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SmartTrack (Proposed)

Property taxes are a blunt instrument, and are ineffective at raising large revenue. There's a reason why no large city the size of Toronto uses that as their only major revenue tool.

Toronto's property tax rates may be low, but the City is just slightly below the GTA average for property taxes paid per household.
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
Property taxes are a blunt instrument, and are ineffective at raising large revenue. There's a reason why no large city the size of Toronto uses that as their only major revenue tool.
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Some not-so-tiny Texas locations (Dallas, Houston, ...) are much more property tax heavy than the GTA. Most of this is due to the state not collecting income tax.

The other major source of income for Texas and its cities are user fees (road tolls).
 
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WislaHD said:
I think you are jumping to conclusions here @ssiguy2 , Torontonians know what GO is and can comprehend what upgrades to GO network in the form of RER might be.

The problem is that GO-RER has low frequency and requires some other form of transportation to reach. These two factors means that between waiting time and transfers, it takes just as long to reach destinations as with the TTC network (or at least will feel like it when waiting for 10 minutes at a station). Integration with the TTC is terrible with many obvious transfer interchange stations simply not existing resulting in the only destination really being Union Station, and you still have to pay a premium fare on top of that. Is it really any surprise that Torontonians don't consider GO as a transit option?

As far as I can tell, SmartTrack does not mitigate any of these concerns, aside from fare integration maybe (which might still be a premium TTC fare). In fact, the only real ostensible difference between GO-RER and SmartTrack seems to be the Unilever station.

I fail to see how SmartTrack will be an appealing service to people if Torontonians today already don't consider GO as a viable option.
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Agreed 100%. GO is fantastic if A) you have a car to get to your departure station, and B) your destination is within walking distance of Union Station. For any user that fits this pattern, I would not expect the current pricing to be a deterrent (ie. no one, not even the very price sensitive, is going to take the TTC to save $30/month instead of taking the GO system).

GO is extremely unoptimal (regardless of pricing) if you need to take a bus to get to the station, or if you need to transfer to some other form of transit at Union station.
 
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rbt said:
Some not-so-tiny Texas locations (Dallas, Houston, ...) are much more property tax heavy than the GTA. Most of this is due to the state not collecting income tax.

The other major source of income for Texas and its cities are user fees (road tolls).
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Dallas is tiny compared to Toronto. Houston is about a third smaller, about the size of Toronto in the 80s/90s.
 
bobbob911 said:
GO is extremely unoptimal (regardless of pricing) if you need to take a bus to get to the station, or if you need to transfer to some other form of transit at Union station.
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Some stations are working towards better integration, better indoor facilities, etc.

We are going to witness multiple massively improved GO interchanges on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, as well as on the new Vaughan Subway extension (Sheppard West GO+TTC Station). It is already under construction. When finished, changing trains will be much more similar experience to Yonge-Bloor TTC, with boarding areas directly above-below each other! Underneath is the subway, and above is the GO station.

From the construction photos, some of the designs are rather impressive, bigger indoor waiting areas, shorter walk between modes, etc. Metrolinx is now really focussed on better connecting stations between themselves and other transit.

All of these stations from this new Metrolinx mindset, aren't even open yet, so it will take time, but there are at least 4 or 5 similar designs of "above-below-each-other" stations where one boarding area is GO and the other boarding area (TTC) is either directly above or below. Some existing stations are also planned to be relocated for transfer ease (e.g. rebuild & relocate Oriole GO station underneath Eglinton Ave).

These massively improved GO-TTC interchanges are already being worked on by Metrolinx, and by two decades, we should see more than half a dozen of these GO-wide.

Also, RER will run at increased frequencies during peak, it's not necessarily 15-minutes everywhere. Some of the proposals shows 5 to 8 minute peak service in some core sections, and 15 minute in more outer sections, etc.

Within a decade, at some stations, GO (RERified, minced, diced, SmartTrackized and then shockingly electrified) will be much more frequent and short-wait than catching a Sunday bus. And with much bigger indoor waiting areas at some of these nice interchange stations -- much more comfortable than catching a bus at an outdoor stop.

When this happens, it becomes worthy of superimposing the 416 part of the GO network onto all TTC subway maps, in the post-fare-intgration-era [MetrolinxEngage.com].
 
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kEiThZ said:
People need to ask why this is. It's utterly moronic for somebody to ride the TTC for 1.5 hrs from Scarborough when GO + a bus could get them there in under an hour. That's some serious under-utilization of existing infrastructure. Cash anybody here, say with ac straight face, that the Europeans or Asians would do this routinely across any of their cities?

And as long as this situation persists (where the subway is the predominant mode of transport), there will be lots of demand for extension at the fringes. We've just ended debate on Scarborough. Now we're seeing debate on Yonge North. And I can imagine a day when Mississauga might a subway extension. Or maybe even Markham (up McCowan).

If anybody wants to avoid the above the paradigm must be changed. Long haul needs to be largely the purview of GO. 416 and 905.

I also consider the idea of "independence" to be bunk. An independent transit agency doesn't expect another level of government to pay for its entire transit development program.

No revenue tools, you say? They can raise property taxes. Toronto has the lowest rates in the province. My parents pay less taxes on their house (worth 2.3x more and double the square footage) than I did on my condo in Ottawa. The idea that people with million dollar homes and half a million dollar condos can't afford $50 more a month on property taxes is absurd. That's what I saw in Ottawa on my tax bill to pay for the LRT. The province should have allowed income and/or sales taxes. But let's not pretend that Toronto is helpless. If the province is footing the bill, expect them to retain revenue authority. Those tools (if they happen) will go to Metrolinx before they come to the City of Toronto. Just watch. Queen's Park won't and shouldn't reward political cowardice with more authority.
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I agree with pretty much all of this.

ssiguy2 said:
Exactly!

