Transit City Plan

[nfitz]

If you're not near a station, it can be a long walk... And that's not neither here nor there, nor does it say I think buses served Sheppard better!

Walking a kilometer to the subway line is hardly convenient, and that's assuming you live on Sheppard.

The walks on Shepherd aren't that bad! Between Bayview and Leslie your never that far from a station, with Bessarion in the middle. The distance from the east entrance to Leslie to the the south entrance to Don Mills is about 1,500 m. So at worst your a 750 m walk - but if you look at the midpoint along here - there's nothing along the road at all. Just a fence; so the longest walking distance is only 600 metres east from Shaugnessy or 500 metres west from Buchan Court - and it's extremely low density here. The only real area with any impact is between Bayview and Sheppard where it is 1.9 km.

Perhaps the solution here is finishing Willowdale Station. Based on the success of growth around Bayview and Bessarion, with the right zoning, it could create a lot of growth. Though how much traffic is there? You'd think with the cutbacks on Sheppard East, that there would have been an increase in demand on the 98 Willowdale bus - but looking at the frequencies, it's a lot less frequent than it used to be in the 1980s when I used to commute on it every day - it looks like it only runs once every 30 minutes down Willowdale in rush hour! Good god!

 

[DENTROBATE54]

Wouldn't the question be how many people living off of Sheppard previously used the bus and now don't use transit because the subway is too far and the bus service isn't good enough anymore? The area along Sheppard between Yonge and Don Mills (especially Bayview to Leslie) is pretty upscale. Were they using the bus before?

Apparently they were or else there wouldn't be such a dissention. The 'stubway' is problematic in many ways. Commuters (particularly the elderly/disabled/moms with strollers) seeking effortless access along the Sheppard corridor are screwed from half-hour waits for the 85A. Using the underground it's a maze just figuring out how to exit Sheppard-Yonge Stn properly. From platform level to the bus terminal is mindbogglingly complicated, tedious and time-consuming. How is any of this helpful to street life above? NYCC's becoming more of a walking-dependent microcosm in spite of the 'stellar' transit network at their disposal.

And lets not even entertain the futility of the 'stubway' to 905ers approaching Scarborough from the west. It's alot faster to head all the way south to Bloor than navigate the insipid bus+bus+subway+subway+bus+bus idiosyncracies that make an hour or less on the 401 seem like heaven.

I wonder how much it would cost to add a Willowdale station...transit.toronto says North York Centre cost $25 million back in 1987.

Too much focus on how much X extension will cost, only backlogs construction dates in netherworld oblivion. The TTC only believes in making ultra-modern expansion/extensions with the most expensive method, labour, materials utilized in the process. As a result we wind up with concrete bunkers in remote locales whose existence is only justifible to makeshift condo zealots hellbent on formulating their perception of urban centres. In effect bleeding from established corridors, nodes, ridership patterns, et all.

The situation on Sheppard East is similar to that on Yonge north of Eglinton. The local traffic does not “justify†a decent service, and so for all practical purposes, service vanishes. This is a cautionary tale for all who would like the TTC to build a subway under their street. Be sure that you live near a station.

Or rather a major intersection. TC is right, pave the way with express, limited stops now, that'll justify subway status in the future.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Apparently they were or else there wouldn't be such a dissention. The 'stubway' is problematic in many ways.

Some people demand "access" to transit as a priority. They don't give the slightest care to travel times because having a vehicle stop at their front door is the only thing that matters - any transit that involves more than 10 metres of walking is useless and an obscene waste of money. These people are influential, though! Steve Munro + three old ladies complaining to their councillors at public meetings = dissention.

Any problems with the line, real or perceived, can be simply resolved by completing the stubway as it was intended to be built. This is obvious. Option 1: "OMG, Sheppard's not finished! We never should have built it!" Option 2: "Sheppard's not finished! We should finish it!" I prefer Option 2.

Also, commuters don't tend to get lost on their way to the Sheppard bus terminal - it hasn't moved. Which is better*: 30,45,60+ minute bus trips on Sheppard East or 30 seconds of walking past Cinnabon? (*that only applies to people continuing along Sheppard; note that Transfer City would have these people transfer to Yonge and then transfer to Finch West) The trip from platform to buses is not worse than Finch or York Mills or Wilson or...

edit - Oh, and how many commuters bring their kids in strollers to work?

