Transit City Plan

[allabootmatt]

(It) takes the high-quality transit service available in the core and begins to extend that to the four corners of Toronto," said TTC chair Adam Giambrone.

"(Transit City) takes a downtown reality, where transit is not only competitive but, in many cases, is superior to the private automobile, and begins to extend that across the entire city, making transit a real and viable alternative to people in every corner of the city,"

Uhhh...what planet is Mr. Giambrone on? His own ward has hilariously inadequate transit, for which he has proposed zero help. Same for every other downtown ward. If it paid some attention to the densest and most transit-dependent parts of Toronto, I would be way more on board with Transit City.

 

[taal]

What you said above is so easy to say ...

Yes, clearly there should be WAY more attention being paid to the downtown area. But polotics is such a big part of this game that if this soley resulted in projects that for one couldn't be extended into the 905 or didn't help the outer 416 residents we probably wouldn't have seen as much funding.

The DRL is the best example. Anyway what other imporvoments were you looking for downtown? Hard to imagine any more LRT routes anywhere else downtown. Other then the proposed Lake Shore east/west lines.

There are plans to address queen and hopefully king street streetcars in the future.

 

[Dilla]

Yes, clearly there should be WAY more attention being paid to the downtown area. But polotics is such a big part of this game that if this soley resulted in projects that for one couldn't be extended into the 905 or didn't help the outer 416 residents we probably wouldn't have seen as much funding.

Although this is the reality of the system, some (including myself) see it as unfortunate that it is so. That this is how things go does not mean it's beyond noting that it's a terrible way to do things.

The DRL is the best example. Anyway what other imporvoments were you looking for downtown? Hard to imagine any more LRT routes anywhere else downtown. Other then the proposed Lake Shore east/west lines.

It's not at all difficult to imagine improvements to downtown beyond the DRL. How about another subway crosstown? Yes, on top of the DRL! I know, it's crazy talk. Moreover, the DRL is still a big maybe. It's the last thing to be built in this plan, which makes me nervous. We all know how quickly funding and/or political will for this kind of thing can disappear. The Eglington subway, for instance.

With the attitude toward subways being what it is at city hall at the moment, I honestly don't think i'll see one built in my lifetime in downtown Toronto. More's the pity.

I find mixed traffic streetcars so cumbersome in the core as to be almost useless. A lot of trips in the core are a half hour streetcar ride, or a 40 minute walk (assuming a transfer is involved). Why waste the $2.75 if you can spare 10 minutes?

There are plans to address queen and hopefully king street streetcars in the future.

I'm not sure how King and Queen can really be addressed without taking the cars off the street. While I wouldn't mind if we experimented with that sort of option, I don't see it happening anytime soon. As long as those streets are clogged with cars, streetcars are going to be slow, however numerous, large, or even with controls over the traffic lights.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Plan rolls out new era in transit
Nov 24, 2008 04:30 AM
Tess Kalinowski
Transportation Reporter


Sheppard East will be the first of the seven proposed light-rail lines to use supersized streetcars to bring downtown-style transit to the suburbs.
...
Spurs to the zoo and the Scarborough Civic Centre are being studied. Giambrone said it makes sense to build them.
...
Cars will run every four to six minutes in rush hour; and six to 10 minutes at low times.
...
The road will still need widening at intersections to make room for a left-turn lane and a TTC platform.
...
To the east, a separate environmental assessment will look at the possibility of continuing the Sheppard line to the Durham Region border, where passengers could connect with transit there.

Aargh!

 

[taal]

Regarding the mixed traffic approach to the street cars downtown I find they work only in off peek times i.e. on the weekend, a ride on Queen east to the beaches is pleasant most of the times!

During the week though, when traffic is bad, bunching is such a severe problem coupled with the fact that even when you get on the trip takes forever (I should note these problems are in fact one in the same).

Anyway, but in reality - what other improvements do you purpose for the downtown area, is it even needed? The # of people who walk downtown is very large. Ignoring the east /west subway what else do you think there is a need for. Are any of the bus routes undeserved? Do we need new routes all together?

Although this is the reality of the system, some (including myself) see it as unfortunate that it is so. That this is how things go does not mean it's beyond noting that it's a terrible way to do things.



