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Transit City Plan

Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%

  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%
  • Total voters
    120
The Montreal comparison is a good one. The Blue Line is much more similar to our eglinton line than the Sheppard line, and the suburban extensions are radial only. (take a look at the neighbourhoods around the blue line on streetview... )

Montreal does not have a suburb to suburb subway. They know better than to waste money on unnecessary infrastructure.
 
Asterix said:
I can simply parrot what others have tried to tell you repeatedly:

Eventually a subway should probably be built on Sheppard west from Yonge. Just not in the foreseeable future unless you have a magic money tree with unlimited cash. There are far more important issues to be addressed before working ourselves into a tizzy about Sheppard connecting to Downsview.

As you've listed, build me a DRL (I'll even settle for just the first eastern leg from Danforth to downtown) and a fully cross-town Eglinton LRT (right to the airport) and then we can lobby for Sheppard. We won't be needing to do that for at least another 10 - 15 years, even if current plans were to play out as best as could be hoped for.

As for intermediate solutions, I think you provided that as well: manage the 196 Yonge branch more effectively. That can be done a lot cheaper than building a subway. Respect the taxpayer and all that.
Click to expand...

Are we agreeing that LRT is a bad idea on Sheppard East? You know that 1 billion dollars could make the Eglinton tunnel run from Jane to Don Mills or beyond so we wont have to get rid of too many LRT cars on order. Make the plateforms longer with longer trains.

Waiting for Sheppard subway? I don't have a problem with that. On the contrary, I told Alvino that DRL, Eglinton should go first and I disagree with Ford on his priority list.

My problem on this board is people who want us (the taxpayers) to waste 1 billion dollar for a LRT on Sheppard east.

Those same people saying that building subways on sheppard is not a priority AND A WASTE OF MONEY,would happily waste a billion on the very same corridor while we could have used it for Eglinton...

That contradiction really annoys me...
 
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Ansem said:
Are we agreeing that LRT is a bad idea on Sheppard East? You know that 1 billion dollars could make the Eglinton tunnel run from Jane to Don Mills or beyond so we wont have to get rid of too many LRT cars on order. Make the plateforms longer with longer trains.

Waiting for Sheppard subway? I don't have a problem with that. On the contrary, I told Alvino that DRL, Eglinton should go first and I disagree with Ford on his priority list.

My problem on this board is people who want us (the taxpayers) to waste 1 billion dollar for a LRT on Sheppard east.

Those same people saying that building subways on sheppard is not a priority AND A WASTE OF MONEY,would happily waste a billion on the very same corridor while we could have used it for Eglinton...

That contradiction really annoys me...
Click to expand...

We seem to be jumping geographically all over the place. I thought your complaint was with Sheppard West, from Yonge to Downsview. That should probably get a Sheppard line extension. Eventually. Some day. Not next week.

I'm not as familiar with eastern Sheppard, but it seems logical to me that if the numbers are not subway level,nor are they expected to be for longer than a generation, then it makes far more sense to build, say, 12km of LRT than 3 - 4km of subway. You'd be serving far more people at only a small drop in speed (median LRT vs subway). Certainly wouldn't call that a waste.

I really hope your comment about Eglinton isn't back to the idea of making it HRT instead of LRT. That issue has been hashed over previously in this thread and should be a non-starter. Before you continue to lobby for that change, consider where you would store the trains. Either you'd have to build a very expensive connection to the YUS and then significantly expand the Wilson yard, or you'd have to build some very convoluted connection to access a yard at the planned location for the Eglinton LRT carhouse out by Black Creek (and you'd probably have to make it bigger as well).
 
At the moment we're averaging about one major transit project per decade:

1950s - Yonge Line
1960s - Bloor Line
1970s - Spadina Line
1980s - Scarborough RT
1990s - Harbourfront and Spadina streetcars
2000s - Sheppard Line

Pretty much everyone agrees that the DRL East, Eglinton, Spadina Extension, BD Extension, and DRL West are all higher priorities than a Sheppard East subway. The province is also clear that the Richmond Hill line is also high on the list.

If we continue at our current pace, this might all be completed in about 50 years. At that point we might get around to the Sheppard subway. The choice isn't LRT now or a subway in 10 years. It's between LRT now or nothing for 50 years. The only way that changes is if Sheppard is placed at the top of the priority list, but no one except Rob Ford believes this is a good idea.
 
Ansem said:
Sheppard West is densifying. Houses are being demolished and replace buy condos. There's nothing in Vaughan but they made their cases on projected ridership.
Click to expand...

