Transit City Plan

[Electrify]

This was my comment to that article:

I'd like to be the devil's advocate for a minute and defend somewhat tighter stop spacing. Think of transit as an elevator: You're on the 7th floor and decide to walk up to the 8th floor, and feel that having the elevator stop there is a waste. However, someone who is getting on at the ground floor may also want to get off at the 8th floor, so having a stop there isn't a waste.

I'm not trying to say that transit should stop at everyone's doorstop, but there is a case for having a more local oriented transit with SOMEWHAT frequent stops. However, if demand and density is having your transit vehicle stop every 100m with a large number of passengers boarding at each stop, then it makes sense to use a higher-order transit vehicle with wider stops.

This comment and its replies are very refreshing. Most Torontonians who support public transit believe in Condon's theory; that urban transit should focus solely on a local need and feature frequent stops, this includes light rail and metro lines. Any long distance travel should be serviced by the separate commuter transit services. The previous LRT "rapid transit" plan presented by the previous mayor of Toronto would have spent billions of dollars to have trams stop every 400m in low density areas. This would not have provided the improved mobility worthy of this investment. With that said, I do strongly disagree with the new mayor's position of simply killing the plan, and feel it would be much wiser to try and fix some of its shortcomings than to scrap it and start from square one.

Furthering on this, I also agree with what some have said regarding using transit to concentrate mobility within the city rather than expand it. With transit fares costing as much as $3 per ride, in some cases each way, why would one take a slow moving bus or streetcar for their local needs when they can simply walk or cycle to their destination?

 

[Tewder]

I agree, but add. At least IMO that the slow silent undercurrent to the whole transit fight in the GTA is not only when and where are each mode (subway, LRT, BRT, Bus) suitable, but also in what order should they be built. We all agree that the CBD needs at least one if not two HRT upgrades (well unless you're totally LRT dogmatic) and yet there was not political will to put these lines on the table. Meanwhile lines and lines and lines of LRT and BRT were drawn all over the city map with little apparent regard for their effect on the already taxed existing system. Furthermore there was silence from the regional rail network (GO) which should be providing the commuter service that we seem to have appropriated to the subway network.

You sort of underscore my point: it is the frantic politicization of the issue, due to a fundamental long term lack of commitment to reasonable funding, that makes the fighting about mode or order of construction so desperate. It is a starved feeding-frenzy over meagre scraps, in other words. This is not a healthy situation. This is not the responsible way to plan for city growth and infrastructure. Most sane people would realize this but the self-interested parties are so starved and so paranoid of losing hard-won gains that nobody is thinking sanely, including those who are reponsible for transit planning. The fact that the city or province or Metrolinx or whatever hasn't even discussed planning for a DRL is telling... and heck, the futile struggle of some - with its concomittant endless debate - to plan a DRL that is the answerto everything is telling because there is no such line: News Flash here, Toronto needs more than one inner-city crosstown line! Crazy to say it, nevermind plan for it given the disfunction that plagues transit planning in the city. Sort of embarrassing, really.

 

[Electrify]

Metrolinx does have a DRL subway line from Dundas West to Pape via Queen in their... 30+ year plan

 

[gweed123]

Metrolinx does have a DRL subway line from Dundas West to Pape via Queen in their... 30+ year plan

They're not even going to get their 15 year plan done in 15 years... Heck, I'd be surprised if they got their 15 year plan done in 20.

 

[Tewder]

Great. All these people flowing into the city on suburb subways but not having anything efficient to connect to when there. Should be pretty!

 

[sixrings]

Minus Eglinton - I miss Transit City.

 

[nfitz]

Metrolinx does have a DRL subway line from Dundas West to Pape via Queen in their... 30+ year plan

In their 25-year plan. The city formally requested that it be moved to the 15-year plan and the TTC is continuing with pre-EA studies.

 

[gweed123]

In their 25-year plan. The city formally requested that it be moved to the 15-year plan and the TTC is continuing with pre-EA studies.

If any piece of the 25 year plan should be moved up, it's the DRL. To be honest, I don't have much hope that the 25 year plan will ever come close to being a reality. We'll be lucky if we get half of the 15 year plan. It seems to be the pattern in Toronto: Propose 5 projects, get 1, 2 if we're lucky. The 15 year portion of the Big Move is what, 30 projects? (Just off the top of my head, it's somewhere in that neighbourhood). If we can get 10 of those, it'll be a success. 20, and we'd all be jumping for joy.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Yeah, it sucks when people create advocacy groups that push to derail shovel-ready transit plans.

 

[gweed123]

Yeah, it sucks when people create advocacy groups that push to derail shovel-ready transit plans.

It also sucks when a mayor and TTC chair scrap and redesign an entire transit master plan based on a backpacking trip to Europe...

And the only casualties in this new plan are the SELRT and the FWLRT. The SELRT was a mistake to begin with, and Finch just got caught in the crossfire. I have no regrets about the SELRT being canned in favour of a longer Eglinton line. If they implement some sort of a BRT on Sheppard, I'll be even happier.

 

[lafard]

It also sucks when a mayor and TTC chair scrap and redesign an entire transit master plan based on a backpacking trip to Europe...

Care to elaborate on how building 3/5 reccomendations in the RTES (SRT, Spadina, and Eglinton - two of which are longer than the RTES recommendations) and having a fourth (Yonge ext) on the books is "scrapping and redesigning" it?