 

[unimaginative2]

I've never heard anyone dissent about the Sheppard subway. I mean, among people who actually live in the neighbourhood and ride the route.

You'd think with the cutbacks on Sheppard East, that there would have been an increase in demand on the 98 Willowdale bus - but looking at the frequencies, it's a lot less frequent than it used to be in the 1980s when I used to commute on it every day - it looks like it only runs once every 30 minutes down Willowdale in rush hour! Good god!

Under the RGS, though, it would become a full-service route with at least 20 minute frequency all day. That would more than cover any riders who don't feel like walking to the subway.

NYCC's becoming more of a walking-dependent microcosm in spite of the 'stellar' transit network at their disposal.

That's a very good thing. Any successful neighbourhood will require a little bit of walking from transit. If you absolutely need to be dropped off on your doorstep, you should probably buy a car.

Which is better*: 30,45,60+ minute bus trips on Sheppard East or 30 seconds of walking past Cinnabon?

I dunno...that Cinnabon can be dangerously tempting!

 

[spaced]

I'm not sure why this is so hard to do myself. It's such an obvious choice. LRT is more than enough capacity and it provides a transfer-free experience. I just don't believe that lowering platforms down or raising them (depending on the station) is really so impossible or costly!

If I was King of Toronto I would have that new Shepard LRT Line replace the York U, Spadina extension line. Again, probably more than enough capacity. I still think the Yonge/Spadina lines should be eventually loop in the north as well.

 

[DENTROBATE54]

Some people demand "access" to transit as a priority. They don't give the slightest care to travel times because having a vehicle stop at their front door is the only thing that matters - any transit that involves more than 10 metres of walking is useless and an obscene waste of money. These people are influential, though! Steve Munro + three old ladies complaining to their councillors at public meetings = dissention.

Any problems with the line, real or perceived, can be simply resolved by completing the stubway as it was intended to be built. This is obvious. Option 1: "OMG, Sheppard's not finished! We never should have built it!" Option 2: "Sheppard's not finished! We should finish it!" I prefer Option 2.

Also, commuters don't tend to get lost on their way to the Sheppard bus terminal - it hasn't moved. Which is better*: 30,45,60+ minute bus trips on Sheppard East or 30 seconds of walking past Cinnabon? (*that only applies to people continuing along Sheppard; note that Transfer City would have these people transfer to Yonge and then transfer to Finch West) The trip from platform to buses is not worse than Finch or York Mills or Wilson or...

edit - Oh, and how many commuters bring their kids in strollers to work?

Yes but Sheppard is far from being a dense urban corridor in the vein of Yonge, Bloor or even Eglinton. The neighbourhood the subway goes through is very affluent such that any expectant ridership has to be funneled in from afar. Walk-in traffic is always going to be sparse. So what the stubway's done is taken a neighbourhood adverse to high-order transit and made it that even low-order service (i.e. buses) becomes inconvenient. The 85 stills clocks at over an hour in length (Rouge Hill GO-Don Mills), except now instead of a transferless journey to Yonge St, 85ers are treated to a lenghy interchange that absorbs as much time as it saves, stairs and escalators and awaiting trains and loading times be damned. Most east-west routes through the Yonge-Don Mills area are like this. 39, 95 and 162 run through very exclusive nooks . There must be a dozen low trafficked stops west of Bayview on the 95, that regardless are all necessary components of an efficient, inclusive transit network. Unlike Sheppard, where subways without immediate justification is all the rage. Before you blast my stance again, what's the daily ridership of the 190 and how would replacing it with a subway improve the corridor as a whole?

That's a very good thing. Any successful neighbourhood will require a little bit of walking from transit. If you absolutely need to be dropped off on your doorstep, you should probably buy a car.

The TTC assumes that subway proximity negates the need for frequent adjacent bus service. At the very least a North York route specific to its downtown core should encompass the area surrounding the YUS line. For instance routing counterclockwise along Empress, Park Home, Beecroft, Sheppard, Doris, Empress. A branch of the 97 could do did this without obstructing service.

If I was King of Toronto I would have that new Shepard LRT Line replace the York U, Spadina extension line. Again, probably more than enough capacity. I still think the Yonge/Spadina lines should be eventually loop in the north as well.

