doady
Senior Member
Yeah, I'm sure the politicians who created and promoted the Transit City and the people defending the plan in this thread are all Scarbrough residents. I'm sure you are a Scarborough resident as well.
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Save Transit City Canvass!
- Thread starter The Mad Navigator
- Start date
Yeah, I'm sure the politicians who created and promoted the Transit City and the people defending the plan in this thread are all Scarbrough residents. I'm sure you are a Scarborough resident as well.
doady
Senior Member
Obivously not, or the financial district would also have be excluded from transit expansion plans. Ignoring the jobs density is problem number one right there.
Problem number two is the metric system. Is it 25,000 per sq km or sq mile? I'm guessing its sq mile. After all, LA is in the US, not Canada. For some reason the units are not specified on the graph. I wonder why.
And the problemyou already mentioned, the too strict requirements, assuming it is sq km. Even inner city Paris is not dense enough for subway by that standard... the Paris Metro must be a white elephant or something.
Justin10000
Banned
The SIRR is COMMUTER RAIL. I even capped for you, so you get it. It's not a subway. What's so hard to understand? Read the history of the line/.
Justin10000
Banned
The people defending Transit City come for all over the city, and not just one area. People all over the city are going to lose better transit because somehow Scarborough needs two fricking subway lines. SOS was a joke, and their plan was a bigger joke. Glad that group crash and burned.
The Mad Navigator
Banned
Do you have a link to the news feed?
I know when I was out there helping, a reporter from CFRB was following us and taking sound bytes....
doady
Senior Member
Are you from Scarborough? Is not then you should shut the hell up and not ridicule someone for being from Mississauga and stop being such a hypocrite. Aren't you from Brampton?
Yeah cuz we all know that Transit City was going bring new lines all over the city...
Two subway lines to Scarbrough Centre, an Urban Growth Centre vs 3 LRT lines to Malvern... Hmm.. I"ll take the former.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the density of Scarborough is. The fact is the existing Danforth and Sheppard lines are subway, you have to work wwith what you already have. You can't build little lines just to suit the local density. It's like building the Hurontario LRT between QEW and Eglinton only, and building the sections south of the QEW and north of Eglinton as BRT, just because the density is too low for LRT. Doesn't really make sense to me.
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nfitz
Superstar
Well all over the city except downtown ...
Sure the current plan is great for Scarborough. All the transit expansion money for a generation going to Scarborough ... I guess it makes a change from the normal it all going to North York.
But just the rest of the city should be up in arms that it has been proposed that the projects in their part of the city are cancelled to benefit not one, but two subway lines to Scarborough Centre, adding a net total of only 7 new rapid transit stations to the city; compared to the 70+ stations currently funded by Metrolinx.
It's beyond refute that 70 new rapid transit stations are going to add better service to more people than 7 stations.
I have to say, I agree with this statement the most. I think a more succesful advocacy approach would be to 'pick our battles' (like what has been done with Eglinton, kudos on the canvassing btw), rather than trying to advocate for Transit City as a whole. I think that advocating for the line that will impact the community you're advocating in the most would be more effective than a general "Save Transit City" campaign. It's sad but it's true: the average person doesn't care about something unless you relate it to how it will impact them (positively or negatively) personally. If you can reach that base instict of "oh no you don't! you're not messing with me/my community!", I think it will have a much stronger effect.
The reality is that Transit City will not look the same in 6 weeks. Will it still exist? I think so. It will have undergone some pretty substantial changes, but it will still exist. I think at this point this group's efforts would be best focused on aspects of the plan that you want to see saved, as opposed to a general "don't touch it!" mentality. But that's just my opinion. I wish you guys good luck in your canvassing, I wish I could be there to help save Eglinton, but unfortunately I can't.
SimonP
Active Member
I couldn't make it to the canvass on Saturday, but I did do some door knocking with my local federal candidate. We ran into a couple people who admitted to voting for Rob Ford, but had no idea he planned to scrap the transit plans and were now regretting their decision.
howl
Active Member
Building a transit network is a lot more complicted than just ramming a tunnel or some tracks along any old route and calling it a day. There are land-use, social, ecomonic and environmental issues that need to be understood as well.
