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

[Lone Primate]

Someone at Major Mac could just use the GO network

I used the GO network, for years. If you haven't, then you'll just have to take my word for the following:

There is no comparison to be made between the GO Train and the subway.

why should Toronto worry about a couple 000 at most in exurbia

"Hundreds"? "At most"? Where are dialing in from, 1850? Almost all the growth in what we think of as "Toronto" is outside 416. If "Metro" itself has grown by more than 100,000 this decade, I'd be surprised. All I seem to hear about here is how bad cars are, oh, get people out of cars. But the minute it means doing anything to promote that, well, hell, it's 1970 all over again. Yay, we killed the Spadina! Aw, screw the subway, who cares! We killed the road! Yeah, and then people south of Eglinton wonder why they have so much traffic going through their surface streets. Honest to God, it makes you wonder if we have a future as a species. The subway went no further north than Wilson for ages; now it ends at Sheppard. God, if you're going to take your car virtually to the 401, at that point, what's the difference? The idea, if you want to get cars off the road, is to get public transit out to where people are. And sorry, increasingly these days, that's 905. The other alternative is neglect public transit or make it so onerous to use it that the jobs pull out of 416. What do you think Vaughan's been growing on for the past 30 years? Toronto's "let 'em drink cake" attitude.

If the Sheppard Line veered up into Markham, maybe, MAYBE then the line would reach capacity

Oh, don't you worry about Sheppard; I've SEEN what's going up on Sheppard. I've seen the blocks of single family homes about to be bulldozed in favour of the 15-20 story condos. Subways really are a matter of if you build it, they will come. I'm personally not a big fan of using public transit (sue me; I did it, I hated it), but if I worked downtown, I'd be taking the subway, not driving. But if I had to waste all morning on that GO Train again, screw it... I drove then, I'd drive now. It's AWFUL.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Eglintonians may have more options but that doesn't diminish the jarring potential of running a subway along it. It's the onle through east-west cross street in the city (even BD can't boast that), making where it can access unlimited. The airport, 4/27 corridor, Weston area, 3 subway interchanges, Don Mills area, GO connections, inter-regional BRT links and numerous shopping/residential centres are some of the many things it could access and while Sheppard also connects a quite few things, no one would disagree it's certainly not to Eglinton's magnitude.

That Eglinton runs from Scarborough to Mississauga is useful only for political reasons. In some crazy world, subways are permitted to run in places where there aren't straight arterial roads over them - both B/D and Sheppard can/do/will run "across the city." In the real world, Sheppard already has a subway, Eglinton doesn't...that's the only reason I need to support a Sheppard extension. It's a good one, though.

And yet most of these people, even along Eglinton, will have to make due with simply the Transit City LRTs. I'm all for completing the Sheppard Subway, someday, but the onus should be on fixing transit woes city-wide in the present.

Extending Sheppard *does* help city-wide transit. You can portray the issue as "one Sheppard extension vs the entire TransitCity network" but we both know that it's not an either/or scenario. TransitCity is not a sure thing and it's benefits are also exaggerated. If the Sheppard extension isn't a present reality, where's several times more billions of dollars worth of streetcars going to come from? Answer: the same places money for a Sheppard extension could come from.

The extension doesn't even have to be a 'subway' east of VP, which is what I keep alluding to. Everyone here admittingly agrees that density tapers off east of Consumers, only starting up a little bit around Allenford, and with properties a good distance aback from the street-curb coupled with lower density aesethetic, why does Sheppard's continuation need be underground? There are numerous, cheaper options like elevated, at-grade or open-ditch. East of Agincourt GO the line could be completely surface til right before STC. My point is, I don't detest Sheppard so I'm enlightened in that sense, my issue is that you favor a subway above any other alternative when a Sheppard East LRT routed in the exact same manor as a subway would be just as useful, efficient and a whole lot cheaper.

