Toronto Aria | ?m | 19s | Fernbrook Homes | Rafael + Bigauskas

M

Mike in TO

Guest
Aria ~ 20 stories on the north side of Sheppard, just east of Leslie. I beleive the planning documents were posted here abou a year ago... this is a multi-phase project and is surrounded by single family homes - while intensification on Sheppard is progress this project doesn't fit in at all with the immediate neighbours.

_______

I think all arguements on the value of the Sheppard Subway are pretty much null and void now considering what has been built in the past couple of years and what is in the pipeline.

Just some of the recent news:
Concord Adex
Aria
Heron's Hill (Monarch - 25s, ~30s & 38s)
The curvy Daniels building in sales
Minto Radiance II
Parkway Forest (application is being revised)
Tridel multi-phase project along future Sheppard extension route

Hopefully the extension will be an immediate priority once shovels are in the ground for Spadina... it would be nice if the feds were to show up at the table - I had heard about 6 months that the province was exploring options to fund the Sheppard extension in the next budget or as an election promise, but given the federal silence on Spadina and the weaker then expected 2006 provincial growth that option is off the table right now.
 
I'm not so sure if the argument against the Sheppard subway is necessarily nullified. For all that construction the line still has less than impressive ridership. I'd really like to see a transportation modality study done, because I have a sneaking suspicion people are buying up there as much for the 401 access as they are for the subway.
 
Sheppard has its advantages. Toss in a subway to knock up land values and its a sure fire buying spree.
 
I'm not so sure if the argument against the Sheppard subway is necessarily nullified. For all that construction the line still has less than impressive ridership. I'd really like to see a transportation modality study done, because I have a sneaking suspicion people are buying up there as much for the 401 access as they are for the subway.

A lot of people buy in the central waterfront for Gardiner access just as much as TTC and GO at Union Station.

The population increase will no doubt be a huge boost to Sheppard and the increased density and activity would not have occured without the subway. Also the return on investment by various levels of government on the consutruction of the line is paid back over a number of years due to the taxation revenue and increased economic activity due to the subway.

Anyone have easy access to annual numbers on Sheppard to see if there has been much improvement since it openned?

It will be interesting to see how those numbers increase in a couple of years when the Canadian Tire / Concord lands start to fill in.
 
Part of it is all on your perspective. Some want transit supportive densities in advance, others subscribe to the 'build it and they will come philosophy'. In this case there was a significant public sector investment in terms of the subway and quite clearly the private sector has come in with significant investments, particularily on the residential side. Concord Adex alone purchased a Sheppard lands property for almost $150,000,000 and that is prior to any investments on the land itself.
 
If the Sheppard subway's ridership is "not impressive" it's simply because it was reduced to a stubway. That's the only reason. Even after all the construction currently in the pipeline is done, the neighbourhoods east of Don Mills may still be denser.

edit - All this construction is adding cars to Sheppard, which puts even more pressure on the city to extend the subway through Agincourt to STC. But Sheppard's always been a busy road - that's partially why it now has a subway.
 
My bet is that a subway where the current SRT runs or under Queen street would have much greater ridership and therefore I think the Sheppard line should not have gotten a subway yet. Subways are too expensive to be used to lure development to an area or to try and improve the modal split in transit's favour when there are existing routes which need more capacity and that are dreadfully slow. Something needs to happen on King or Queen and on the SRT route far more than what was needed on Sheppard when it was built. Sheppard might grow into a useful subway line but it will never have been the right choice at the right time in my opinion.
 
"would have much greater ridership "

...than a Sheppard line from Downsview to STC or just the current stubway portion?

edit - and the right choice at the right time would have been to build it straight from Downsview to STC.
 
^than the line from Downsview to STC.

What's the current ridership on the Sheppard line anyway?
 
...than a Sheppard line from Downsview to STC or just the current stubway portion?

Than both. If the ridership between Kennedy and SCC doesn't warrant a subway I don't really see how a subway from North York to SCC would be warranted. How many people taking transit along the route want to go to North York or SCC? I think a review of origin and destinations along the route would show that people are wanting to head north-south and not east-west. The Downsview to SCC route should have been built using surface LRT. Sheppard is plenty wide enough to dedicate some space to transit and the lights are spaced far apart so the number of bottlenecks would be few. I think the money saved from building RT instead of subway on Sheppard could be spent more wisely on a Don Mills LRT route which fills the need of a north-south connection.
 
The Queen streetcar and the Sheppard bus had a similar ridership, so I am not sure why people think a Queen subway would have higher ridership now. Queen is not even close to being the busiest streetcar line... Spadina is the busiest by far.

The current ridership of the Sheppard subway is 41,000 per weekday.
 
Queen is close enough to draw riders from King and Dundas so when you add those routes together (conservatively half the King riders and a quarter of the Dundas riders) that is a heck of a lot of riders. There are also many who ride north-south routes to Bloor who would choose the Queen subway if it were available. Lastly, Queen is not as good a place for LRT as locataions with wide roadways like St.Clair or Sheppard... the stoplights are closer together, the roadway is narrow, and turning over two lanes to LRT would meet far more resistance than even St.Clair. On Queen Street a subway is almost the only way to bring reliable fast transportation to the area whereas on Sheppard BRT could work, LRT could work, and even driving a car works.
 
Well, the Sheppard stubway IS built, and that's not going to change, regardless whether there COULD have been an LRT there. Subway it is, and it only makes sense to extend it to Downsview in the west and Scarborough Centre in the east.
 
"Queen is close enough to draw riders from King and Dundas so when you add those routes together (conservatively half the King riders and a quarter of the Dundas riders) that is a heck of a lot of riders."

Tons of downtown streetcar riders only take the routes three blocks eat or west of YUS stations. The switch-overs, while numerous, may not be as overwhelmingly numerous as you're suggesting.

Also, you're conveniently leaving out people switching from other bus routes and even other modes of transportation for the Sheppard line. Of course the ridership would go way up if extended from Downsview to STC. The longer it is, the more riders it steals from the Bloor line the more rides it takes off Finch, Steeles, Wilson/York Mills, etc. It'd see 100,000 daily rides from day one.

"I think the money saved from building RT instead of subway on Sheppard could be spent more wisely on a Don Mills LRT route which fills the need of a north-south connection."

It's a little late for that...a DRL would have been better than a Sheppard line, yes, but it didn't happen and will never happen. This city just doesn't care anymore.
 
Well, the Sheppard stubway IS built, and that's not going to change, regardless whether there COULD have been an LRT there. Subway it is, and it only makes sense to extend it to Downsview in the west and Scarborough Centre in the east.

It's a little late for that...a DRL would have been better than a Sheppard line, yes, but it didn't happen and will never happen. This city just doesn't care anymore.

It is too late to not built the tunnel which already exists but it isn't too late to use proper vehicles on the route and extend the route as LRT. Brussels is a perfect example of a Pre-Metro system where LRT runs in subway tunnels that are built before the line is long enough or heavily enough used to be a full subway with heavy rail equipment. The Sheppard line which exists could easily be converted to handle LRT equipment in the existing tunnel and be extended at the surface to continue to SCC in the east and Albion in the west. One could probably complete this entire line as LRT from Albion to SCC as LRT (including modifications to the existing tunnel to lower platforms for the same cost or less than an extension to SCC as a subway.
 

Back
Top