innsertnamehere
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DRL may shave 3 or 4 minutes off of it.
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Neptis' Review of Metrolinx's Big Move
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kEiThZ
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Good luck selling that vision in a democracy. I want better transit but would readily turf any politician that wanted to impose a government agency with an explicit mandate to ignore the wishes of the electorate. Not just that. But given the billions involved in public transit and the imposition of all forms of new charges and taxes that will be necessary, you can absolutely that the public will react harshly to any politician that decides to support a bureaucratic agency with a mandate to cudgel the public.
What is needed is leadership. Simple as that. Politicians who can articulate a vision, stick to it and sell it. I may not have agreed with Transit City, but David Miller certainly demonstrated had it. Heck, one could argue that Rob Ford sort of has it too. He certainly delivered to Scarborough what nobody else could in the last few decades. What's unfortunate is his utter lack of realism and inability to compromise at all.
What is also needed are proper authoritative agencies. Trying to execute a regional vision without having a properly empowered regional agency is pointless. I don't care how big or experienced the TTC is. Subordinate it to Metrolinx. Or break up the TTC into the feeder (bus,streetcar, LRT) network and hand the capital intensive subway system to Metrolinx. And let Metrolinx control all transport (not just transit) development going forward including things like replacement of the Gardiner and taxi licensing (it's pretty stupid that we have so many municipal taxi licensing authorities...bad for the consumer). And while they're at it, either put all the Mayors on the board (like it was before) or allow for the election of some kind of regional council to govern Metrolinx. In short, Metrolinx, should be a lot closer to what Transport for London is, then the toothless puppy that it is now. Take the training wheels off.
denfromoakvillemilton
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You get your say at the ballot box. If you don't like it vote. That's what happened in 2010. All public consultation has done is delay the implementation of project. The Eglinton line has several stops that should not be there because of public - not political - public interference with the planning process.
kEiThZ
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Fair enough. I'd like to see a politician run on a platform that says, "no public consultations between elections". Let's see how that flies.
denfromoakvillemilton
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I agree with you. If they get mad, too bad. Go to your Councillor or MPP and make your case. Because of public input, Forest Hill and the Leslie-Eglinton neighborhoods are getting stops which will slow down the line and in Leslie's case end up banning left turns for the rest of the city. Way back in the 1980's public interference from the Danforth Crowd ruined the DRL. Let's see what it's like when it's resident vs resident instead of people having a convenient scapegoat in a (admittedly incompetent) government. Enough is Enough on all sides. It's time to build something and come together.
To be fair though, the Liberals have bended to public pressure, whether it was the right move or not.
kEiThZ
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Here's the thing. Democracy is messy. And occassionally, we have to pander to get something through. I don't see the big deal. There are times that my interests will get pandered too. And there are times I will pander too. Compromise can be a civic virtue.
What we should be mindful of are obstructionists. And they come in all forms. And I'm not even sure that people will universally view someone as an obstructionist. Take Jack Layton and Rob Ford. People praise Jack Layton today. He was as bad as Ford when he fought the DRL. He also fought the Skydome for crying out loud. And that's a symbol of this city today. Amazingly, Ford might have as his legacy, more transit commenced delivered than Jack Layton. Think about that! One thing's for sure. In Scarborough at least, Jack Layton will be vaguely remembered as one of the crew that foisted the SRT on them. And Rob Ford will be remembered as the one who saved them from the hell that was the SRT. (though unfortunately for Ford he's more likely to be remembered for this crack addiction than his subway extension...). So who's the obstrcutionist? Of course, to the rest of TO, Rob Ford is utterly obstinate....
What we should be mindful of are obstructionists. And they come in all forms. And I'm not even sure that people will universally view someone as an obstructionist. Take Jack Layton and Rob Ford. People praise Jack Layton today. He was as bad as Ford when he fought the DRL. He also fought the Skydome for crying out loud. And that's a symbol of this city today. Amazingly, Ford might have as his legacy, more transit commenced delivered than Jack Layton. Think about that! One thing's for sure. In Scarborough at least, Jack Layton will be vaguely remembered as one of the crew that foisted the SRT on them. And Rob Ford will be remembered as the one who saved them from the hell that was the SRT. (though unfortunately for Ford he's more likely to be remembered for this crack addiction than his subway extension...). So who's the obstrcutionist? Of course, to the rest of TO, Rob Ford is utterly obstinate....
denfromoakvillemilton
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Hey, I have no problem with democracy. It's when people vote, or mostly don't vote and then complain or try to obfuscate the process. And then say the government is incompetent. Of course politicians with the own agendas will always be a problem, you gave two examples. What I want is at some point, the debate ends and we build. And for people not to complain when incompetent politicos get voted, because it's a reflection of the people. Layton and Ford are the two most frequent examples of it.
flonicky
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The province spent $570 million building it and eventually sold it for $150 million. Rogers finally bought it for $25 million after a bunch of owners failed to make it work. Soon after it was built that type of mega-ballpark went out of style.