You're contradicting yourself here, and responding to your 'subway' comments would only cause frustration.

A Sheppard LRT would not be the same as a subway extension since it would add a transfer and it would not trigger as much bonus redevelopment. What good is saving some money if the end result isn't as useful or efficient?

Oh, and about "density"...yes, it is not constant for the whole length of the corridor. That's irrelevent, though, since ridership matters more than density. A single bus route like Warden could bring in more riders than an entire CityPlace built at Warden & Sheppard.

BTW, rocket routes along VP and Warden are/were poor preforming and downtown's growth is more greatly influenced by proximity to streetcar lines rather than subway lines.

There are no rocket routes on Warden or VP...I am clearly referring to potential routes modelled on the 190, a limited stop Rocket route.

As for your second point...sigh...

 

[lordmandeep]

well the GO trains are getting more full year after year especially the Georgetown line, so i think extending the subways into the suburbs would be a good idea as there is a huge mount of potential ridership

 

[scarberiankhatru]

But get far enough out and many of them would be better off on GO/commuter trains. Where that "far enough" is is the issue. Too bad Vaughan Mills wasn't built right next to Wonderland, or it would have been "this will be far enough, forever" kind of terminus...York U could be considered one, too, but Jane & Hwy 7? It's really rather random.

 

[DENTROBATE54]

That Eglinton runs from Scarborough to Mississauga is useful only for political reasons. In some crazy world, subways are permitted to run in places where there aren't straight arterial roads over them - both B/D and Sheppard can/do/will run "across the city." In the real world, Sheppard already has a subway, Eglinton doesn't...that's the only reason I need to support a Sheppard extension. It's a good one, though.

Seriously!?!

I'm not saying to go run and build an Eglinton Line in place of Sheppard, I'm using it as an example of how it's an uninhibited artery with preexisting density and collective ridership volumes exceeding 100, 000 commuters. In the end, the fact that it runs right across the city is a plus, not a negative i.e. it benefits a larger cross-section of people.

Supporting an extension because the line already exists is ridiculous. Wasn't Eglinton a go in the 90s? If an Eglinton East line were built in the same region as Sheppard is (Yonge to Don Mills) I guarantee you the sparse intermediates seen on Sheppard wouldn't exist. Between a 'downtown' to rival most of NYC from Yonge to Mt Pleasant, proximity to Sunnybrook from Bayview, a very dense Leaside community for Laird, some large office/condo towers heading up Leslie and the Science Centre, Flemingdon Park and 25 bus at Don Mills; the number of people using the subway would than double what Sheppard's doing now. If it were built and extended to Kennedy where it'd replace the SRT, STC would still have a direct link to a regional centre plus an even more direct link to Toronto's downtown. Just because it doesn't exist doesn't lessen of how much more benefit it'd be over Sheppard to the GTA at large.

Extending Sheppard *does* help city-wide transit. You can portray the issue as "one Sheppard extension vs the entire TransitCity network" but we both know that it's not an either/or scenario.

Except Sheppard wasn't on the table when TC was conceptualized, rather it was a Sheppard East LRT to Meadowvale and the 905 subway extensions. Which BTW begs the question...

Why exactly would 905ers opt to ride all the way down to Sheppard over the quick fix of Hwy 7 subways? Hence ridership is more limited than I first realized. Inter-416 North York/Scarborugh north of the 401- a maximum population of 500, 000 will comprise the bulk of riders.

But anyway back to TC. If Sheppard wasn't on the table one can infer the funds that would finance it, are going towards TC. History's allowed to make mistakes but the entire future of the GTA doesn't have to pay for it. If just the promise of a subway has done all this for northeast Scarborough, imagine what actual rapid transit lines will do for the Finch corridor or Lakeshore West or Eglinton or Morningside/Malvern or Jane or Don Mills. It's selfish of you to be so biased towards one area when so many more can get to their destinations alot quicker and trigger development city-wide.

