Rob Ford's Subway plan and the 2001 Rapid Transit Expansion Study

[MisterF]

The thing is. It's hard to look at a map of Toronto, and it's current transit system and NOT come up with fairly similar transit plans. The main corridors are Finch by nature of being two of the busiest bus routes in the system, Eglinton by nature of being the cities central E-W spine and Y/E development, anything done to relieve the Yonge/Bloor interchange (DRL, new N/S link, etc), desire to connect to the airport, and expansions to existing rapid transit lines Spadina to Vaughan, Yonge to Richmond Hill, Danforth to STC, Bloor to Mississauga, and Sheppard to Downsview and STC. The main differences are how we execute these corridors, as subway, LRT, or BRT and how to integrate with GO regional rail.

Don't forget an east-west subway going through the heart of downtown. IMO that's the the best corridor for a new line, whether the line relieves Yonge/Bloor or not.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Personally, I would prefer to see an underground station at Weston Road, but above ground at Black Creek and an above ground terminal at Jane. Keeping the crossovers and trail track at Keele, and only a crossover at Jane, and no crossover or trail track at Weston.

I would leave it at kipling or renforth. honestly.

I have 3 theories:

1) That's as far west as the money that they were willing to spend could take them.
2) They just wanted it to go as far as the connection to the Georgetown line. If you extend it to Jane or Black Creek, then people would ask "why not just go all the way to the airport?" At least at Black Creek, it's ending at a decent hub.
3) Metrolinx realized that the design for Eglinton West was sub-optimal, and they wanted a grade-separated option, but Miller & Co were set on in-median, at-grade LRT. Rather than have a public spat about it, it was easier to just "delay it".

2 makes the most sense. Take it from st george to weston and take the Blue22 line to pearson.

 

[gweed123]

I agree that if both Sheppard subway and Eglinton Crosstown LRT reached STC, people would take LRT. If Sheppard subway gets built to STC, and B-D gets extended, how would this become continuous through service when stations along Sheppard are not big enough. I do not think that crosstown travel in this corridor warrants a subway.

Ford sensed the frustration with this NE part of the city, but I think Sheppard subway was the wrong solution. LRT from Agincourt to Kennedy station would have helped NW Scarborough. B-D extension to STC would have helped the shopping centre and surrounding appartement towers, and served GO bus routes as well. SRT from Midland to STC to Malvern would have helped the NE. I think there were less expensive ways to solve the transit concerns of Scarborough, but unfortunately Ford was only aware of a Sheppard subway as a solution.

What I used to advocate was:

1) B-D extension to STC
2) Sheppard Subway to Vic Park and BRT along the rest of Sheppard East
3) Eglinton LRT east to Kingston Rd/Eglinton GO Station
4) SLRT from STC to Malvern

This however was back in 2009, when the funding for TC was much more malleable than it is now. As it stands right now, I'm happy with Eglinton being a through-line to STC, although I think either an at-grade LRT extension to Eglinton GO, or a B-D extension to the same spot should be in the medium-term plans.

 

[M II A II R II K]

If the stops are far apart enough on the original at grade portion of the Eglinton line it could have remained above ground since there are fewer traffic lights and there's hardly density on those stretches of the road anyway. And in certain areas they still could have had it run on the side of the road like by Jane where there's just grass on the north side.

But would also add an Eastern DRL even if it meant sacrificing Sheppard and kept that Finch route.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

If the stops are far apart enough on the original at grade portion of the Eglinton line it could have remained above ground since there are fewer traffic lights and there's hardly density on those stretches of the road anyway. And in certain areas they still could have had it run on the side of the road like by Jane where there's just grass on the north side.

But would also add an Eastern DRL even if it meant sacrificing Sheppard and kept that Finch route.

I agree. If Eglinton was on the side of the soad from Say renforth to jane it would have survived.

 

[Dan416]

The western portion of the Eglinton line (LRT or subway) has a lot of potential to save on costs. Unfortunately the Millerites didn't take advantage of that opportunity because they wanted it to be more like a streetcar than an LRT.

 

[BurlOak]

The western portion of the Eglinton line (LRT or subway) has a lot of potential to save on costs. Unfortunately the Millerites didn't take advantage of that opportunity because they wanted it to be more like a streetcar than an LRT.

For most of Transit City, I think the goal was to try to create "avenues" with LRT down the middle and bike lanes at the curbs. The aim was to completely change peoples habits as it relates to transit by using LRT for short trips - as is done downtown. What the people actually wanted was faster transit for greater distance travel. Improving GO service to assist the TTC was no discussed enough (i.e. fair integration, perhaps a few extra stations, and extra service within Toronto only) and the increased frequencies were also not quite enough to serve the TTC passenger.

Side of road alignment is a prime example of what people wanted, but were not given.

