If they can build the Bloor Viaduct they certainly can build a bridge over the Don at Sheppard.
Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
If they can build the Bloor Viaduct they certainly can build a bridge over the Don at Sheppard.
DENTROBATE54
Banned
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-subway it's just that alot of these 'ideas' seem to exist only in transit fanatic's imaginations with total disregard for the limitless possibilities of LRT/BRT. What many here label as TRANSFER CITY, in fact would be replacing go-slow local buses and streetcars, a step in the right direction not wrong.
When the TTC is done building a measly 10kms of new subways in Toronto, vetoes TC and leaves 90% of service unimproved how is the everyday Torontonian who doesn't live along Yonge, Sheppard or in the Keele/Finch vincinity going to feel when their window to relatively quick rapid transit has slipped from their grasp, perhaps for their lifetime?
A combination of services-regular bus, express bus, regular streetcar, limited-stop LRTs, ICTS (if we can find a manufacturer) along elevated ROW, commuter rail (of which GO/TTC becomes fare integrated or the TTC themselves provide a service), and yes finally new subways- not just adding 2 stops to an already exhausted line but rather new lines that don't have to conform to traditional subway codex, having stops in concentration where needed rather than being strung along through suburban sprawl. In all fairness it does make sense to both legs of YUS in the north, perhaps moreso than connecting Sheppard to BD @Scarborough Centre. If Sheppard could get me from Yonge to Downsview in 5 mins, I'd build that over an eastern extension beyond Victoria Park.
About the subway bridge running alongside the road bridge, that's good engineering without disrupting traffic along Sheppard for a period of several months and seeing that the subway owns a property couple blocks east of Senlac currently (Welbeck) it wouldn't be too difficult to kick-start expansion again.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
Well you can answer my questions from my earlier post, too. How will Transit City streetcars be faster than existing buses and streetcars?
Absolutely nobody is suggesting, somehow, replacing Transit City with 10km of subway. I don't even know where you got 10 km from. It seems like a completely arbitrary number.
The Bomber builds ICTS and exports it all over the world.
DENTROBATE54
Banned
Simple, the 500 series streetcars stop on average eight times per concession [note: the stop density is even greater than that in some areas e.g. between Church and Bathurst; Mimico]. Buses follow the same formula. Both modes of transit are bogged down by surface impediemnts (congestion, traffic lights, bad weather, road construction, detours a la road closures/accidents/black ice).
In contrast, what Transit City is offering most closely resembles the Queensway ROW between Roncesvalles and Humber Loop. Light rail-only lanes with raised trackbeds to prevent cars from getting on. Stops spaced every 450m as opposed to every 200m allocated by the existing system. Several sections along every proposed line would have underground sections, further enhancing speed.
But now where's the comparison really differs. Let's take 512 St Clair for instance. It takes over an hour to get from Gunns Loop to St Clair Stn. following the 8 stops to a concession rule. Then consider Finch West, which organically has density clusters at major cross intersections and wide margins of residential sprawl in between. The TC line along there, only stopping 4 times a concession (or major/minor/major/minor) would instead of to Keele within an hour, the Finch West would probably reach all the way to Humber College and be resting for the trip back by then.
See its simple semantics. You say LRT=streetcar in the vein
of the 501. I say better than a subway for a corridor (Finch West) not ready for a subway but deserving of more than a regular service local-stopping bus. That's not to say the 36 becomes obcelete, it means for someone living in Rexdale boarding at Finch Stn that they didn't just waste 2+ hours of their life awaiting their stop for the sake of a zillion minor stops en route. It's all a give and take.Those who purport the urban myth that is Transfer City feciciously do. How arbitrary a number is 3kms for a Bloor-Danforth extension to Scarbourough Centre, 2kms for YUS to Yonge/Steeles and another 5kms to York U? The rest of the city doesn't benefit from that alone.
However if for the fraction of the cost we implement city-wide BRT/LRT infrastructure and construct minimalist subways (pre-metros from the airport to Markham Rd and within the downtown core from the Beaches to Humber Loop) then in fact we'll be benefiting any or all of 2.5 million people, not just 20,000 for the VCC extension and 40,000 for a BD to STC assist.
Gee, I wonder where all the talk about how the SRT's outmoded and would be inoperable by 2015 came from? It seems convenient lies propogate wherever politicians want to dissuade public interest support for transit projects.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Everything you post sounds like it's been translated from another language.
