Downtown-Wide 'Transportation Study' Planned by City

[BMO]

I'm at work so will be brief in this post, but if your family chose to buy and live in the suburbs, then they DID have a hand in supporting the sprawling crap. So they should live with their choice! As for you, I don't know...I don't know how old you are, so you may be too young to make your own choices, and if so I hope that when you can make your own choices, they wont be to perpetuate the suburban nightmare.

As for not being able to afford housing in the city...check your facts! There's plenty of housing options that don't require leapfrog sprawling development...YES, it may mean you'll have to live in a smaller place. Awwwww... Get over it...you might actually like it given your increased accessibility.

Oh, and the reason that 'high-order' transit should be reserved for urbanites is b/c WE HAVE THE DENSITY TO SUPPORT IT...or do you expect that we subsidize your transit rides b/c the suburbs don't have the density to justify the costs of providing subway service to them? Haven't we been subsiding them enough already (in Toronto's inner suburbs)?

I didn't vote for him...the inner suburbanites did. I supported Transit City, except that I wished it included a DRL.

That's it for now...will respond more later.

Downtown urban hipster over and out.

You are thickheaded...

Sprawl is all relative to the size of the city...Yonge and Eglinton was considered sprawl at some point too...in fact the forest hills area still has very low-density housing, I don't see you chastising them. They purchased sprawling housing stock in their respective time...

To complain about suburban neighbourhoods that are over 50 yrs old, and giving them a lecture on sprawl isn't going to help anybody. These people aren't going to all of the sudden see the light and ditch their home in favour of living downtown. So acting like they should be neglected will not help your cause and it won't help theirs.

Yes I'm sure there are some very cheap houses in the inner city. And I'm sure many of those areas would not have been desirable for social reasons, which could range anywhere from crime, to ethnic diversity. Awwww...Toronto's not so perfect. And how many affordable apartments are built to handle large families? Yea no kidding....

Because downtown has the density to support higher order transit? I'm sorry but by no means is the B-D line or the Spadina, or the Sheppard line dense. Congrats, one line of the entire subway system is dense.

Higher order transit's definition as per google dictionary is: Transit that generally operates in its own dedicated right-of-way, outside of mixed traffic,and therefore can achieve a frequency of service greater than mixed-traffic transit.

Now this doesn't mean a bus going by every minute, but it means a reliable and dependable means of transportation. Having a BRT route (which by the way is being built int he suburbs) is quite effectively a higher-order transit option. It's used around the world bud.

Saying that downtown residents subsidize suburban transit is completely false. I don't have time to delve into the reasons why right now because I too am at work.

You didn't vote for Ford, congrats here's a moral high-five,it's called a democracy, a general population votes and makes a decision as a whole. Just because you didn't vote for Ford doesn't mean the vast majority of residents didn't want him. What I'm pointing out is that people voted for him as a reactionary effect of the lack of support to the suburbs from the previous administration. Let's not forget that over 8million people live in the GTA, who rely on toronto for work. When you look at it in the grand scheme of things, Toronto proper is about 3.5 million, which means that a vast proportion, if not the majority, are suburbanites. (i'll say it again for what seems like the 100th time) taking away capacity from the existing road network downtown in favour of transit downtown does nothing to address the issues of congestion. The key to tackling congestion is providing better and more effective transit in the suburbs so that those people don't go downtown. Whether you improve the streetcar downtown isn't going to stop people who need to drive downtown from the suburbs. Improved GO train service will.

 

[Danielinthecity]

Thickheaded

You are thickheaded...

Sprawl is all relative to the size of the city...Yonge and Eglinton was considered sprawl at some point too...in fact the forest hills area still has very low-density housing, I don't see you chastising them. They purchased sprawling housing stock in their respective time...

To complain about suburban neighbourhoods that are over 50 yrs old, and giving them a lecture on sprawl isn't going to help anybody. These people aren't going to all of the sudden see the light and ditch their home in favour of living downtown. So acting like they should be neglected will not help your cause and it won't help theirs.

Yes I'm sure there are some very cheap houses in the inner city. And I'm sure many of those areas would not have been desirable for social reasons, which could range anywhere from crime, to ethnic diversity. Awwww...Toronto's not so perfect. And how many affordable apartments are built to handle large families? Yea no kidding....

