Transit City Plan

[reaperexpress]

It has become a natural corridor that we can not simply ignore. Even more importantly, we need lines that are not downtown centric. That is absolutely vital if we are going to reduce our automobile dependence.

It depends on what you define as automobile dependence. If it means the number of people commuting on transit, then the Sheppard Subway extension would be a reasonable target. If it means the number of people owning cars, then a subway line Downtown would be a better use of funds.

Transit should go where transit is warranted. If you place an isolated subway line in a heavily car oriented suburb, it might be popular at rush hour, but it won't really do much in terms of switching people to transit. People make more trips during the day than just going to work. To be competitive for all trips, transit needs to be frequent at all times of day on a dense network of routes. Even if we extend the Sheppard Subway, most residents will still choose to have a car.

Downtown already has frequent service on a dense network of routes, but surface transit tends to be very slow there. That is a reason people still own cars. Building a subway line such as the DRL would make travel downtown faster and would encourage large numbers of people to leave their cars completely. True, these people probably already commuted on the TTC, but now there would be much higher off-peak ridership.

Our system is already extensive. Transit implies every mode of public transportation. We have lots of buses. But buses are not rapid transit. And guess what. Neither are trams.

Let's not get mixed up with the technical term "Rapid Transit", which refers to a grade separated electric railway, and the speed of transit. There are slow rapid transit systems, and fast bus systems. In fact, 3 out of the 4 fastest TTC routes at rush hour use buses.

Here are the TTC's fastest routes in the AM peak:

Scarborough Rapid Transit: 36.6km/h (rapid transit)
192 Airport Rocket: 34.7km/h (express bus)
196 York University Rocket: 32.8km/h (bus rapid transit)
191 Highway 27 Rocket: 32.3km/h (express bus)
Bloor Danforth Subway: 31.2km/h (rapid transit)
Yonge-University-Spadina Subway: 30.9km/h (rapid transit)
Sheppard Subway: 29.8km/h (rapid transit)

As you can see, technology has less to do with overall speed than stop spacing. The SRT and express buses have long stop spacing (over 1km average) and this results in higher speed. By the way, the 3km long busway for route 196 was built at a cost of 40 million dollars. That's not even half as much as the cost of a single subway station.

Fun fact: the Los Angeles Green Line has an average speed 15km/h faster than any of our subway lines, and it uses "light rail vehicles", in other words, trams.

If you want to support transit, you shouldn't blindly ignore options all options that are not technically "Rapid Transit". Other technologies can be competitive as well.

A metro line along Eglinton is necessary. But, the geniuses in power abandoned that idea. It will hopefully be something that will be returned to. But, for now we have a successful stub line which needs to be improved to be even better.

Eglinton is a natural elephant in the room. But I do not want to see more transit projects get slashed or cut while in progress. So, I want to see a line built before another gets started. Or... that it gets built enough so that it is not in jeopardy of being transformed into something stupid.

An ideal thing would be this - to start expanding sheppard first- and then get the funds to build eglinton west per the old plans. But man that would be such a slap in the face to those idiots that said "fill it in!"

What annoys me is how a minority wants to impose this plan on a majority which prefers a better alternative.

An underground transit system is indeed needed on Eglinton. Whether it's a metro or not is irrelevant. Service is unaffected by the power collection method and the height of the floors. Personally I agree that it should be a subway, but I acknowledge that once built, it an LRT would provide a similar level of service.

Yes. It does bother me how a minority headed by Rob Ford is imposing his plan on a majority who would rather have a network of fast transit than one "rapid transit" line to a mall.

 

[Solid Snake]

You're right. It is an oversimplification of a complex issue. That's why I wrote it. I was mocking those who say why waste money on subways when you can use it on LRT and build more.

I don't need to "twist" the logic to justify subways. I believe sometimes high quality transit is necessary, and not cheaping out and buildng less quality transit just because it can reach more people.

I agree,

When the province is handing to you over 8 billions in transit funds (which tends to come once every decades or so) it's common sense to put it to subway technology.
DRL, Eglinton and Sheppard are pretty much what this city might ever need.

The city can easily budget 70M per years or more on LRT and build the LRT system on a yearly basis

-Finch
-Don Mills to Eglinton (South of Eglinton could be DRL)
-Jane to Eglinton (South of Eglinton could be DRL)
-Lawrence
-Wilson/York Mills/Ellesmere
-Islington

While budgetting 300M per years on subway is almost not possible unless you create new revenues...

I do agree that they shoud built
1-Eglinton from Jane to Don Mills
2-Kennedy to STC
3-the rest on Sheppard and wait for the next major transit funding to complete the line

If the city can budget to extend the LRT system on a yearly basis, then those funds must go to subway while the price is still approx 300M/Km

 

[Asterix]

If I were sayings lets tunnel under every cross-street from lawrence to steeles, then yeah, I would agree with your reply. However, that is not the case.
On top of that you treat a big subway system as something that will be built within a few years. No.

Fundamentally, this is where we have a problem with where we stand right now with where we wish to magically be X years down the road.

If we were starting from ground zero right now and deciding what should be the next big transit scheme, my vote would be DRL.