 

[ssiguy2]

The problem with TC is thaat it never knew what it was suppose to do.
It provided better service to many but offered no really good service to anyone except those in the Eglinton tunneled section.
It was touted as rapid transit but it was anything but. Rapid transit doesn't stop at every light and every 3 blocks for stations.
Except for tunneled Eglinton, the TTC couldn't explain how this would be anymore efficient than simply painting HOV bus lanes down the street.
It was improved transit but Toronto needs rapid transit. Few cities have the high service levels of the TTC. The problem with the TTC is that the "rapid" part of it's sytem is very small for a city it's size.
TC was written up on a napkin and Torontonians were told they didn't need rapid transit but just transit that would result in "great city building" with Miller having wet dreams about turning the Golden Mile into some kind of bohemian wonderland.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

The problem with TC is thaat it never knew what it was suppose to do.
It provided better service to many but offered no really good service to anyone except those in the Eglinton tunneled section.
It was touted as rapid transit but it was anything but. Rapid transit doesn't stop at every light and every 3 blocks for stations.
Except for tunneled Eglinton, the TTC couldn't explain how this would be anymore efficient than simply painting HOV bus lanes down the street.
It was improved transit but Toronto needs rapid transit. Few cities have the high service levels of the TTC. The problem with the TTC is that the "rapid" part of it's sytem is very small for a city it's size.
TC was written up on a napkin and Torontonians were told they didn't need rapid transit but just transit that would result in "great city building" with Miller having wet dreams about turning the Golden Mile into some kind of bohemian wonderland.

The thing is, subways are more expensive at this point and will be in the future, so what do we do?

 

[Dan416]

If TC had been true LRT and not streetcars for the suburbs I think it would have garnered much more support than it did. As it stands now, the only portion of TC we're getting is Eglinton and the SRT to LRT conversion merged together.

You would think the TTC could have learned something from how LRT is implemented elsewhere in the world. The Eglinton line was on the right track, insofar as burying the central portion, but they dropped the ball on the above-ground segments. I mean it wasn't a horrible plan, the stop spacing wasn't too too bad, but they could have cut some stops and cleaned up the alignment into the airport. And done something creative to avoid having to deal with traffic lights.

 

[11th]

The thing is, subways are more expensive at this point and will be in the future, so what do we do?

It means, if we don't build it now, we'll use the same excuse/reason to not build it in the future. Stick with a plan, and build the most important sections with whatever money we have now.

 

[EnviroTO]

The problem with TC is thaat it never knew what it was suppose to do.
It provided better service to many but offered no really good service to anyone except those in the Eglinton tunneled section.
It was touted as rapid transit but it was anything but. Rapid transit doesn't stop at every light and every 3 blocks for stations.

Not true. Transit City was going to carry more people, more reliably, and more quickly and was going to cover the whole city. It was "Transit" for the whole "City". The difference between the buried Eglinton and above ground Eglinton so far looks to only be 3 stations removed, not a huge difference. When was Sheppard or Finch ever sold as rapid? Transit City and the Rapid Transit Expansion Study were not related in any way. It was faster than a bus in mixed traffic and now that is what Finch and Sheppard will get instead of a more efficient (less drivers per passenger), reliable (not stuck in traffic), and faster (less stops than the current bus and shorter stop times) service. Why... because Ford and people like him believe that anything less than a subway (regardless of the business case and ridiculous cost difference) isn't good enough to be considered a serious form of transportation. There is record ridership but instead of addressing that, which Transit City did, they are now reducing the number of seats available in the system. Transit City focused on the real issues (cost and capacity) and left dreams of privately funded subways through the suburbs off the table.

 

[W. K. Lis]

One problem the TTC has, is the way transit priority is implemented at traffic light intersections. Instead of giving transit its own signal, it is usually in sync with road traffic signals. They should give stop road traffic in all directions and let transit move on its own, when it is on or behind schedule. If it is ahead of schedule, then it could be in sync with traffic signals There might be currently delays in green signals for transit, but that is not how transit priority is implemented in other cities of the world.

Even the transit signals are not really different from road traffic signals. The rest of the world use signals designed for transit for stop, turns, and caution. The only signal for transit currently in use is for straight ahead go.

Transit signals from around the world:

 

[M II A II R II K]

Transit City is fine as long as it's not the only plan, except for that Sheppard LRT which would force a transfer and look like botched banged up transit planning.

 

[sixrings]

Transit City is fine as long as it's not the only plan, except for that Sheppard LRT which would force a transfer and look like botched banged up transit planning.

Again I dont think transit city was ever the ONLY plan. What miller was trying to do is help the entire city get transit while making markham more reliant on the yonge line. This would result in the province wanting to build a yonge extension but they would need approval from Toronto. As a result Toronto would then give approval ONLY if the province and the feds agreed to fund the DRL.

Toronto cant afford to build the DRL on its own. As a result it would need to leverage the provincal government and the fed government. Other then the olympics this was and is Torontos best leverage.

Finally there is good reason to believe that once the Sheppard LRT was completed a discussion would be had about converting the Sheppard subway tunnel to eliminate the LRT/Subway transfer. Either way residents on sheppard will simply have to put up with a BUS/SUBWAY transfer. How is that transfer any more palitable.