If not for Keele-Finch, the YUS extension could easily parallel the Barrie Line upto Canarctic resulting in only 2kms of underground tunnels. North of Steeles needth be underground either, or have an exclusive station stop for 407 transitway (which if you run your finger east would meet up with the proposed YUS extension to Richmond Hill Centre anyway minimizing 407Interchange's relevancy).

I don't see a loop happening, but rather extending northwards to Major Mackenzie on both legs. With Vaughan Mills, Wonderland and Maple/Vellore Woods on one side and Hillcrest, Elgin Mills on the other demand to extend northwards is strong.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yes but Sheppard is far from being a dense urban corridor in the vein of Yonge, Bloor or even Eglinton. The neighbourhood the subway goes through is very affluent such that any expectant ridership has to be funneled in from afar. Walk-in traffic is always going to be sparse. So what the stubway's done is taken a neighbourhood adverse to high-order transit and made it that even low-order service (i.e. buses) becomes inconvenient. The 85 stills clocks at over an hour in length (Rouge Hill GO-Don Mills), except now instead of a transferless journey to Yonge St, 85ers are treated to a lenghy interchange that absorbs as much time as it saves, stairs and escalators and awaiting trains and loading times be damned. Most east-west routes through the Yonge-Don Mills area are like this. 39, 95 and 162 run through very exclusive nooks . There must be a dozen low trafficked stops west of Bayview on the 95, that regardless are all necessary components of an efficient, inclusive transit network. Unlike Sheppard, where subways without immediate justification is all the rage. Before you blast my stance again, what's the daily ridership of the 190 and how would replacing it with a subway improve the corridor as a whole?

Almost everyone that takes the Yonge line lives nowhere near the final 5km of Yonge approaching downtown...yes, Sheppard is funnelling in riders, as it was designed to do. It'd funnel in more if it was longer, as it was designed to be.

Affluent people take transit! But that's totally beside the point because most of Sheppard's riders come from up Don Mills or east along Sheppard - and, yes, they save time, that fact is indisputable.

The immediate justification for the Sheppard line was one of the busiest routes in the city, crippled by traffic, and primed for tens of thousands of added residents. Look at Bessarion station - only 2000 rides a day...it has no surface connections and there's only a few hundred houses within walking distance, which means that an overwhelming percentage of local residents are using that station.

Daily ridership of the 85/190 is 33,000 per day. 190 ridership has doubled in the past few years; they consistently add service to the route and it's consistently overcrowded. They overlap most of the way to STC (it doesn't show this in your MapArt book).

 

[doady]

If I was King of Toronto I would have that new Shepard LRT Line replace the York U, Spadina extension line. Again, probably more than enough capacity.

Off course not as much capacity is needed if it is not as fast as a subway and does not service SCC and therefore will not attract as many riders...

Again people worry too much about capacity. The buses I use are rarely at capacity but that doesn't mean the service is a waste. Once in a while I would like to be able to sit down.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

And people also assume the Sheppard line will stay at 45,000 rides per day no matter how long it is.

 

[nfitz]

And people also assume the Sheppard line will stay at 45,000 rides per day no matter how long it is.

If you take the number of riders, and divide by the length of the route, you get passengers/km. And it's quite somewhat competive with the Danforth subway. Far more riders than a similiar capacity streetcar route - because it's so much shorter.

 

[unimaginative2]

Oslo's metro system has six lines, 104 stations, and is 84 kilometres long. It serves 174,000 per day, for comparison.

 

[DENTROBATE54]

Affluent people take transit!

Yes they do, or least their kids. 11, 82, 162, 78, 115, 66, 73, 14, 61-you can scratch away at the exuberance with a knife through most if not all of these routes.

 

[unimaginative2]

you can scratch away at the exuberance with a knife

Dentrobate, what does that mean?

 

[DENTROBATE54]

That's was sort of a lighthearted in-joke, in the vein of "to cut the tension with a knife" seeing that the people in this thread take transit so seriously sometimes that the emotion almost has a physical presence. I'll give advance warning when I try one of those again.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yes, affluent people take transit...one big reason is because they live in the inner city and work downtown, so transit is frightfully convenient. This isn't news.