Transit City Plan

[kettal]

Peak flow from Agincourt mall will be greatly served by the ever improving GO service to the area. That's not to say nobody from the area will be going in a different direction, but the risk of such passengers overcrowding the Sheppard corridor is low.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

If one assumes that improved GO service is the main solution to travel problems in that part of the city, it just makes the Sheppard LRT an even more fantastically pointless and expensive replacement of bus service for the sake of replacing buses.

 

[waterloowarrior]

And anyone that thinks the Agincourt Mall area is not "densely populated enough" has certainly never been there and is relying on google map satellite photos (google map photos of the Agincourt Mall area were taken when the sun was high in the sky, reducing the shadows of all the local highrise and making them much less prominent compared to tower clusters photographed near dawn or dusk). What would be "densely populated enough"? Kowloon?

that's a good point

 

[kettal]

If one assumes that improved GO service is the main solution to travel problems in that part of the city, it just makes the Sheppard LRT an even more fantastically pointless and expensive replacement of bus service for the sake of replacing buses.

Yeah, a comfortable, reliable ride on Sheppard East is totally an unworthy objective.

Your "capacity demands a subway" routine is offset by the service provided by GO in Agincourt. If peak-direction is handled by the GO train there is no risk of overcrowding Sheppard due to Agincourt Mall's incredible density -- so dense even satellite photography can't see it -- is there?

 

[Hipster Duck]

LRT and ICTS are the wave of the future, and most North American cities have caught onto that reality.

1. LRT and, especially, ICTS are not the waves of the future. ICTS worked well in Vancouver and is not being followed anywhere else, unless you count airport people movers. As for LRT, most transit planning academics have jumped ship to BRT - especially since light rail tends to do poorly in the decentralized landscapes of the sprawling third tier US cities that have "caught onto that reality". That's not to say that we should build BRT either. Following the "wave of the future" doesn't imply we have to get on board. That actually sounds like the stupidest reason to build rapid transit.

Just look at all the recent additions to Vancouver's metro. I sincerely dobut all that would've been accmplishable were it subways.

Wait a minute. They dug a tunnel and built underground stations. They built elevated superstructures and a cable stayed bridge over a major river. What part of that resembles Transit City in any way? The Canada Line was a "heavy rail" subway more than a "light rail" streetcar by a long shot.

I'd rather see new subways reserved for areas already densely populated enough to sustain stations every 600-850m apart. Sheppard Avenue simply doesn't fit that criterion, especially east of Victoria Park.

Enough with these f_cking density arguments. Wynford and the DVP has a higher density than Bloor West Village, so why does one have healthy subway ridership while the other one can subsist on a feeder bus?

Higher order transit is built because it makes sense to channel riders from a large catchment area into strategic corridors. The factors that influence transit ridership more than density are things like a) are there trip generators along the route? b) is the surrounding area easily connected to a node that could facilitate a rapid transit corridor, c) does the corridor provide a clear, competitive route for the natural and current movement of people across the region. Sheppard east from Don Mills to STC satisfies each of these criteria, and a hundred other ones that I haven't mentioned. It even has the density, if you're going to use that feeble argument.

If anything, the failure of the Sheppard Subway stands as a precautionary tale of what could happen to anyone trigger-happy to expand the subway network deeper out into the suburbs in an attempt to stimulate urban growth there.

How is the Sheppard subway a failure? 45,000 riders over 6 km is bloody amazing. Speaking of stimulating urban growth, all the construction along the route can't all be wrong.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Yeah, a comfortable, reliable ride on Sheppard East is totally an unworthy objective.

Streetcar service in Toronto is reliable?

 

[Second_in_pie]

I'm kind of confused. Is this argument trying to say that Agincourt needs a subway? If so, I agree that Go will solve that problem. Express service on the Stouffville line would do very well to solve that problem. Too bad Express Service is not even on Metrolinx's 25 year and over list.

 

[RedRocket191]

1. LRT and, especially, ICTS are not the waves of the future. ICTS worked well in Vancouver and is not being followed anywhere else, unless you count airport people movers.

For the record:

Yongin, South Korea's EverLine Rapid Transit System (18.5 km) and Beijing's Airport Line (28 km) both use Bombardier ART. The latter opened in 2008 and the former is under construction. It's hardly a dead technology.

And if you're going to argue that the Beijing Airport line is an airport people-mover then you have to make the same argument about the Canada Line and Heathrow Express/Connect.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^ I was talking about North America.

 

[Whoaccio]

You could make the argument that medium capacity systems, or mini-metros, are growing in popularity. I don't know if that would translate to "ICTS is the wave of the future, 20 years from now we will use induction motors to go the the bathroom" but it is a start. Copenhagen's new metro, the Turin metro, Dubai's planned system, some of the new Moscow lines and Hong Kong lines are all mini-metro esque. So is London's DLR (despite the name), which has been expanded quite briskly. Even Tokyo's been building some.

I would support RAV like service in Toronto. The only reason I dislike the SRT is because of it's motors.

*By mini-metro or MCS, I mean a system which is ideally automated, running in shorter train configurations (~4 cars), with narrower rolling stock an on narrower guide ways. Rubber tires common.

 

[Voltz]

Streetcar service in Toronto is reliable?

You think the service on a TC LRT line will be the same as the Queen streetcar line? I find that rather funny.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^I'll tell you what's not funny. The waiting time on the Spadina 510 or the 509, streetcars on their own ROW - just like TC.

 

[Voltz]

^I'll tell you what's not funny. The waiting time on the Spadina 510 or the 509, streetcars on their own ROW - just like TC.

No, those lines are not just like the TC lines, there will be many differences, particularly stop spacing and vehicle loading times.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yeah, a comfortable, reliable ride on Sheppard East is totally an unworthy objective.

Your "capacity demands a subway" routine is offset by the service provided by GO in Agincourt. If peak-direction is handled by the GO train there is no risk of overcrowding Sheppard due to Agincourt Mall's incredible density -- so dense even satellite photography can't see it -- is there?

Please, find me one tangible benefit from spending a billion dollars on this project. The grade separation of the Stouffville GO line is the only one. The TTC is utterly incapable of managing long routes and streetcar lines even in their own ROW. Frequency will drop. Travel times will not be any faster than what Rocket buses can do, especially if the buses had all-door boarding and signal priority.

Why is anything at all needed on Sheppard if you think GO trains are the answer to all travel problems? A cool billion dollars worth of LRT is needed because the buses desperately need to be replaced due to comfort? Real people in this city actually ride buses...this isn't some segregated American sprawlhole where the mere mention of buses makes people cringe.

It's dolts like Amphibius that are saying the subway should not be extended because Agincourt is "not dense enough," or that one area doesn't "deserve" a subway extension relative to another.

 

[waterloowarrior]

^I'll tell you what's not funny. The waiting time on the Spadina 510 or the 509, streetcars on their own ROW - just like TC.

I wouldn't compare Sheppard East to Spadina... it's more comparable to the existing on-street bus route, except the stops are 60% farther apart, service will be less frequent, and the tram will theoretically be about 5 km/hr faster (and $1 billion more expensive)