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SmartTrack (Proposed)

M II A II R II K said:
A Bay St. Line from Bay to Union would provide lots of relief.
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That's a horrible idea. We don't spend billions for the sole purpose of serving suburban commuters for 1.5 hour a day Monday-Friday, and let the new subway completely empty for the rest of the year. An expensive subway should be far more than that.

The Yonge- University corridor is very well served (the two lines are too close to each other I still argue) and nothing North South is needed near them. If we ever need a NS line downtown, it should be east of Jarvis or west of Beverly/John. The city doesn't circle around the need of suburban commuters just so you know.
 
Burnt creek said:
And the alternative is?

100 percent agreement. To spend billions to build a relief line that goes through Dundas would rank up there as the most idiotic idea i have ever heard. Lets restate problem here: the argument for the relief line is that the south bound trains that arrive at Bloor during rush hour are full and packed with people squeezed in like sardines. The platforms are full at bloor and therefore most people cant board the trains and have to wait. THAT, FOLKS, IS what the problem is. And, what they mean about "relief". The trains vitually empties at Queen stn and King stn (moreso at King stn).

So if you run the relief line through Dundas, what are you providing relief from? Nothing. Instead of removing the bottleneck at Bloor, you tranferring it to Dundas. It would be useless and a total waste. You dont need relief from anything outside of rush hours. During those periods (outside rush hour) the current existing service is more than adequate. Also, if ST works like it is supposed to and communicated during the campaign, why do we need any kind of relief line?

PS.: during the rush hour, the south bound trains from Finch are already fairly packed at Sheppard and packed full at about Lawrence or Eglinton. So this is more fodder and proof that ST is more important than the dowtown relief line. Because, you dont just need relief starting yonge and bloor, you need relief starting as high up the line as Sheppard.
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You are absolutely right about a Dundas relief lines makes zero sense, from any perspective.
However, the current proposed line is expected to capture riders from the BD line on the east and therefore provide some relief at Yonge/Bloor. It was not meant to make the Yonge line north of Bloor less crowded.

And trust me, the Yonge line north of Bloor, even during rush hours, is hardly THAT crowded (if you have take the subway in London, Paris, Tokyo, or Shanghai during rush hours). People still can largely get into the train, although not comfortably (but it is rush hour, what do you expect, a seat?). It is the bottle neck at Yonge/Bloor that is the problem because too many people from the BD line are trying to get in. During the PM rush hour, the Yonge line is hardly what I could describe as "crowded". Sometimes you can even get a seat at Dundas.
 
nhui06 said:
Yeah, I liked Tory because I too wanted to see if the government can explore how to make better use of the rail corridors. I was willing to accept that SmartTrack as its own entity was not going to be a thing, but if it means adding a few more stops in Toronto and increasing the frequency of trains is all we get, that is a pretty good deal IMO.
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Its ironic though that while Smarttrack did open this idea up, there was still a lot of pushback because of how things traditionally are done in North America and because of Transport Canada.

"You can't operate subway-like trains with subway-like frequencies on commuter rail lines!"

No,

"You can't operate subway-like trains with subway-like frequencies on commuter rail lines in Canada because of out dated regulations and 1950's signalling equipment and transit control!"

Its already done in Europe, the UK, Australia, Japan, etc etc etc.

Also, I think the western spur was the worst idea of Smarttrack, and it was a point of contention that people couldn't get around.

The western spur WAS a bad idea, from the start, and it soured the rest of the Smarrtrack plan.

Unfortunately people love to "throw the baby out with the bathwater", as it were. They couldn't separate the fact that the western spur was the sour apple in an otherwise decent number of ideas.

To detractors, the western spur WAS Smarttrack, plain and simple. It was a bad idea, and thus the whole of Smarttrack is a bad idea. Black and white thinking.
 
robmausser said:
To detractors, the western spur WAS Smarttrack, plain and simple. It was a bad idea, and thus the whole of Smarttrack is a bad idea. Black and white thinking.
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No, the problem (besides the western segment, which Tory and his backers should have known about) was that Tory threw out everything on the table -- the DRL, bus improvements, LRT in favour of his magical plan that had his own campaign slogan all over it. Remember him denying that we needed the DRL? Had Tory said "we're going to back existing plans, such as GO RER and proceed with the Relief Line Subway to move Toronto forward" it would have been a very different story.

No, John Tory wasted lots of the city's time and money on a project that Metrolinx was already involved in. He had the city waste time figuring out what armchair transit critics already knew - that building SmartTrack in the Richview Corridor was not doable.

All Tory had to do was insist that the city have input and some decision making on RER, and sold that.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Well we got Crosstown East out of this 'gimmick'. I'll take it
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With the absurdly long timeline before construction would start on that line, I'm still very sceptical at this point that it will get built. There will still be another provincial and municipal election between now and then. They almost seem to be dragging their feet intentionally on this project.
 
ShonTron said:
No, John Tory wasted lots of the city's time and money on a project that Metrolinx was already involved in. He had the city waste time figuring out what armchair transit critics already knew - that building SmartTrack in the Richview Corridor was not doable.

