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The bus bays at most stations are far busier than the kiss and rides. I actually love the bus but whether someone likes the bus or not doesn't really matter, because it's just a reality for most ttc riders. Hopefully better bus infrastructure would help change some people's minds about the bus and take some people out of cars.
Once you put in the bus lanes why not just put down the tracks and have a lrt?
LRT cost what... 5x as much as BRT?
As drum and others pointed out over the life the LRT is cheaper or the same.
LRTs are a lot more expensive for not much benefit. With LRT you have to commit to A) Placing down track, B) Buying new rolling stock, and C) Installing new dedicated infrastructure like signaling and stops. BRTs completely avoid having to do Part A and B. Paving is MUCH cheaper than placing down track, you can reuse the same busses you used before, and you don't even have to build brand new giant MSFs. This also means that not only can they act as a development tool, there is also very little commitment to have them around as long as possible. With the Hurontario LRT, because they purchased new MSFs and brand new rolling stock, there will now be pressure to keep the line running for at least 30 years as part of the P3, even though ridership projects expect ridership to reach a level that would justify a subway in 10 years. If instead of the LRT they had instead painted dedicated bus lanes, they could have saved a ton of money, while still building up ridership on the corridor, and when ridership justified something higher order and more effective like a light metro. The Hurontario LRT costs 5 BILLION DOLLARS, half of the cost of the DRL, and around the projected cost of the entire Highway 413, which is absolutely insane, and now its going to be a line Mississauga is stuck with 30 years. I forget if it was Syn or W.K. Lis who pointed this out, but Transit City was supposed to be what the old streetcar was, temporary transit infrastructure that would be replaced by higher order transit when needed. With the skyrocketing price in LRTs, this is basically impossible. Now there is going to be pressure to keep these LRTs running for as long as possible since they do not have the benefit of using existing vehicles and infrastructure, and you better use those LRVs you spent a billion on for as much you can. Think of it this way. If the Don Mills LRT was built, the earliest we would've gotten a Relief Line North (something the city desperately needs) in 2050. With a BRT, we would've gotten it by 2035.
I find that hard to believe. You do know that a low floor LRVs cost around twice as much to maintain as a Subway train correct? LFLRVs are extremely prone to breaking down and needing urgent repairs compared to either busses or high floor trains. Maybe you're saving on not having to pay for gas, but with technologies like Battery Electric coming online, that is going to be less and less of an issue.
Cheaper altogether, or has lower opex cost but not lower overall cost when considering upfront capital? This argument only works if we think Sheppard should always be LRT with linear transfer (we keep this permanently).
because you have been pro lrt in other situations like hurontario then I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt. But it is my feeling that many who advocate for brt on sheppard are really doing so simply to keep the subway dream alive even if that’s a 100 years from now. In other words it’s them pretending they are pro transit but really they are simply anti lrt and the only acceptable transit is subway subway subways. We could have had a lrt by now and then worried about subways a 100 years from now. Anyways if sheppard residents were willi by to have elevated transit on sheppard I would be happy to have it as a test to see how it works out. I’m just skeptical anyone near by resident is going to be ok with elevated when they know all they need to do is complain and either nothing gets built or underground gets built.
BRT on Sheppard doesn't make sense if that is the only route you add BRT to, but if you also added BRT infrastructure on Victoria Park, Warden, and McCowan, BRT should provide a better transit coverage at a lower cost than LRT due to the shared infrastructure. Now, if line 4 is never extended beyond the 404, building the Sheppard LRT to open with an OL extension to Don Mills makes that a transfer node instead of a straight linear transfer.
As a former Scarborough resident is advocate for every major road in Scarborough to have a brt or lrt. But again there are people who are smarter than me that believe the lrt is in fact cheaper.
From what I found, the Hurontario line will cost $2.1 billion in construction costs and $2.5 billion in operational and maintenance costs. I don't think we have the operational costs for the Ontario line yet so I don't think that's a fair comparison (unless the numbers for Hurontario have been updated of course). Not going to lie, that is still pretty pricey for an LRT since the Canada line cost around the same amount whilst also having a long tunneled segment (the line is also about the same length as the Hurontario line).
I don't believe that a linear transfer is justified just because that has been the status quo. The whole point of expanding transit is to improve the status quo. It is well-documented that transfers do come with a penalty even if walking and waiting times are zero. From a study done in 2018 (citation at bottom), one transfer equates to 15-17 minutes in equivalent in-vehicle time (EVIM). That basically means that people are willing to put up with a 15-17 minute increase in vehicle times to avoid transferring once. It goes up to around 20 EVIM when wanting to avoid 2 transfers. Arguably, Don Mills would be a transfer point regardless assuming the OL gets extended up there. However, the status quo will still be in place for those suburb to suburb trips which was something that Transit City was trying to encourage.
But the problem is sheppard never justified a subway to begin with. As a user I too am frustrated with linear transfers when they appear. However sometimes for various reasons they exist. Hopefully with the OL and the extended Scarborough subway that less people will be using sheppard subway making the linear transfer a lesser issue then say what we see currently at Kennedy station. Btw I used to live in Scarborough and am familiar with the annoyance of both transfers.
I am anti LRT as an interim solution. LRT is very expensive, we can't think of it as interim. If it is something we expect ridership to outgrow in 20 or 30 years, I'd rather we build BRT now and metro (elevated) later when BRT capacity is exceeded. Subway is never going to happen. Finch W makes some sense to me, as I can't image us building metro on FInch, but maybe I am wrong.
