GenerationW
Senior Member
Is the latest DRL estimate really up to 10 billion dollars???
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Transit City Plan
- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
- Start date
rbt
Senior Member
Probably about right for a full run from Bloor to Danforth via downtown in 2020 dollars with stations every 500m.
Personally, I would like to see them spend a touch extra and build stations 650 foot long (knockout walls after 500 foot) so we can easily upgrade it to 8-car trains when advantageous.
DRL will be worth every penny invested but it's going to require the conservatives being on board in order to do it. I think McGuinty will be lucky to find funding for LakeShore Electrification/15 minute headways and projects in outer areas (Hamilton, Kitchener, etc.) in his next term without a major fee/tax addition; assuming he gets another term.
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Dan416
Senior Member
If it's true that the underground portion of the SELRT (as short as it is) is being built to be compatible with subway, then that's not so bad. But I haven't heard anything official about this. If anyone has some TTC documents that show this, I'd appreciate that.
AFAIK the Eglinton tunnel is still being built to be compatible with subway conversion in the future. There hasn't been any mention of that changing, at the very least, since that was in the plan from the beginning.
That said, I can more easily live with the SELRT if it's coupled with a Sheppard extension to Downsview and a Danforth Subway extension to STC (which is on both Ford and Smitherman's plans IIRC).
AFAIK the Eglinton tunnel is still being built to be compatible with subway conversion in the future. There hasn't been any mention of that changing, at the very least, since that was in the plan from the beginning.
That said, I can more easily live with the SELRT if it's coupled with a Sheppard extension to Downsview and a Danforth Subway extension to STC (which is on both Ford and Smitherman's plans IIRC).
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LAz
Active Member
Sounds messed up - the LRT tunnel will go upwards... if it were to be a subway then there is that "going up" problem to deal with. Hence building such a tunnel discourages any sort of subway plan there in the future.
No, theoretically they accounted for the possibility of subway extension in the future, by making the LRT tunnel compatible with subway. They can just change the tracks and wiring and they have about 1 km of subway tunnel.
The problem is that 1 km doesn't help that much if you have no funding for the remaining 5 or 7 km./quote]
This would make sense if the tram just "fell" into the ground. Instead it is not falling into the ground. It's going down on an angle. Imagine it as a rubber stopper saying " NO MORE SUBWAY F OFF SODDING ANNOYING F*KERS WHO WANT SOMETHIGN GOOD< WE LIKE OUR CURRUPT POORLY PLANNED STUFF SO PISS OFF" - this is what comes to my mind when I think of the SELRT. It makes me so sad to see this undemocratic plan ruin our city.
*please, die transit city, die die die*
Didn't someone post a picture of when they first put the tram on danfort? And they were saying look at how they put the tram in ages ago, first tram then subway! - but the confused poster forgot to realize that the tram went out into farmland for the most part... ridership was not the reason to build the tram line then, and ridership should not be an excuse to build any sort of line now.
Perhaps NDP can win the provincial vote, so that the current pricks are not an issue.
GenerationW
Senior Member
EnviroTO
Senior Member
There is currently a wall at the end of the track. Major obstacle.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
I'd think that they could use the entire underground structure. Use the tunnel from Don Mills, then use the ascending LRT track to go above-grade and build right over the LRT ROW. You could probably save tonnes of money doing that, though taking parts of the LRT offline for a while. But if you're doing all that, I don't see why you wouldn't just cut out the middle man and stick in a subway, but it's a good option 10 years down the road when we realize that subway's actually the right option.
One of the things that I dislike about Smitherman's plan is keeping Eglinton as full LRT, rather than just completing the tunnelled section to evaluate the line afterwards, freeing up a couple hundred million for other transit work. Things like the B-D extension's routing are pretty trivial in the grander scheme of things, though that particular routing is definitely not the right way to be doing it.
nfitz
Superstar
LAz
Active Member
Wrong.
We are dealing with a dictatorship. We do not have participatory planning. The public does not participate. It's just token participation - aka just informing us "yo mon we're doing this, ktnxbai you've participated by hearing what we're doing". Such stuff is miserable. It defines what miserable means. We are a democracy - or well hey we oughta be one... and under such conditions we must reject this and do what we can against this.
Take some lessons from roxbury, boston. http://www.jstor.org/pss/4127691
The people revolted against the plans by outside assholes to ruin their neighborhoods. The assholes wanted to redevelop them by displacing all the poor people - ie all the population out of there - they were able to organize.
That is what we lack here. Where are the protests I ask?! Where? We must resist this. It is not a matter of opportunity for some people... it's a matter of survival and better well being of our city.
edit: How may highways have been stopped in mid air? From san fan to toronto people resisted the undemocratic planning process. Resist, don't fall in line!
Asterix
Active Member
The problem is that it isn't a clear-cut issue with the majority of the population on one side.
For all of those who advocate TC is an absolute waste, completely the wrong thing to do and that we shouldn't build anything until we can afford to build subways, there are also many who believe that providing light rail transit to poorly serviced areas is a good thing and that building many kms of light rail with promised funds is better than turning our backs on that provincial and federal money and holding our breath until we eitherturn blue or some magic messenger arrives with billions to build desired subways (hey, maybe there really are private developers who want to pay billions to build on top of a subway station).
If one can't understand the argument made by the opposing side, then one will have a much harder time convincing them of your case. Personally, I too would love subways here, there and everywhere. But I also realize that there is not enough money to build them everywhere people want them and in cases where there isn't the demand to justify their construction, it is better to get surface LRT (in their own right of way and not in mixed traffic like most of the existing streetcar lines than nothing.
And it's not simply a matter of saying 'if you build it, they will come' with respect to forecast demand. Will Sheppard (or Eglinton) really produce subway level demands if you have a Yonge line that is unable to handle the inflow? Wouldn't that subway money be better spent on a DRL, thereby reducing the Yonge load and keeping lines like Eglinton within LRT capacity range demand?
andrewpmk
Senior Member
It's true that both the Yonge and Bloor subway lines were a lot less crowded when they were first built than they are now today - but remember, when both those lines were built, the Yonge and Bloor streetcar lines were heavily overcrowded and used multiple-unit streetcar trains, which would have had far higher ridership than any suburban bus line today. There was no choice but to replace those lines with a subway. Also those lines both go downtown, where there are major destinations (the financial district, Eaton Centre, U of T, Ryerson, Yorkville etc.). In contrast the Sheppard line goes to the south end of North York Centre, which is underdeveloped (most of the North York Centre development is north of Sheppard, in fact two of the four corners of Sheppard and Yonge are still vacant lots.)
GenerationW
Senior Member
I think almost everyone here agrees the DRL should have been given a much higher priority, if not the highest, when Queen's Park and City Hall got serious about transit planning in 2007, but that ship has sailed, and we're not getting a DRL for years/decades.
Rainforest
Senior Member
I'd think that most of the tunnel will be leveled, and then a relatively short accending ramp will be added at the end. It would be easier to build and safier to operate that way. Then, most of the tunnel can be used for subway, provided that this project ever gets funding in competition with other priorities.
Rainforest
Senior Member
Rainforest
Senior Member
This was the intent from the beginning. However, I read complaints that while the tunnel dimentions are OK for subway, and the level section around stations are long enough for subway trains, there might be problems with grades and with space for pocket tracks at some locations. Obviously the subway requires long pocket tracks, and presumably it is not as good as LRT at handling grades.