Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s
- Thread starter JasonParis
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afransen
Senior Member
The choice is transit or no transit. Not above ground or underground. We're never going to build subways through suburbia. We're just going to choke on traffic.
We'll make things much worse for ourselves, too, if we wait until these corridors are built up before building elevated alignments. If we develop the suburban arterials after the elevated lines are put in place, the new developments can be built to minimize the impact of the guideway/stations on the streetscape. I don't know why we are being precious about these suburban arterials. The are mostly lined with strip malls, gas stations, fast good places and dilapidated SFHs (no one wants a SFH on a busy arterial) that will be torn down.
Undead
Senior Member
Elevated suburban rail should be bundled with rezoning and redeveloping all low density lots fronting the arterials.
syn
Senior Member
But we are building subways through suburbia.
I wasn't saying I'm personally against elevated rail, but it's clear from these photos they are, or at least can be, intrusive.
Why would people in the suburbs want this when everyone's been told for over a decade that they 'deserve' underground transit? Transit is no longer about transit, it's about status.
This is what happens when planning and development becomes overly politicized and used to pit regions of the city against one another.
ARG1
Senior Member
afransen
Senior Member
Not meaningfully. The vast majority of suburbia will never get subways. They may get GO RER where existing ROWs exist. They might get upgraded bus in the form of LRT (but slow travel times and not as reliable). Or we can build real rapid transit, but only if it is mostly above ground. We're never going to get meaningful coverage of the suburbs with $600M/km subway.
I don't find the guideway that obtrusive. I think if you were to talk to people in Vancouver that live near these, they probably don't think they are so bad. If anything, high speed arterials are much more unpleasant/unlivable.
KhalilHeron
Active Member
Honestly, I think elevated guideways add more to a city than anything. It adds a sense of life and activity to an area. Obviously, the price and construction time also makes them far more attractive than tunnels where possible. Vancouver has been able to build so much transit because they are not trying to deep bore tunnel everywhere, and are using at or above grade options wherever they can.
Towered
Senior Member
Whatever happened to streetcar suburbs? That was a good model to follow.
ARG1
Senior Member
We can build streetcar suburbs, which is why I do support some of Transit City's lines such as Malvern and Finch West, however streetcar suburb models only apply to area where the goal is to get from a suburb to downtown IE a feeder route. Building Crosstown Lines with Streetcars isn't building a streetcar suburb, its just bad design.
robmausser
Senior Member
The suburbs deserve rapid transit in some form but I dont think they deserve that to be buried underground.
The Line 1 extensions should have been elevated, including the Scarb subway and the planned Sheppard subway East. Theres tons of room for it up north along those wide roads.
There was no reason to bury the Spadina extension.
The Line 1 extensions should have been elevated, including the Scarb subway and the planned Sheppard subway East. Theres tons of room for it up north along those wide roads.
There was no reason to bury the Spadina extension.
syn
Senior Member
Of course they're not that bad. The RT isn't that bad. LRTs aren't that bad either.
Unfortunately current discourse on transit has been tainted by 10+ years of 'you deserve this' and "those people have this entirely because they're privileged and you're not' rhetoric.
We canceled a perfectly good, above ground rail project that was easily expandable in the future (the Scarborough LRT) all because of what people 'deserve'. I don't blame people for expecting nothing less than subways.
This is why Ford style rhetoric is so dangerous. We're now reaping the results of what has been sown for years.
Personally I don't mind investing in subway construction. But it needs to be sensibly planned.
If we go ahead with it, do it well. I don't believe the SSE is a good idea, but if it's going to be done then invest to make sure the stations demonstrate some sense of care towards the public realm. Make the STC stop a transit palace.
The leader of this government has played a huge role in delaying sensible transit expansion for years, and is now picking and choosing where underground transit goes, whether or not it makes sense. There's an artificial sense of scarcity thrown in for good measure.
It's all very disappointing.
Perhaps a decade or two from now we can have a more measured discussion on above ground transit, and it isn't too late to implement elevated rail with minimal impact to the surrounding community.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
The suburbs "deserve" rapid transit, but they deserve better than subways, which are way too slow given the massive distanced that need to be covered.
