Eglinton-Crosstown Corridor Debate

[Dan416]

I hope that you're right. I certainly don't have your faith in the TTC adopting modern signal priority with GPS tracking. Considering that we've heard nothing about it so far, I wouldn't be surprised if, at best, the TTC decided to create some homemade signal priority system based on their own technology from the 70s, a la CIS.

Given the terrible traffic congestion on Spadina, how is it that the streetcar still manages to be as slow as the old mixed-traffic bus?

I think we have to do better than "faster than buses" if we're going to spend $8 billion on these routes. They've got to be time competitive with the subway, and I certainly don't see that happening.

I don't understand why the TTC doesn't realize that the amount of time transit takes to get to any point is a major factor as to why people don't take it. It takes me 30+ minutes to get home from work by bus (1 transfer). Driving it takes 15 minutes. They should be aiming for speed as much as possible.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Even if the streetcars will technically move faster than buses, one must factor in the wait time to calculate real travel time...streetcar bunching doesn't help here.

 

[unimaginative2]

I don't understand why the TTC doesn't realize that the amount of time transit takes to get to any point is a major factor as to why people don't take it. It takes me 30+ minutes to get home from work by bus (1 transfer). Driving it takes 15 minutes. They should be aiming for speed as much as possible.

I have to budget 40 minutes by TTC compared with 10 minutes by car. Even budgeting 40 minutes, I've been late. Unfortunately, I have to ride a streetcar on a private right of way.

 

[Dan416]

In regards to the poll results: I find it interesting that the vote is evenly split between building Eglinton as LRT versus subway. I though subway would be more voted for. Eglinton I wouldn't mind LRT along as much because it's a new service rather than adding a transfer in regards to either the SRT or Sheppard. As you may recall, the subway option won out in both cases, by 68% and 86% respectively. For Eglinton subway garnered 48% of the vote, as did LRT. So apparently, people would favour the Sheppard subway extension over replacing the SRT or building Eglinton as a subway. I would agree with the forum consensus.

Also based on this trio of polls, there are approximately 60-80 regular posters/viewers in the Transportation subforum.

 

[Kitsune]

Subway, but prodominatly open air, and only tunnled where its needed. For areas that are wide enough to fit in two subway tracks in the median of the road, then put the tracks in the middle but below street level. This would save a fair bit on actual construction and mantience (no "roof" needed). For stations, just fit the platforms under the road. And where ever a road crossing is required, a realtively cheap overpass can be built to facilitate it.

 

[Panzerfaust]

Subway, but prodominatly open air, and only tunnled where its needed. For areas that are wide enough to fit in two subway tracks in the median of the road, then put the tracks in the middle but below street level. This would save a fair bit on actual construction and mantience (no "roof" needed). For stations, just fit the platforms under the road. And where ever a road crossing is required, a realtively cheap overpass can be built to facilitate it.

This would involve taking four lanes out of the road in order for it to work safely. The only place where an above-ground subway line might be doable along Eglinton is in the former Richview Expressway lands. Otherwise there just isn't enough room.

 

[doady]

Subway, LRT, streetcar... it's all semantics. The Scarborough RT has been fully integrated onto subway maps and pictorials since day one. No one really cares or really considers it any different than a subway on the surface like the open sections of YUS nad BD.

The Scarborough RT is grade-separated and has proper stations. An on-street Eglinton LRT would not be the same.

Imagine another possibility of a below-grade Eglinton LRT: with the addition of a third track, it could have some REX LRT service that bypasses minor stations if the Mississauga/407 Transitway (also below-grade) is ever converted to LRT...

Or at least it will make it easier to convert to full subway if needed. Unfortunately, however, Steve Munro is pushing for the underground section to built in such a way that such conversion will be impossible.

 

[Voltz]

I think weather or not the underground section will be designed to allow for future conversion to a full subway is a tricky decision. It should not be done "Just Because", but only if future demand reasonably requires it.

If it becomes a lrt only line, then cheaper construction methods could be used, such as one large tunnel for both directions with steeper grades; shallower, shorter and simpler stations, ect.

But if anticipated passenger demand requires a design to allow subway conversion then it should be done, but this would mean a large increase in cost and construction time/disruption. Eglinton is not all a flat wide open area, it is hilly and has different soils types/underground streams, and many utilities

 

[scarberiankhatru]

It'd be funny if the Eglinton on-streetcar plus central section tunnel ends up costing like $4 billion and if someone says 'why not just trench it and turn it into a real rapid transit line?' the official response is 'rapid transit is too expensive'...

