Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
The private sector redevelopment of the Golden Mile will result in a real downtown for Scarborough, regardless of what the public sector desires for Scarborough Town Centre.
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SmartTrack (Proposed)
- Thread starter aquateam
- Start date
44 North
Senior Member
Hm, looking at the map wonder if Richmond Hill can ask Milton what she's doing Friday night. Cue Spice Girls' 2 Becomes 1.
Seriously do a SmartTrack thing and morph the two into one line.
Bah no need for this. It's got lots of density, and jobs. Where's HBS' offices, or factories, or institutions, or retail for that matter? Humber Bay is very much subruban, but on the y-axis (vertical). And we rip on a mall, but in terms of the retail evolution that is still fairly urban. One stop shopping. Compare that to the devolution toward Big Box. The mall may very well be equated to an authentic old timey town square in that regard. Not saying Eg/Kennedy isn't dense, but SC is fairly well populated and has lots of the ingredients of a suburban downtown. Def compared to some of the other ones.
Any hiccup in growth, seems to me, related to indecision regarding the official plan for the area. Some will point to Line 3, others will biasedly claim there's something inherently wrong with Scarb. But I think a lot of it has to do with questions regarding Sheppard. A few decades it was supposed to be Line 4 leading right to the centre. Then last ten years it was an LRT with an afterthought spur that was more of a concept on a map. Can't master plan around questions like that, and hard to develop without a real plan.
11th
Senior Member
If we are speaking of Scarborough "Civic" Centre, then the present location is better than Kennedy/Eglinton.
Kennedy/Eglinton may have more commercial activity, but it is a farther reach for north Scarborough (and especially Malvern).
Rainforest
Senior Member
IMO, the key advantage of ST would be additional frequency, enabling the mainline trains serve the intra-416 market and make a difference. Naturally, that would require serious capital investments.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Name me a project that was done as planned.
Something I notice is that the politicians have grand ideas, but no idea how to pay for it. Then reality hits, and they have no idea how to pay for it and keep their promise. So, the project gets scaled back.
Want to be able to pay for things like this, and slow down the skyrocketing housing prices? Have a higher property tax. That will make your million dollar house cost too much and cause a drop in housing prices. Take the new revenue and put it to projects like this. I know, I know, the "T" world is like a swear word, but it actually could solve many problems of today's society.
Something I notice is that the politicians have grand ideas, but no idea how to pay for it. Then reality hits, and they have no idea how to pay for it and keep their promise. So, the project gets scaled back.
Want to be able to pay for things like this, and slow down the skyrocketing housing prices? Have a higher property tax. That will make your million dollar house cost too much and cause a drop in housing prices. Take the new revenue and put it to projects like this. I know, I know, the "T" world is like a swear word, but it actually could solve many problems of today's society.
sixrings
Senior Member
Yes because that's how centres work. They are magically centrally located evenly to everyone. For example Jane and finch is in North York yet no where near Yonge and Sheppards North York Centre. Or Mississauga road and Lakeshore is in Mississauga yet no where close to MCC at Hurontario and burnamthorpe. A Centre should be located where it's accessible to transit but for some reason we've been more concerned around making sure Scarboroughs located close enough to Malvern. The reality is the centre and the mall are together because Scarborough seems to think it's hub and spoke way of transit is the only thing that would work out there. I could get over it if the hub was in a better location.
robmausser
Senior Member
As much as id love a Milton-Richmond "Smarttracking" its simply not possible right now due to many difficulties regarding freight mainline usage, flooding issues on the Richmond Hill line, and NIMBYISM that would result if we turned the Leaside Spur trail back into a transit corridor to solve many of the problems with RH line.
Until Missing Link and some softening of Transport Canada laws regarding Tram-Trains (I can only see a tram-train being allowed on Leaside) happens, it wont be likely.
MisterF
Senior Member
I've never seen that graphic before, that's really informative. I've always thought that Smarttrack would just get rolled into the larger GO expansion/RER plan since it was basically the same thing. It never made any sense to add yet another brand and fare system to the city, especially on the same tracks as a whole other line.
Metrolinx, the province and the city really are doing a terrible job marketing GO expansion though. I'd wager that most people in the GTA have no idea how transformative it will be. I was reading an article about the redevelopment of Agincourt Mall. At one point in the story the author asked something like, other than more GO trains, what transit is there? They completely missed the fact that Agincourt Station will be just as good as a subway station in a handful of years. Trains every 7.5 minutes, a ~25 minute trip to Union, and multiple transfer points to other lines. It will be every bit as useful to the area as the Sheppard LRT/subway.
Yeah, STC is pretty weak as a city centre. But making somewhere else the official centre is silly. Toronto is a much bigger, more complex city than it was when the centres plan was first conceived. Each part of the city has multiple high density areas where transit lines converge. An area like Kennedy station doesn't need to be officially downtown Scarborough to be as intensely developed as SCC. Just look at the Agincourt Mall redevelopment. Toronto is getting to be more like an Asian city than a typical North American one in that sense.
Neutrino
Senior Member
MisterF
Senior Member
The billions of dollars being poured into GO Transit make no sense without fare integration. It's going to happen.
sixrings
Senior Member
Personally I don't think it's a given. Toronto's in gridlock and people are going to pay whatever if it gets them to work cheaper than a car.
Neutrino
Senior Member
I hope so. Another reason I'm skeptical of claims that GO RER will be a game changer is GO's tiny market share. If I understood correctly the business case PDF posted above, GO has 40% market share for GTHA to downtown commutes. These comprise 4% of all AM peak demand. That means GO rail serves just 1.6% of all AM peak travel demand in the GTHA. The largest peak markets are 905 to 905 and 416 to 416 commutes. Sure, the trains are packed and I welcome better service; but it won't make any difference for most people.
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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I admire your faith in the Government of Ontario. If fare integration ever happens, I totally expect the next PC government to roll it back
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
I really don't care what we call the official centre. It's the empasis on SCC, at the expense of other nodes in Scabeough that is silly. If we relaxed development rules at Kennedy Eglinton five years ago, we could be well on our way to having some nice density there. Eglinton Crosstown should be the gateway to Downtown Scarborough
rbt
Senior Member
Interesting, I've always expected the PC government to be the one doing the fare integration.
Of course, I'm also not expect expecting GO fares to change very much..