Transit City Plan

[spmarshall]

Over $2 B is not an amount to scoff at. That said, with LRT, tunnels and stations would likely be smaller and simpler, saving money that way over a subway. The tunnel would be about 9 km - the Sheppard Line is half that, 4.6 km, for $1.2 billion.

 

[spmarshall]

Eglinton is getting pre-metro

That is exactly what I think it should get. It costs less than a full subway, and speeds should be pretty good, at least in the tunnelled section.

...spending billions on a tunneled streetcar is a complete and utter waste of money. Streetcars to the airport? That'll take, what, 90 minutes from downtown?

People from the rest of Toronto might want to get to the airport. Regional Rail/Airport Rail service (but not Blue22) is how you serve that market from downtown. LOL at streetcars to the airport. As if no other place in the world serves their airport with light rail.

Sorry Scarberian, I disagree with much of what you say, though I do agree Scarborough's screwed with Sheppard.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

^ Why are we fooling ourselves that the TTC will build these lines as 'light rail' like other cities in the world?

edit - If Eglinton was a real light rail line, I'd support it.

And people from the rest of Toronto will drive to the airport...It'd take me and millions of other GTA'ers two hours by transit even with this "light rail" line. Sorry, but the airport just isn't worth spending $2 billion on.

 

[unimaginative2]

I think you may have answered your own question about the Jane/York subway overlap: I'm sure this plan is being released now so that the city can justify quietly cancelling the subway extension in favour of these streetcar projects.

I loved De Baeremaeker's comment in the star article. It will serve every single councillor's ward! Now I'm starting to understand... He's wrong, of course. It will serve every ward except the ones Downtown.

 

[andomano52]

it's good to see that Giambrone has his s*** together!

i wonder if it would make more sense to convert the sheppard subway into an underground lrt line?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

^ The only thing that makes sense is to extend the Sheppard subway.

 

[allabootmatt]

i do hope that the eglinton thing becomes the immediate priority. it would effectively be an eglinton subway--at least in the (large) central portion, and is the kind of visionary project we need WAY more of. it really is the centerpiece of this plan and the phasing should reflect that.

 

[spmarshall]

Sorry, but the airport just isn't worth spending $2 billion on.

That's missing the point. The airport is one destination. It will also replace two of the busiest bus routes. The airport area is also a huge employment area.

I have some faith that Eglinton will be real light rail. Even if it is centre-of-the-street ROW past Keele, there's not that many intersections or demand for a lot of stops - we're not talking Spadina-in-Richview. If done the way they say, it will be significantly faster than the bus, and someone could connect from one of the north-south routes to this well.

I just hope the TTC will realize that the new routes are different from the downtown streetcar routes - if they do, we'll have light rail. Portland has both a streetcar and a LRT. It also means turning on those damned signal priority systems.

 

[ahrvojic]

Look forward to hearing what Steve Munro makes of it this weekend.

Likely another series of cheap barbs directed towards "subway junkies" (explicitly mentioned twice in his last article) and other imaginary foes. Kind of sad for someone so knowledgeable about transit otherwise, though I still find his blog worth reading.

Interestingly, when the potential B-D extension to East Mall was announced, he had no qualms about rushing to express his preference for the station name "Cloverdale".

 

[spmarshall]

Steve Munro's a good guy, and his blog is interesting, but he's a bit too much of a streetcar/light rail junkie. He barely acknowledges the idea of a DRL either way, and pushed for light rail for the SRT replacement, though the B-D extension made (and still makes) the most sense for the long term.

 

[prometheus the supremo]

beechwood cemetary is getting a subway and a LRT! :eek

 

[unimaginative2]

Haha...sorry, spmarshall! I didn't mean it...

It's important to note that any line's capacity is its capacity at its tightest choke point. Therefore, the capacity of the Eglinton LRT through the tunnel will be limited by the most congested surface stretch. That means that if we don't have extreme transit priority, we'll wind up with people waiting in the tunnel for 25 minutes for five streetcars to arrive in a big bunch, totally negating any benefit for the billions of dollars being spent on the tunnel. It is imperative that the TTC bring in real transit priority, and I don't trust them to do it themselves. They seem to be extreme believers in the "Not-Invented-Here" syndrome, but they simply must bring in planners from other systems that actually have a track record of successful light rail.

 

[Antiloop33rpm]

Somehow this plan warrants a comment or two.

Overall I think this is a pretty intelligent plan for growth. Affordable, ambitous, and should do a lot to increase transit mobility in the city. I agree with Enviro that with this plan it will set up the city in the future to make much wiser desicions on where to put subways without politics playing the deciding role.

The only two segments I would really question are keeping the Scarborough RT and Sheppard. In the case of Sheppard it should either continue on as a subway or the exisiting subway line be retrofitted to handle LRT so the line can function in a continuous, transfer free manner. But there is lots of time to resolve issues such as those and at least it appears that logic and common sense are starting to take hold at the TTC.

One aspect I am surprised no one has mentioned is the great potential that lies at the southern end of the new Don Mills and Jane LRT lines. You can see on the crude diagram I made below just a quick couple kilometer long extensions of these lines into the Waterfront West and Habourfront East LRT lines respectively and you have two new direct connections from the suburban edges of Toronto to downtown. Even if those two little extensions were in tunnels it would probably cost no more than $1 billion to build them and would be a great addition to the system. I suspect the only reason they did not include these right now is that it would mean up to 5 LRT lines converging at Union Station in the very near future and this would be somewhat difficult to manage given the current layout. But after 5 or 10 years of LRT projects a new LRT terminus at Union Station capable of handling these 5 lines (and more) could be a very realistic project to look forward too.

 

[EnviroTO]

I think the plan overall is a good plan. I really question the wisdom of keeping the SRT as a unique piece of equipment if all this will be implemented. It should either be a subway or an LRT. Why spend half the cost of a subway to keep the SRT when people will still be fighting for it to be converted to a subway and at the same time a LRT network which diminishes its importance has been created. Besides that I don't see any issues. What I like most about the plan is that it gets transit built quicker. Also, it should grow ridership quickly which will overload the system in key areas which will in turn force subway construction where it should be built rather than where it suits some political benefit. If the network of LRTs gets built it will make LRT the default plan for serving new areas and therefore subways should end up being developed based on needs. I think this will benefit real TTC riders in the long run since it will be their feet deciding where subways get built.

Adam Vaughan mentioning having a unique LRT vehicle downtown is annoying. Why would the suburbs need large vehicles while the dense downtown core would need smaller ones? I think he is taking more of a NIMBY stance than a logical one. If a LRT is created which is good enough for downtown then it should be good enough for anywhere.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"Subway junkies" are criticized for supporting something that's "too expensive," while LRT "can help more people for less money." Funny, my travels on transit would be markedly improved through a $1.X billion subway extension, while $6+ billion of LRT does absolutely nothing for me. There's no help getting downtown, no help getting across town, no help getting around downtown.