You're contradicting yourself here, and responding to your 'subway' comments would only cause frustration.

What's the contradiction, that Sheppard East, really suitable for surface transit, needs at best a Davisvillesque compromise? Whose really going to complain about a open-ditch which can be filled in in the future as more funds come available. It's bad enough people are still pushing for a multibillion dollar stub, can't it at least be built as cost-effectively as possible? The LRT and the subway, according to Steve Munro, would meet up directly at platform level so only the truly apathetic should be whining about a transfer here. Also lack of density is actually of benefit because Warden North Stn. could be at grade/elevated, saving millions.

As to express routes along VP/Warden I was referring to 224 and now defunct 268 cancelled due to extremely low ridership (3 passengers per trip). The need for express routes along north-south arteries like these is pointless as crowding only occurs at concessions, in this case only two really: Steeles, [McNicoll] and Finch. The downtown developed long before YUS and BD and even today from Beech to Roncesvalles is densely townhouse/condo/office laden while much of the land surrounding BD is still parkland, strip malls, convenience stores and single detached homes. Building subways on the whims of attracting new riders/mass-developing an area while neglecting dense nodes in the present, is the wrong approach when catering to preexisting demand by building where people already live and work, doesn't force commuters to counter-intuitively travel out of their way just to access a faster method of transit.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yes, the Sheppard extension could be at grade or elevated or in a trench in places...I never said it must be underground, just that it must be an extension of the existing subway technology.

Building subways on the whims of attracting new riders/mass-developing an area while neglecting dense nodes in the present, is the wrong approach when catering to preexisting demand by building where people already live and work, doesn't force commuters to counter-intuitively travel out of their way just to access a faster method of transit.

Eglinton's ridership is artifically boosted by overlapping routes that funnel in from random places to subway stations on Eglinton, making those 100,000 question marks in the future. Rapid transit on Don Mills would cut off all the Lawrence riders, a Danforth extension would cut off thousands of Scarborough riders, etc., in which case projected ridership figures a la TransitCity would depend partially on redevelopment/Avenueization.

The riders were there on Sheppard - it's always been one of the busiest routes in the city. Agincourt, Consumers, and STC are as "dense" as anything along Eglinton (except around Yonge). The only counter-intuitive thing here is that you think travelling in straight lines is more logical and important than lower travel times...if you have to go "out of your way" to save half an hour, so be it.

It's selfish of you to be so biased towards one area when so many more can get to their destinations alot quicker and trigger development city-wide.

Oh, please...as if building the Sheppard extension alone is the only option and will preempt every single other project. I support transit improvements on a far vaster scale than a bunch of TransitCity streetcar lines, anyway. If this is going to be your argument, I'll say that you're being outrageously selfish because for the cost of any one LRT line, we can provide fantastic fast bus service on every arterial road in the city, generating a greater net benefit.

 

[unimaginative2]

It's selfish of you to be so biased towards one area when so many more can get to their destinations alot quicker and trigger development city-wide.

Dentrobate - here's my question for you: How will the Transit City routes, unlike the model Spadina and St. Clair ROWs, get their riders to their destinations any faster than existing services?

 

[DENTROBATE54]

just that it must be an extension of the existing subway technology.

Is an interchange occuring on the same platform level, that much of an inconvenience? After two decades of adapting to tri-level transfers at Kennedy you'd think the concept of switching vehicles would've sunk in by now.

Eglinton's ridership is artifically boosted by overlapping routes that funnel in from random places to subway stations on Eglinton, making those 100,000 question marks in the future.

True the overlap does boost statistics, but ridership could just as well be boosted by an increase in lateral routes interchanging i.e. more people bound for BD/YUS would intercept with and hence transfer onto an Eglinton Line first. 32, 34, 86 and 116 see a very significant number of their passengers originating directly along Eglinton. Other routes- 112, 103, 51, 56, 100, 12 and 21- would still contribute around 20, 000+ riders.

