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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
I am typically against decentralization. I think it works when everything is in one place.. If we start making nodes everywhere then we just have cars goine everywhere... HOWEVER Sheppard and yonge is being served by transit and a Major Highway.... Also Yonge and Eglinton is directly in the middle of the city and will eb accesable by transit. In theory we might have a Go train/Eglinton Stop near Don valley and at weston... What Im suggesting is instead of putting every major destination downtown maybe we should give insentives for businesses and residential development to grow in these two areas.... how about less business Tax or less condo development charges... Im not suggesting this everywhere but again these two spots which as our transit plan is today would see major transit connections. If we could get people to travel north on Yonge Versus South then the line could work a while longer....
 
THe problem is not nodal development. The problem is we have too many nodes. If we had 3 primary nodes, say Mississauga, North York, and Scarborough, and focussed our development on them accordingly, it would be much more efficient to serve them all with higher order transit between downtown and each other.

With our scattered development plans, there are a dozen nodes and none of them will achieve any reasonable level of buildout for decades. North York is just about the most advanced, and that's only because it had a very loud advocate for a long time.

Also, this nodal development only functions if each node functions as a city-within-a-city. If North York were to function as an independent city of 750,000 that just happens to lie in the GTA then meeting transit is simpler than if it's a satellite of Toronto proper as it is now.

In reality for this system to really work we need a cultural shift - people have to admit that the GTA is no longer a region that can be commuted from one end to another. If you live in the west end, you work in the west end, no ifs, ands, or buts. We haven't gotten there yet but that day is coming. I know that when I was job hunting I wanted to live downtown and didn't even apply to anything in the 905 because of the commute. That will eventually become the norm.
 
Well it makes sense to me that the nodal development be situated arround transit.... Which makes these two destinations key.... Sheppar/yonge & yonge/eglinton..... Although STC and KIPLING offer highway access it has much less transit... Of course it has the 905 Go connections and outer 416 but Shep/yonge and yonge/eglinton can be accessed by many torontonians by the new eglinton line and the yonge subway.... Transit will play greater role in the future... As a result with the rob ford plan it seems that we are directing people towards yonge.... If we are going to do that we miswell put the work there as well....
 
lafard said:
THe problem is not nodal development. The problem is we have too many nodes. If we had 3 primary nodes, say Mississauga, North York, and Scarborough, and focussed our development on them accordingly, it would be much more efficient to serve them all with higher order transit between downtown and each other.

With our scattered development plans, there are a dozen nodes and none of them will achieve any reasonable level of buildout for decades. North York is just about the most advanced, and that's only because it had a very loud advocate for a long time.

Also, this nodal development only functions if each node functions as a city-within-a-city. If North York were to function as an independent city of 750,000 that just happens to lie in the GTA then meeting transit is simpler than if it's a satellite of Toronto proper as it is now.

In reality for this system to really work we need a cultural shift - people have to admit that the GTA is no longer a region that can be commuted from one end to another. If you live in the west end, you work in the west end, no ifs, ands, or buts. We haven't gotten there yet but that day is coming. I know that when I was job hunting I wanted to live downtown and didn't even apply to anything in the 905 because of the commute. That will eventually become the norm.
Click to expand...

+1 and QFT

The problem is that our Nodes don't function as independant entities in and of themselves (with the side benefit of interacting with other nodes). All our nodes are oriented towards getting transit towards downtown Toronto rather than interconnecting each other. While someone living at Y/E or Dundas West has easy and reliable transit access to the offices downtown, those same residents DO NOT have easy transit access to, say, each other or STC. That is the major failure of the GTA's Nodel development plan.
 