Toronto's suburbs need some sort of "Toronto Overground" system. We should be looking at repurposing under-utilized corridors, such as hydro and freight corridors for long-distance, predominantly at-grade travel. Lighter, "Ontario Line"-style vehicles could be used to make elevation on an option. This system could be connected to the downtown core via the Midtown rail corridor, and perhaps through building a second subway tunnel through the Downtown core (a regional rail tunnel though the Downtown core has been proposed by Metrolinx and will inevitably be necessary). This system should be separate and distinct from the GO RER system, to avoid overloading the system with commuters from Toronto's inner suburbs.
Essentially, this would be a transit mode sandwiched between the subway and RER.
The Gatineau hydro corridor in Scarborough is very wide, and should be able to accommodate a regional rail line bisecting the entire borough.
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robmausser
Senior Member
Totally agree, that was the plan of GO-ALRT decades ago. It should be resurfaced after the success of the REM in Montreal
That being said GO Expansion/Electrification will already be doing lots of what you are proposing on rail corridors.
JSF-1
Active Member
While this is true we do still have some "growing up" to do in this regard. I look at the loss of the station at Lawrence East as proof that we are still trapped in a "North American" mentality when it comes to transit planning. I like anyone else want GO to transition away from being a suburban focused rail network into an urban rail network like what is seen in places like London, Berlin, or Tokyo. Yet to do this we need to stop being afraid of "stepping on toes" if you will. We dropped the GO Station at Lawrence East due to the SSE which in my opinion is the wrong thing to do. If you go to any of the previously mentioned cities, finding a subway station and a commuter rail station a block apart from each other is common. Instead over here we adopt an approach that has to justify a line or stations existence. In this case we dropped the GO Station at Lawrence in order to justify the existence of one on the SSE, when in fact you can have both since they would cater to 2 different markets. As well we use "ridership" numbers in a vacuum to justify plans, when in fact nothing in this case exists in vacuum but is part of a larger network. In this case Metrolinx saw that Lawrence East GO station would have low ridership yet looked at it as if it were in a vacuum and not part of the larger Stouffville GO Line. If we did that for all our plans the overwhelming majority of subway stations we have today wouldn't exist. Instead though we built stations like Chester, or Greenwood because even though there ridership would be quite low compared to some other stations, they were part of a larger "whole"; so any disadvantage would be offset by the contribution (however small) to the bigger picture.
officedweller
Senior Member
The GREY of the guide-way copies the GREY of the buildings.
Too bad they couldn't copy the tree canopies. Maybe they should add trees along them, bad news is that it would take decades before they look decent.
That gray is pervasive everywhere.
The columns are lighted in places with colour changing lights.
Coquitlam has integrated the line well, whereas Burnaby doesn't care as much.
Evergreen Line Public Realm - Hapa Collaborative
Our aim was to change the perception that train stations are merely operational by revealing their potential as a gathering space to meet a friend or sit and people watch.
hapacobo.com
See our work on the City of Coquitlam Evergreen Line : State of the Art Concepts - Custom Art and Architectural Fabrication Company
Here’s a first look at our latest work with the City of Coquitlam, enhancing the Evergreen Line along North Road and Clarke Road. We were commissioned to manufacture and install the North Star Gateway Feature, Clarke Road Gateway Feature and Street Markers, illuminating the route with a dynamic...
www.stateoftheartconcepts.ca
Trees shed leaves that would fall on to the guideway.
While SkyTrain uses linear induction, so there aren't major concerns about wheel slip, I think they still are concerned about leaves on the rails.
Yeah, there are many options between streetcar and subway, much of it to do with the built form of the rails/guideway.
Goes with the classic chicken and egg debate (highly dependent on willingness of municipalities to upzone):
- build to serve existing growth; or
- build to manage or shape future growth (which for elevated lines, results in a more integrated/harmonious built form).
If you build a line through a desert lined with strip malls, the developers will come and build it up - and there wouldn't be anyone to complain about their neighbourhood being destroyed. Typically, however, those deserts are also light industrial areas, so you'd end up with a loss of that type of job space.
If a City has plans to receive a transit line (like Coquitam did before the Evergreen Exrension) it can rezone in advance around the future line and reserve a right-of-way and then you will see a line snake around existing towers. Coquitlam even put approvals on hold because development was outpacing the proposed delivery timeline for the line (delayed 10+ years).
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