The only counter-intuitive thing here is that you think travelling in straight lines is more logical and important than lower travel times...if you have to go "out of your way" to save half an hour, so be it.

Eh? Travelling in straight lines, as you put it, would save commuters alot of time. Veering northwest or southwest through low-density sprawl wastes money on areas that can barely fill limited service buses during peak (43B, 113, 132, 134, 169) but magically are ideal for multibillion dollar subway lines.

You should ask yourself this... What's more of a political agenda, artificially overstating the demand for Centre to Centre connectivity where development's finite and limited on all sides by the 401, Don Valley West, Finch Hydro Corridor and Rouge Park...

-or-

creating a viable, VIABLE alternative to BD along Eglinton, supassing it in length and nodes it can access. It would solve at least three major routing conundrums: subway to Pearson, subway to GTA, downtown-bypass with major destinations/transfer points at virtually every stop. Remember Eglinton's the only TC route given the distinction of having half its operation ran underground, if that doesn't tell you something about it's importance I suppose nothing ever will.

Oh, please...as if building the Sheppard extension alone is the only option and will preempt every single other project. I support transit improvements on a far vaster scale than a bunch of TransitCity streetcar lines, anyway.

Nothing's as expensive as building subway lines. If the 905, the very region you claim Sheppard will benefit most, is getting all of two extensions in the very near future and as you claim the demand along Sheppard drops significantly below 20,000 east of Agincourt it's miraculous and largely due solely because of the preexisting line that Sheppard East LRT was even included in TC at all. Finch East is far more suitable for TC than Sheppard with major trip generators en route (Seneca, Bridletowne, Woodside, Malvern, Morningside Heights, Zoo) extending far beyond where Sheppard can reach. If I were to choose between the 905 extensions + TC over Sheppard it's a no-brainer what I'd decide.

Dentrobate - here's my question for you: How will the Transit City routes, unlike the model Spadina and St. Clair ROWs, get their riders to their destinations any faster than existing services?

It depends on the technologies used but I'd reckon they'll...
- be faster than buses as electricity/track not fuel/wheel run
- be able to carry more passengers per trip hence less wait-time than buses,
- will be ran in a dedicated lane so will be more punctual than buses,
- serve less stops than buses increasing speed further,
- interface with subways more easily hence quicker interchanges than buses
- and if within ROWs, not be impeded by traffic like buses.

You see where I'm going with this, not quite a subway but fills the gap.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

After two decades of adapting to tri-level transfers at Kennedy you'd think the concept of switching vehicles would've sunk in by now.

A basic tenet of transit is to avoid transfers wherever reasonably possible...they add time and effort and literally drive people to drive. So now a model of superfluous transfers has merit just because some people aren't driven away? Ridership would easily double if the RT was a Danforth extension instead.

Eglinton can lure riders, but so can Sheppard. If Sheppard was extended both ways, it'd lure riders from an assortment of Finch, Steeles, etc., routes, not to mention greatly increase transit's share of overall travel in the NW and NE quarters of the city.

Travelling in a straight line takes longer when there's a much faster option elsewhere...no one's going to take the Bathurst bus from Steeles to Bloor when they can go "out of their way" and take the subway instead.

Remember Eglinton's the only TC route given the distinction of having half its operation ran underground, if that doesn't tell you something about it's importance I suppose nothing ever will.

Eglinton isn't wide enough for a ROW and (especially since St. Clair and Lawrence are discontinuous,) it cannot be disrupted to that degree without causing traffic chaos.

Nothing's as expensive as building subway lines. If the 905, the very region you claim Sheppard will benefit most, is getting all of two extensions in the very near future and as you claim the demand along Sheppard drops significantly below 20,000 east of Agincourt it's miraculous and largely due solely because of the preexisting line that Sheppard East LRT was even included in TC at all. Finch East is far more suitable for TC than Sheppard with major trip generators en route (Seneca, Bridletowne, Woodside, Malvern, Morningside Heights, Zoo) extending far beyond where Sheppard can reach. If I were to choose between the 905 extensions + TC over Sheppard it's a no-brainer what I'd decide.

