Transit City Plan

[DavidH]

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

I'm not sure what the distinction is.

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?

Absolutely agreed, but there is a need for other solutions for mid-range trips.

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.

Absolutely, and if you'll read my original post above, I agreed with you on that. Right now, the best mid-range solution for Durham is BRT routes evolving over time to fully-separated lanes - but that can be done as needed - and connecting to STC or a potential new Markham Road regional terminal to provide connectivity. Considering extending the Sheppard East line makes little sense, and makes no sense at all when Durham itself wants its connections elsewhere.

But the GO enhancements are key.

 

[DavidH]

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.

However, today's Star says this will go to an EA process. I suspect they mean a Metrolinx Business Case process.

 

[Dan416]

The Sheppard East LRT is the one I'm most vehemently against, which is exactly why it's being pushed as the first Transfer City project by Giambrone & Co.

 

[Voltz]

However, today's Star says this will go to an EA process. I suspect they mean a Metrolinx Business Case process.

It's not going through an EA, and that article appears to have been pieced together and published for the sake of being published, the author probably just wrote that it is (or will be) going through an EA because of previous ramblings on extending the line.

But they may in a dozen years or so, do some kind of business case for such a line, but it will definitely not be on twin rivers

 

[Voltz]

The Sheppard East LRT is the one I'm most vehemently against, which is exactly why it's being pushed as the first Transfer City project by Giambrone & Co.

They are building it first because you are against it?

Sheppard may be first, but Finch and Eglinton are only about a year behind

 

[allabootmatt]

They are building it first because you are against it?

They're building it first to make a point: that subways are out, even where there's already half an existing subway. Sheppard is sort of a "first, shoot all the tunnel engineers" sort of statement about where Giambrone and Miller want transit planning to go.

I think it's pretty mean-spirited myself.

 

[jamesbow]

Respectfully, suggesting that the Sheppard East LRT was set up specifically to kill the Sheppard subway strikes me as a sort of tinfoil hat conspiracy theory talk. As recently as 2006, Giambrone and Miller were talking about the need to extend the Sheppard subway to Victoria Park, and even, Giambrone said, providing the $2.1 Billion to "complete the line" to the Scarborough Town Centre.

I think it's more accurate to say that the Sheppard East LRT was selected to give higher order transit on a corridor that won't be finished, otherwise. It's not a nail in the coffin, it's more a reflection that the coffin was boxed and buried by Queen's Park back in 2002.

Though, if Metrolinx can reasonably make it come back from the dead (and McGuinty shows us the money), I don't see that either would be opposed to it. The talk of Metrolinx/Transit City conflicts focus on the mode of transport on Eglinton, not on Sheppard East. And I can't help but notice that the first segment that's proposed for construction in 2009 -- the Agincourt underpass and tracks east of Kennedy -- is the one segment that DOESN'T conflict with the Metrolinx trial-balloon of constructing a Downsview-to-Kennedy subway and putting an LRT on Sheppard out to Meadowvale.

...James

 

[Rainforest]

Though, if Metrolinx can reasonably make it come back from the dead (and McGuinty shows us the money), I don't see that either would be opposed to it. The talk of Metrolinx/Transit City conflicts focus on the mode of transport on Eglinton, not on Sheppard East. And I can't help but notice that the first segment that's proposed for construction in 2009 -- the Agincourt underpass and tracks east of Kennedy -- is the one segment that DOESN'T conflict with the Metrolinx trial-balloon of constructing a Downsview-to-Kennedy subway and putting an LRT on Sheppard out to Meadowvale.

It would be great if they do that: Downsview-to-Kennedy subway, and LRT east of Kennedy.

It is puzzling how they are going to use tracks east of Kennedy before building any rail connection to Don Mills subway. Are they going to operate shuttle buses between Kennedy and Don Mills for a few years? Or, will the tracks just sit there unused until the connection is build?

 

[jamesbow]

It's just the first phase of construction. I think the hope is to start building in 2009 with an opening in 2012, and it will open in one piece. But it makes sense to start building at the east end or the middle because the west end of the line is still undergoing some complicated design.

To try and make the connection between subway and LRT as efficient as possible at Don Mills, the TTC is looking at two options:

1) Extend the Sheppard subway to Consumers to bring it closer to the surface, and then have a one-level interchange to a fare-restricted LRT platform in the middle of Sheppard Avenue -- island platform to island-platform.

2) Take the LRT into a tunnel at Consumers and bring it into Don Mills station at subway train level -- sharing the tracks with the subway trains, in fact, so that passengers can exit the subway, cross the platform, and board waiting LRT trains.

Metrolinx is throwing a few other options into the mix, including the Downsview/Kennedy subway, and hopefully we'll come to a decision in 2009 so we can have _something_ under construction before the next municipal and provincial elections.

...James

 

[Rainforest]

Metrolinx is throwing a few other options into the mix, including the Downsview/Kennedy subway, and hopefully we'll come to a decision in 2009 so we can have _something_ under construction before the next municipal and provincial elections.

Well, if Metrolinx backs this option, TTC should not block it. This solution has numerous benefits.

While it will be more expensive than the two options from Sheppard EA, its cost is not out of whack with the overall scope of proposed construction in the north (counting Finch LRT, Sheppard LRT, and both northbound subway extensions).

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The Sheppard Transfer City line is being fast-tracked for two reasons: 1) it goes to Malvern, whose residents are prioritized/valued two or three times as highly as residents of other neighbourhoods, and 2) to preempt a Sheppard subway extension before the province decides to do the right thing and finish the line.