It's not at all difficult to imagine improvements to downtown beyond the DRL. How about another subway crosstown? Yes, on top of the DRL! I know, it's crazy talk. Moreover, the DRL is still a big maybe. It's the last thing to be built in this plan, which makes me nervous. We all know how quickly funding and/or political will for this kind of thing can disappear. The Eglington subway, for instance.

With the attitude toward subways being what it is at city hall at the moment, I honestly don't think i'll see one built in my lifetime in downtown Toronto. More's the pity.

I find mixed traffic streetcars so cumbersome in the core as to be almost useless. A lot of trips in the core are a half hour streetcar ride, or a 40 minute walk (assuming a transfer is involved). Why waste the $2.75 if you can spare 10 minutes?



I'm not sure how King and Queen can really be addressed without taking the cars off the street. While I wouldn't mind if we experimented with that sort of option, I don't see it happening anytime soon. As long as those streets are clogged with cars, streetcars are going to be slow, however numerous, large, or even with controls over the traffic lights.

 

[W. K. Lis]

"(Transit City) takes a downtown reality, where transit is not only competitive but, in many cases, is superior to the private automobile, and begins to extend that across the entire city, making transit a real and viable alternative to people in every corner of the city," he said.

The "downtown reality" is the HRT subway, transit separated from automobile traffic.

 

[Anth]

A much needed extension comes to mind...

 

[allabootmatt]

What you said above is so easy to say ...

Yes, clearly there should be WAY more attention being paid to the downtown area. But polotics is such a big part of this game that if this soley resulted in projects that for one couldn't be extended into the 905 or didn't help the outer 416 residents we probably wouldn't have seen as much funding.

The DRL is the best example. Anyway what other imporvoments were you looking for downtown? Hard to imagine any more LRT routes anywhere else downtown. Other then the proposed Lake Shore east/west lines.

There are plans to address queen and hopefully king street streetcars in the future.

Yup, the DRL. Or hell, an LRT DRL, with the Jane and Don Mills lines extended underground or via the rail corridor through the core. Something, anything that would provide new grade-separated rapid transit south of Bloor, where the most vibrant and densely populated place in Canada is desperately short of transit capacity.

I agree that one of the attractive things about Transit City was that it could be easily sold as a regional project thanks to the 905 extensions, making it attractive to fund (notwithstanding the fact that MoveOntario just funded everything). But that's exactly why they downtown improvements should have been included. Getting money for them, alone, later on will be very, very tricky. The city missed a historic opportunity to include them in the package, and we will be worse off for it.

 

[Hipster Duck]

^Ah, but you're missing the point of Transfer City, matt! The whole raison d'etre of this project is to introduce streetcars to every part of the city. Downtown already has streetcars, so it's good to go.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Think of all the tens of people that will take the Twyn Rivers streetcar connector...it'll set some new ridership records, that's for sure!

The claim that the trip from Don Mills to Meadowvale will be 36.5 minutes is pretty damning evidence that the line will save riders no measurable time once you factor in the reduction in frequency. Maybe, on that 14km trip, they'll actually 3 minutes, but what will someone going to VP or Kennedy save? 30 seconds? More likely they'll see longer trips due to the frequency reduction since the 190 will also be trashed. And we need to spend a billion dollars to do this? Is anyone at Meadowvale even going to Don Mills station? It is thoroughly undeniable that Rocket/express service east of Kennedy would be more than sufficient to serve Sheppard, and it would also lower travel times.

 

[DavidH]

Think of all the tens of people that will take the Twyn Rivers streetcar connector...it'll set some new ridership records, that's for sure!

The claim that the trip from Don Mills to Meadowvale will be 36.5 minutes is pretty damning evidence that the line will save riders no measurable time once you factor in the reduction in frequency. Maybe, on that 14km trip, they'll actually 3 minutes, but what will someone going to VP or Kennedy save? 30 seconds? More likely they'll see longer trips due to the frequency reduction since the 190 will also be trashed. And we need to spend a billion dollars to do this? Is anyone at Meadowvale even going to Don Mills station? It is thoroughly undeniable that Rocket/express service east of Kennedy would be more than sufficient to serve Sheppard, and it would also lower travel times.