"Expensive" doesn't mean a darn thing unless you're comparing projects with similar costs. Of course TransitCity will be seen in a better light when you're creating this false option of it vs one small subway extension. Give me over $6 billion and I'll build a DRL that will benefit more people than anything else...

I claimed that Agincourt would benefit the most from Sheppard, not the 905...although parts of Markham would stand to benefit handsomely should the double fare issue be resolved in the future.

I agree that Sheppard East, at a point, isn't particularly worthy of higher order transit, but that doesn't make the path of the proposed subway extension less worthy - lines do not need to run in straight lines in to infinity. So why was Sheppard chosen for TransitCity? You mentioned political agendas before: the 6 suburban TransitCity lines intersect in Malvern, Flemingdon Park, and Jane & Finch, and bring streetcars to every city ward. They are not placed on the 6 busiest routes or the 6 routes best suited for streetcars.

I think Lawrence East would have been a good option, particularly since the Lawrence bus is rather dysfunctional. Wilson/Albion could also work. Finch East is actually an acceptably quick and reliable route as is - overall service quality would likely decline with streetcars, and it would be very lightly used east of McCowan, not to mention unable to cheaply/easily serve the Zoo.

 

[unimaginative2]

After two decades of adapting to tri-level transfers at Kennedy you'd think the concept of switching vehicles would've sunk in by now.

After two decades of transfers at Kennedy, you'd think that people would have realized that pointless transfers at artificial termini are not a good idea.

You should ask yourself this... What's more of a political agenda, artificially overstating the demand for Centre to Centre connectivity where development's finite and limited on all sides by the 401, Don Valley West, Finch Hydro Corridor and Rouge Park...

-or-

creating a viable, VIABLE alternative to BD along Eglinton, supassing it in length and nodes it can access. It would solve at least three major routing conundrums: subway to Pearson, subway to GTA, downtown-bypass with major destinations/transfer points at virtually every stop. Remember Eglinton's the only TC route given the distinction of having half its operation ran underground, if that doesn't tell you something about it's importance I suppose nothing ever will.

Once again, I don't think scarberiankhatru opposes the Eglinton LRT line. It's not an either/or proposition. I also don't understand why demand for Sheppard would be somehow limited by the Finch Hydro Corridor. Can you explain to me why people from bus routes north of there wouldn't transfer to the subway?

If the 905, the very region you claim Sheppard will benefit most, is getting all of two extensions in the very near future and as you claim the demand along Sheppard drops significantly below 20,000 east of Agincourt it's miraculous and largely due solely because of the preexisting line that Sheppard East LRT was even included in TC at all.

I think scarberiankhatru was criticizing the idea of continuing the subway east on Sheppard rather than turning south to STC, by far the major hub for Scarborough.

Finch East is far more suitable for TC than Sheppard with major trip generators en route (Seneca, Bridletowne, Woodside, Malvern, Morningside Heights, Zoo) extending far beyond where Sheppard can reach. If I were to choose between the 905 extensions + TC over Sheppard it's a no-brainer what I'd decide.

Morningside Heights and the Zoo are hardly major trip generators. Have you ever been up to Morningside Heights? As has been mentioned in other threads, it's some of the worst sprawl in the entire GTA. Many of the roads don't even have sidewalks. Here comes the Zoo again. If it wasn't significant enough as a trip generator to support a seasonal rocket bus, do you really think it makes sense for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of streetcar? I'll leave Malvern aside for this one.

- be faster than buses as electricity/track not fuel/wheel run

I'm not sure what this means.

- be able to carry more passengers per trip hence less wait-time than buses,

That means more wait time as more people try to get on at each stop, and frequencies are reduced because of the larger vehicles.

