Transit City Plan

[nfitz]

But much of the sheppard tram should be a subway, no question asked. This is a no brainer.

Questions should be asked. Questions WERE asked, and showed that the demand is nowhere near the numbers that justify a subway, especially east of Victoria Park.

No one has ever proposed building subway for most of Sheppard East. The proposed first phase of the LRT is 13 km. It's never been proposed to take the subway more than 5 more km along Sheppard.

How can you claim that much of it should be subway?

 

[LAz]

Questions should be asked. Questions WERE asked, and showed that the demand is nowhere near the numbers that justify a subway, especially east of Victoria Park.

No one has ever proposed building subway for most of Sheppard East. The proposed first phase of the LRT is 13 km. It's never been proposed to take the subway more than 5 more km along Sheppard.

How can you claim that much of it should be subway?

I WANT IT ALL!! lulz j/k


From what I know, all their studies that looked into demand were ones that came up with some results that basically said that "oh subway usage is not justified for the entire 13 km" (or however many km the entire SELRT is)... that was their analysis of the alternative in their EA or EIS. *facepalm*


How long should it go... well, look, I am not one who is going to say take it this much, or that it that much. If it can go all the way to STC, then hey, why not. Ridership will come, just like it came to the current sheppard branch.

We need that.
An extension to Victoria Park is the absolute minimum that we should accept. Anything less then that is a slap in our faces... an insult. At the very least it should be an entire subway extension to victoria park, not going up close to the surface. Why? So that they do not have some dumb "ooh lets connect the end with the tram platform" - the tram platform - wherever it may be on the map - should be directly above the subway platform, not beside it.



Final thing - "much" is not necessarily a big percent. I am not sure what your ideas of much are. Going to Kennedy would be much of the SELRT route. It's under 50%, but I find that to be much.

Since it seems that we can only build small things at a time, perhaps the best thing would be to divide the sheppard metro into three sections. One would go from the terminal to warden. From there to STC is about the same distance. That could be phase two perhaps. And phase three could be westwards to downsview. Phase four would be in the far future, further west to jane. Going to STC in one go would be nice, but hey, money is an issue, so one must not be too greedy. To Warden is probably a decent distance... it would bring lots of transfers that are coming from the east.




edit: So here are the extremes... on one end it is build all of the above map - crazy radical extreme would be to take it all the way to jane, to connect to the jane lrt. On the other end we have the extreme of build the tram, hence fucking metro expansion. This is perhaps even worse than building nothing.

So you tell me what the middle ground is. That is what people seem to talk about, isn't it? The middle ground is extending the metro some distance... I won't bitch about where - as long as it's not just one wimpy km to to consumers. To victoria park is the lowest end of the middle ground - but I'd be willing to accept that.





But noooooo, the officials do not want us to even be asking questions. They want the masses to just STFU and accept what they're told. You know it's like someone saying, drink your milk sonny! Nobody asks me do I want to or not.



edit2: Under ideal conditions we should dig west of downsview... right under the airport. There should be a stop called "downsview airport", "northern city airport" or something like that. Imagine how useful that would be for commercial air travel? I don't think anything commercial flies in or out of the airport, but I dunno, that thought makes me all excited inside. If they can make that island airport work, then just imagine how cool it would be to have this airport work, and not only to have it work but to have it connected into the system.

 

[nfitz]

A good rule of thumb is to post sober.

 

[LAz]

A good rule of thumb is to post sober.

You're just jealous that you don't have any blueberry wine. Haha.

 

[GenerationW]

It's really that simple....I don't know why so many people are freaking out over this. Sheppard to STC is not that big of a deal right now, and there's nothing about the LRT that procludes a future upgrade to subway. If anything the LRT may boost demand to more justifiable levels within 15-20 years. Extension to Downsview will happen at some point, but again, it's not that important and not effected by TC.

If the SELRT becomes a reality, there is absolutely no chance the Sheppard subway will get extended east within 15-20 years (or within any of our lifetimes I'd wager). There is a reason a low priority project like the SELRT was trotted out first, and Giambrone as much as admitted that to anyone who cared to attend any of the various TC open houses (and I went to three).

 

[LAz]

Taken off of Wikipedia...

The new subway has spurred over $1 billion of construction of new housing, including several high-rise condominium towers, along its route as transit-oriented developments. Particularly noteworthy are the condominiums around Bayview Station, where none had previously existed prior to the 2000s. In addition, between Leslie and Bessarion stations, a former Canadian Tire warehouse/distribution centre next to Highway 401 (the chain retains a store nearby) is being demolished and the land is being sold to Concord Adex Investments Limited of Vancouver. Construction on the first phase is well underway to develop the area into a large multi-condo complex, Concord Park Place, which includes a community park.

The Daniels Building Company has built a six tower development called NY Towers, Arc Condominiums on the northeast corner of Bayview/Sheppard, and terraced condos just east of their NY Towers. Shane Baghai has also built a multi-tower development in the area.

And people are saying there won't be development... bayview has almost 10,000 riders a day er so, which is plenty to justify the metro. What was it when it opened- just a thousand or two?
This is the example of how and why transit ridership will come.

If the SELRT becomes a reality, there is absolutely no chance the Sheppard subway will get extended east within 15-20 years (or within any of our lifetimes I'd wager). There is a reason a low priority project like the SELRT was trotted out first, and Giambrone as much as admitted that to anyone who cared to attend any of the various TC open houses (and I went to three).

Open houses? I beleive that the proper term should be "informing the peons secessions"...

...because that's exactly how they look upon us.