The biggest hurdle for Toronto is all the different systems, fares, and uncoordinated planning.
Notice how she says Translink when talking about transit and not 5 or 6 different systems in Toronto.
In Vancouver everything from commuter rail, bus, seabus, SkyTrain, roads,and freeways are run with one agency using one budget. Translink has it's problems but the idea is an excellent one by viewing transportation in a holistic approach as opposed to a bunch of disconnected fiefdoms like the GTA's. The Translink model is one that the GTA should emulate but never will.
 
ssiguy2 said:
The biggest hurdle for Toronto is all the different systems, fares, and uncoordinated planning.
Notice how she says Translink when talking about transit and not 5 or 6 different systems in Toronto.
In Vancouver everything from commuter rail, bus, seabus, SkyTrain, roads,and freeways are run with one agency using one budget. Translink has it's problems but the idea is an excellent one by viewing transportation in a holistic approach as opposed to a bunch of disconnected fiefdoms like the GTA's. The Translink model is one that the GTA should emulate but never will.
Click to expand...

Umm... Metrolinx is based on the Translink model. It's just too young (and didn't have an Olympic agenda backing it) to get everything under the same roof yet. Give it 10 years.
 
gweed123 said:
$27 million/km? Are they smoking the BC blaze, or is Toronto just really overpriced?
Click to expand...

$27M/km is more than what Toronto pays for track and overhead per km for surface streetcar stuff and we have some pretty darn pricey intersection work (woo grand unions). I'm pretty sure Fleet Street came in well under that rate.

Once you start taking into account inflation (Spadina was priced with inflation built-in, don't know about Transit City), rolling stock for 5 minute or better service, underground components, storage yards, etc. the number becomes much larger very quickly.

If you can build the LRT by simply removing current traffic lanes (no land expropriation), build a storage yard without requiring brownfield cleanup, have a peak service of 10 minute frequencies (very low rollingstock count), and do not go underground then I buy that number.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
+1 and QFT

The problem is that our Nodes don't function as independant entities in and of themselves (with the side benefit of interacting with other nodes). All our nodes are oriented towards getting transit towards downtown Toronto rather than interconnecting each other. While someone living at Y/E or Dundas West has easy and reliable transit access to the offices downtown, those same residents DO NOT have easy transit access to, say, each other or STC. That is the major failure of the GTA's Nodel development plan.
Click to expand...

Sadly, this was the supposed function and vision of the much maligned Sheppard 'stubway'. And this is exactly what LRT cannot accomplish on that corridor...especially if it's not going to STC. I remain a firm believer that a fully completed Sheppard subway (Downsview to STC) will be utterly transformative for the inner suburbs and the city as a whole. It will put every corner of the city within a 20 min bus ride of long/medium haul rapid transit, making every corner of the 416 accessible. In turn this will make other 416 nodes more independent in their development.
 
Interesting to see the comments in this article shift to talking about transit service to the core: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...anization-of-downtown-toronto/article1981037/ I'm not sure if these are UT members making these comments, but if they aren't, I think we have more support for the DRL than we may realize. I don't think it would be too hard to create a compelling case for the average person as to why the DRL is needed in order to sustain the growth talked about in this article.
 
gweed123 said:
Interesting to see the comments in this article shift to talking about transit service to the core: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...anization-of-downtown-toronto/article1981037/ I'm not sure if these are UT members making these comments, but if they aren't, I think we have more support for the DRL than we may realize. I don't think it would be too hard to create a compelling case for the average person as to why the DRL is needed in order to sustain the growth talked about in this article.
Click to expand...

I know that one dude "Darren in TO" brings up the DRL on like every single transit-related newspaper article in the Globe, the Post, and the Star. It gets kind of obnoxious actually.

I'd be careful about reading too much into newspaper comments. They're just as insular as any other forum and they usually don't reflect the general public.
 
^ An extremely obnoxious one. We always seem to get one or two of those types of trolls here at a time - they stay for a few months, spewing their vitriol endlessly, and then vanish in a frustrated huff to return to trolling newspaper comment sections, but not before demonizing us as left wing, Miller loving pinkos as a parting gift.
 
Towered said:
^ An extremely obnoxious one. We always seem to get one or two of those types of trolls here at a time - they stay for a few months, spewing their vitriol endlessly, and then vanish in a frustrated huff to return to trolling newspaper comment sections, but not before demonizing us as left wing, Miller loving pinkos as a parting gift.
Click to expand...

The one lady who joined and went on a tirade in the Roncesvalles reconstruction thread has my vote for best one-weeker ever. She was hilarious.
 
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