However, for whatever reasons and for whoever you want to blame, that immediate ship has sailed and we have a city-wide LRT plan on the table with promised funding from the province and even a chip-in from the Feds that is ready to start actual construction essentially immediately.

Given the vagaries of the political world, our choice is either carry through with what we have funded, or basically throw all that money away and return to the drawing board to come up with new plans for subways and only subways. By the time we return to where we are now with shovels ready to go in the ground, who knows if there will be a provincial government willing to pony up the big bucks needed. And why should they? The last government to do so had their offer bluntly refused (ie what Ford apparently wants to do).

We certainly have no guarantee that the province or Metrolinx will play ball with the back-of-the-napkin proposal the TTC is supposed to whip up in six weeks to fit Ford's pronouncement of canceling TC and switching to subways and the provincial treasury would probably love to be able to take back a few billion dollars to help with the provincial deficit. Having Toronto say 'thanks for the LRT offer, but we're going to spend a couple years planning subways instead' definitely makes that easier to do.

It has become a natural corridor that we can not simply ignore. Even more importantly, we need lines that are not downtown centric. That is absolutely vital if we are going to reduce our automobile dependence.

Who is trying to ignore it? SELRT will be servicing far more of the corridor than any affordable subway and will provide service speeds far closer to subway than to the existing buses.

Okay maybe I exagerated a little. Should we say 40 minutes instead? Still, I'd trade 40 minutes and a cheap fare to driving the car that long. Would I trade it for 1.5 hours with the tram plan? No, because 2 hours regular and 1.5 hours with tram is still shitty.

Can I ask what you are basing your 1.5 hour estimation for the LRT plan? Seems kind of strange that your trip time estimation for LRT is closer to your bus estimation than your subway estimation despite the fact speed projections are the other way around. Plus the LRT will be constructed within the next few years, unlike another generation that will be required to fund the level of subway you want along that corridor.

Our system is already extensive. Transit implies every mode of public transportation. We have lots of buses. But buses are not rapid transit. And guess what. Neither are trams.

Simply repeating that LRT is not rapid transit doesn't make it so. (Of course you could say the same thing in reverse, but what comparable systems to the proposed TC setup can you point to that shows the LRT projections for TC are completely fictitious?)

A metro line along Eglinton is necessary. But, the geniuses in power abandoned that idea.

The previously planned Eglinton subway was going to be a short stubway from the Allen out to Weston. Demand projections for 2031 aren't even half of what would be required to justify full subway and the advantage of the LRT line is that it can operate as a subway in the middle and as a much cheaper surface runner on either side while still providing near subway level speeds.

What annoys me is how a minority wants to impose this plan on a majority which prefers a better alternative.

Yes, we have a minority in one corner of Scarborough that apparently want to impose a subway for themselves that will not be close to be properly used in place of a plan that would provide greatly improved transit to sections of the former Scarborough, East York, North York, Toronto, York and Etobicoke. How annoying!

 

[reaperexpress]

I do agree that they shoud built
1-Eglinton from Jane to Don Mills
2-Kennedy to STC
3-the rest on Sheppard and wait for the next major transit funding to complete the line

So the DRL is less important than the Sheppard extension?

 

[Solid Snake]

So the DRL is less important than the Sheppard extension?

We'll have to wait for the TTC study to finally know how much it will cost

 

[reaperexpress]

We'll have to wait for the TTC study to finally know how much it will cost

As opposed to the Sheppard extension, where will also have to wait for the TTC study to finally know how much it will cost.

 

[Solid Snake]

As opposed to the Sheppard extension, where will also have to wait for the TTC study to finally know how much it will cost.

Of course the DRL is more important than Sheppard but there seems to be a political reason for not pushing the DRL forward.
I thought Metrolinx said or implied it would be build eventually

 

[reaperexpress]

Of course the DRL is more important than Sheppard but there seems to be a political reason for not pushing the DRL forward.
I thought Metrolinx said or implied it would be build eventually

The political reason for not pushing the DRL is probably that political parties can obtain more ridings by putting subways in the suburbs. The subway extension to Vaughan was funded because it travels through swing ridings (i.e. money spent there could get the government an extra seat in parliament/legislature). No matter how many subway lines are built, downtowners will still vote Liberal or NDP.

Metrolinx saying it would be built eventually is basically saying they don't care about it. But in this political climate, nothing big ever gets built when there is no one forcing it forward.

 

[Solid Snake]

The political reason for not pushing the DRL is probably that political parties can obtain more ridings by putting subways in the suburbs. The subway extension to Vaughan was funded because it travels through swing ridings (i.e. money spent there could get the government an extra seat in parliament/legislature). No matter how many subway lines are built, downtowners will still vote Liberal or NDP.

Metrolinx saying it would be built eventually is basically saying they don't care about it. But in this political climate, nothing big ever gets built when there is no one forcing it forward.

maybe the conservative winning Vaughn in Ottawa and Toronto voting for a conservative mayor like Ford and the numbers not looking good for the liberals (prov or fed) might get Toronto more attention in the following elections...