- will be ran in a dedicated lane so will be more punctual than buses,

Tell me how they will be different from Spadina, where there is no punctuality whatsoever.

- serve less stops than buses increasing speed further,

Adam Giambrone has said that Transit City routes will not have reduced stop frequency compared with existing bus routes.

- interface with subways more easily hence quicker interchanges than buses

In what way would transfers be easier? TTC bus/subway transfers are already on the whole quite good.

- and if within ROWs, not be impeded by traffic like buses.

You're absolutely right about that, but what I'm questioning is whether this will have any impact on travel time or reliability, as the models for these routes are Spadina and St. Clair which have promised no significant reductions in travel time. The former also has terrible reliability problems. I don't mean this as criticism. I really just want to see how these lines will actually improve these routes the only way that matters -- improved travel time. Nobody, from Steve Munro to Adam Giambronen to forumers, has shown me conclusively how the TTC has learned its lessons.

 

[GregWTravels]

A basic tenet of transit is to avoid transfers wherever reasonably possible...they add time and effort and literally drive people to drive.

To add some science to that statement, in the article Measurement of Transit Benefits (http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/638.html), they give the "transfer penalty" as being 23 minutes - i.e. someone will perceive that a direct route that takes 23 minutes longer is equal to a route that has transfers in it.

The paper The Demand Peformance of Bus Rapid Transit (http://www.nctr.usf.edu/jpt/pdf/JPT 8-1 Currie.pdf) lists transfer penalties from various transit studies and amongst various modes of transit (see page 6), and the averages range from 8 to 22 minutes (with a high value of 50 minute penalty for those picky folks in Stockholm)

 

[CDL.TO]

Interesting.

A coworker of mine as part of his master's thesis was surveying transit passengers in Ottawa, including questions about transfers. The Ottawa locals were deeply opposed to the possibility of having to transfer from their bus to a rail line while the large population of Ottawa residents who were originally from Montreal and Toronto were essentially begging for a rail service to transfer on to from their bus.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

http://www.york.ca/services/transit/highway+7+vaughan+north-south+link+ea.htm

I don't know if this has been linked to yet from here, but the completed EA is there and there's a couple interesting things I found.

1) I'm very disappointed with the 407 Transitway Station. There's absolutely no provision for any possible TOD on that site, based upon the configuration of station entrances and such. Ridership at that station will be solely based on bus transfers and park and ride with little to no walk-in potential.. why they don't build this section at grade for the time being is beyond me, since I don't see any development impacts at all... especially since in profile, the station will be VERY deep.

2) 407 Station seems extremely dependent on the GO 407 BRT transitway being built. And furthermore, based on the sections and plans, there's a plan for the 407 Transitway to be in a tunnel? This seems rather redundant and unnecessary.

3) VCC Station has potential. They don't seem to have a good subway-VIVA BRT/LRT interface planned though, people have to cross the street and enter the station through the station building. I would have thought they might have done something along the lines of the Bloor Streetcar platforms at Yonge prior to BD

 

[unimaginative2]

If there's anything the TTC loves, it's redundant tunnels. They insist on putting the VCC subway in a tunnel under empty government-owned fields. I posted that EA a little while ago and I ranted about how they looked at the possibility of an elevated route, and determined it was possible. They dismissed it, however, as it would be slightly operationally inconvenient. They did so without even a slight examination of the cost savings that it would provide. No wonder subways are so expensive in Toronto. They'll only build it if it's the best, most expensive possible option!

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Okay on the at-grade comment, looking at the alternatives, they seem a bit silly to run at or above grade... but the below grade option will put the platform level of 407 Station about 25m underground. Edmonton's University LRT Station is 23m underground and takes 3 lonnnng sets of escalators to get between levels..

http://www.york.ca/NR/rdonlyres/ffy...ure+2-2+Infeasibility+of+Aerial+Alignment.pdf