Officially Unofficial Metrolinx Regional Transportation Plan Thread

[CDL.TO]

I was just looking at that Kennedy/401 area again on Google Maps, and I've realized that this is yet another place where the TTC's plans include wildly unnecessary tunneling. There's no reason why the subway couldn't be elevated the whole way from Sheppard and Kennedy to STC. It could follow the route of the creek through south to the Stouffville rail corridor, and then south to the current RT corridor. Ideally, the RT would have been replaced by a subway, and the existing elevated supports could be strengthened to handle subway trains. This could potentially reduce the tunnelled length to a measly 4.5 km. The remaining 3.5 km would be above-ground. This could cut the cost of the line dramatically. If the subway is extended another stop anyway, and then an elaborate interchange station is built to connect with the streetcar, the cost of the Transit City LRT might not be much lower.

Interesting and true, unimaginative.

Cynical responses:
- "But it wouldn't directly serve Midland and Progress!"
- "But it wouldn't serve Malvern!"
- "Elevated is ugly!"

 

[EnviroTO]

MCC should have subway just like STC and VCC, especially since it's not much farther than STC, and it's closer than VCC.

All the density is north-south in Mississauga. Mississauga has never planned for east-west rapid transit beyond a busway along a freeway which doesn't lend itself for a subway much.. Zoning hasn't been set densely along an east-west corridor the way it has been along Hurontario. If Mississauga had zoned all of Bloor high density rather than stopping just west of Dixie it would have made an ideal route being the most direct route to the Burnhamthorpe and Hurontario intersection from the Kipling and Bloor area. Running Dundas to Hurontario is an indirect route which would duplicate any Hurontario RT service and follow the CP line which could be running frequent service. This leaves only Eglinton as a smart route for a subway which doesn't duplicate existing or planned infrastructure.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

But there's absolutely nothing on Eglinton between Square One and Yonge other than the office park and the airport at Renforth, both of which need to be reached by additional transit (unless people walk 1km through parking lots from Eglinton to Explorer). That's an incredibly long line to build for the sake of bringing subway "access" to Mississauga.

 

[Dan416]

Even I can't support a subway along Eglinton in Mississauga. Not even in the near-long term. It just doesn't have the density of the more southern part.

EnviroTO: yes Hurontario is zoned as high-density, but the most CURRENT density is in Eastern Mississauga, which has many, many high rises. Western Mississauga is newer, and much less dense. Same goes for Northern Mississauga. The southeastern quadrant of Mississauga is the best bet for subway service based on current density. And the Dundas corridor has a LOT of redevelopment potential. It's just strip malls right now, but it could BE a lot more. And it already has an LRT announced by MoveOntario 2020. If it could be an LRT, you might as well make it a subway. 1 Dundas is one of MT's busiest and most frequent routes, despite having very little actual "destinations" along its length (though it has UTM, is near MCC at Hurontario, and then gets to Kipling station).

 

[DENTROBATE54]

Interesting and true, unimaginative.

Cynical responses:
- "But it wouldn't directly serve Midland and Progress!"
- "But it wouldn't serve Malvern!"
- "Elevated is ugly!"

All of which could be retorted because we've become very accustomed to an existing station in the Midland/Progress area, which is elevated and en route eastbound to Malvern-heading buses .

Preferrably though the path of the Sheppard line should go as follows east of Warden:

Allenford, Agincourt, Brimley, McCowan, Markham Rd., Milner, Progress, Bellamy, STC.

As you'd see it only adds 5kms and five new stations to the mix that the SRT extension would've included. A stop at McCowan/Sheppard could reroute everything from 85, 129, 130, 131, 132, 165 becoming a transit hub in it's own right and does lots for East Scarborough, Pickering even. If done through a combination of cut-and-cover and elevated ROW this expension would cost less than a billion more than the 401 wastelands alignment. Most of all it wouldn't have the What if we had thought of this sooner... stigma attached to it like a enclosing of both BD and Sheppard at the Town Centre would.

But there's absolutely nothing on Eglinton between Square One and Yonge other than the office park and the airport at Renforth, both of which need to be reached by additional transit (unless people walk 1km through parking lots from Eglinton to Explorer). That's an incredibly long line to build for the sake of bringing subway "access" to Mississauga.

While I agree there's no justification for a Mississauga Eglinton subway, within the 416 it's very practical all the way to Yonge and beyond. Pearson should be the natural terminus, not Renforth but nothing's stopping MT from routing from Martin Grove (at which point the subway would veer upto Dixon/Pearson) to Square One.

 

[RedRocket191]

Cross-posted from GTTAVISIONS.COM

By no ways is this your final opportunity to comment, but the Regional Transportation Plan is going to have an injection of proposed policy soon, with the meeting to discuss Mobility Hubs, Active Transportation & Transportation Demand Management fast approaching.