Because downtown has the density to support higher order transit? I'm sorry but by no means is the B-D line or the Spadina, or the Sheppard line dense. Congrats, one line of the entire subway system is dense.

Higher order transit's definition as per google dictionary is: Transit that generally operates in its own dedicated right-of-way, outside of mixed traffic,and therefore can achieve a frequency of service greater than mixed-traffic transit.

Now this doesn't mean a bus going by every minute, but it means a reliable and dependable means of transportation. Having a BRT route (which by the way is being built int he suburbs) is quite effectively a higher-order transit option. It's used around the world bud.

Saying that downtown residents subsidize suburban transit is completely false. I don't have time to delve into the reasons why right now because I too am at work.

You didn't vote for Ford, congrats here's a moral high-five,it's called a democracy, a general population votes and makes a decision as a whole. Just because you didn't vote for Ford doesn't mean the vast majority of residents didn't want him. What I'm pointing out is that people voted for him as a reactionary effect of the lack of support to the suburbs from the previous administration. Let's not forget that over 8million people live in the GTA, who rely on toronto for work. When you look at it in the grand scheme of things, Toronto proper is about 3.5 million, which means that a vast proportion, if not the majority, are suburbanites. (i'll say it again for what seems like the 100th time) taking away capacity from the existing road network downtown in favour of transit downtown does nothing to address the issues of congestion. The key to tackling congestion is providing better and more effective transit in the suburbs so that those people don't go downtown. Whether you improve the streetcar downtown isn't going to stop people who need to drive downtown from the suburbs. Improved GO train service will.

Don't call me thickheaded...you can criticize my logic, but don't get personal. I have ideas and I'm entitled to them just as you are.

You're either deliberately twisting around what I'm trying to say or misunderstanding it. I don't know which, so I'll clarify my points...but not now, when I get home.

 

[BMO]

Don't call me thickheaded...you can criticize my logic, but don't get personal. I have ideas and I'm entitled to them just as you are.

You're either deliberately twisting around what I'm trying to say or misunderstanding it. I don't know which, so I'll clarify my points...but not now, when I get home.

didn't realize thickheaded was so offensive, I use it all the time, in general I didn't mean it in a derogatory way, I meant it in the "you're not understanding me" fashion.

 

[gweed123]

I don't agree with facilitating a mode of transport that pollutes the air I breath and causes congestion and is costly to most.

Wow, ideology trumping individual circumstances at its best... Two sides of the same Rob Ford coin.

I prefer to look at the proposals individually an assess them instead of painting with a broad "cars are bad" brush. If a proposal calls for an increase in vehicular flow efficiency, but also calls for a dedicated transit lane, bike lanes, and improved sidewalks, I would probably support it, especially if the last 3 items didn't really exist currently.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Purposefully making it more challenging to traverse the city by car is a bad idea, but often the cheapest and most immediately-beneficial solutions to facilitate alternative mobility (on-street transit, bike lanes, etc.) necessitate sacrificing some roadspace currently used by motor vehicles.

 

[gweed123]

Purposefully making it more challenging to traverse the city by car is a bad idea, but often the cheapest and most immediately-beneficial solutions to facilitate alternative mobility (on-street transit, bike lanes, etc.) necessitate sacrificing some roadspace currently used by motor vehicles.

Very well said.

There are times however when the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, turning Bay and York between Queen and the Gardiner into opposite 1 way streets, but reducing them to 3 lanes total with 2 bike lanes on each of them would substantially increase the quality of vehicle flow. However, it would also dramatically increase the width of the sidewalks, something that is desperately needed in certain parts of the downtown core.

So even though you're improving traffic flow, you're also improving the pedestrian realm. In my books, this would definitely be an improvement.

 

[Danielinthecity]

No prob

didn't realize thickheaded was so offensive, I use it all the time, in general I didn't mean it in a derogatory way, I meant it in the "you're not understanding me" fashion.

No prob...it's good to clarify...I know sometimes it's too easy to get emotional in defending what we believe in...happens to me too...and that can lead to some pretty 'mean-spirited' exchanges...you don't need to look far to see that here...me too I hope I didn't say anything that may have been mistaken as an insult.

