Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[innsertnamehere]

Not everyone is coming from downtown.

which is why they can connect to GO at bloor or Eglinton.

Airport area has a higher concentration, but it is a huge area and has stupidly low densities of office employment, it just so happens that there is lots there. The area that it is measured from is huge though.

 

[ehlow]

which is why they can connect to GO at bloor or Eglinton.

Airport area has a higher concentration, but it is a huge area and has stupidly low densities of office employment, it just so happens that there is lots there. The area that it is measured from is huge though.

That's what I was thinking. Depending on the fares (which they are still probably discussing), it's very viable to take Eglinton or Bloor to the UPX and transfer.

Of course, this doesn't help those in the apartment buildings along Eglinton West, or people going to the Mississauga offices, but it does seem viable to me to get to the airport.

 

[EnviroTO]

The people who show up at these public consultations are not the same people who live in this area. I think that the bike/anti-car nuts are severely overrepresented at these meetings. Hardly anyone rides bikes around Yonge/Eglinton, even in the summer. Pretty much everyone who lives in this area either takes TTC or drives. Traffic on Eglinton is horrible and we don't want to make it even worse.

The people who are at these meetings ARE the people who live in this area. The meeting notes show that at one session the local ward counsellor's outreach communication was cited as the largest generator of attendance. I think, just like when I was living on Queens Quay and had to listen to people complain about loosing 2 lanes on Queens Quay, that the population who would complain about Eglinton Connects tend to be those who have made the decision long before Eglinton Connects not to live in the area because it doesn't suit their lifestyle. People who do live in the area have made a decision to live in an area where your home dollars don't go as far for the purpose of not having to drive for many activities and to support a commute that is largely walking and transit based, but which is seeing increasing numbers of cyclists. Equally, people who complain about traffic calming are largely people who do not live on the streets where traffic calming has been implemented. People who want 6 lanes of traffic plus turning lanes can head over to Mississauga Centre where they will find something that more supports their style, and the cost of homes nearby is lower. I don't know why people who do not live in the area care about the loss of lanes at Yonge and Eglinton. Yonge has got to be the slowest way to move north and south (try the DVP, Bayview, Mt.Pleasant, Avenue Rd, etc and get there faster), and Eglinton isn't a good way to go east-west (try Lawrence, Wilson, 401). Yonge and Eglinton are streets with lots of lights, and lots of pedestrians. The reason the LRT is underground here is because it is faster.

 

[howl]

The people who are at these meetings ARE the people who live in this area. The meeting notes show that at one session the local ward counsellor's outreach communication was cited as the largest generator of attendance. I think, just like when I was living on Queens Quay and had to listen to people complain about loosing 2 lanes on Queens Quay, that the population who would complain about Eglinton Connects tend to be those who have made the decision long before Eglinton Connects not to live in the area because it doesn't suit their lifestyle. People who do live in the area have made a decision to live in an area where your home dollars don't go as far for the purpose of not having to drive for many activities and to support a commute that is largely walking and transit based, but which is seeing increasing numbers of cyclists. Equally, people who complain about traffic calming are largely people who do not live on the streets where traffic calming has been implemented. People who want 6 lanes of traffic plus turning lanes can head over to Mississauga Centre where they will find something that more supports their style, and the cost of homes nearby is lower. I don't know why people who do not live in the area care about the loss of lanes at Yonge and Eglinton. Yonge has got to be the slowest way to move north and south (try the DVP, Bayview, Mt.Pleasant, Avenue Rd, etc and get there faster), and Eglinton isn't a good way to go east-west (try Lawrence, Wilson, 401). Yonge and Lawrence are streets with lots of lights, and lots of pedestrians. The reason the LRT is underground here is because it is faster.

I agree with you. In general, people want traffic to move slow in their own neighbourhood, and fast in other people's neighbourhoods. This includes the business owners in particular. Urban businesses rely on walk-in and bike-in traffic much more than drive in traffic, so the slower and more pedestrian/cycling friendly you can make a street the more customers you will get.

 

[JayBeeGooner]

Eg west is pointless if there is a good GO connection to the airport. It would take well over an hour using the LRT to get to the airport from downtown, or you could take GO in ~30 minutes. there is a reason the line has been relegated to the depths of the Big Move.

Why do only trips from downtown matter?

The western leg of the Eglinton line can be beneficial for Airport workers and residents who live along Eglinton Ave. Not every airport user/worker lives downtown. The western leg will be a useful part of the network.

 

[sixrings]

which is why they can connect to GO at bloor or Eglinton.

Airport area has a higher concentration, but it is a huge area and has stupidly low densities of office employment, it just so happens that there is lots there. The area that it is measured from is huge though.

Anyone going to the airport via transit would prefer to transfer the least amount as possible. Transfers are annoying in any circumstance but with luggage it is brutal.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I think that the people who want to widen roads or add more traffic lanes will not even shop or use the offices in the neighbourhood. They want an "expressway" out of or through the neighbourhood, bypassing everything. Its the people who walk or ride bicycle who actually see the storefronts and decide to shop. If you are driving, you are looking straight ahead (or in the rearview mirror) looking at the traffic, not stores.

