Eglinton-Crosstown Corridor Debate

[lordmandeep]

yes transit becomes truly reliable when you don't have to worry about schedule and what the time is.

This is true on some TTC bus routes. Its wierd if you take GO transit. Everything you have to wait till a train comes and then it leaves at a certain time.

The TTC is different. On some bus routes it is like that the outer lane is for buses.

 

[Dan416]

Bringing back my Eglinton Corridor poll in light of the current dispute between Metrolinx and the TTC as to whether this should be a subway or LRT.

I'll point out that 54% of respondents favored a subway.

 

[Dichotomy]

I voted for a subway. The west end of the city is underserviced by everything. Eglinton is a disaster from west of the Allen Rd. until nearly Islington, for obvious reasons. A subway could also connect the far northern reaches of the city (Albion Rd./Martingrove) with the rest of the city. For anyone living out there, a commute to anywhere is a horrid experience.
In a dream world (where the city actually had funding from Ottawa and Queens Park), it would be nice to have a subway the other direction to Don Mills, but at least the east end has the LRT, such as that is.

 

[kettal]

LRT provides better local service than a subway ever could, and they add more to the street life. With a Subway, much of Eglinton will end up like Sheppard: isolated clusters of high-rise condos. Sheppard is not a nice or interesting street to walk down.

LRT encourages an avenue of medium-density, pedestrian friendly streetscape, which we need more of in Toronto. For those who want to zoom in or out of the city as fast as possible, I suggest they look elsewhere.

 

[waterloowarrior]

LRT provides better local service than a subway ever could, and they add more to the street life. With a Subway, much of Eglinton will end up like Sheppard: isolated clusters of high-rise condos. Sheppard is not a nice or interesting street to walk down.

bad planning does that, not a type of vehicle.

 

[Hipster Duck]

LRT encourages an avenue of medium-density, pedestrian friendly streetscape, which we need more of in Toronto. For those who want to zoom in or out of the city as fast as possible, I suggest they look elsewhere.

Wow, how shortsighted of me. It all makes sense now. People travel on transit because they want to zip down an avenue of medium-density, pedestrian friendly streetscapes. If people want to go where they're going quickly or efficiently, they'd better look elsewhere.

 

[kettal]

Wow, how shortsighted of me. It all makes sense now. People travel on transit because they want to zip down an avenue of medium-density, pedestrian friendly streetscapes. If people want to go where they're going quickly or efficiently, they'd better look elsewhere.

The reasons people travel on transit are more complex than that. Some people like to live in a 30 story condo, and catch the subway, and that's great, and there are certainly plenty of those developments going up these days.

Then there is the matter of convenience. Most people would avoid taking transit if it meant they had to walk a big distance to the nearest station.

Consider this: a modern subway has stations about one every 2 km. That means that for someone living in, say, a duplex along Eglinton, the walk to the station is up to 1 km, whereas if it had LRT that stopped every 500 m or so, then the highest walking distance would be 250 m. Much more efficient for the user.

Then there is the matter of cost. No matter how much it is subsidized by taxes, the expenses and upkeep of stations and their cleaning, elevators, escalators, ventilation, security, staff, will find their way into the ticket price. While this isn't a huge factor in high-traffic areas like the central core (enough riders to distribute the costs), out in Scarborough or Etobicoke along Eglinton, there aren't enough riders to make that cost effective.

Quickly and efficiently are good things, indeed, but they don't always equal subway.

 

[autopilot]

What I'd do to the Eglinton Corridor.

I'd run an underground four track alignment LRT line from Eglinton and Kingston Road all the way to Renforth in Mississauga (Eglinton BRT Connection). At the 427, a separate spur would go north under Carlingview, northwest under Dixon and connect with Pearson International Airport. Obviously every other train would go to PIA.

On top of that, I'd have two "loops" to prevent delays. You would have the Eglinton West LRT (Renforth/PIA to Eglinton West Station), Eglinton Centre LRT (Eglinton West Station to Don Mills), and Eglinton East LRT (Don Mills to Kingston Rd). A four track alignment would allow for express LRT that would be referred to as the "Crosstown" because it would cross the entire town making stops at Kingston Rd, Kennedy Station, Don Mills LRT, both YUS Eglinton stations, Jane LRT, and finally PIA/Renforth.

So in a nutshell, underground LRT split into 4 services. It would probably be cheaper than building a one way subway line across the city and would still be underground and unaffected by the automobile. To me, the reality is that above ground ROW's give the car less room (I know some people are scratching their heads right now). Toronto is such an oil dependent city, throwing a rapid transit line down on one main artery may solve problems for the people who live on or just off of Eglinton, but for the majority of people in the GTA who use it as part of their route to get to work, it would just create a mess of traffic. Let the drivers have the road, build cheap RT underground.

But what do I know?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Consider this: a modern subway has stations about one every 2 km.