Anyhow, I notice that since I last posted (that I would respond when I get home), a couple more posters made some comments. And the specifics of those comments suggest that I'm being misunderstood...maybe my fault...maybe not...doesn't matter...I'll clarify.

But rather than do it one-by-one, let me read over the few and respond to everyone in one post...my previous responses were written quickly with interuptions...

 

[Thanos]

Typical urbanite...tisk...if only everyone had the "choice" of living downtown where access to services and everything was easier. The reality is that the downtown is where (still) a large majority of jobs are located. The downtown isn't some neighbourhood community garden that needs protecting from outsiders, it is, and should be, used by ALL people. Facilitating, what seems to be, the only efficient and accessible method for suburbanites to get downtown is not wrong, especially when there is no plan to provide any other method, other than driving, to get downtown.

It is generally common knowledge that there were mistakes made in the past pertaining to planning in the "1950s". It's something we have to live with, and it is NOT something we should be trying to completely block off. There's a reason why our streets are congested..because people use them. creating pedestrian malls and transit malls downtown are all nice and pretty, but unless the GO Train or subway or buses improve in the suburbs, congestion downtown will not get ANY better, regardless of transit improvements within the downtown core.

The only benefit we can really take from this, is that people living downtown won't be affected by the congestion, if the transit improvements are made I guess.

And why does it fall on Toronto and the TTC to make downtown more accessible? What are the other municipalities in the GTA and the province doing to help with this issue? Toronto's concern should for it's residents not for someone in Vaughan to come into the city easier.
Transit city provided a viable solution though it didn't go far enough without the DRL.
In Vancouver all the municipalities agreed to a 1 cent gas tax to fund transit. In Montreal they just added the same car registration we removed and on top of that the province adds another car registration fee for everyone in the province to fund transit. Would the other GTA communities or province do this?

And anyone who used Montreal as an example of infrastructure must have been joking.

"Typical urbanite...tisk...if only everyone had the "choice" of living downtown where access to services and everything was easier."

Downtown is not the only place in Toronto where access to services and everything was easier, and yes you do have a choice, too bad most people choose to do nothing and sit there and complain.

 

[Danielinthecity]

I'm back

You are thickheaded...

Sprawl is all relative to the size of the city...Yonge and Eglinton was considered sprawl at some point too...in fact the forest hills area still has very low-density housing, I don't see you chastising them. They purchased sprawling housing stock in their respective time...

To complain about suburban neighbourhoods that are over 50 yrs old, and giving them a lecture on sprawl isn't going to help anybody. These people aren't going to all of the sudden see the light and ditch their home in favour of living downtown. So acting like they should be neglected will not help your cause and it won't help theirs.

Yes I'm sure there are some very cheap houses in the inner city. And I'm sure many of those areas would not have been desirable for social reasons, which could range anywhere from crime, to ethnic diversity. Awwww...Toronto's not so perfect. And how many affordable apartments are built to handle large families? Yea no kidding....

Because downtown has the density to support higher order transit? I'm sorry but by no means is the B-D line or the Spadina, or the Sheppard line dense. Congrats, one line of the entire subway system is dense.

Higher order transit's definition as per google dictionary is: Transit that generally operates in its own dedicated right-of-way, outside of mixed traffic,and therefore can achieve a frequency of service greater than mixed-traffic transit.

Now this doesn't mean a bus going by every minute, but it means a reliable and dependable means of transportation. Having a BRT route (which by the way is being built int he suburbs) is quite effectively a higher-order transit option. It's used around the world bud.

Saying that downtown residents subsidize suburban transit is completely false. I don't have time to delve into the reasons why right now because I too am at work.

You didn't vote for Ford, congrats here's a moral high-five,it's called a democracy, a general population votes and makes a decision as a whole. Just because you didn't vote for Ford doesn't mean the vast majority of residents didn't want him. What I'm pointing out is that people voted for him as a reactionary effect of the lack of support to the suburbs from the previous administration. Let's not forget that over 8million people live in the GTA, who rely on toronto for work. When you look at it in the grand scheme of things, Toronto proper is about 3.5 million, which means that a vast proportion, if not the majority, are suburbanites. (i'll say it again for what seems like the 100th time) taking away capacity from the existing road network downtown in favour of transit downtown does nothing to address the issues of congestion. The key to tackling congestion is providing better and more effective transit in the suburbs so that those people don't go downtown. Whether you improve the streetcar downtown isn't going to stop people who need to drive downtown from the suburbs. Improved GO train service will.