 

[Solid Snake]

Yes, we have a minority in one corner of Scarborough that apparently want to impose a subway for themselves that will not be close to be properly used in place of a plan that would provide greatly improved transit to sections of the former Scarborough, East York, North York, Toronto, York and Etobicoke. How annoying!

Scarborough don't want TC

North York dont want TC

Etobicoke don't want TC

Telling almost 2 million people that they should shut up and just swallow "Transit City" is a dictatorship.

They are paying taxes like Torontonians from the core,
They have a voting right like everyone else

It is called DEMOCRACY

 

[W. K. Lis]

From www.npr.org comes this story:

Light Rail Transforming Cities, Guiding Development

It's hard to find a city in America that isn't planning, proposing, studying or actually building a light rail system. Cities as diverse as Dallas, Seattle and Washington, D.C., all see light rail as part of their future — a way to reshape their development.

There are 35 light rail systems operating in the U.S. today. At least 13 metro areas are currently building others. Many more are being planned. (Used to be just a handful in the 1960's.)

Perhaps the most ambitious light rail project in the country is being built in Denver. Downtown, behind Union Station, lies a cityscape that doesn't quite exist yet.

Much of the area is empty, fenced off. Construction crews are digging a huge hole in the ground in preparation for some of the final stages of a multiyear transportation project that is already changing the city.

East West Partners, a real estate development company, is doing much of the work around Union Station. They own or have the rights to buy much of the land. Even in the midst of a real estate collapse, Chris Frampton, one of the partners in the company, is bullish about light rail. As he walked toward Union Station from the riverfront condos his company developed recently, light rail trains whispered by, their electric motors almost silent.

"Right here next to us is going to be the new [headquarters] of DaVita," says Frampton, pointing at an area void of anything but dirt. "They're moving here from El Segundo, Calif. And they picked this site, 100 percent, because it's next to light rail."

Frampton pointed to a building around the corner, Gates Rubber Co. Half of their 300 employees already take the light rail to work, he said.

"Trains make all that possible," Frampton says.

And it's not just in Denver. In Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Diego and other cities large and small, light rail is taking off. The trains look more like streetcars than anything else. They're only one or two cars long, and are electrically powered. The narrow footprint of light rail cars allows them to be put in dense urban areas, on already crowded streets.

"There are very few major metropolitan areas in the country that aren't considering the installation of some sort of light rail system," says Robert Puentes, a transportation expert at the Brookings Institution. He stresses that the car is still king, but says politicians, businessmen and developers are looking to light rail to help guide development.

"Light rail stops create nodes and create opportunities for denser development," says Frampton. "So you don't end up using up roads and using up sewers, and building new police stations and water lines and so on."

Tom Clark, of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation, says that when the conversations first began about mass transit, "it sounded a little bit too close to socialism for some of us." What changed the business community's mind, he says, were simple economics.

"We had a worker housing problem. The roads were getting congested enough that workers from the north side could no longer commute by car to the south side. They needed an alternative."

The current downturn has meant that there have been fewer sales tax revenues, which are paying for the system, and costs have spiraled upward. And in a new era of cutbacks, it's not clear if more money from the federal government is coming either. But even so, cities with the same problems that Denver has had want to know how Denver officials convinced a car culture to turn to mass transit.

In Washington, D.C., light rail is being installed in areas that don't have any rail service at the moment, such as historically African-American neighborhoods. H Street was once one of the busiest commercial districts in the city, but it never really recovered from the riots of 1968. Now the city is hoping to change that. For months now, the street has been ripped up as crews have been laying track.

Tiffany Harding is a commuter and a resident of the area. The other day, as she stood in the cold on H Street, she expressed hopes that light rail would change the neighborhood and the city.

"You'd get more people coming, and you'd get better businesses and ... well, let me put it this way, it'd be easier to move around," she said.

More and more civic leaders across the country are talking about how cities need to become magnets for talent in order to become truly world-class cities. Many of those leaders see light rail as part of that transformation.

Puentes, of Brookings, says that American cities now have to compete globally.

"They're going to have to be able to attract young, qualified workers, and it's going to take a robust transportation system to move these folks around. In case after case, we're seeing that that is what these folks are looking for."

 

[W. K. Lis]

Scarborough don't want TC

North York dont want TC

Etobicoke don't want TC

Telling almost 2 million people that they should shut up and just swallow "Transit City" is a dictatorship.

They are paying taxes like Torontonians from the core,
They have a voting right like everyone else

It is called DEMOCRACY

Except that most councilors in those areas want Transit City than nothing in their areas.

 

[Solid Snake]

From www.npr.org comes this story:

Agreed LRT done properly like in Europe, yes
LRT on the right corridors, then Yes,

Miller's Transit city is nowhere near what I've seen in Europe minus Eglinton

 

[Solid Snake]

Except that most councilors in those areas want Transit City than nothing in their areas.

It's about what the people want and not councilors.
Their jobs is to represent the people who elected them.

If Transit City was so great than Ford would not have won such a strong mandate

Democracy

 

[Dan416]

To be fair the election wasn't based solely on transit. That said, the only candidate who endorsed TC without reserve came in a distant third to Ford and Smitherman who both promised subways.