People couldn't care less what the technology is or who is running it, all they want is affordable and frequent transit.

I bet most Torontonians haven't even heard of RER and nobody {including Metrolinx, Queen's Park, City Hall and the TTC} really knows what it will turn out as. RER is a mystery............a transit plan without an actual plan. Smart Tracks is clear on what it is...............a surface subway with TTC fares. The TTC fare part is why it has support and why RER, despite being in the planning far before Smart Tracks, is greeted with a collective yawn.

Those who know anything about RER also know that it will be a Metrolinx baby and Metrolinx has zero credibility. That is a shame as the agency has been moving ahead with a lot of needed transit and much more is on the way but people are selective on what they remember. Metrolinx has only completed one completely new project since it's inception..........the UPX. UPX has been a transportation, financial, and public relations disaster of monumental proportions and has so tarnished Metrolinx's reputation that it may never get it back.

RER is associated with Metrolinx and that is nothing but bad news as, due to the UPX fiasco, is seen as just a bunch of policy wonks who live in Ivory Towers with no real concept of what Torontonians want in their transit system. Smart Tracks is seen as Tory's idea and he is still fairly well respected and has proven himself to be a fairly reasonable consensus builder who is willing to admit a mistake and change his mind if a better idea can be proposed.........a quality unknown to either Ford or Miller.

Smart Tracks is associated with TTC fares and a Tory idea while RER is seen as a Queen's Park idea with fares that Metrolinx will decide upon...................small wonder people can relate to ST and have little interest in RER.
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And disagree with pretty much all of this.

Lets be clear, Smart Track is GO RER. They are the same. They weren't supposed to be, but as it turns out, all the defining features of Smart Track made no sense, and so here we are.

I really don't know how you can say RER is a mystery and yet Smart Track makes sense when Smart Track is literally a piggy back off of the GO system. Smart Track is clear on what it is? No. Smart Track is clear on what it wants to be. How it manages that has been left in the air.

But so what? Why does Smart Track need to exist when we have GO RER? Its redundant. Add a few extra stations and call it a day. Adding Smart Track to the mix complicates the whole damn thing. The subject of fares is a separate issue.

Finally, people were not excited about Smart Track because it made sense. Anyone who was paying attention knew that from day one it had more holes than swiss cheese. People were excited about Smart Track because Tory had enough sense to draw the damn line on a fantasy transit map and hand it out as fliers.
 
A public meeting is next week on widening part of Steeles Ave within Scarborough, which includes a grade separation for the Stouffville line.

The City of Toronto may widen Steeles Avenue between Kennedy Road and Midland Avenue, and will ask people what they think next week. The project under study includes a long-awaited grade separation for trains across this busy section of Steeles, which is home to the Milliken GO station.

Toronto owns both sides of Steeles, but agreement on widening this section and building a bridge stalled for years over how much Markham and Toronto should pay. The province’s plan to expand GO train service in the Stouffville corridor seems to have pushed the project forward.

The city has scheduled an open house on options for the grade separation, road widening, and accommodation for cyclists and pedestrians Wednesday, March 23 from 6 to 8 p.m. at L’Amoreaux Community Recreation Centre on McNicoll Avenue. A presentation is planned for 7 p.m.

Widening Steeles east of Kennedy has also been tied in with proposed expansions or redevelopments of shopping mall properties on both sides of the Toronto boundary. Soil testing for the study was done in January. More can be found at toronto.ca/steelesbridge
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http://www.insidetoronto.com/news-s...-avenue-widening-between-midland-and-kennedy/
 
....there is currently an elephant in the room.
And I am nervous the color is white.
And it isn't SmartTrack, but could affect it.

It is called UPX. It has planned electrification BEFORE anything else (Regardless of what it is called, SmartTrack or RER).

Today, I noticed Metrolinx advertising UPX as a transit/commuter option. Today's Metro advertisement advertised the 5-ish dollar fares of Bloor/Weston -- completely omitting Pearson and 9 dollar fares. They seem to now want to increase transit-usage percentage of UPX.

Candidates running for 2018 election might to squeal, why are we electrifying a white elephant first? This could hurt the overall electrification initiatives (whether we call it RER or SmartTrack), and all of this SmartTrack/RER talk could end up no longer mattering for a decade before it begins construction. Any delay to UPX electrifation automatically means an electrified RER/SmartTrack delay, as everything needs to be redone/postponed/delayed to electrify something else first. The UPX electrifation was going to install infrastructure needed for RER/ST!

Let's hope UPX booms ridership well past 5,000 per day. It has to.....in order to save electrifcation (whatever we plan to call electrified routes).

(related: an idea to merge UPX/RER/ST and possibly successfully reuse the UPX stations even with 6 coach EMUs, via a clever solution avoiding spur modification and without lengthening Pearson UPX station!)
 
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TheTigerMaster said:
Why does Steeles need to be widened?
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Kennedy west of the GO Tracks is 3 lanes each, but there is a big bottle neck east of that area because of Pacific Mall and lanes going down to 2.

More importantly, they are going to construct a bridge for the GO train I believe as part of the infrastructure to do GO RER/SmartTrack
 
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