There seems to be a misunderstanding that I want to ‘punish’ drivers b/c I don’t believe in facilitating driving. NOT wanting to make driving easier does not mean wanting to punish drivers. No where in any of my posts will you find that. I simply want the ‘emphasis’ to be switched from a car-oriented focus to a ‘transit-oriented’ focus, both in terms of transportation AND land-use planning as the MAIN way to relieve congestion and facilitate mobility.

BMO, you wrote, “Facilitating, what seems to be, the only efficient and accessible method for suburbanites to get downtown is not wrong, especially when there is no plan to provide any other method, other than driving, to get downtownâ€

If you read one of my posts (#60 to be exact), you’d see where I wrote, “I wouldn’t penalize driving…I’d give then alternative choices…â€â€¦

…so when I write, “I’d give them alternative choices…â€, I mean exactly that. So if I had a magic want (or if Miller’s plan wasn’t ruined), you and all ‘inner’ 416 suburbanites WOULD have a viable alternative.

The discussion is in the context of Ford’s plan…which I think is placing the emphasis in the wrong place (i.e. making driving easier (which again let me reiterate does NOT automatically mean making it harder)). In fact, the byproduct of focusing on transit (instead of driving) is that driving would in fact become easier as fewer drivers mean less congestion. I also said that in one of my first posts on the subject. So how could I be punishing drivers when I support plans to build MORE transit which’ll mean more road capacity for those that continue to ‘have to’ drive?

I think the focus/emphasis/priority (whatever you want to call it) of any transportation strategy should be on transit, NOT on driving.

And that means giving everyone – including suburbanites – an ALTERNATIVE to the car, not make car driving the ‘preferred’ or ‘easiest’ option…THAT was the old 1950’s way of doing things and THAT’S what I’m against. I think we need to address the problems caused by sprawl with a NEW approach and a NEW focus.


Gweed123 & GraphicMatt…I won’t respond to your posts directly as they contend that I am trying to punish drivers…I think (hope) I’ve explained myself better this time.


BMO, 2.6 mil are in what you call Toronto proper.
Full seats/routes DO subsidize empty routes. If you owned a private bus company, would you really run half-empty buses as often as full buses, especially if those half-empty ones had to travel further, thus consuming more fuel and labour costs, AND increase your operating/maintenance costs? I would hope you wouldn't for the sake of your business. It's the same reason why Mulroney discontinued unprofitable trunk lines with via rail many years ago, b/c the main rail corridors which ran closer to capacity subsidized those that did not. As he said, "Use it or lose it".

BMO? What exactly do you mean by this?

"The key to tackling congestion is providing better and more effective transit in the suburbs so that those people don't go downtown". Are you suggesting that the answer is DEcentralization of economic activities?

Anyhow, I hope this clears things up...I'm sure many will still disagree with me, but please don't put words in my mouth.

 

[Dan416]

Personally I don't drive downtown if I don't have to. Unfortunately GO service ends (on the Milton line) at 1:20 from Monday to Saturday, which is frankly too early. Therefore I'm forced to drive, as much as I'd prefer to take the GO and not worry about parking downtown.

I'd love to see more GO service, but I'd love to see the roads downtown improved too. I'm all for separated bike lanes. Much better than how bikes operate downtown now.

PS Mississauga Transit isn't an option either in case anyone was wondering. Haven't checked what time it ends, but it's earlier than GO.

 

[Danielinthecity]

And why does it fall on Toronto and the TTC to make downtown more accessible? What are the other municipalities in the GTA and the province doing to help with this issue? Toronto's concern should for it's residents not for someone in Vaughan to come into the city easier.
Transit city provided a viable solution though it didn't go far enough without the DRL.
In Vancouver all the municipalities agreed to a 1 cent gas tax to fund transit. In Montreal they just added the same car registration we removed and on top of that the province adds another car registration fee for everyone in the province to fund transit. Would the other GTA communities or province do this?