There are no subway lines in Toronto with 2km stop spacing. There's just a few places where individual stops are 2km apart (and most of these would be poor station locations with frightfully paltry ridership. The only "missing" stations are Blythwood/Lytton (the main problem here is that Eglinton station is south of Eglinton while Lawrence station is north of Lawrence) and Willowdale (but Willowdale should be added, a la North York Centre), and there's about 3 more that a person would only suggest if they had personal interest in it. Do you honestly think an Eglinton line would skip stops like Mount Pleasant or Avenue or Birchmount or Royal York or...?

Roughly ~1km spacing is standard in Toronto, despite what you read on Steve Munro's blog about the death of local service, and we'll put stations 500m or 800m apart if there's enough people there to use it. 1km spacing means every point on the corridor is within about 400m of a station, and the vast majority are much closer (because the vast majority of people and jobs and buildings are closer to intersections than they are to midblock nowheres). For people approaching a line from a perpendicular direction, like from 4 blocks north or south, going from 500m to 1km spacing has even less effect on them...Pythagoras always said "why walk 3 minutes south and 4 minutes west when you can walk 5 minutes at an angle?"

A minority of people will have to walk further to reach a transit stop, but they'll make up the time by travelling faster. They'll also save money by not having to pay the capital and operating costs of many more Ellesmere stations. Yeah, a minority of this minority will really prefer having a vehicle stop at their front door, but why must this tiny group hold the interests of the entire city hostage?

While this isn't a huge factor in high-traffic areas like the central core (enough riders to distribute the costs), out in Scarborough or Etobicoke along Eglinton, there aren't enough riders to make that cost effective.

You should look into the Eglinton corridor east of Kennedy and check out how many buses ply that route and how many highrises line the street...stations at Danforth and Markham would be very busy. Parts of Eglinton West in York or Toronto would benefit the most from grade-separation and parts of Eglinton East east of Yonge would probably see the highest ridership, but that doesn't change the fact that an Eglinton line would be just as viable way out east as it is in the middle. Etobicoke's stretch could be the recipient of substantial transfer traffic. The Richview corridor makes that stretch very cheap to build, too..."cost effective."

edit - and it's not like the proposed LRT is dirt cheap...it's a multi-billion dollar project.

 

[Dichotomy]

The Dufferin to Jane corridor of Eglinton is the worst mess. Where would a LRT run in that area? Sure, past Laird a LRT would be easy to run on a dedicated line, but the bottleneck that Eglinton has become west of Avenue Rd. is a joke.
(Of course, the Spadina Expressway would have alleviated that, but that is another topic.)

IMO, a subway from at least Yonge west to Islington would give the high densities up in the Albion Rd/Kipling area a different route to civilization, rather than along Finch, Steeles or Sheppard.

I worked in the Warden/Eglinto area for 12 years (until recently.) Eglinton is busy, but it does move. I don't think the density is there yet to justify anything greater than the existing bus lines. Those people can go south to the Bloor-Danforth line, rather than simply going west along Eglinton. Those living out past Dufferin/Keele are cut off, frankly.

Since the roads in this city are a hopeless mess, the only way to improve things would be with a subway to the western edge of the city, along Eglinton. The airport would be nice, but to Jane or Islington would be a start.

Or hasn't it dawned on anyone why the 401 is the busiest highway in North America?

 

[Edward Skira]

Or hasn't it dawned on anyone why the 401 is the busiest highway in North America?

Because its the only east/west highway in the GTA.

 

[kettal]

Roughly ~1km spacing is standard in Toronto, despite what you read on Steve Munro's blog about the death of local service, and we'll put stations 500m or 800m apart if there's enough people there to use it. 1km spacing means every point on the corridor is within about 400m of a station, and the vast majority are much closer (because the vast majority of people and jobs and buildings are closer to intersections than they are to midblock nowheres). For people approaching a line from a perpendicular direction, like from 4 blocks north or south, going from 500m to 1km spacing has even less effect on them...Pythagoras always said "why walk 3 minutes south and 4 minutes west when you can walk 5 minutes at an angle?"

Having stations as close as 500m kind of destroys any advantage of being grade separated, as it comes at the expense of speed. The advantage of surface RT is that adding stations is cheap, as opposed to subways, where stations are about the most expensive consideration in construction. And when you get off the train, you're not at the front door of your shop or whatever, you still have to climb the stairs. Out of sight out of mind as they say.

Yeah, a minority of this minority will really prefer having a vehicle stop at their front door, but why must this tiny group hold the interests of the entire city hostage?

To say this "a minority of a minority" is assuming that the majority wants to live in a skyscraper at an intersection. If you take into account the entire city, most people want to raise their families in something more along the lines of a town house. These people have been under served by rapid transit who builds subways which are only effective to ultra high density, node style developments. And there's already plenty of that in Toronto to go around.

I know it sounds crazy, but try to remember that the city doesn't run on single yuppies alone.

