Transit City Plan

[Voltz]

From what I can tell, it looks like it will be the Metrolinx Regional Ttransportation Plan that determines what is going to happen, MO 2020 was more of a political "funding" announcement, to get the ball rolling. and very little of it has actually been funded

 

[RedRocket191]

From what I can tell, it looks like it will be the Metrolinx Regional Ttransportation Plan that determines what is going to happen, MO 2020 was more of a political "funding" announcement, to get the ball rolling. and very little of it has actually been funded

Bingo

 

[Dan416]

How much of Transit City is actually funded? Maybe Metrolinx can make sure Sheppard is built as subway.

 

[nfitz]

How much of Transit City is actually funded?

As far as I know, only the EAs are funded - as one of Metrolinx's Second Stage Quickstart programs - for $7.1 million (as opposed to the Yonge subway extension Phase 1, which got $423.7 million). So all you subway fans are winning so far. (hopefully it will be a long game, with both sides scoring high!)

 

[RedRocket191]

The EAs for the first 3 transit city lines are funded. Construction has not been funded yet, and the RTP will prioritize and/or modify the proposals in MoveOntario2020.

I am not going to say that the sheppard subway is dead. Nothing is ever dead. However, the rationale behind the line has changed. The official plan calls for mid-rise, medium density buildings spread out along the route, and the official plan calls for a type of transit service to encourge this sort of built form to be constructed. Subways with station spacing of 1km or more encourage extremely-high density nodes around the station with nothing in between. This is basically how Sheppard between Yonge & Don Mills is developing as we speak.

Toronto has not built subway lines with station spacing seen in the CBD since the mid 1970s, and its not coming back into style any time soon. So, we need to use a mode that allows closer station spacing. This leaves us with BRT or LRT. LRT was chosen because it has the capacity edge over BRT.

A Sheppard Subway is not dead, but the only way it will come back on the books is if the Official Plan is amended to encourage extreme high-density nodes with nothing in between.

 

[Dan416]

The EAs for the first 3 transit city lines are funded. Construction has not been funded yet, and the RTP will prioritize and/or modify the proposals in MoveOntario2020.

I am not going to say that the sheppard subway is dead. Nothing is ever dead. However, the rationale behind the line has changed. The official plan calls for mid-rise, medium density buildings spread out along the route, and the official plan calls for a type of transit service to encourge this sort of built form to be constructed. Subways with station spacing of 1km or more encourage extremely-high density nodes around the station with nothing in between. This is basically how Sheppard between Yonge & Don Mills is developing as we speak.

Toronto has not built subway lines with station spacing seen in the CBD since the mid 1970s, and its not coming back into style any time soon. So, we need to use a mode that allows closer station spacing. This leaves us with BRT or LRT. LRT was chosen because it has the capacity edge over BRT.

A Sheppard Subway is not dead, but the only way it will come back on the books is if the Official Plan is amended to encourage extreme high-density nodes with nothing in between.

I don't know how you can say that with a straight face. That sounds like the lousiest BS response I've ever heard to orphaning the Sheppard stubway as is rather than finishing it.

We do have a lot of Transfer City cheerleaders on this board though. Thankfully we also have a less vocal majority who support finishing the Sheppard SUBWAY by a vast majority. (And a vast majority of Scarberians as well).

 

[unimaginative2]

A Sheppard Subway is not dead, but the only way it will come back on the books is if the Official Plan is amended to encourage extreme high-density nodes with nothing in between.

C'mon Red Rocket. You're a smart guy. Don't buy into that propaganda. Building an LRT line isn't magically going to create mid-rise, medium density retail strips with residential on top. Zoning for them, and loosening regulations on parking, hallways, etc. would help rather more. North York Centre has achieved, contrary to popular belief, a pretty consistent, walkable strip on a subway line. Same with Yonge north of Eglinton. Those all have wide stop spacing.

All this is beside the point. You're saying that frequent stops on subways are "out of fashion." Well, why? If we want frequent stops, then why don't we just build frequent stops? I really question how much they'd actually do for retail strips, but I don't see how we have to reinvent the wheel and build LRT lines where a subway is obviously called for (i.e. half built) just because recently-built routes have infrequent stops. Besides, add in Willowdale and Sheppard stop spacing isn't far off the old Yonge line.

The fact remains that much of Transit City is being built on streets that aren't even designated Avenues. They're either streets through stable neighbourhoods that aren't planned for medium-density intensification, or they're wide suburban arterials zoned for -- that's right! -- high-density at major intersections and not much in between. Building billions in LRT lines to spur medium-density development, when we haven't even taken the simple step of zoning for it? Sounds like putting the streetcart before the horse to me!

Subways with station spacing of 1km or more encourage extremely-high density nodes around the station with nothing in between. This is basically how Sheppard between Yonge & Don Mills is developing as we speak.