And anyone who used Montreal as an example of infrastructure must have been joking.

"Typical urbanite...tisk...if only everyone had the "choice" of living downtown where access to services and everything was easier."

Downtown is not the only place in Toronto where access to services and everything was easier, and yes you do have a choice, too bad most people choose to do nothing and sit there and complain.

That's a good point, Thanos...we as a region need to come together to address the problem of congestion and address it NOT by faciliating (or punishing!) drivers, but by working together to have a TRANSIT and LAND USE strategy to faciliate intra and inter regional mobility AND reverse the effects of sprawl through better urban design. Ryerson has an interesting course in their Masters of Urban Design program called, Retroffiting the Suburbs.

 

[Danielinthecity]

Personally I don't drive downtown if I don't have to. Unfortunately GO service ends (on the Milton line) at 1:20 from Monday to Saturday, which is frankly too early. Therefore I'm forced to drive, as much as I'd prefer to take the GO and not worry about parking downtown.

I'd love to see more GO service, but I'd love to see the roads downtown improved too. I'm all for separated bike lanes. Much better than how bikes operate downtown now.

PS Mississauga Transit isn't an option either in case anyone was wondering. Haven't checked what time it ends, but it's earlier than GO.

Coruscanti Cognoscente, when you say that you're forced to drive and that you'd love to see the roads downtown improved too, would you not love to never have to worry about driving at all cause you could get anywhere in the region anytime? THAT'S my vision...and that vision will never happen if we don't change how we think about moving around...i.e. again...I know I'm a broken record, but it has to be TRANSIT focussed.

 

[EnviroTO]

Taking away a heavily used traffic lane to give it to transit creates an increase in carrying capacity of the street. Taking away a heavily used traffic lane to give it to a bike lane which will not be used 2/3rds of the year and never carry the same number of people at the traffic lane although it certainly has the capacity to do so makes little sense. I support creating bike lanes but they should replace parked cars which provide no carrying capacity on a street rather than a lane filled with traffic. On Queens Quay the situation is a little different since almost none of that traffic actually belongs there (usually created by people on a automotive tour of the waterfront with no intent to actually go there or trying to escape SkyDome and ACC traffic which is really pointless because at both ends of Queens Quay you end up on the same roads), the effective capacity is really one lane each way because there is always a parked car, truck, ice cream truck, bus, etc on the street, and the gap in the waterfront bike trail is a significant missing piece in the network.

Talk about not having a choice but to live in suburbia is nonsense.

On the topic of dissuading people from driving downtown by removing lanes I have no problem with it if transit alternatives are in place with adequate capacity. Suburban neighborhoods have winding streets and dead end courts for the expressed purpose of dissuading people from driving through them and they will complain loudly when a bus route runs down their quiet piece of the world so I don't really see any difference from trying to take lanes away downtown. As more and more residents move downtown I expect more and more will, like their suburban counterparts, want less traffic passing by their residence.

 

[sixrings]

Personally I don't drive downtown if I don't have to. Unfortunately GO service ends (on the Milton line) at 1:20 from Monday to Saturday, which is frankly too early. Therefore I'm forced to drive, as much as I'd prefer to take the GO and not worry about parking downtown.

PS Mississauga Transit isn't an option either in case anyone was wondering. Haven't checked what time it ends, but it's earlier than GO.

My wifes parents live a 5 minute walk north of Cooksville station. There is bus service when the train stops running. Also After our dates, I would often take the mississauga bus to Islington and subway it downtown. In my mind those dates were pretty late. Really though how much bus service can you expect to be 24hrs? Even in Toronto thats difficult to maintain. Although I always wished the BLUE LINE busses could all become LRT.

 

[Scott Orr]

Because downtown has the density to support higher order transit? I'm sorry but by no means is the B-D line or the Spadina, or the Sheppard line dense. Congrats, one line of the entire subway system is dense.

I would have to disagree with the inclusion of the Spadina line in the list. Spadina is almost always busy due to balanced mix of work/live/play transit riders. A well-used transit line should service more than just the work-home commute.