Mobility hubs are simply high-density, mixed-use developments build around high-frequency transit terminal. Here's a few things to think about:

• Is it better to have many small mobility hubs, or a few large mobility hubs.
• What should those mobility hubs have? Should we strive to have a balance of land uses in each hub, or should different hubs specialize in one particular land use?
• How do we best encourage this intensification?
• Should we build transit first to encourage development, or should we wait until the development occurs to improve the transit connections?
• How should we deal with parking? Should the developments be built with underground commuter parking lots, or should we strive to gradually eliminate the need for parking. If we choose the latter, how do we best eliminate the need for parking?

Active Transportation is modes of transportation which are self powered - namely walking and cycling. Here are some ideas to chew on:

• What kinds of facilities are needed? Should employers be required to provide bicycle lockers and showers, or should the municipality take that responsibility?
• Where is the best place to put sidewalks and bicycle paths? Should they be in the roads or in their own corridors?

Transportation Demand Management are policies which try to influence whether, when, why, where and how people travel. It is the hardest to explain on a conceptual level, but it ties together all of the transportation topics that we'll be discussing. So,

• How should we encourage people to think about and choose sustainable means of travel?
• Should we offer incentives to companies who offer flex-time to their employees in order to shift the time they are on the roads?
• Should we offer incentives to people who carpool or use other means to reduce the number of cars on the road, or should we use obstacles to discourage people who don't?
• The big one: Should we consider congestion pricing for drivers who don't take steps to improve their efficiency (for example, the SUV with a single occupant in rush hour might pay a few cents per kilometre, while the hybrid driver with four passengers at 9pm would pay nothing)?

You might have noticed that I use the term "we". That is because this plan belongs to every resident in Greater Toronto & Hamilton, and it needs everyone's help to shape it into a road map to guide us into the future. To read more about these concepts and to see what is on the table, visit the Metrolinx website and click Regional Transportation Plan - but hurry! Your next opportunity to comment on these three concepts in particular won't come until the summer.

 

[doady]

Even I can't support a subway along Eglinton in Mississauga. Not even in the near-long term. It just doesn't have the density of the more southern part.

EnviroTO: yes Hurontario is zoned as high-density, but the most CURRENT density is in Eastern Mississauga, which has many, many high rises. Western Mississauga is newer, and much less dense. Same goes for Northern Mississauga. The southeastern quadrant of Mississauga is the best bet for subway service based on current density.

Actually the Hurontario corridor is also CURRENTLY the densest by far. No where else in Misshitsauga even comes close. After all, there is a reason why Hurontario is the busiest bus route....

 

[Hipster Duck]

the Dundas corridor has a LOT of redevelopment potential. It's just strip malls right now, but it could BE a lot more. And it already has an LRT announced by MoveOntario 2020. If it could be an LRT, you might as well make it a subway.

I have made it pretty clear in the past that I'm not the greatest supporter of Transit City-style LRTs. Still, I think that a subway into Mississauga, or even under Hurontario, is serious overkill.

A subway - which I think we define as a tunneled, urban heavy rail system - is pretty much only effective in an urban environment where the immediate surroundings are walkable. A string of condo towers along a suburban arterial like Hurontario does not fit this description. It is a one-dimensional line of density buffered on all sides by auto-centric sprawl. We should also not confuse density with transit-friendliness/urbanity; it's amazing to see the number of people who stream in and out of Chester subway station even though it's a community stop surrounded by semi-detached houses with not even a single bus connection. At the same time, people are not cramming onto the Liverpool bus at the apartment blocks in "downtown" Pickering, nor have the gaggle of condos in the Wynford Dr/DVP area generated any need for bus improvements in that underserved area.

There are neighbourhoods in the GTA that do meet this subway description - like anything along Queen or King or south of Bloor - but none of these areas is getting a subway, anyway.

The only need for a subway anywhere in the GTA is to either a) address existing gaps in the system (such as finishing Sheppard to STC), or b) to serve those neighbourhoods that actually qualify for subway demand (like south of Bloor).

 

[Dan416]

I have made it pretty clear in the past that I'm not the greatest supporter of Transit City-style LRTs. Still, I think that a subway into Mississauga, or even under Hurontario, is serious overkill.

A subway - which I think we define as a tunneled, urban heavy rail system - is pretty much only effective in an urban environment where the immediate surroundings are walkable. A string of condo towers along a suburban arterial like Hurontario does not fit this description. It is a one-dimensional line of density buffered on all sides by auto-centric sprawl. We should also not confuse density with transit-friendliness/urbanity; it's amazing to see the number of people who stream in and out of Chester subway station even though it's a community stop surrounded by semi-detached houses with not even a single bus connection. At the same time, people are not cramming onto the Liverpool bus at the apartment blocks in "downtown" Pickering, nor have the gaggle of condos in the Wynford Dr/DVP area generated any need for bus improvements in that underserved area.