 

[nfitz]

If the SELRT becomes a reality, there is absolutely no chance the Sheppard subway will get extended east within 15-20 years (or within any of our lifetimes I'd wager).

And why should it? The forecast passenger demand east of Victoria Park in the 2030s in way below what you can justify subway with. Even west of Victoria Park it's borderline ...

15-20 years isn't long. Phase 1 of Eglinton doesn't open for 10 years.

 

[GenerationW]

And why should it? The forecast passenger demand east of Victoria Park in the 2030s in way below what you can justify subway with. Even west of Victoria Park it's borderline ...

Who performs those passenger forecasts?

 

[LAz]

Who performs those passenger forecasts?

Those biased blokes who are promoting the whole fiasco.

 

[cacruden]

I road the RalidKL (Kuala Lumpur LRT?) yesterday and today - the line uses Bombardier Mark II (2 and 4 car) stock - and it was referred to as an LRT (ART I believe is what Bombardier called it). The line portion that I took was underground, with barriers to stop jumpers (I don't know if you would call it much of a jump ), although it is also above ground. If the Eglinton LRT is constructed similarly, I think it would be a good solution. For me, if the line is underground (sheltered in winter), and you don't have to stand outside on slushy street corners - or in bitterly cold wind - and is reasonably fast - then the line would be a success. I like the Skytrain in Bangkok, but I would hate to have to stand up in the air in the middle of winter....

 

[Second_in_pie]

Who performs those passenger forecasts?

Because from what I remember, amongst transit circles, Sheppard is a roaring success and extending it to STC was one of the main priorities for the TTC up until Transit City.

I have a feeling that "below subway capacity" means that it won't be busy as the Young line, complete with a very pessimistic view of how many people will actually be using the line. Sheppard blew away expectations when it was open, and now the line's fuelled tonnes of development and carries a pretty massive amount of passengers.

 

[nfitz]

Who performs those passenger forecasts?

Qualified professionals.

I have a feeling that "below subway capacity" means that it won't be busy as the Young line

That makes absolutely no sense, given that Yonge is above capacity. Below capacity means peak passengers per hour per direction less than 10,000 to 15,000. Sheppard East of Don Mills to VP will be about 5,000 in 2030s.; the Yonge line is over 30,000 now.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Conversion of Eglinton to "Subway" will be an operational thing. One day they'll simply operationally separate the central grade separated part and the outer LRT part. The line will always be run with low-floor stock, though once completely grade-separated there is nothing stopping you from coupling more units together, putting in a state-of-the-art ATC system, and running the line with a capacity that handily exceeds the YUS today.

By separating the central and outer portions of the line you remove one of the selling points of the Eglinton LRT. That it will provide a one seat ride right across the city. If you convert the central portion to independant operation (either by conversion to high floor subways or by using long low floor LRT trains only in the tunnel) than you remove that benefit.

That's why I don't believe that the LRT will be converted to subway, ever, saying it can be is just a smoke screen.

 

[Asterix]

And I have nothing against this. Where was the debate and citizen participation regarding this? There was none. Hence it does not have legitimacy.

I don't recall the exact timelines, but what was known about TC plans at the last municipal election?

If this is being decided by politicians on the TTC board and by provincial politicians giving money to Metrolinx, isn't that a form of accountability?

There are billions? Why not use it for more metro?

How much 'more metro'? The bulk of TC money currently on the table is for the tunneled portion of Eglinton. Surface lines of TC are in the $50 million/km ballpark. Tunneling, whether for subways or near-subway LRT is on the order of $300 million/km. You can build a lot more lines, serving a lot more people with surface LRT than you can with subways. Some might argue this is more bang for your buck.

It goes with traffic, that's the problem. Might not be right in with it, but it's right beside it and impairs it. If anything, such additional lanes for it adds more expense - making sidewalks smaller by widening streets.

Suggestions of an LRT line "impairing" the street seems to suggest a bias towards personal vehicle transportation. Shouldn't the more relevant stat be the capacity of the road to move people? If you can put 50 - 100 or more people in two or three car LRT trains (as I believe they plan to run on Eglinton), is that not preferable to using the same road space for another lane of cars that are moving about 20 - 30 people?

Instead of terminating there, it should terminate at downsview, or even jane. The subway should not be exclusively a feeder route that goes into the YUS line. It should be a east-west line.

Sure, that would be great and in theory, I'd love to see it.

However I am not convinced that there are, or will be in the foreseeable future, demand numbers to justify the expense of such a subway line, especially when more bang for the subway dollar can be achieved by a DRL. And even with a full east-west line, what are the majority of current and future travel patterns of people using the line? Will not most of them still be looking to go south to the downtown core?

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

However I am not convinced that there are, or will be in the foreseeable future, demand numbers to justify the expense of such a subway line, especially when more bang for the subway dollar can be achieved by a DRL. And even with a full east-west line, what are the majority of current and future travel patterns of people using the line? Will not most of them still be looking to go south to the downtown core?

I love these merry-go-round discussions:

- "Why is Sheepard being stubbed with an LRT grafted onto it's end?", "Why are we building a subway but putting an LRT in it?"
- "Well we've been told that ridership estimates for these routes won't justify the $$$ spent to build it as a subway, besides if we are going to build a subway DRL should be priority"
- "Ok well then where is the discussion for construction of the DRL?"
- "Well we don't have the money to build the DRL that's why we're building the LRT network"
- "But won't the money spent on the LRT network pay for a DRL?"
- "Well yes but it won't serve as many areas as the LRT network"
- "So you decided to build LRT's in two previously identified subway corridors and ignored another all for the low low price of ~$20 billion?"
- "But we don't have the money for subways"
...