It'd be nice if the Sheppard subway was extended as far as Kennedy/Agincourt now so that the opportunity to run it to STC later was kept alive, but that doesn't seem to be an option. It's too open-ended and the Metrolinx/MoveOntario era is emerging as one in which everything is set in stone for the sake of having 'firm and comprehensive plans.'

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?

I know that as soon as you see my posts, you click "quote" and start typing before you even read them, but, really, you should read them.

You know as well as I do that the dashed planning arrow from Sheppard to Durham, or anywhere past Meadowvale, not has been officially proposed, but this potential extension to Durham has been repeatedly cited as a tangible benefit, yet another 'reason why' argument to build the Sheppard Transfer City line right now and not extend the Sheppard subway. People are spending time and money putting these dashed "planning arrows to nowhere" on maps, debating them at meetings, writing about them in newspapers, etc. And now, the plan you claim does not exist is getting some kind of EA process. It's a waste of our time talking about the extension...doesn't Metrolinx have anything better to do?

If it ends up being proposed to run from Sheppard along Kingston instead of Twyn Rivers, just replace "tens" with "hundreds" in my previous post...hell, it could serve several thousand riders per day and still be an obscene use of transit capital, adding god knows how much to the cost of an LRT scheme that's already incredibly, unbelievably expensive. I never said it was going to be built along Twyn Rivers, I was making fun of the very idea of extending it to Durham. And yet, most of the Transit City and Metrolinx plans are so far removed from logic and reality that I wouldn't put seriously considering it (or even suggesting it) past them. It's so wonderful that riders may get dumped off at "the Durham Region border," too.

I'm not sure what the distinction is.

This is really simple: a transit line to Durham crosses the border with and runs into Toronto, a transit line in Durham does not.

The Durham-416/York border does not need and cannot support *any* transit lines beyond the existing and proposed GO lines and beyond regular GO buses that can fly along the 401. Whatever math anyone's using to try to justify LRT or BRT lines across the Rouge would be substantially altered by running GO trains and buses every 10 minutes instead of every 45 minutes, or whatever the particular case may be. There are certainly not 600,000 potential riders of a Sheppard streetcar extension to Durham or any local 416-to-905 BRT lines since the population of places like Clarington and Uxbridge is totally irrelevant. The only people that we're realistically concerned with are those in Pickering who live around or west of Whites Road, people that are too far west of Pickering GO and would use a connection to a GO station west of their home, like Rouge Hill, and would not benefit from having to travel east to the Pickering GO area to access trains or GO buses...and even then, a local/Rocket bus running to Rouge Hill every 10 minutes would be more than sufficient. This also assumes that no additional GO stations will be added, but perhaps they will, if shorter, more nimble trains are run on the line. If someone from Ajax or Whitby or Oshawa needs to go to any point in Scarborough, the fastest they'll ever be able to do it is by taking GO trains or GO buses on the 401. We could start by running a local service bus route on Kingston that connects Pickering and Scarborough and if it carries more than a few hundred people per day, we can boost service to every 20 minutes. It's quite obvious that anything in excess of that would result in buses running literally empty. We simply do not need to build transit infrastructure that serves no purpose other than giving theoretical groups of riders multiple options to travel from any one place to any other place, especially when these markets are already served by higher order transit lines.

 

[RedRocket191]

I've said it before and we'll say it again - if we rely on ridership than very few corridors in the entire region will warrant service improvements.

If we're going to make a dent in congestion we're going to have to force a change in behaviour instead of waiting for people to change. We've been waiting for people to change for 50 years and it doesn't happen by itself.

The only way we're going to drastically change the way we build cities and change the ways we get around cities is to build lines in new areas.

If that means building an LRT line in Durham leads to changing land use and changing behaviours then I support it.

 

[doady]

Doesn't Highway 2 in Durham already have high ridership? it is also lined with commerical uses, so there is high potential for intensification.

But I think Highway 2 LRT should be a separate line since the Sheppard LRT would be too long if extended. Unless of course the Sheppard subway is extended also...

 

[ShonTron]

The only way we're going to drastically change the way we build cities and change the ways we get around cities is to build lines in new areas.

If that means building an LRT line in Durham leads to changing land use and changing behaviours then I support it.

With all respect, I never got the idea how LRT magically changes land use and behaviours. I almost let myself get excited by that, but it takes a lot more than tracks in the street to change these things.

Let's look at Sheppard between Bathurst and Downsview Station. The whole street is "Avenuizing" without LRT, just the relatively poor service on the 84 bus (west of Downsview, the service is augmented with the 106 and 108 routes branching off by Jane). The Queensway is urbanizing as well between Kipling and Parklawn.

Durham is planning some sort of BRT, which might be adequate, especially paralleling the GO line, which if upgraded to regional rail, would be "Durham's Subway".

Brampton has lofty goals of urbanizing Queen Street, and it is starting to happen with Park Place and Rhythm with cranes and pits. Yet only Viva-type service is planned there. Same with Markham, though GO improvements will help as well.

I fear that we focus on the transit technology a tad too much. I'd even say for Sheppard, forget LRT, forget a subway past Vic Park (but extend it there as per the last EA, for Consumers Road and and the bottleneck at the 404). Rocket buses east of Vic Park to STC and Malvern would do the job just fine for the short to medium term.

 

[RedRocket191]

There is no question that any improvement will support the dreams of good land use planning, and there is no question that the more permanent the infrastructure, the more likely the area will be to redevelop. I just think that 20 minute service (as was suggested above) isn't going to cut it.