Sheppard is developing that way because that's what the city has zoned for! The plan is for intensive development near subway stops, with heights increasing approaching the highway. If they actually wanted mid-rise buildings lining the street with retail at grade -- an admirable goal -- why didn't they zone for it? How is that the subway's fault?

 

[Payback]

The EAs for the first 3 transit city lines are funded. Construction has not been funded yet, and the RTP will prioritize and/or modify the proposals in MoveOntario2020.

I am not going to say that the sheppard subway is dead. Nothing is ever dead. However, the rationale behind the line has changed. The official plan calls for mid-rise, medium density buildings spread out along the route, and the official plan calls for a type of transit service to encourge this sort of built form to be constructed. Subways with station spacing of 1km or more encourage extremely-high density nodes around the station with nothing in between. This is basically how Sheppard between Yonge & Don Mills is developing as we speak.

Toronto has not built subway lines with station spacing seen in the CBD since the mid 1970s, and its not coming back into style any time soon. So, we need to use a mode that allows closer station spacing. This leaves us with BRT or LRT. LRT was chosen because it has the capacity edge over BRT.

A Sheppard Subway is not dead, but the only way it will come back on the books is if the Official Plan is amended to encourage extreme high-density nodes with nothing in between.

Thank God Almighty !! The weakness of Torontonians in their steadfast blind devotion to antiquated Red Rocket subways and streetcars makes me tremble. Sheppard is less developed than most major aterials in the 905 suburbs yet gets already a $4 billion dollar stubway which the promise of more waste. Hah! It really burns me that an hour long subway ride along BD (SRT) or YUS+Sheppard line is favored over city-wide LRT or BRT which would match or exceed subway service at a fraction of the cost.

Subways should return to BD or CBD levels of station proximity and the only corridors that can potentially meet those standards today are Eglinton Avenue and Queen Street. Everywhere else should be LRT/BRT. If you're to build subways build them where people actually commute towards... DOWNTOWN TORONTO; not some outcrop suburban hellhole north of the 401 where walk-in potential is a couple thousand per day at most!

People saying the 'stubway' is not a reflection of how a completed Sheppard subway would look like... sorry you're wrong! Every new station east (or west) of the current line would have a very limited catchment of like three blocks of two-storey apts, mixed condos/commercial. The Sheppard subway virtually peaks at Bayview, thus by Don Mills only the mall is a natural people-drawer. VP wouldn't fair well by today's standard's (under 10, 000 walk-ins daily), Warden's even worse. Kennedy would be a success but for $2 billion is it really worth it? Nothing east of there is worth the tunneling and I'm not even convinced that Scarborough Centre so desperately needs a subway link from the northwest as much as it needs from the southwest via the BD line. Everything west of Yonge would be abyssmally under-trafficked and subtract several local bus stops in the process (could you imagine the 84 bus competing for the 200 pphpd at Faywood or Senlac?)

So due to all that I for one am glad subways are taking a backseat. Subways should be designated for short distance commuter travel like every 500-750metres, not long distance. Long distance is for commuter railroad. If the TTC can't grasp that they're inconveniencing more commuters by spacing stops so far apart that riders require backtracking on minimally run bus routes, then by all means put BRT/LRT wherever you can as fast as possible.

 

[Dan416]

Thank God Almighty !! The weakness of Torontonians in their steadfast blind devotion to antiquated Red Rocket subways and streetcars makes me tremble. Sheppard is less developed than most major aterials in the 905 suburbs yet gets already a $4 billion dollar stubway which the promise of more waste. Hah! It really burns me that an hour long subway ride along BD (SRT) or YUS+Sheppard line is favored over city-wide LRT or BRT which would match or exceed subway service at a fraction of the cost.

Subways should return to BD or CBD levels of station proximity and the only corridors that can potentially meet those standards today are Eglinton Avenue and Queen Street. Everywhere else should be LRT/BRT. If you're to build subways build them where people actually commute towards... DOWNTOWN TORONTO; not some outcrop suburban hellhole north of the 401 where walk-in potential is a couple thousand per day at most!

People saying the 'stubway' is not a reflection of how a completed Sheppard subway would look like... sorry you're wrong! Every new station east (or west) of the current line would have a very limited catchment of like three blocks of two-storey apts, mixed condos/commercial. The Sheppard subway virtually peaks at Bayview, thus by Don Mills only the mall is a natural people-drawer. VP wouldn't fair well by today's standard's (under 10, 000 walk-ins daily), Warden's even worse. Kennedy would be a success but for $2 billion is it really worth it? Nothing east of there is worth the tunneling and I'm not even convinced that Scarborough Centre so desperately needs a subway link from the northwest as much as it needs from the southwest via the BD line. Everything west of Yonge would be abyssmally under-trafficked and subtract several local bus stops in the process (could you imagine the 84 bus competing for the 200 pphpd at Faywood or Senlac?)