 

[andrewpmk]

(About selling off the Richview Expressway) Whoever made that decision should be fired. We could have easily put a cheap grade separated line there. The light rail nuts must have done that deliberately because they hate subways so much.

 

[typezed]

Equally, people who complain about traffic calming are largely people who do not live on the streets where traffic calming has been implemented.

I'd say the opposite. People who complain about traffic calming on what are considered arterials (Eglinton, Jarvis) are more likely car-centric and live in subdivisions designed to keep non-local traffic away. As I mentioned above, Rob Ford lives on a street that is signed at 40kph.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

I worked for 5 years at Y & E around 1980 and took the subway, too long ago to use as evidence here but I am not totally unfamiliar with the area. My eyesight is as good when I am on foot as it is when behind a windshield, as is yours I am sure.
I googled Chaplin and Davisville expecting to see cyclists afraid to use Eglinton, care to guess how many cyclists showed up?

My friend, QUIT GOOGLING TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE. Go there. It's not far from your Don Mills redoubt. I recommend parking at the movie theatre, taking in a show, then walking down Yonge to Tabouleh for dinner.

You'll see that, off peak, the current construction and bus traffic and folks trying to turn from Eglinton to Yonge are the source of congestion. If they have a dedicated turning lane and zero buses, the traffic flow will be much, much better, because today they have only theoretically two lanes in either direction and the greatest source of congestion are the buses.

FYI, I drove this stretch very off-peak (Thursdays ~10:30pm) for twenty years until this last January. Traffic flow is minimal unless you get caught behind a bus; eliminating the buses will eliminate almost all the pinchpoints, IMO

 

[TOareaFan]

That's what I was thinking. Depending on the fares (which they are still probably discussing), it's very viable to take Eglinton or Bloor to the UPX and transfer.

Of course, this doesn't help those in the apartment buildings along Eglinton West, or people going to the Mississauga offices, but it does seem viable to me to get to the airport.

Bloor yes...but as far as I know there are no plans to include a transfer to the UPe on Eglinton.

 

[TOareaFan]

I think that the people who want to widen roads or add more traffic lanes will not even shop or use the offices in the neighbourhood. They want an "expressway" out of or through the neighbourhood, bypassing everything. Its the people who walk or ride bicycle who actually see the storefronts and decide to shop. If you are driving, you are looking straight ahead (or in the rearview mirror) looking at the traffic, not stores.

Generally agree with this statement but, to be fair, I have not seen anyone suggesting widening Eglinton or adding more traffic lanes.....I have seen people concerned over how the street will work if lanes are lost.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Ridership projections are frequently deliberately inaccurate. Miller obviously deliberately manipulated these projections to make them lower than they should be to make light rail look good. In reality I would have thought that Eglinton would have about the same ridership as Bloor-Danforth. Eglinton has about the same amount of office space as Bloor-Danforth (if you count the area around Pearson in Mississauga where most of it is located), the population density along much of it is fairly similar (except the low density east part of Eglinton), and it is close to the extremely busy Highway 401. Of course Bloor-Danforth carries way more people than LRT can possibly handle (even though it doesn't have many tall buildings along most of it, and there isn't all that much office space near Bloor-Yonge compared to the southern part of downtown). There were proposals in the old days to put underground streetcars along Yonge, Bloor and Queen, all of which would be extremely above capacity if they were built. I think that putting light rail on Eglinton will turn out to be a huge mistake.

Your grip on reality is shaky. How could it possibly benefit anyone to deliberately falsify something like this? This is just another one of those cognitive dissonance ridiculous statements that seem to continue to follow Miller around -- he must have done something evil because his plan does not follow my preferred plan.

 

[nfitz]

(About selling off the Richview Expressway) Whoever made that decision should be fired. We could have easily put a cheap grade separated line there. The light rail nuts must have done that deliberately because they hate subways so much.

Whoever didn't make that decision should be fired.

With LRT down the middle of Eglinton, which will be painless with the very generous ROW width, the land is perfect for dense development.

How could anyone be crazy enough to suggest we making grade-separated transit for line with a projected 2030s ridership of about 2,000 during the peak hours? And that projection included the dense development!

In reality even surface LRT is a stretch, and only makes sense because of the desire to get a transfer-free ride from Yonge to the hub at Renforth.

 

[EnviroTO]

I'd say the opposite. People who complain about traffic calming on what are considered arterials (Eglinton, Jarvis) are more likely car-centric and live in subdivisions designed to keep non-local traffic away. As I mentioned above, Rob Ford lives on a street that is signed at 40kph.

No, I'm actually in agreement with you. They support traffic calming in their own neighbourhood or don't find it necessary because there is no traffic, but are opposed to traffic calming downtown like the speed humps because sometimes they are downtown and like to take a short cut around traffic and jet down a side street and speed humps are making it less convenient for them. Never mind the windy curvy streets they live on in suburbia were designed to discourage use of even secondary arterial streets.