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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
Voltz said:
There is not a plethora of students boarding the Progress bus between STC and the campus, the majority of students on that bus do come from the SRT. Most that take the progress bus from the north would be able to board the SRT at Sheppard, which would be running much more frequently than the progress bus currently does north of the campus. As I mentioned the Markham bus could easily be re routed to connect with the Centennial College station, benefiting all who take that bus to the college.
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So is the goal of building transit in Scarborough to ensure that Centennial College Progress Campus students get from STC to their campus in the most expeditious and comfortable fashion or to ensure that the most residents of the borough get the widest benefit possible?

I didn't dispute that most students on the Progress bus come from the SRT. I disputed that most students come to Centennial come from STC. Most come from Malvern (in which case staying on the Progress bus is better than having to transfer for one stop) or up and down Markham Road where if they arrive when there's no Markham branch to the campus, they take the Progress bus in or walk up the hill. This is reality as it is today. Under this scenario, every other student except the one who commences or terminates his/her journey at STC from the Progress Campus, loses out because of a high likelihood of a reduction or even elimination of the Progress bus (at least between STC and Centennial). And somehow, I highly doubt the TTC is going to branch enough Markham buses to make up for the loss of a Progress bus.

Voltz said:
I am not going to claim that ending the SRT at Sheppard makes sense, but they are not going to keep all of those routes running to STC the way they are now, that does not make sense. I also don't think a route reorganization would turn out as bad as you predict.
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I'm sorry but that sounds a lot like, "Trust me. I haven't done the math but I know it'll work out." I'd much rather hear their plan before they plan on committing hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially screwing up transit in Scarborough for another generation.

I haven't been to a consult after they decided to truncate the line (did they even have one?), but I have emailed this question several times and their response is a lot in line with yours.

I would like an honest explanation of how bus routes will work with a terminal at Sheppard/Progress. This is not some germane question. The bulk of Malvern's riders will be arriving by bus to this station. So how the routes work will be a big deal. But a lot of those routes are linear East-West (Milner, Nugget) or North-South (Neilson) and there's a lot of ridership that actually uses these routes to get around in Malvern and in northeastern Scarborough (particularly for jobs along those streets). A lot of people will get screwed over if they decide to split routes. Or they'll end up overlaying new local routes. If that's the case, where will the buses come from? Are they going to cut service on all those routes so that they can now offer a Morningside Heights express to their Sheppard/Progress station?

When the thing was going to Malvern, it clearly worked because they mall is at the centre of several routes. Nugget ran along the southwestern edge of the mall where the terminal was supposed to go. Progress turns to Washburn Way at that corner. And Neilson runs down the eastern side of the mall, a short diversion to reach the terminal. Now we're talking about possibly diverting all three buses 1.5 km away to the terminal. The wonderfully quick Milner bus would also suffer a 500m diversion north (because they didn't want a Milner station).

I'll be comfortable with the idea if I see a real plan for what happens to the bus routes. Right now I don't see any evidence of this. I don't see any inkling of a plan for the bus routes. Just a clusterfuck for bus routes in Malvern in the making. But of course, we're supposed to just blindly trust them not to screw it up.
 
Made a little illustration as to what I think could be paid for using the current TC funding. There's a $500 million unfunded portion dedicated to extending the Eglinton tunnel east to Wynford, but that could be delayed if additional funding can't be found.

Source for some of the numbers: http://stevemunro.ca/wp-content/uplo...TCBriefing.pdf

fordqe.jpg
 
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Rob's inauguration speech has as his 4th point, to create a "transportation city plan" where it is not just transit, but also the motorist and commercial vehicles, and others. I think his "transportation city plan" is to give the city over to the car and put transit out of sight.
 
GraphicMatt said:
If I'm reading this correctly, your numbers add up to over 10 billion dollars - there's not that much money on the table. Not even close.
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I think his numbers are off, but the plan he has is pretty close to what I had. Only I didn't have the Wynford extension (although that kinda makes sense), and I had B-D stopping at STC, with BRT on Sheppard. If he re-jigged his numbers, I think he's pretty close.

