with transit. Or you can watch commute times and traffic congestion skyrocket to the point that the regional economy is badly impacted. You choose. And we are reaching that point quickly.

We should be grateful that the inner suburbs are somewhat better than the 905. And not something approaching American style sprawl. We have pockets of density. And we have opportunities to add more density over the coming decades. But doing all that will require transit investment now. Or those news residents will simply be off to more distant burbs riding in on GO or worse, using their cars.

Oh and this is all before we consider other factors, like two working parents having different commute patterns or preferences for certain school districts (ie. the Earl Haig premium).

 

[kEiThZ]

....but I also don't think these folks should expect 'subways, subways, subways' on every major road in their town. Just not realistic for many reasons, the two biggest that it doesn't make sense and it is not cost effective.

People in Scarborough shouldn't be angry about an LRT on Eglinton when it is a good solution to match the density and demand that exist. Likewise, York Region residents shouldn't be upset with the lack of subway on hwy 7 and in fact should be quite happy with the dedicated bus lanes. It's a solution that fits the demand.

Where has anybody in Scarborough ever expressed opposition to LRT on Eglinton? Don't mistake Ford's rhetoric for the general opinion of everyone in Scarborough. There's support for LRT on Eglinton. At worst, indifference. I've never really heard of any opposition.

The Bloor-Danforth extension on the other hand has a long history and has been promised by various politicians at different times. And it's why it became a touchy subject.

Sheppard, too, in my opinion has a more complex landscape of opinions. Ford and some local BIA voices (notably several car dealers) made noise about LRT. Public opinion was more nuanced. From skepticism over actual benefit, to creating another Kennedy type transfer at Don Mills. I'd argue that the Sheppard subway debate could be neutralized tomorrow if the City argued for conversion to LRT and pitched it as, "just like Eglinton".

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I am sympathetic to the argument that Canadians could stand live on a little less space. I moved to Canada at the age of 11. I didn't know what a backyard really was till that age. I, personally, don't have much of a desire to live in a large house. Neither does my wife. The most either of us would ever do, would be a small townhouse. However, I am also sympathetic to the fact that most dense residential construction in central Toronto is simply not geared towards families. Let alone families with kids. And it's actually getting worse as most builders try to cash in on single millenials. Trying to shoehorn families into that space won't work. And trying to do it while charging them hundreds of thousands more in shelter charges is a definite recipe for failure.

Let's discuss this in practical terms. As in, with respect to reality. Average home prices are north of $1 million in Toronto. With the general trend of prices in core costing more than the suburbs, this means that many couldn't afford to live in core even if they were willing to trade space. We are reaching the point where two bedroom condos in the core are costing as much as houses in some suburbs. That's problem one. The second is simply availability. Developers have fought long and hard against "family sized" spaces. Such as three bedroom condos. The newer condos are even worse. A two bedroom is now 700 sqft. This automatically means that the suburbs will exist. Like it or not.

Now you can either choose to serve the suburbs with transit. Or you can watch commute times and traffic congestion skyrocket to the point that the regional economy is badly impacted. You choose. And we are reaching that point quickly.

We should be grateful that the inner suburbs are somewhat better than the 905. And not something approaching American style sprawl. We have pockets of density. And we have opportunities to add more density over the coming decades. But doing all that will require transit investment now. Or those news residents will simply be off to more distant burbs riding in on GO or worse, using their cars.

Oh and this is all before we consider other factors, like two working parents having different commute patterns or preferences for certain school districts (ie. the Earl Haig premium).

There is a third option. Tear down the single-detached houses and build duplexes, fourplexes, multiplexes!

This way, you can expand the housing supply, allow for more multi-person units useable by families, maintain the low-rise residential character of neighbourhoods, and allow for enough density to serve with transit.

 

[sixrings]

Let's discuss this in practical terms. As in, with respect to reality. Average home prices are north of $1 million in Toronto. With the general trend of prices in core costing more than the suburbs, this means that many couldn't afford to live in core even if they were willing to trade space. We are reaching the point where two bedroom condos in the core are costing as much as houses in some suburbs. That's problem one. The second is simply availability. Developers have fought long and hard against "family sized" spaces. Such as three bedroom condos. The newer condos are even worse. A two bedroom is now 700 sqft. This automatically means that the suburbs will exist. Like it or not.

.

The suburbs arent exactly cheap either, it is just that you get more bang for your buck.

 

[sixrings]

We should be grateful that the inner suburbs are somewhat better than the 905. And not something approaching American style sprawl. We have pockets of density. And we have opportunities to add more density over the coming decades. But doing all that will require transit investment now. Or those news residents will simply be off to more distant burbs riding in on GO or worse, using their cars.

.

Ive been in bed the last day with a serious neck injury so I may have been a bit hostile towards people in the suburbs. Really I have no problem with the Toronto suburbs and they should have transit. It is the im moving to outer 905 (far brampton, ajax) and then pretending that you would really like to take transit but there just isnt any that really irritates me.