 

[Dan416]

How illogical would it be to NOT plan for the future. The whole way the Eglinton LRT was SOLD to the public was as being upgradeable to subway. Only Mr. Monroe would work tirelessly to make sure it can NEVER be a subway.

 

[W. K. Lis]

We should be calling it the Eglinton Light Rail Subway. People still think that they are streetcars, but they are not! They will not share the roadway with automobiles. After all, the Queen Street Subway was originally designed in the 1940's as a light rail system. If Boston's Green Line Subway, or originally the Tremont Street Subway, is called a subway, but uses light rail vehicles (streetcars), we should do the same here. So we should include the term Subway in the names of the Transit City lines, if they actually enter a tunnel or subway for more than two stations or stops.
In turn, this means the 1 YUS and 2 BD subways should be designated the 1 Yonge-University-Spadina Heavy Rail Subway and 2 Bloor-Danforth Heavy Rail Subway.

BTW. What numbers would the Transit City lines use? 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11? We may have to re-number some routes.

 

[Undying42]

It'd be funny if the Eglinton on-streetcar plus central section tunnel ends up costing like $4 billion and if someone says 'why not just trench it and turn it into a real rapid transit line?' the official response is 'rapid transit is too expensive'...

Gee, I hope not. People love to fudge the numbers to make a project seem too expensive for its worth. If we only got the tunneled section as a full subway and the rest as a BRT route, it'd at least bypass commuters from the most congested area along the Eglinton corridor (from Jane to Don Mills). That's the problem I had with the Sheppard Line, it doesn't offer a continuous trip across town even when considering its full potential (Downsview to SCC). For being more relevant as a crosstowner, I hope Eglinton gets the greatest attention of all the Transit City priorities.

We should be calling it the Eglinton Light Rail Subway. People still think that they are streetcars, but they are not! They will not share the roadway with automobiles. After all, the Queen Street Subway was originally designed in the 1940's as a light rail system. If Boston's Green Line Subway, or originally the Tremont Street Subway, is called a subway, but uses light rail vehicles (streetcars), we should do the same here. So we should include the term Subway in the names of the Transit City lines, if they actually enter a tunnel or subway for more than two stations or stops.

I agree, people are using semantics to discredit the potential benefits of Eglinton-Crosstown over other transit projects they deem more important. All the while they're failing to realize they're stagnating the political process and the amount of time that elapses before commuters along the Eglinton corridor, Pearson/Dixon and southeast Scarborough recieve a rapid transit service uniquely theirs.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

We should be calling it the Eglinton Light Rail Subway. People still think that they are streetcars, but they are not! They will not share the roadway with automobiles....So we should include the term Subway in the names of the Transit City lines, if they actually enter a tunnel or subway for more than two stations or stops.

I should save your post and trot it out the first time a Transfer City "light rail vehicle" hits a car or kills a pedestrian. The 'streetcar vs LRT' debate is a big fat stinky red herring, anyway...the real debate should be whether or not the lines are *rapid* transit. An Eglinton LRT built to Spadina's or St. Clair's specifications, with almost 100 stops from Scarborough to the airport, will NOT be rapid transit, no matter how many times people scream they're not streetcars.

UnDentrobate: we should be slowing the political process here. Transit City threw out some perfectly good transit plans and is being plowed through before anyone can catch their breath. The average Torontonian has no idea that the plan exists and if they do, they do not realize that an unknown number of billions of dollars will be spent copying and pasting the Spadina streetcar onto roads like Morningside.

 

[unimaginative2]

I think the obsession with "access" is the biggest red herring of all. What's the point of living right next to something if it isn't useful to you? People at Jane and Wilson will still find the Wilson bus and Spadina subway much faster for trips downtown than the Jane streetcar to Bloor. There are two factors that determine people's routes: speed and number of transfers. Transfer City certainly doesn't deliver on the latter, and considering the TTC's record I will take a lot of convincing to believe that it will deliver much of anything on the former.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The ridership estimates for the Jane LRT are absurd, particularly since the Spadina line will steal lots of Jane & Finch riders and since most of Jane isn't Avenues-designated.