Layton was right.
ShonTron
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Rob Ford's subway plans and transit opposition are based on crass populism. Layton's subway opposition was for very different reasons. Yes, Layton fought the DRL, but that was part of the 1970s-era Reformist city ideals that included density capping, height restrictions and other policies that was meant to decentralise the city's functions. At the time, a DRL would have encouraged more commercial growth downtown without moving into satellite centres.
It was definitely wrong - business still wanted to be downtown and the satellites of Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough were not nearly as successful as planned. I certainly disagree and I lament the fact that Metro didn't push the DRL in the 1980s as it should have, but I get the reasons why the DRL was not popular with left-leaning and reform Red Tory councillors.
But Layton was competent. Ford is not.
It was definitely wrong - business still wanted to be downtown and the satellites of Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough were not nearly as successful as planned. I certainly disagree and I lament the fact that Metro didn't push the DRL in the 1980s as it should have, but I get the reasons why the DRL was not popular with left-leaning and reform Red Tory councillors.
But Layton was competent. Ford is not.
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ssiguy2
Senior Member
I don't know so I will assume what you say is true but that doesn't change the fact that he is right.
In Vancouver the ICTS or Innovia ART {not ALRT} as it is now known , has proven to be an excellent system and one { of the many} complaints about the Canada Line is that it uses standard subway technology and not SkyTrain as the SkyTrain is noticeably faster and the Canada Line has already had reliability issues which the SkyTrain never has.
Would I recommend it if the SRT wasn't already there? No, but only because you already have facilities for subway maintenance but seeing it is there already to simply upgrade the line and buy new MK11 or MK111 cars would be far more effective use of funds. No other city on the planet, especially with one with as small a rapid transit system as Toronto, would even contemplate closing a rapid transit corridor just to put up another one at a staggering $3 billion in the suburbs.
The new MK111 train may even be able to be used on the current SRT line, I'm not sure but their configuration is different from MK11. MK11 are 36 meters with one articulation whereas the MK111 {which I believe Vancouver will be getting for Evergreen and future fleet expansion} can be up to 100 meters and I believe it would have more than 3 articulations. Just because Toronto has done everything in it's power to run the SRT into the ground does not mean the technology is a poor one.
If you want to know how Innovia ART can be effective look to Vancouver and not the incompetent TTC.
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
And to think it was invented in Ontario, and they can't get it right. They can get 90 second frequencies to scoop up passengers in an efficient fashion but they said the current ICTS is too old to run at those frequencies and if they set it up that would cause more delays with it's screw ups.
Electrify
Senior Member
Pretty much agreed. The problem with the SRT is not the technology*, but the planning around it. Imagine if Kennedy was a destination rather than a transfer point, a poor one at that. Imagine if around Ellesmere and Midland, being so close together, there was a new urbanist community of density and street life, rather than an unused parking lot and a paper recycling facility injecting a horrible stentch into the elevated station (whatever planner or politician allowed such a setup to go through needs to be taken out back and shot). Imagine if the line extended the Scarborough Town Centre to Centennial College and into Malvern, creating a trunk line into the east end rather than an extension done on the cheap. Imagine if rather than building a Sheppard subway which is too slow to add relief to the highway next to it, that from Malvern the line travelled across the Finch corridor to downtown North York (now more appropriately located closer to Finch than Sheppard and the 401) and continued to York University and even Pearson Airport.
As for my option 2, perhaps the best example of such occurrence was the rail bridge under the Bloor viaduct.
Electrify
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Forgot to explain the *, basically that admittedly it does have problems in the winter. However those issues could be addressed by covering the tracks, like how the Blood line is over Sherbourne.
smallspy
Senior Member
There is one very important part about the ART technology that you've forgotten to add.
It is hugely expensive to maintain, and hugely expensive to expand. It has all of the same sub-systems of a subway - lighting, signaling, traction power, etc. - and so you can't easily create low-cost expansions in locations like the middle of streets or on the ground of hydro corridors. It is to the point of being within the same costs as a subway on both, and yet with only half of the capacity.
As much as I hate to see waste, there comes a time at which you need to stop throwing good money after bad. If the SRT, in its current iteration, could not reasonably be expanded beyond the currently budgetted expansions going forward in the future, than its still not going to serve us with much use then either, is it? (Not to mention tying us permanently with one vendor from here to eternity for vehicles.)
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Maybe ICTS would be cheaper to maintain if it were a maglev like it was conceived to be.