The biggest arguement for saving (or working with) Transit City is that it is a solid plan that has been developed over many years with a lot of research and study. To kill it now and start a completely new round of research and studies will be useless and a complete waste of time and money. Other than the fact that a few years have passed what has changed that would mean the new studies would come to a completely different conculsion than the old studies. . . or are people suggesting we just build subways without proper studies like Mel did with the Sheppard line?
Toronto is on the verge of becoming a laughing stock in the transit world. While I personally don't think Transit City is perfect I do trust the people who put together used the proper methodology to come to their final plan.
The biggest arguement for saving (or working with) Transit City is that it is a solid plan that has been developed over many years with a lot of research and study. To kill it now and start a completely new round of research and studies will be useless and a complete waste of time and money. Other than the fact that a few years have passed what has changed that would mean the new studies would come to a completely different conculsion than the old studies. . . or are people suggesting we just build subways without proper studies like Mel did with the Sheppard line?
Toronto is on the verge of becoming a laughing stock in the transit world. While I personally don't think Transit City is perfect I do trust the people who put together used the proper methodology to come to their final plan.
Asterix
Active Member
That brings up the question though at what point in the project is it appropriate to say "don't touch it!"?
Eglinton has been planned for years, environmental assessments done, design has been done, financing is in place and real work is slated to start in the new year. Touching it significantly will add large delays and likely extra costs. But is it still appropriate to change things?
Sheppard has done all of the above and is actually building something. Is that an appropriate time to still change things?
What if we were another year into Sheppard work, would that still be an appropriate time to change things?
Basically my question is, how late is too late to change things?
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
If Scarborough Subways are deemed to be too expensive due to lack of enough riders don't let that stop building subway lines anywhere else. Where's this Downtown Core Line! Don't think we would have to worry about that not getting used enough.
And plus there's still time left to make a Network 2011 Canvass.
And plus there's still time left to make a Network 2011 Canvass.
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
As for Scarborough or any other low density suburb, regardless of local density there should be better Commuter Rail options with additional stations and convenient connections to them. So at least there would be decent long range rapid transit available, and also not having to sit through 50 subway stops when you eventually get to the subway to go downtown.
kEiThZ
Superstar
I may not support Transit City in its entirety but I think this canvass is a great idea. I would echo what gweed said. You have to make it local.
More broadly, I have to yet to see statements from Ford that Eglinton is dead....well other than saying Transit City is dead. I don't see that line as inferring that Eglinton is dead. This was a corridor that was slated to see a subway before. So I fail to see how even killing Transit City would mean Eglinton would get nothing in perpetuity. My point being, I don't see the value in getting worked up before we see an actual plan that officially kills off Eglinton.
More broadly, I have to yet to see statements from Ford that Eglinton is dead....well other than saying Transit City is dead. I don't see that line as inferring that Eglinton is dead. This was a corridor that was slated to see a subway before. So I fail to see how even killing Transit City would mean Eglinton would get nothing in perpetuity. My point being, I don't see the value in getting worked up before we see an actual plan that officially kills off Eglinton.
The three big questions are:
1) How will these changes impact the overall timeline of the project?
2) How will these changes impact the TMP at large?
3) Are these changes a modification, or a complete re-do?
If the changes don't significantly affect the timeline of the project (ie chopping off at-grade Eglinton East), don't have a devastating impact on the transit plan at-large (ie keeping transit on the same corridor), and are changes that don't require a complete re-do (ie running BRT instead of LRT in an in-median corridor, it doesn't significantly change the current plan), then I think the "too late" is still quite a ways away.
Is it possible to build the Eglinton tunnel and to scrap the surface section without significantly altering the project timeline? Absolutely. Is it possible to convert the SELRT to a BRT corridor in order to shift funds around to a different part of the project? Absolutely.
Realistically, a BRT along Sheppard can operate while the delay in getting the subway extension to VP is being worked out. The subway is not a prerequisite for the BRT being operational. Same thing with the SRT. It can be in operation while the subway is being built (whether it will last that long is a different debate, but with some repairs it can be stretched to 2018ish).
If the proposed changes answer the questions above with "barely", "barely", and "modification", then I see no reason why these changes are "too late".