Twyn Rivers? Someone had better talk to Durham Region, as they want their Hwy 2 BRT service running to Kennedy Station. I don't think it makes much sense, but that's what they've told Metrolinx they want. We'll see (hopefully tomorrow) whether or not they've convinced anyone.

I'm not intrinsically against that kind of connection, but we need modelling to indicate that Durham riders would actually take that connection. I think it's better to get them to the Scarborough RT (or the Eglinton LRT, if the two end up one and the same) at STC or its extension to Markham Road via a higher-speed trip on the 401 using the GO BRT lanes between Markham Road and Pickering. That gets Durham riders access to all of those TTC routes in Scarborough plus access to the BD subway and the Eglinton LRT.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

All transit improvements to Durham in excess of GO trains and GO buses are completely unwarranted and absolutely inexcusable given the ridiculously small riderships they'd serve and the painfully huge capital costs they'd require.

 

[DavidH]

All transit improvements to Durham in excess of GO trains and GO buses are completely unwarranted and absolutely inexcusable given the ridiculously small riderships they'd serve and the painfully huge capital costs they'd require.

Your opinion, not mine. Transit ridership is low in Durham because the service is crap. Better service will provide improved ridership. I don't claim that the Durham BRT will produce Yonge-subway like numbers, and I have serious concern that the Durham plan "as designed" is really a road widening in disguise.

But that doesn't mean that 600,000 people should be abandoned. There are sensible improvements that can be made (like phase 1 of the BRT, which is simply improved service along a key route, transit priority, and better stop facilities) at reasonable costs. Your statement that "all transit improvements..." reminds me of the aphorism that "all absolute statements are false, including this one".

But this isn't a Durham thread, so back to TC we go. My key point was that an extension of Sheppard towards Durham does not make sense in the context of what Durham actually needs, which is better connectivity to Scarborough transit hubs.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Your opinion, not mine. Transit ridership is low in Durham because the service is crap. Better service will provide improved ridership. I don't claim that the Durham BRT will produce Yonge-subway like numbers, and I have serious concern that the Durham plan "as designed" is really a road widening in disguise.

But that doesn't mean that 600,000 people should be abandoned. There are sensible improvements that can be made (like phase 1 of the BRT, which is simply improved service along a key route, transit priority, and better stop facilities).

But this isn't a Durham thread, so back to TC we go. My key point was that an extension of Sheppard towards Durham does not make sense in the context of what Durham actually needs, which is better connectivity to Scarborough transit hubs.

Notice that I said "improvements to Durham", not "improvements in Durham."

Abandoned? Since when does improving GO trains and GO buses, both of which would be at least twice as fast as neverending streetcar lines and will intercept multiple lines in the 416, count as abandoning people?

It's not my opinion, it's fact: spending many hundreds of millions of dollars running streetcars through the Rouge Park to serve tiny and theoretical groups of riders is completely absurd, yet it's been repeatedly cited as a benefit of the line. Is there a single person in the entire city that would benefit from having a one seat ride from Pickering to Fairview Mall? I doubt it. That ride would take over an hour and have a total cost of well over a billion dollars, too.

 

[Voltz]

Notice that I said "improvements to Durham", not "improvements in Durham."

Abandoned? Since when does improving GO trains and GO buses, both of which would be at least twice as fast as neverending streetcar lines and will intercept multiple lines in the 416, count as abandoning people?

It's not my opinion, it's fact: spending many hundreds of millions of dollars running streetcars through the Rouge Park to serve tiny and theoretical groups of riders is completely absurd, yet it's been repeatedly cited as a benefit of the line. Is there a single person in the entire city that would benefit from having a one seat ride from Pickering to Fairview Mall? I doubt it. That ride would take over an hour and have a total cost of well over a billion dollars, too.

I think you know as well as I do that they are not, beyond drawing a dashed line on the map, even considering building a "streetcar" line past meadowvale. Such a line would be at least 40 years away, and there is no possible way that it would be on twin rivers because it is not even physically possible to drive a bus on that road between pickering and scarborough.

And of course I think it would be stupid and a waste of money to build such a line on twin rivers. But why are you arguing against a plan that does not even exist?