So yes, back to the point, this is a huge market, and they're not to hold "the whole city hostage", only holding hostage the few who seem to think they have to zoom from Mississauga to Scarborough every day, and for them, there's no reason they should be using the Eglinton Crosstown anyways. They should be using something more the likes of a GO train. (Metrolinx proposes things called crosstown REX trains but it's not exactly clear what those are). That will always be the king of speed.

The Richview corridor makes that stretch very cheap to build, too..."cost effective."

edit - and it's not like the proposed LRT is dirt cheap...it's a multi-billion dollar project.

In my previous post I wasn't talking so much about construction as operating costs. Why are we paying someone to work the ticket booths in stations like Bessarion, or Ellesmere, or the future Richview station? Why are the escalators across the TTC always in disrepair? At some subway stations, I would hate to be a guy in a wheelchair only to see the sign: "sorry, elevator broken, please get back on the train and go back one station and then catch the bus back here". With surface LRT this is not a concern. Operating costs.

 

[urbanboom]

I think a Subway will be perfect.

BUT, lets be realistic.

Miller says there ain't gonna be a subway anytime soon.
Dalton wouldn't pay for a subway.
And Harper has probably never set foot in a subway car in his life.

Unless there is a real shake up in government: (I don't know, Dion gets elected and with his 'green shift' decides that cars are the work of satan.....) there won't be an Eglinton Subway for a long time....

I'm sorry, but it's true.

It would be smart, but lets hope that they can get to "decent" before we go for "smart".

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Dichotomy: If someone past Don Mills can go south to Danforth, someone past Dufferin can go south to Bloor. Eglinton West needs a grade-separated solution, but Eglinton East (which also would be tunneled until Laird or so) might stop moving if an on-street ROW was built...any first phase/section of an Eglinton line must go at least over to Don Mills. Density is irrelevant...ridership is the only thing that really matters.

Dalton wouldn't pay for a subway.

Yes, he would have. The problem was that we didn't ask for one, we asked for a multi-billion dollar tunneled streetcar.

Having stations as close as 500m kind of destroys any advantage of being grade separated, as it comes at the expense of speed. And when you get off the train, you're not at the front door of your shop or whatever, you still have to climb the stairs. Out of sight out of mind as they say.

A few stations might be 500m apart, a few might be 1.5km apart...that happens when you havr a 1km average. The TTC is good at pinching pennies and figuring out cost/benefit ratios and could probably determine a very suitable station list as long as ideology doesn't interfere. The number of stations has a secondary influence on speed next to grade separation itself. The number of stations in the underground segment of the Eglinton LRT would probably be identical to the number of stations in an Eglinton subway. "Out of sight, out of mind" must be why Yonge, Bloor, and Danforth are decrepit, decayed strips...oh, wait.

To say this "a minority of a minority" is assuming that the majority wants to live in a skyscraper at an intersection. If you take into account the entire city, most people want to raise their families in something more along the lines of a town house. These people have been under served by rapid transit who builds subways which are only effective to ultra high density, node style developments. And there's already plenty of that in Toronto to go around......I know it sounds crazy, but try to remember that the city doesn't run on single yuppies alone.......So yes, back to the point, this is a huge market, and they're not to hold "the whole city hostage", only holding hostage the few who seem to think they have to zoom from Mississauga to Scarborough every day, and for them, there's no reason they should be using the Eglinton Crosstown anyways. They should be using something more the likes of a GO train. (Metrolinx proposes things called crosstown REX trains but it's not exactly clear what those are). That will always be the king of speed.

Your argument makes no sense. Is the Yonge line not effective for the many thousands of houses within a few minutes walk of Yonge or the hundreds of thousands of houses within walking distance of a quick connecting bus? Sheppard's condos are all between stations, not at them. The majority of people would live in apartments and houses and townhouses and condos a few minutes away from a station at an average 1km spacing.

I don't care about people going from Scarborough to Mississauga...the Bloor/Danforth line already goes there. Yes, lots of people going very long distances should take GO once it's been improved. The problem with Eglinton is that the central portion absolutely needs to be tunneled...if the whole thing was a 6 lane suburban arterial you could argue that surface streetcars could work, but it's not, and you can't. The issue is do we want to spend $3+ billion on a tunneled streetcar when it's not the only option.

 

[kettal]

I don't care about people going from Scarborough to Mississauga...the Bloor/Danforth line already goes there. Yes, lots of people going very long distances should take GO once it's been improved. The problem with Eglinton is that the central portion absolutely needs to be tunneled...if the whole thing was a 6 lane suburban arterial you could argue that surface streetcars could work, but it's not, and you can't. The issue is do we want to spend $3+ billion on a tunneled streetcar when it's not the only option.

You are correct, the central portion will have to be underground. My argument is that it should be at grade, in the six-lane suburban arterial sections. Sorry I didn't make this clear perhaps we are actually in agreement?