^ How else do you respond to posts attempting to throw everything but the kitchen sink to make their argument stick? There's no cogent thesis in many of their advocacy arguments.
And you suggest I put out non-sequiturs, straw men and false dichotomies?
Actually I’m not the one who said that, Northern Magnus did. But since you’re trying
really hard to prove him right, I’ll bite. I won’t get into a “quote war†per se but this should satisfactorily summarize just what I think about most of your reply.
Let’s get the cogent thesis statement out of the way. An inner-city alignment provides best service to the existing and overstrained core, the best crowd-control and diversionary performance from TTC, GO, and PATH traffic, with the least adverse impacts to streetlife from construction. If a deep but readily accessible alignment through City-owned jurisdiction is possible, it has other further advantages. By definition, the CNR, which only borders the downtown core, is NOT composite of the inner-city.
A transit mall along Queen or King Streets with alternating one-way streets would cause intolerable levels of disruption due to construction, likely with severe adverse impacts on the streetlife that makes these places what they are today. The plan died not because of Transit City, but because it is simply bad. New LRVs will help, but won't be a permanent solution. The only way to improve service along since arterials is to go underground, and at a depth exceeding 10 m such construction would avoid mass expropriation, road closures or other adverse impacts to streetlife.
WWLRT does little for anyone living east of Roncesvalles along Queen Street, so how does it lessen his or her travel times? The irony of your statements is that the overcrowding of the 501 isn’t the result of Etobicoke riders already on board when entering the downtown; it’s the excessive number of people boarding within Parkdale and Queen West that accounts for the surplus. It’s these numbers- 24,100 all-day boardings between Humber and Church- that we can draw upon to indicate just how many potential DRL riders there’d be along Queen proper alone.
And I wouldn’t rejoice just yet about new streetcar purchases when one-third of the funding for it is still uncertain, given how Ottawa refused to salvage the Bombardier deal.
If you admit that King is the most urgent, than why would we build a subway on Queen? And as Scarberian has pointed out, gentrification has worked to reduce population not increase it. When have you ever had a gentrifiers who added density? I can't think of an example in Toronto. And gentrifiers who also tend to be wealthier are also less likely to take transit. Another downward pressure on transit use along Queen. Replace the streetcar which has 300 m spacing with a subway with 1km spacing and they might not bother taking transit at all.
Lol! There’s so much that is wrong with this one statement. If gentrifiers are being considered too wealthy to ride transit; then am I seriously to entertain with you the notion that whole “communities†of people that each dropped roughly half a million dollars to live in the central waterfront most likely with parking privileges and the Gardiner Exwy right at their doorsteps— are going to form the primary customer base for this new subway line? The inner-city meanwhile has an eclectic mix of gentrifiers as well lower-income residents, downtown workers, merchants and visitors all seeking a fast way to get around the city. All of which would be put out of their way if they’re expected to travel all the way down to Front St in order to ride the DRL and backtrack from it.
Then there’s the issue of the Bayfront/Portlands going from virtually zero transit service to the highest form of transit without first intensifying a corridor’s demand for higher order. Since the DRL was last studied, an LRT line has been proposed for Bremner, which will also extend along Queen's Quay E. as part of the master planning for the East Bayfront and Lower Don Lands, which will see branching routes down Cherry and Commissioners, of which service should be consistent on both since this ties into the services coming from Cherry north of the railway in the West Don Lands project. LRT services here are the best fit for servicing these areas, especially when combined with the expanded services of GO Transit in the area. One subway station alone will not be able to cater to the needs of residents living along multiple area streets where LRVs can provide better coverage. The Cherry LRT will inevitably become a connecting route to the DRL (be it at Eastern, Queen or even Gerrard!!) to provide high-quality access and service to the Portlands well suited to the level of demand that can be expected to originate from it.
Lastly, the fact that desirability for mass transit has been building up along Queen Street for well over a century now, I find it cute that anyone would suggest residents would all out cease to use public transit just because their precious nostalgic streetcars are gone. Did residents living in-between the 800m average spaced-apart stations of the Bloor-Danforth subway stop using transit? Do they even mind walking it to their local station same as one would a bus stop? Now I can see where Northern Magnus is coming from.