Eglinton (just the tunnel): $4185 million
Sheppard (subway extension to Vic Park): $496 million
Sheppard (BRT + Queue Jump lane configuration): $451 million
Bloor-Danforth (extension to STC): $1860 million

Total: $6992 million

He's not that far off, although his numbers may be. The BRT money could theoretically nearly cover the extra stop on the B-D line up to Sheppard.
 
GraphicMatt said:
If I'm reading this correctly, your numbers add up to over 10 billion dollars - there's not that much money on the table. Not even close.
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There is if you use the 2015-2020 money. The total is something just short of 11-billion in escalated dollars.

The question though is escalated or current $. Not a big deal through 2015, as the average of spending from now to 2015 would only increase 13% or so (assuming the average $ is spent half-way through, and you use the customary 5% for the construction price inded). But by the time you get to the mid-point of the 2015-2020 part of the cashflow the 13% increase has become 44%.
 
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GraphicMatt said:
Ah, this includes some of the funding that was 'deferred' in the last Ontario budget. Still an interesting comparison. And your map looks nice.
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Hmm... I'm not sure whether it includes the deferred funding or not since in page 2 of the document they break out Phase 1 and 2?


nfitz said:
There is if you use the 2015-2020 money. The total is something just short of 11-billion in escalated dollars.

The question though is escalated or current $. Not a big deal through 2015, as the average of spending from now to 2015 would only increase 13% or so (assuming the average $ is spent half-way through, and you use the customary 5% for the construction price inded). But by the time you get to the mid-point of the 2015-2020 part of the cashflow the 13% increase has become 44%.
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Gotta love them NPV analysis.
 
Anth said:
That doesn't seem likely once they're in. Removing them may not be an engineering challenge exactly, but the optics of the money wasted and the poor planning on the other hand...

Hurontario is also an appropriate corridor, it isn't central to the region, and no existing subway line would be cynically preempted either.
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CapitalSeven said:
I second the BS call. The Mississauga plan is virtually identical to most of the Transit City proposals. Stop spacings vary according to local conditions and the purpose of the line of course but in many respects they aren't that much different. What is cynical about building an LRT line that will use half of its maximum capacity in place of a subway line that would use one sixth?
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Projected demand on Hurontario is far more than Sheppard in the foreseeable future. Yet one is applauded by the subway boosters, the other is derided.

Oh and I almost forgot. URBAN GROWTH CENTRE!
 
superman said:
Made a little illustration as to what I think could be paid for using the current TC funding. There's a $500 million unfunded portion dedicated to extending the Eglinton tunnel east to Wynford, but that could be delayed if additional funding can't be found.
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Are you still using the Kodak lands at Black Creek for your carhouse? If you are still in a tunnel there, how do have efficient access? If not there, then where?

How deep do you want to have your station at Wynford given there is already an existing road one level beneath Eglinton at that point (so you'd have to go even lower)? Then there is the fact you are right on the edge of the Don Valley, so if you want to have any dreams of tunneling further east in the future, you are going to have to be even lower so as to get under the ravine and river.

Since you have no room for bus bays bringing in the traffic from beyond Wynford, all that will have to be accommodated at the planned bus bays at Don Mills, leaving one to ask why you would spend millions just to tunnel as far as Wynford?

Given the TTC plan to remove local bus service on Eglinton where the LRT runs, why would you remove the Laird LRT stop, which would be serving not only the residential area (and hospitals just to the north on the other side of the ravine from Sunnybrook), but also the extensive shopping developments to the south-east? Walking down the steep and lonely hill to Leslie station would not at all be appealing, nor would having to walk a mile or more to Bayview station.
 
Paleo said:
Projected demand on Hurontario is far more than Sheppard in the foreseeable future. Yet one is applauded by the subway boosters, the other is derided.
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That's because on Hurontario, LRT is being built where it makes sense and where no rapid transit already exists. Preempting the Sheppard subway and inexplicably accelerating the process ahead of Eglinton is a short-sighted, partisan, petty poke in the eye to Lastman.
 
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