So due to all that I for one am glad subways are taking a backseat. Subways should be designated for short distance commuter travel like every 500-750metres, not long distance. Long distance is for commuter railroad. If the TTC can't grasp that they're inconveniencing more commuters by spacing stops so far apart that riders require backtracking on minimally run bus routes, then by all means put BRT/LRT wherever you can as fast as possible.

This noob is annoying me. Can we ban him already please?

 

[Payback]

CC: Not to judge you or anything, I personally think it's BS to put on a pedestal 8.6 kms of multibillion new subway in a very limited catchment over hundreds of kilometres of new LRT/BRT networking spanning the entire city and then some. What plan is in the best interest of the City of Toronto? A handful of people too insipid to realize the Sheppard East LRT could be retrofitted into the current configuration of the 'stubway' thereby to/from Yonge Street you'd be on the LRT, shouldn't be looked at as credible advocates. Their grubbiness compromises the quality of what residents/business owners will see in their own communities throughout the 416. Several planned subway lines have fallen to the weyside in Toronto's history. I don't see anyone POed about that.

 

[ShonTron]

CC: Not to judge you or anything, I personally think it's BS to put on a pedestal 8.6 kms of multibillion new subway in a very limited catchment over hundreds of kilometres of new LRT/BRT networking spanning the entire city and then some. What plan is in the best interest of the City of Toronto? A handful of people too insipid to realize the Sheppard East LRT could be retrofitted into the current configuration of the 'stubway' thereby to/from Yonge Street you'd be on the LRT, shouldn't be looked at as credible advocates. Their grubbiness compromises the quality of what residents/business owners will see in their own communities throughout the 416. Several planned subway lines have fallen to the weyside in Toronto's history. I don't see anyone POed about that.

First of all, I don't know how you came up with a $4 Billion figure for the Sheppard Subway as built. Secondly, if a subway was built along Sheppard East, stops at Vic Park, Warden and Kennedy would almost instantly be in the middle of the pack for platform boardings because of the high density that's all ready there and the buses feeding in, especially from the north.

I guess you haven't seen the DRL threads. There's a whole lot of us trying to get that line back on the agenda, and already, we've made some movement there.

 

[allabootmatt]

You guys are getting at one of the issues that really bugs me on how LRT/Subway debates get framed in Toronto. We are told that we want mid-rise, consistent development, and that widely-spaced subway stops aren't conducive to this. And since we will only build widely-spaced subway stops, may as well forget subways. But this (and other) potential ways that subways aren't going to give us what we want are treated as utterly set in stone and impossible to fix. Meanwhile I can think of about a dozen ways in which Transit City LRT lines could be screwed up to the point of being total disasters.

For example, LRT in reserved lanes is basically useless without signal priority, something which has never been turned on on existing LRT lines. So why not say that, therefore, LRT vehicles are never going to get signal priority, and that therefore LRT is useless? The point is that all of this can be changed. Maybe the fixes are cheaper for LRT than subway, even though the ballooning cost of Transit City would seem to suggest otherwise. But the manner in which this is all conditioned tells us a lot about the arbitrary way in which the LRT-for-all-seasons approach has been formulated.

 

[RedRocket191]

To Corusctani Cognoscente & Unimaginative2

What I said I have because that is what was told to me by the transportation policy director to the mayor.

It may not be popular, but its what senior people have been saying and its as close to an "official reason" as I can find. Feel free to debate the rationale, but it is the plans off of which city hall is working off of. You might call it propaganda, but its the reality, plain and simple.

As for zoning, no official plan is completely safe from the Ontario Municipal Board. If a developer was hell-bent on building Cityplace out in Scarborough, there's a good chance he could get it passed by the OMB if a subway was there. He could argue that downtown Toronto is a successful example of a subway supporting extreme-high density developments around stations. By building a more pedestrian oriented transit line, you give the city one more tool to fight off bad development. I'm not opposed to building a subway line, but the Sheppard experience has shown us which areas will redevelop and which areas will stagnate. In a world where the OMB exists, we have to manipulate the market to ensure all land along the corridor has a similar land value. If some land is more valuable than others, no amount of zoning is going to save us from having bad development.

Sheppard may have been designated as disconnected nodes in the past, but it is now an avenue, as is Eglinton and Kingston Road. As an avenue, it should get a transit line that support its designation. If a subway line can accomplish this, perfect. But, it would have to have 700m station spacing or less.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Even if the funding isn't there yet, Rubber Stamp McGuinty made Transit City policy. Extensions of the Sheppard subway are dead: at the EA last week, a city official told me the only public input they're actually looking for was stop placement. But we all know public input wouldn't make a difference, anyway, since they completely ignored the public during the RT replacement process, choosing what most people didn't want, a more expensive option that serves less people. Hopefully, Metrolinx has a minor subway revolution planned and RR191 is just throwing us off.

