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

Hipster Duck said:
Alvin,

I don't think I could name one important city in world history that didn't evolve simultaneously with its transportation infrastructure - indeed, because of it.

Even in the very poorest of global megacities, the transportation infrastructure is impressive for the region: Mumbai has a web of electric suburban railways streaming out of it; Lagos has three parallel freeway bridges that criscross its lagoon. If it isn't a show-stopper by first world standards, it at least sets these cities apart from others in the region.

The most successful of world cities stopped at virtually no obstacle to knit transportation networks to feed their growing ambitions. That's why, perhaps, the most dynamic cities evolved despite being located on some of the least logical plots of land: Manhattan a granite island, Hong Kong a mountain in the sea, Tokyo an alluvial plain hemmed in by the hills, Los Angeles a desert plain, Venice a dismal swamp, Rome seven hills jutting above the malarial Tiber.

In Toronto, our big city ambitions were asserted twice: once during the 1920s when RC Harris spanned the impossible ravines with his bridges, thus bumping the population above the 500,000 mark and then during the heady days of 1949 to 1977, a time when Toronto went from a middling town on Lake Ontario to the economic powerhouse of Canada. A time when virtually the entire transportation infrastructure that our city travels on today was built. It was remarkable for its time and we rested on our laurels without much effect. Now that the population of the region is twice what it was at the end of our great infrastructure boom, things are starting to get strained. However, none of that would be a problem if we rolled up our sleeves and started digging and building again. Instead, we have sunk into this culture of timidity where everything is about cost and nothing is about opportunity. Transit City is the best symptom of this current malaise, a severely compromised plan that saves a couple of bucks but doesn't serve the transportation needs of a region and is not an adequate plan for growth.

If Toronto had the mentality we do today at that pivotal point after the second world war, we would have built a Yonge LRT that would have probably maxed out at 150,000 daily riders and a ride from Eglinton would probably take 30 minutes. It would have been the limiting reagent to growth and development along this busy corridor. Similarly, the 401 would be something similar to Lakeshore Blvd., a surface road with a 70 km/h speed limit and priority signaling, but not the main transportation funnel of Ontario.
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I agree with Hipster Duck.

Transit City is a symptom of the problem, not the solution.
 
who's richard foster? did you mean norman foster, joe?
 
Indeed it's virtually all tunnelled. No wonder subways are so expensive. The rest of the Spadina line isn't tunnelled. Why is it tunnelled even farther out from the core?
 
I don't know... I actually dislike the above-ground sections of the Spadina line, being right in the middle of Allen Road and all.
Maybe I'm the only one.
 
Above-ground rapid transit routes don't have to be in the middle of expressways. Think about the Yonge line north of Bloor, or much of the BD line.
 
doady said:
I don't know... I actually dislike the above-ground sections of the Spadina line, being right in the middle of Allen Road and all.
Maybe I'm the only one.
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Dislike, in what way? In that case, *none* of these Dan Ryan-style expressway-median transitways are likeable--not that they *beg* being "likeable", of course, any more than the Allan Road itself, or the 401, etc...
 
I like the above ground portions of TO's subway... why would anyone prefer to see a black wall? The above ground portions of NYC's system offer especially great views. That's one thing I miss in Montreal... nothing above ground.
 
unimaginative2 said:
Above-ground rapid transit routes don't have to be in the middle of expressways. Think about the Yonge line north of Bloor, or much of the BD line.
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Between Rosedale and St. Clair stations, it used to be all in a ditch. Slowly, it was covered over in a deck. There is also a desire to deck over the Davisville yards.
 
I believe the justification they used for tunnelling it the whole way was that they'd have to, get this, make a minor realignment of Interchange Way. That's right. The subway is being tunnelled under government owned land, not even using cut and cover except for the stations, all to avoid a tiny realignment of a single road which (provided google maps isn't outdated) has nothing at all on it in the affected section.

Seriously. That's what I remember reading. If I'm wrong please correct me, because I desperately want to believe they aren't that stupid.
 
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