There's not really a good justification for the Spadina extension to Vaughan. It's entirely politically motivated (like Sheppard was).
 
Asterix said:
We seem to be jumping geographically all over the place. I thought your complaint was with Sheppard West, from Yonge to Downsview. That should probably get a Sheppard line extension. Eventually. Some day. Not next week.
Click to expand...

Agreed but if a Richmond Hill extension comes along, the extension should be included.

Asterix said:
I'm not as familiar with eastern Sheppard, but it seems logical to me that if the numbers are not subway level,nor are they expected to be for longer than a generation, then it makes far more sense to build, say, 12km of LRT than 3 - 4km of subway. You'd be serving far more people at only a small drop in speed (median LRT vs subway). Certainly wouldn't call that a waste.
Click to expand...

The ridership is low because of the route they studied
Don Mills to the zoo.
A subway from Don Mills to the zoo is beyond ridicule and they had the nerve to studied that for subway and came to the conclusion that subway wasn't justified...Well duh!

They didn't study that route since 2001
Don Mills to STC
The last report that sturdied that route said subway was justified.
Where not talking about the same route, then it's only natural that the projection will be different.


2nd issue is having 2 technologies on the same route. Reminds you of anything? The SRT. Havent we learned from last time?
They are studying an extension in Montreal for the blue line going East which is very similar to Sheppard in context.

Not me, not board members but the Vice-President of the Executive comittee on public Transit for the city of Montreal said:
They studied LRT, BRT and even Skytrain for east extension on Jean-talon. They came to the wise conclusion that using 2 technologies on the same route made absolutely no sense and imposing a transfer on 50 000 riders was counterproductive...

Why insisting on doing this here?
Again?
You're not suppose to repeat past failures...

Asterix said:
I really hope your comment about Eglinton isn't back to the idea of making it HRT instead of LRT. That issue has been hashed over previously in this thread and should be a non-starter. Before you continue to lobby for that change, consider where you would store the trains. Either you'd have to build a very expensive connection to the YUS and then significantly expand the Wilson yard, or you'd have to build some very convoluted connection to access a yard at the planned location for the Eglinton LRT carhouse out by Black Creek (and you'd probably have to make it bigger as well).
Click to expand...

No I meant LRT. Even Ford seemed...implied by the TTC manager that he was warming up to Eglinton underground LRT pointing out that the LRT would be less expensive than HRT even underground.

Besides, Montreal trains are similar to the LRT trains an it does a very fine job at moving people at high speed
 
SimonP said:
If you look at the population growth map for Toronto, Sheppard west of Bathurst is one of the most quickly shrinking parts of the city.
Click to expand...

The shrinking part starts west of Allen Road, not Bathurst. From Allen Road to Bathurst it's quite the contrary. It's increasing.
With the new residential plan for Downsview park from Allen to Keele...that part will increase but thats a decade from now
 
population increase in an area doesn't always translate to the best spot to plop a subway. if it were the case, you can use the same argument to justify subway construction in king city.
 
When you email Stintz with concerns over Transit City, she sends out this template:

Thank you very much for taking the time to send me a note about your concerns. As you may know, Transit City was not fully funded by the Province of Ontario or the Federal Government. The transit plan that has been funded is the Metrolinx Plan and that plan includes transit investment on Sheppard, Eglinton, the Scarborough RT and Finch. Stopping Transit City does not jeopardize the Metrolinx Plan.



During the last municipal campaign, the voters of Toronto, through their support for Mayor Ford, indicated a preference for below-surface transit. Over the next few months, the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will revisit the current Metrolinx Plan with a goal to increase the amount of below-surface transit.



We all have a shared goal of a regional transportation plan that meets the needs of the riders of today and in the future. I am confident that the TTC, Metrolinx and the Province will work together to adjust the plan in a fiscally responsible manner that will receive the endorsement of the residents of Toronto.

Yours truly
Click to expand...

That's political spin. Above ground LRT and underground subway aren't interchangeable. I want to see what comes to council but if an Eglinton LRT or subway doesn't get built on her watch, she's not going to make it past 2014.
 
Ansem said:
People wanted a lot of stops because the TTC said no to a local bus...
Click to expand...

Running a bus with 10 minute frequencies and a train underneath has very high operating costs for covering a single street, it is also one of the larger complaints about Sheppard from those who lived there before it was built and are stuck between stations. They went from having 2 minute service to 20 minute service.
 
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