All Tory had to do was insist that the city have input and some decision making on RER, and sold that.
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Then one would think that (in the heat of a hotly contested campaign) one of the 2-3 opponents would have pointed out: "John Tory is promising something thats already being done". That would make him look foolish and would have been the best amunition possible against Tory. The media coverred the last campaign pretty closely. Of all the writters and sources out there, i never heard anyone interject that ST was already being planned by Metrolinks. This would have been greater fodder for his rivals and would make his strategist look like something less the incompetent.
 
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ShonTron said:
No, the problem (besides the western segment, which Tory and his backers should have known about) was that Tory threw out everything on the table -- the DRL, bus improvements, LRT in favour of his magical plan that had his own campaign slogan all over it. Remember him denying that we needed the DRL? Had Tory said "we're going to back existing plans, such as GO RER and proceed with the Relief Line Subway to move Toronto forward" it would have been a very different story.

No, John Tory wasted lots of the city's time and money on a project that Metrolinx was already involved in. He had the city waste time figuring out what armchair transit critics already knew - that building SmartTrack in the Richview Corridor was not doable.

All Tory had to do was insist that the city have input and some decision making on RER, and sold that.
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I beg to differ :)

1) Substantial improvements have been made to the bus network (several new express routes), all within Tory's first 18 months in the office.

2) Construction of Eglinton LRT is firmly under way, and Finch LRT is about to be tendered. Sure, those are not Tory's projects, but he has been smart enough to step aside and let them proceed.

3) There are talks of Eglinton East LRT and Eglinton West extension. Those are not confirmed at this point, but both of them are closer to being funded now than they were before Tory's election.

4) Regarding DRL: Tory's election campaign may have had a short-term negative effect on DRL as he shifted attention to SmartTrack as a potential alternative. Nevertheless, DRL quickly came back to the front of the agenda, and recently got the funding to complete the studies.

Perhaps it was not Tory's intention to promote DRL, but the actual effect of his mayoralty on that project is positive rather than negative.
 
Burnt creek said:
Then one would think that (in the heat of a hotly contested campaign) one of the 2-3 opponents would have pointed out: "John Tory is promising something thats already being done". That would make him look foolish and would have been the best amunition possible against Tory. The media coverred the last campaign pretty closely. Of all the writters and sources out there, i never heard anyone interject that ST was already being planned by Metrolinks. This would have been greater fodder for his rivals and would make his strategist look like something less the incompetent.
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I don't think it would have mattered an iota during the last election - nobody is looking for anything specific in an area as laden with BS as transit planning, and looking foolish on that file is almost an asset, not a liability (think his predecessor).

AoD
 
Burnt creek said:
Then one would think that (in the heat of a hotly contested campaign) one of the 2-3 opponents would have pointed out: "John Tory is promising something thats already being done". That would make him look foolish and would have been the best amunition possible against Tory. The media coverred the last campaign pretty closely. Of all the writters and sources out there, i never heard anyone interject that ST was already being planned by Metrolinks. This would have been greater fodder for his rivals and would make his strategist look like something less the incompetent.
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
I don't think it would have mattered an iota during the last election - nobody is looking for anything specific in an area as laden with BS as transit planning, and looking foolish on that file is almost an asset, not a liability (think his predecessor).

AoD
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This debate is essentially, 'how would you rather Tory tell lies to you?'
 
Burnt creek said:
Then one would think that (in the heat of a hotly contested campaign) one of the 2-3 opponents would have pointed out: "John Tory is promising something thats already being done". That would make him look foolish and would have been the best amunition possible against Tory. The media coverred the last campaign pretty closely. Of all the writters and sources out there, i never heard anyone interject that ST was already being planned by Metrolinks. This would have been greater fodder for his rivals and would make his strategist look like something less the incompetent.
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It was brought up by the media, and I guess the media picked it up from the throngs of Twitterers and online commenters etc who continually brought it up. One thing that kinda bugged me though is that many acted as if the electrified RER grand plan was this longstanding priority by Metrolinx. It wasn't. Sure Lake Shore E/W and a portion of the Kitchener the line was. But Barrie and Stouffville RER...the ink was practically still drying on it when Tory brought up SmartTrack. It was a Wynne election promise in 2014, then it became a Metrolinx priority. Prior to that it was studied and rejected.

This is one of the things I find fishy about the whole SmartTrack thing. I don't think it was Tory's idea, nor a group of developers that proposed an almost identical plan years prior. I think Tory's proposal was backed by Wynne and York Region (where pols ID'd Stouffville RER as a quick-fix relief line). The reason? I dunno. Maybe to have TO pitch in money for the RER promise (since the Prov is a bit low on funds), or perhaps to delay the relief line indefinitely (again for financial reasons but also to provide enough 'relief' to fast-track YNSE).
 
None of the other contenders had either the expertise or the credibility to present a rational rebuttal of Tory's platform. Much as it pains me to say, his propsal was the most articulate and data-based of the bunch (flawed as it was - scary indeed).

The media has taken a long time to come up to speed on this file, too. It has only been the last couple of years where we've had civic reporters with a byline focussed on transportation.

During an election, city staff stay silent (even moreso than when muzzled by the winner). And there is not an 'opposition critic' shadowing the portfolio, as one has at the provincial or federal level.

So - no one really had the knowledge or experience to argue the plan.

- Paul
 
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