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Neptis' Review of Metrolinx's Big Move

Johnny Au said:
Leslie deserves the chopping block. Nobody uses the LRT to go buy a car.
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Actually anyone getting off at Leslie is going to Sunnybrooke park. (And that park actually does see a lot of traffic)

I would've liked to see an at grade, south-side alignment between Broadview and Don Mills.
 
WislaHD said:
Actually anyone getting off at Leslie is going to Sunnybrooke park. (And that park actually does see a lot of traffic)

I would've liked to see an at grade, south-side alignment between Broadview and Don Mills.
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Most users of the Leslie stop will come by bus and transfer to the LRT, not to visit the park or other destinations (if any)
 
ShonTron said:
Broadview? Or do you mean Brentcliffe?
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Yah my bad. Always get the two mixed. :p

@Salsa, right I forgot about the Leslie bus. Yah that will be the biggest traffic generator. But the park traffic shouldn't be underestimated in the summer time. I think many people would prefer to not drive there.
 
salsa said:
Most users of the Leslie stop will come by bus and transfer to the LRT, not to visit the park or other destinations (if any)
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But even then, that will likely be temporary as the bus route terminus will likely change to Eglinton-Don Mills when the DRL reaches there. Would make more sense to feed it into there anyway.
 
WislaHD said:
The Neptis report (and seemingly you) treats the Eglinton line as only a means to funnel people to the Yonge line as quickly as possible. The Eglinton line with have more than one functionality as inhabitants of the central portion of the line (myself included) will treat the line as part of their community, as a means to reach local amenities, access local shopping areas and to travel seamlessly across Midtown without a car. It will be the catalyst for even greater densification, construction and commercial expansion through the entire central stretch of Eglinton, and not just at specific nodes along Eglinton ala the Sheppard line. This is what this part of the city hopes to realize in the long-term and why many 'self-serving local residents' have taken interest in this project. Inhabitants of Scarborough/Etobicoke won't care if whether Midtown realizes its potential or not, especially when it entails a lifestyle foreign to suburbia and marginally longer commute to Yonge-Eglinton station.
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This is very misleading rhetoric. The purpose of any transit project, anywhere, is to generate and sustain ridership at a reasonable cost. I'm not trying to say "transit should make money" or any such argument, but capital projects have to be planned around expected benefits to riders. As soon as you move away from that we get into vanity projects.

You can say that the ECLRT is "for" whatever you want. Ultimately, the ridership numbers I've seen, suggest that not enough people will use the ECLRT for "local" travel.

"Local" travel can't really justify ~150 million dollar stations outside of downtown. That's just an unfortunate fact of Toronto's population density & the economics of subway construction.
 
Short lines downtown can be well used and act as connectors to better relieve Bloor/Yonge, and of course provide additional coverage.
 
salsa said:
For those who have time to read, Steve Munro finally wrote his detailed critique of the Neptis report.

Part 1 http://stevemunro.ca/?p=9508
Part 2 http://stevemunro.ca/?p=9514
Part 3 http://stevemunro.ca/?p=9522
Part 4 http://stevemunro.ca/?p=9537
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Munro is a very smart fellow and I won't claim to have ready every single word but I read a good chunk and had the same problem with it I have with much of its stuff, which is how 416-centric the mentality is. He may beg to differ but I see it as a consistent thread. He makes MANY good points about the problems with the report itself but many of his other criticisms are based on his own theories and ideas about how things should be. It's perfectly fair to say that Metrolinx thinks too much about REGIONAL planning not enough about how it works at the local level but others (and I'd include Munro and ESPECIALLY the TTC) think too much about the local and not enough (or at all) about the regional scale. The current rhetorical fight about whether the DRL is a "local" or "regional" project - right down to what it's name should be - shows that this is taking place at about the same level as the national fight to protect "the middle class" and who gets to define what that even means.

There's probably no other individual not working at Metrolinx and/or TTC with more comprehensive knowledge than Munro but my problem remains that that he is emblematic of a kind of protectionist view of Toronto that doesn't entirely recognize the need to integrate what's in Toronto with the rapidly growing inner-905. I'm perhaps stating the case a bit broadly here but I see it particularly in his criticisms of the Vaughan and Yonge subway extensions.

As one example - I'm traveling to Washington, DC next month and noted that their subway system, on pretty much all its lines, leaves DC and goes into the burbs. Compare that with Munro snidely noting, "that York Region came into the [Vaughan Extension] on the basis that the TTC would take all of the revenues and most of the operating costs, and that the Toronto fare zone would be extended to Vaughan. This may not make economic sense, but it is the political arrangement we have inherited. It is likely that York Region expects similar treatment for the Richmond Hill subway, and their citizens look forward to a cheap ride all the way to downtown largely subsidized by Toronto taxpayers." That's the EXISTING funding arrangement but stop looking at the status quo and look more at what makes sense on a regional scale, is my argument. You can't criticize political involvement in transit planning elsewhere and then complain about subsidizing some suburbanites ride. The other side of the border - where York U students from York Region will have to pay a double fare to travel 2 subway stops, is basically dismissed by Munro as York Region's own problem without addressing the basic fact that the current fare structure is unfair to pretty much anyone travelling across any border.

So, either do away with all petty fiefdoms or don't complain. The more he talks about "Toronto transit riders" as if they are different from other transit riders, the more it sounds like so much antiquated protectionism.

I had many issues with Schabas' report and I know a lot less than Munro but I feel like maybe the two of them together could have really put out something more comprehensive and valuable. :)

(Also, superficially, he says the Spadina extension has been delayed from 2016 to early 2017, which is news to me...)
 
^

Further, the ‘solutions’ are inconsistent with the supposed issues. It’s fine to say we should focus on ‘local riders’ but there’s no obvious definition of what that means and, as a result, no clear way of helping those riders.
For instance, in-median LRTs are a terrible way to help ‘local’ riders for pretty obvious reasons; lower total travel distances lower the impact of speed related travel time savings and increases the relative impact of access times.
 
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