Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group

I've been in Berlin for the past 3 weeks and the transit system here is simply the best in the world. They toss around Transit-City LRTs as if they were nothing. mainly in fact, because they are. People have a perception of them as quick-neighbourhood hoppers/shuttles to a U/S-Bahnhof. There are 9 subway lines and an extensive network of faster, larger trains with less frequent stops but for the same price and with full integration to the U-bahn system along with 24 hour, intense frequencies. If Toronto wants to compete, LRT just won't do it! LRT is for a place like Minneanapolis. The sprawling geography of Toronto needs larger, heavier solutions. I'm not saying that a transity-city LRT doesn't have it's place but it needs to compliment the backbone of the system.

One last point, in Berlin, the LRTs are actually fully separated and travel a high speed. Any Toronto LRT after the Spadina model will be a disaster!
 
Before we start throwing down Berlin as a model, let's remember that the city is in debt to a tune of 60 billion euros (more by now). And the city is in constant deficit mode, even with taxation powers we could only dream of. Not sustainable.

The sprawling geography of Toronto is PRECISELY the reason why building a subway network in the inner suburbs makes no sense. It's unlikely to happen past the moronic extension to York, which I still hope will be mothballed. The HRT capacity is unneeded, and is simply not a good investment.

LRT also has a place in the inner city, although I think DRL makes a lot of sense, and some form of it should still happen.
 
woh 60 billion euros.



If transit comes at that price forget that....
 
What effect do we experience from being debt-free, as citizens? Other than poor and declining services, that is...
 
Subways in the inner suburbs can make tons of sense when they're replacing multiple surface routes of 20,000, 30,000, and 40,000 riders. Add in nodal development patterns and you have the "density" everyone's preoccupied with, too.
 
Salvius, as someone who thinks subways are a terrible idea and LRT is the way to go, please explain to me how these light rail projects will be significantly faster than the buses that are already there. We're spending a billion dollars on each of these lines, so what's the improvement? St. Clair was supposed to be the model. It offers no time savings of any significance. I live on Spadina, and when I want to get somewhere on time, I walk over to the subway, and then back to Spadina.
 
unimaginative2 -- because Spadina and St Clair is not true LRT. They're Streetcars in Reserved Rights of Way. Like I said, look at Calgary and Edmonton as the example of the LRT that we should be pursuing in the GTA. LRT is both cities are on completely separate rights of way (with the exception of in downtown Calgary), have complete traffic priority (warning bells and gates), station spacings similar to heavy rail, and speeds comparable, if not faster (due to faster acceleration of lighter vehicles).

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Calgary ROW... looks like Spadina along Allan Rd, no?
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Oh I know! I completely agree, and the C-Train is an excellent system. But that's not what we're getting in Toronto. I've spoken to Adam Giambrone, and he said that St. Clair is the model for Transit City. All lines will be built wherever possible in street medians. No isolated ROWs will be used.
 
this is true.. though at least the section on Eglinton that will be underground will resemble a true-LRT in some fashion. What we should have is a Calgary/Edmonton-esque LRT along the Finch/Etobicoke Hydro Corridors above and beyond the Transit City RROW proposals.
 
299 bloor call control. said:
this is true.. though at least the section on Eglinton that will be underground will resemble a true-LRT in some fashion. What we should have is a Calgary/Edmonton-esque LRT along the Finch/Etobicoke Hydro Corridors above and beyond the Transit City RROW proposals.
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Eglinton will theoretically be great, but I fear that the streetcars will back up so much on the surface sections that the underground section will be completely useless. We could be looking at clusters of three or four vehicles trundling through the tunnel all together, followed by 20 minutes or more of no service, all day long.

I don't think they could really justify building two light rail lines within a few hundred metres of one another on the street and hydro corridor. Besides, Adam Giambrone, Steve Munro, and the other people behind Transit City have all firmly said that there will be no routes in hydro lands or other off-street corridors.
 
No one could justify running lines in both the hydro corridor and Finch, especially since they would converge and share stations at interchanges like Finch and Keele & Finch.
 
I've been meaning to mention this for a few days. There's much more information about the York Region segment of the extension. The EA is almost complete, and you can view it all here.

Once again, I'm quite infuriated by the whole process. They apparently did examine an elevated alignment, which seems extremely logical since it passes primarily through undeveloped, provincially-owned land. They rejected the option out of hand on the grounds of some minor operational inconveniences and the fact that Interchange Way, a road running through vacant lots, would have to be realigned. It was rejected as an inferior option without even examining relative costs. Of course it's inferior to an underground alignment. It would also likely be hundreds of millions cheaper. How can you evaluate alignments when you aren't looking at the financial costs as well as the benefits?
 
look, isn't it obvious by now that the TTC has absolutely no idea how the city should be developing and what the most cost-effective, fastest way to get Toronto up to par for the size it is? I think it's totally fair to throw Berlin down as a model because for god's sake, it WORKS! it's by far the most integrated, efficient, fastest, and smartest possible design. start with nice new buses that run frequently, then to the LRT in street medians with stops fairly far apart and no turns interfering with operation. the trains themselves there are very similar to the next-generation streetcar here. no need to be fancy, real LIGHT right can do it. it's simply a matter of stop spacing and speed.

next are the u-bahns, which all have centre platforms, somewhat shorter than ours with slightly smaller trains that work well. move up to the s-bahn (which is called the schneller train, not suburban) which will really get you moving around the city quickly and efficiently. on top of that, add the heavy passenger rail to further destinations, like Oshawa, Guelph, etc... and last but certainly not least the ICE/TGV trains which service intercity trips: toronto/ottawa/montreal/new york. they all share the same stations and much of the same track and by and large there is full fare integration with 3 zones. what's not to love?!?
 
their 60 billion Euros or 86 billion dollars in debt... In comparison Canada toal debt is like 400 or so billion!!

imagine the interest bill! Sure tax increases would keep you in line, but what happens if your economy tanks for a few years....
All that spending to create more transit would be useless if don't have any money to operate it and it could happen.

Anyways, going a few billion in debt would be alright, but going into debt is only possible if your in a good financial standpoint, which the city of Toronto is not.

So what do we do? Get money from the guys swimming with cash, the federal government.


What effect do we experience from being debt-free, as citizens? Other than poor and declining services, that is...
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A government needs to have revenue and expenses to be near equal to be sustainable. Going into massive debts to create huge social programs will always lead to those services being cut in the long run due to higher interest payments or lower revenues due to a bad economy.

Remember! Not only do you need money to make things (transit, social services), you need money to keep things running as well.
 
Lord Mandeep honestly, that's not all from building the subway. Berlin used to be a divided city, with thousands of acres of land left completely vacant and strewn with rubble from the Second World War. Of course they've had to spend a fortune rebuilding half the city.

Poomar, the Berlin system is good, but it's actually generally considered to be pretty poor by European standards. They've only just finished rebuilding a lot of the war/division damage, and a number of subway lines are somewhat incomplete. While it blows away Toronto (especially in reliability), it certainly isn't the equal of Munich, for example, which would be an amazing model for Toronto.
 
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