Subways with station spacing of 1km or more encourage extremely-high density nodes around the station with nothing in between. This is basically how Sheppard between Yonge & Don Mills is developing as we speak.

Toronto has not built subway lines with station spacing seen in the CBD since the mid 1970s, and its not coming back into style any time soon. So, we need to use a mode that allows closer station spacing. This leaves us with BRT or LRT. LRT was chosen because it has the capacity edge over BRT.

No, that is not how Sheppard is developing...where there aren't high-rises, there is or will be Avenues-style development. What's between Bessarion and Leslie? Park Place's 10,000 future residents. What's between Bessarion and Bayview? Another dozen+ towers.

Stop spacing is absolutely not why LRT was chosen (and it's not like the city and the TTC and planners and experts actually sat down and "chose" LRT, it came straight from the mayor's office). If the stops on the Yonge line south of Bloor were any farther apart, the platforms would be dangerously overcrowded. There's absolutely nothing wrong with 1km stop spacing. If a Willowdale stop was added to Sheppard, 99% of people would be a short walk from a station. Slightly greater stop spacing plus high-density nodes results in reduced travel times and more people living and working at stations, which increases transit use.

If North York Centre had been built as a string of 8-storey buildings, it would be far less successful and many thousands of transit rides would be lost each day. The same goes for Yonge & Eglinton and all kinds of other areas...Toronto has always supported nodal development and throwing this away so that suburban arterials can be transformed into the Champs Elysees is hilariously impractical. The funny thing is that Finch West, Jane, Don Mills, Morningside, and half of Sheppard weren't even slated for Avenue-ization, which shows just how unexpected, politicized, and ideological Transit City is. Either these corridors won't develop, or the official plan will have to be rewritten.

CC: Not to judge you or anything, I personally think it's BS to put on a pedestal 8.6 kms of multibillion new subway in a very limited catchment over hundreds of kilometres of new LRT/BRT networking spanning the entire city and then some. What plan is in the best interest of the City of Toronto?

Your numbers are wrong...we cannot build hundreds of kilometres of LRT for the cost of a Sheppard extension. We could introduce more express/Rocket bus routes, though, for very little money (like on Morningside). Extending Sheppard is in the best interest of the city, particularly in terms of city-building - Sheppard is rapidly intensifying.

edit - oh, RR191, this isn't Dubai: did you really expect 1000 cranes to pop up along Sheppard barely 5 years after the line opened, and if they didn't, the area's stagnating? A neighbourhood of 8 storey buildings is somehow immune to bad development? And giving Sheppard a transit line that supports a designation is better than a transit line that supports ridership and sound city-building policies is better for transit?

 

[unimaginative2]

It really burns me that an hour long subway ride along BD (SRT) or YUS+Sheppard line is favored over city-wide LRT or BRT which would match or exceed subway service at a fraction of the cost.

Haha. You serious? You actually believe that a streetcar in a reserved lane, stopping at traffic lights, would "exceed" subway service?

What I said I have because that is what was told to me by the transportation policy director to the mayor.

It may not be popular, but its what senior people have been saying and its as close to an "official reason" as I can find. Feel free to debate the rationale, but it is the plans off of which city hall is working off of. You might call it propaganda, but its the reality, plain and simple.

I have no doubt that you heard that from the Mayor's people. But Red Rocket, when policymakers don't make sense, you should challenge them! That's why you're on that committee. Don't take what they say at face value. Their logic is patently flawed. If the problem is with subway station spacing, then build more frequent stops. If the problem is a lack of medium-density development, it might help if the city actually planned and zoned for it! I spoke with a City of Toronto transportation planner, the kind of person who knows her beat (Scarborough) like the back of her hand, and she said she found out about all these transit plans from the newspaper. The TTC seems to be doing all of its own planning, and completely ignoring all of the planning done by the city's experienced professional planners. Look at Scarborough Centre. All of the new expansions are designed to bypass the Centre, yet both Places to Grow and the Official Plan designate it as Scarborough's major development node.

What does the OMB have to do with it? None of these high rise clusters have had to go to the OMB. The city zoned for it in the first place. In fact, if a developer wanted to build a typical midrise with no internal hallway, he would be the one forced to go to the OMB to override the city's zoning along Sheppard and other streets.

All this being said, I totally support the idea of mid-rise, LRT-served strips! Unfortunately, many of the Transit City routes aren't even designated Avenues, but I really hope that the city changes the zoning on the ones that are so that the mid-rise strips that they hope are built can actually be built. As for subway lines, higher density development at stations, as along the Yonge Line, is optimal.