Bathurst & Sheppard is low-density now? Compared to Kowloon, maybe. There's 10,000 people living there already.
And immutable? Sheppard is changing as much as any other road in the city. It will be the city's first "Avenue."
Panzerfaust
Active Member
Yes, they're lying about how the SRT needs replacement. The SRT that is constantly down for maintenance, down due to problems with the technology, and down because of a centimetre of snow. It's not a convenient lie, it's the complete truth, and it's been known since the thing was built that the SRT would have to be replaced by 2015. It's a little thing called operational life, and the SRT is definitely approaching the end of it.
DENTROBATE54
Banned
^ However if Bomber can build new ICTS cars to replace the dying ones, as Unimaginative claims, then there'd be no need to dismantle the RT line. The tracks are electrified and naturally generate snow-melting heat. If excessive snow hasn't stopped, granted impeded but not halted service on YUS/BD's outdoor sections I'm sure we can figure a way to overcome this slight on the SRT without a costly subway extension that won't even serve any new unchartered territories.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
The subway extension will be the same price as the RT reno + extension, but it will serve hundreds of thousands more people and remove a transfer.
DENTROBATE54
Banned
Hello, these hundreds of thousands of more people already use transit, they don't scowl "I wish this was a subway I was riding on", they grin and bare it or at least I do. Why stress over something as trivial as a <2 min interchange at Kennedy Stn?
I'm not discounting the fact that a subway may be on par with fixing up the RT but at the cost of new nodes untapped, so who's really benefiting? More importantly when do the subways end and LRT/BRT network begin? Why build meandering subways into suburban hell for 40,000, meanwhile people in the six digits range suffer 10 min headways on downtown 500 series streetcars?
There must be a compromise that can benefit most parties without everyone coming to blows over which technology is best suitable for where, when all the infighting does is subtracts from anyone actually seeing anything done, IMHO
!Panzerfaust
Active Member
BECAUSE THAT TWO MINUTE INTERCHANGE CAN BE ELIMINATED FOR THE SAME COST OF KEEPING IT.
It's really hard not to start devolving into personal insults at this point, but for the love of god, are you actually saying that it's better to grin and bear it for another two decades when, for the same cost, you can stop grin-and-bearing? You are arguing that an orphan line running through "already tapped corridors" such as industrial land and... more industrial land should be kept for the same cost as eliminating a transfer, shortening the trip to STC, and serving nodes that are, at the very least, just as populated as the ones the RT serves, but almost definitely moreso. Houses and a large hospital != empty undeveloped industrial land.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
They stop taking the RT, as I and thousands of others did (yet the line is still over-capacity). They go to public meetings, write letters and sign petitions unanimously supporting the subway extension. No one in Scarborough wants to keep it when the subway can be extended for the same price.
DENTROBATE54
Banned
I'll repeat my last statement. There must be a compromise that can benefit most parties without everyone coming to blows over which technology is best suitable for where, when all the infighting does is subtracts from anyone actually seeing anything done, IMHO! The fact you're tempted to insult me only proves my point.
Let me put this in language you can understand. When you want Bernard Terminal, do you not have to get up off of your rump and transfer onto another vehicle, transit operator, even though Yonge Street runs by Bernard but the subway only goes as far as Finch? It's the same principle here. Yeah it sucks that the SRT runs though an industrial wasteland but it's there. I've complained many times about the folly that is the Sheppard Line and have been told to deal with it. You must therefore realize that you're not seeing the forest for the trees by rejecting a perfectly mutable transit mode for an immutable subway.
If the TTC wasn't hellbent on building subways in the most aggrandizing manner we could build all the way to Sheppard/Markham at cost. That I would support because 95 local, some condos near Corporate Dr, high rises/townhouses, proximity to Malvern/Markham tripper and most importantly Centennial College would be on the grid i.e. more commnities, niches served.
Well I don't see it that way because there's no relatively faster alternative to the RT for me coming from downtown. This grassroots motley crew of petitioners must have the option of private vehicles at their disposal because when you have no other route the last thing you do is refuse readily available good service in the expectation of a presently unattainable better.
bjl
New Member
Do you just make this stuff up as you go?
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
There should be a faster option...it's called a SUBWAY EXTENSION. People take other bus routes instead...these routes end up being faster than the RT at times because the RT is so bad.