Sheppard was the only casualty caused by Transit City, and it's debatable whether that should have been top of the priority list anyways.

 

[gweed123]

Care to elaborate on how building 3/5 reccomendations in the RTES (SRT, Spadina, and Eglinton - two of which are longer than the RTES recommendations) and having a fourth (Yonge ext) on the books is "scrapping and redesigning" it?

Sheppard was the only casualty caused by Transit City, and it's debatable whether that should have been top of the priority list anyways.

1) The Spadina extension was not part of Transit City. The main reason it was kept was because it was a joint funding initiative that was too far along for it to be scrapped.

2) The Yonge extension was not part of Transit City either. It has since been delayed until God knows when.

3) Under the RTES, the SRT was scheduled to be an upgrade to Mark II ICTS, not a conversion to LRT.

4) While I agree the Sheppard Subway extension plan didn't exactly make sense to be at the top of the list, the SELRT made even less sense. The fact that it was at the top of the list was dumb. The plan itself was dumb. Transit City took a bad idea and a bad funding priority and somehow managed to actually make it worse.

5) The subway extension to Sherway, which was in the RTES, was not in Transit City.

I'm not saying there aren't echoes of RTES in Transit City, but let's face it. Transit City was a complete overhaul of the TMP. Completely different technologies, and half the routes proposed in TC had never been proposed in any other TMP (Finch LRT, Jane LRT, Don Mills LRT, SMLRT).

 

[Northern Magus]

It also sucks when a mayor and TTC chair scrap and redesign an entire transit master plan based on a backpacking trip to Europe...

Yawn. Put the blame for this where it belongs: squarely on the shoulders of Mike Harris. It's unreasonable to fault the Socialists for realizing that they had limited budgets to work within.

I think Graphic Matt's point was that it's ridiculously counterproductive to work towards cancelling transit enhancements that have already been funded and tendered, given how truly rare it is that such funding occurs in the first place. But the state of affairs (and debates) we all find ourselves in now really are the legacy of two decisions made by Mike Harris in 1995: first, to kill the Eglinton Subway, and second, to download transit funding to municipalities.

Realistically, we're all still coming to grips with how to address the accumulated transit infrastructure backlog that began with those. And I can understand Graphic Matt's sense of frustration with the fact that just as we were about to move on and actually get something built for a change, along came people wanting to take us right back to the drawing board. Which, with the Ford win, is more or less what's happened.

Unfortunately, as the costs start to balloon on the Laird-STC section, I wouldn't at all be surprised if a Hudak government viewed it as an easy target for budget pruning.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Mike Harris couldn't have canceled the Sheppard Line because Mel Lastman would have made too much noise about it.

 

[gweed123]

Yawn. Put the blame for this where it belongs: squarely on the shoulders of Mike Harris. It's unreasonable to fault the Socialists for realizing that they had limited budgets to work within.

I think Graphic Matt's point was that it's ridiculously counterproductive to work towards cancelling transit enhancements that have already been funded and tendered, given how truly rare it is that such funding occurs in the first place. But the state of affairs (and debates) we all find ourselves in now really are the legacy of two decisions made by Mike Harris in 1995: first, to kill the Eglinton Subway, and second, to download transit funding to municipalities.

Realistically, we're all still coming to grips with how to address the accumulated transit infrastructure backlog that began with those. And I can understand Graphic Matt's sense of frustration with the fact that just as we were about to move on and actually get something built for a change, along came people wanting to take us right back to the drawing board. Which, with the Ford win, is more or less what's happened.

Unfortunately, as the costs start to balloon on the Laird-STC section, I wouldn't at all be surprised if a Hudak government viewed it as an easy target for budget pruning.

I understand that sense of frustration as well. But some people on here make it sound like nothing at all came of RTES, that it was a dead plan walking, and that TC was drafted to get the process moving again. The reality is that RTES was progressing. At the time of RTES being scrapped in favour of TC, the Spadina extension was already being planned, and funding was secured from the City and the Province, with only the Feds holding out. Had the City taken the resources (both manpower and financial) that it put behind TC, the SRT refurb could have been underway by now, as well as maybe the Eglinton subway. Not in the "final planning and engineering stages", but with shovels actually in the ground.

Yes, RTES wasn't "shovel-ready" as TC now is, but many of the projects were about to enter EA phases. That's still pretty decent progress. You could argue that the funding that Toronto received for transit expansion in ~2008 was specifically for Transit City, but who's to say if the City had gone to the province with a couple EAs for subway expansion, that they wouldn't have thrown the same amount of money at those too?

The RTES was just as much alive in 2006 as Transit City was in early 2010. The only difference was that Transit City came at a time when the Province was willing to throw money at transit. RTES didn't have that luxury.

Does Mike Harris bare the brunt of the responsibility for f**king over transit in the GTA for over a decade? Absolutely. But there was a working plan that was drafted after he left office, that was intended to lay the blueprint for the next 10-15 years of transit expansion in Toronto. That plan died when Miller & Co wiped the slate clean (with the exception of the SRT refurb) and drafted Transit City. I know people don't want to admit it, because Ford is the bad guy, but he only did exactly what Miller did 4 years earlier. The only difference this time (thankfully) is that there's a Regional Transportation Planning authority around to make sure that at least part of what was started under the previous plan continues forward (ie Eglinton).