There are neighbourhoods in the GTA that do meet this subway description - like anything along Queen or King or south of Bloor - but none of these areas is getting a subway, anyway.

The only need for a subway anywhere in the GTA is to either a) address existing gaps in the system (such as finishing Sheppard to STC), or b) to serve those neighbourhoods that actually qualify for subway demand (like south of Bloor).

Care to explain the subway to Vaughan then?

 

[RedRocket191]

I know this is bad forum etiquette, but I don't want you guys to miss out on your chance to comment...

 

[Hipster Duck]

Care to explain the subway to Vaughan then?

No problem.

The subway shouldn't go to Vaughan.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The Yonge line should and will go to Vaughan.

 

[Le Gique]

"Context-Sensitive Transit Solutions" -from jitneys to subways...

i finally checked out this chart:

http://metrolinx-consult.limehouse.com/portal/reviewgreenpaper7?pointId=1203611631021#1203611631021
http://tinyurl.com/2bxn92

it advises where to put subways and other modes based on density, such as POPULATION PER HECTARE (ppha), UNITS PER HECTARE (upha) etc.

this is a major variable professional planners are eying when considering if a corridor justifies a certain technology---

now, i couldn't reel off current or future density figures for Mississauga or elsewhere, but can we agree there are more rigorous ways to estimate suitable transit modes than we're employing here?

let's take the Spadina extension, as if we were planning it today.
one person feels Vaughan is too far, another says York U is even too far to justify heavy rail...
--since nobody (i hope) is proposing that it go to Canada's Wonderland, we're left bickering over the optimum terminal point somewhere between Downview and Hwy. 7.

--I'm saying that if we had a chance to have this discussion in public (before the choices were made behind closed doors), the Spadina extension might have been way different

--that's the responsibility we have now -- to make sure that the newest projects are scrutinized transparently

-gut instinct is valuable, but we need to have hard figures in front of us too

(responding to scarb)
--given the current funding possibilities as I see them, my belly says Spadina should not go to 7, or even York U, and Yonge should go to 7 (but not before a major upgrade occurs to the Richmond Hill line for long-haul downtown passengers)
--looking forward to hashing it out during the Metrolinx consultations

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Density is not the best way to determine where rapid transit should be placed: ridership is the best way. Density is mainly useful to determine where local bus/streetcar routes are viable; in other contexts, it's just reduced to buzzword status unless backed up by some real numbers and real contexts - saying 200 people per hectare merits a subway means nothing unless we know how much area we're talking about, how much retail/employment/schools/attractions are included in that area, how close adjacent transit lines are, how far this area is from downtown, etc., etc. Feel free to take the "but more density = more riders" approach, but remember that even though there is no density along Keele, there's no question that York U and the Finch West bus will pour tens of thousands of riders onto the subway extension. Toronto's subway lines depend on feeder bus traffic. Based on density, only some of the old city of Toronto would have gotten good transit, and then the GTA would be no better off than Atlanta. Also based on density, we'd need to run subway lines out to Bathurst & Steeles or Warden & Finch or McCowan & Steeles ASAP, but that's not realistic.

The Spadina extension shouldn't be the highest priority project, but it's not terrible (it'll be considerably overbuilt, though, with a station at a cemetery and unnecessary tunnelling). I'd have no problems with it ending at York, but ending it on Steeles would get buses off York's campus and allow a big park'n'ride lot. If we're playing alternate reality, then if it wasn't continuing on to Vaughan, York Region wouldn't be involved and it would never have been extended at all, and then hardly anyone in Ontario would be calling for rapid transit improvements, and MoveOntario itself may never have happened. In a perfect world, politics wouldn't interfere, but we don't live in that world...the best we can hope for is for greater political interference resulting in a few more MoveOntarios so that more good projects are built along with the bad.

And, yes, I've seen people (more or less) seriously propose extending it to Wonderland/Vaughan Mills. Connecting all of the suburban malls is at least as sensible a plan as any other.

 

[Disparishun]

And, yes, I've seen people (more or less) seriously propose extending it to Wonderland/Vaughan Mills. Connecting all of the suburban malls is at least as sensible a plan as any other.

Only if the suburban models had density and connectivity targets they had to meet.

I'd be all for extending to Vaughan Mills, if (a) the subway connected directly into Vaughan Mills and (b) local bus connections or even a terminal were involved and (c) a density floor were imposed which basically required that the parking lots be buried in favour of dense residential/office mix and (d) the City of Vaughan cooperated with a density step-down around the area ensuring that it wasn't island in the middle of single-tract double-garage giant-setback homes.

Of course, that doesn't seem so likely.