11th
Senior Member
Malvern benefits from the RT network extending into central Scarborough; comparing to Rexdale, which is very distant from the closest RT station.
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Metrolinx: Sheppard East LRT (In Design)
- Thread starter Le Gique
- Start date
nfitz
Superstar
And yet I've gotten to Rexdale very quickly after work, by taking GO to Etobicoke North station and changing to a bus there to my destination. Even beat a co-worker who drove to the same location!
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WislaHD
Superstar
I really have no answer as to why the WWLRT hasn't been funded and built yet. Such a transit no-brainer.
I really don't get how how more of the city isn't angry that it isn't being pursued either. How is it that the people of South Etobicoke, Liberty Village and East York are so quiet in the face of non-progress when people in Scarborough and North York have civic groups centered around Sheppard Subways and Finch LRTs?
I mean here in this thread we discuss time to time about potential development of Sheppard East along the LRT or subway line, when that development is already built with tons more on the way in Humbery Bay and Liberty Village...
ehlow
Senior Member
I don't consider myself a subway fanatic, but it's hard for me to believe that an east-west subway tunnel downtown isn't justified.
Riverdale Rink Rat
Senior Member
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But that's already in the plans: the DRL.
44 North
Senior Member
Exactly, it's really irritating. Humber Bay's growth is enormous and growing ever larger. Ditto for a dozen other high-density 'hoods. Where's their improved transit? This is the main reason I get really annoyed about projects like Yonge North - which really isn't a priority in the conventional sense. North of Steeles current surface ridership is dismal, and development is virtually non-existent (and even then what's planned is fanciful and unrealistic). Whereas we've got real transit-oriented developments within Toronto, with tens of thousands of new residents, but projects for them have fallen by the wayside. East Bayfront streetcar and its $Billions in development? It's been reduced to at best a BRT; and pretty much all of TC Phase II is gone completely.
As for the DRL? At the moment our priority is just a 5km "phase one" - and even I wouldn't hold my breath on it. It's definitely hard to blame the TTC or City, when the Prov clearly doesn't give a hoot about a Queen Subway/RL. There were, what, a hundred projects in their initial Big Move - and not a single one was a RL or downtown crosstown. They only begrudgingly added it because the City got them to.
Filip
Senior Member
I have a bit of an answer... In all the town halls we've hosted in Ward 6 (South Etobicoke), that were transit related, the message we got from the TTC was always the same: there is no ridership to warrant increased investment (yes when the options we have suck, we drive), there are competing higher-value projects, blablabla (lip service).
At a similar meeting when I asked the Metrolinx rep why there wasn't real interest in building a Park Lawn stop, he said 'well the development is in the wrong spot, it should be by Mimico station'.. So I told him 'and demolish an entire established neighbourhood in the process?' Unfortunately this is the type of people we are dealing with here.. No TOD to speak of, whatsoever.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I believe the official was talking about projects not already planned. The comments would not have applied to DRL.
crs1026
Superstar
The travesty of Humber Bay is that the developers forged ahead before ANY of the infrastructure - roads, sewers, water supply, let alone transit - was in place. The first condos opened 15 years ago, but only last month did a grocery store and a Shoppers' Drug Mart open south of the QEW. The developers simply refused to allocate space for less-profitable retail, and built what they wanted when they wanted. The City spent lots of energy opposing them, but the old problem with the OMB remains. (Humber Bay's one retail facility, at the Food Terminal, was rammed in inappropriately such that even the developer eventually admitted that the auto-only access was a mess, and asked that it be redone.)
Getting back to Scarboro, it would be hard to argue that Etobicoke is starved for transit - but Northern Etobicoke is certainly not well served. Better connections to employment areas in Mississauga, Brampton, and York are needed most.
I still think that extending the Sheppard subway west to the Spadina line might enable Sheppard as a third east-west corridor for development, creating a new downtown north of either the Eglinton downtown-to-be or the existing downtown. It's definitely a "build it and they will hopefully come" proposition rather than a "ridership projections are favourable" proposition, I know. And I still think that somewhere on this planet there is a carbuilder that could offer us an LRT vehicle that would fit in the existing subway tunnel so that the whole thing could be one long seamless LRT line.....without bankrupting the city through added cost vs a Flexity-only transit system.
If Sheppard isn't the future of development in Scarboro, what is?
- Paul
Amare
Senior Member
Ironically both Humber Bay and Liberty Village suffer from the same problem- being landlocked by both the railway corridor and the Gardiner- but the solution the can help alleviate transit issues in both areas is the WWLRT. Liberty Village is just a poorly planned neighborhood in general, filled with young professionals who don't seem to care much about their transit issues and people are always flocking to live around there. Humber Bay on the other hand suffers from very dense development projects with infrastructure being too inadequate to support the population boom. It remains to be seen if this area will be also filled with young professionals who don't care much about transit options. There is certainly some noise being made about the lack of transit in South Etobicoke, but that is certainly not coming from the Humber Bay area.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Eglinton along the LRT is a much better candidate, in my opinion. There have already been a few large scale developments proposed along the Eglinton LRT route. I have little doubt that in time, much of the strip malls along the route will be replaced by high density residential and commercial.
Eglinton east of Kennedy is another ideal candidate. I'd say that it's already one of the more prominent commercial strips in the borough. It's also where Scarborough has the highest residential density, if I remember correctly. The Scarborough Malvern LRT will hopefully serve this area in the future.
Both of these areas are more important than Sheppard, in my opinion
Eglinton east of Kennedy is another ideal candidate. I'd say that it's already one of the more prominent commercial strips in the borough. It's also where Scarborough has the highest residential density, if I remember correctly. The Scarborough Malvern LRT will hopefully serve this area in the future.
Both of these areas are more important than Sheppard, in my opinion
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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Andrewpmk has risen from the dead! I cannot believe my eyes!
aquateam
Active Member
Filip
Senior Member
My point exactly!
44 North
Senior Member
Interestingly through almost all of the 70s (and possibly into the 80s), Eglinton was ID'd as an Intermediate Capacity / Light RT corridor. http://levyrapidtransit.ca/category/part-three/ The last image is pretty interesting.
View attachment s-fig15.jpg
View attachment s-fig15.jpg
