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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
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Comparing TC and St Clair isn't silly. The TTC does it. LRTistas do it. Yet if someone pro-subway does it there's ad hominem attacks galore. Get over it. LRT and streetcar are the same in every way except the number of stops.
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Here is the first Google search of "St. Clair LRT" that I found on the TTC website - I am sure here are more. Search for "St. Clair LRT project" and you will find dozens of references.

http://www3.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Pr...Spadina_subway_extension/Public_Art/index.jsp

Similar thing with Spadina and Harbourfront.

After a few TC LRT lines are built and the St. Clair construction is a distant memory, I am sure that it will be renamed LRT.
 
BurlOak said:
After a few TC LRT lines are built and the St. Clair construction is a distant memory, I am sure that it will be renamed LRT.
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The plaque at Union Station at the Harbourfront platform calls it the Harbourfront LRT. It's the ceremonial plaque from the opening day.

Apparently it's been downgraded, who knew?

PS: I think that St. Clair is LRT the same way that the HOV lanes on Eglinton East are BRT. By some very loose definitions they are, but most people don't consider them as such. I'm just saying what the plaque says.
 
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St. Clair technically is LRT by defininition, and by a broader definition so is the mixed streetcar network. In order to be truly effective and to be called what many would consider LRT, our dedicated tramways need to have much higher signal priority than what already exists.
 
andrewpmk said:
They probably would have duplicated St. Clair's stupid design flaw of having the left turn signal for cars appear before the green light for streetcars. Transit City = St. Clair streetcar with modern rolling stock.
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This is not a stupid design flaw, but a requirement of the Roads department. The Roads department is concerned that if the through phase precedes the left-turn phase, then pedestrians who have not finished crossing during the through phase could be hit by left-turning cars rushing to complete the turn. Therefore, they require the left-turn phase to precede the through phase.

You can question the validity of such reasoning, but the streetcar planners had no choice in the matter.
 
Technically a subway is an underground passage and a sandwich restaurant chain. So maybe we can compare the Sheppard subway to the streetcar tunnel between Union and Queens Quay, the pedestrian tunnel between Union and Wellington that will be built for PATH, and 190 restaurants in Toronto. Subways litter the city... we are well served. Do we really need more?
 
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Rainforest said:
Technically, any transit that runs on rails and can operate on-street is LRT. But functionally, such definition is not very useful as it is too broad.

I like Steve Munro's definition: "LRT is streetcar technology used in a rapid transit context, but with a minimum of the trappings of a subway line."

By that definition, St Clair / Spadina / Harbourfront are not LRT. Eglinton is LRT. Finch and Sheppard qualify as LRT, but just barely (not very rapid).
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Where would Hamiltons LRT fit in?
 
I find the irony that Rob Ford wants to put the Eglinton LRT underground yet calls it a Subway. For his convenience no doubt as the Eglinton LRT, even when underground, is not a HRT subway. It's an underground LRT.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
I find the irony that Rob Ford wants to put the Eglinton LRT underground yet calls it a Subway. For his convenience no doubt as the Eglinton LRT, even when underground, is not a HRT subway. It's an underground LRT.
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Yet no one in the media ever brings that up to him
 
andrewpmk said:
I.

If a subway on Finch is built in the hydro corridor from Yonge to Highway 400 and then underground from Highway 400 to Humber College it will cost a lot less than $10 billion.
.
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I can't believe you are talking about a Finch subway being built when it never will be in the near future an anyways and thats being optimistic
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
I find the irony that Rob Ford wants to put the Eglinton LRT underground yet calls it a Subway. For his convenience no doubt as the Eglinton LRT, even when underground, is not a HRT subway. It's an underground LRT.
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I can't keep track of who's arguing what in this absurd discussion, but I'm stupid so I'll contribute.

All of the terminology is blurry. It's perfectly reasonable to call Eglinton LRT a subway. The vehicles are the same width as New York subway trains. The important bit runs underground.

Arguably, it's incorrect to call our existing subway HRT. It wouldn't survive a collision with a GO train, much less a freight train. Lagos is building an LRT system using the subway cars they bought from us.

Yes, Spadina was billed as an LRT when it was built. The meaning of the word drifted. Now LRT means something different in Toronto.

LRT and BRT both cover a ranger of possible operations and designs around the world. Some run exclusively in grade separated rail corridors, other have chunks of mixed traffic operation in old city centres. For example, Viva is building a partially separated BRT system in York Region that will have mixed traffic operation in old Richmond Hill.

If you don't like the word LRT, import a term like pre-Metro or stadtbahn. I think that would confuse things further, but clearly people have obsessively narrow definitions of the word LRT, annoyingly incompatible ones at that.
 
leopetr said:
I can't keep track of who's arguing what in this absurd discussion, but I'm stupid so I'll contribute.

All of the terminology is blurry. It's perfectly reasonable to call Eglinton LRT a subway. The vehicles are the same width as New York subway trains. The important bit runs underground.
.
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For Torontonians, subway is what runs on Yonge, Bloor, University line. I was told at an open house the width of the LRT on Eglinton is the same as the streetcar or perhaps 4" wider. Wow 4". And if the LRT on Eglinton does not run frequent service as like the subways you will hear people call them streetcars. And since it will not be underground once passed Larid it then can't run frequent every 5 min service because they would all be bunched up once they get to grade due to stop lights along Eglinton
 
Palma said:
And if the LRT on Eglinton does not run frequent service as like the subways
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What if they built what you call a subway but only ran it once every 20 minutes?

The more capacity you build, the less service you will run unless you have unlimited subsidies. LRT = better service.

And since it will not be underground once passed Larid it then can't run frequent every 5 min service because they would all be bunched up once they get to grade due to stop lights along Eglinton
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That makes no sense. Frequency of service is driven by capacity required. Bunching doesn't prevent them from running frequent service on the Dufferin bus.

I would also fully expect them to run this with TTC subway operating practices (i.e. if there's a delay on the system, all the trains pause until it's resolved to maintain spacing) instead of TTC surface operating practices (i.e. if there's a delay on the system, short turn everything and kick everyone to the curb because the holy schedule has been desecrated). I see no reason for a properly built LRT to not run the sensible way, especially since Metrolinx and not TTC will own the infrastructure.
 
leopetr said:
What if they built what you call a subway but only ran it once every 20 minutes?

The more capacity you build, the less service you will run unless you have unlimited subsidies. LRT = better service.


That makes no sense. Frequency of service is driven by capacity required. Bunching doesn't prevent them from running frequent service on the Dufferin bus.

I would also fully expect them to run this with TTC subway operating practices (i.e. if there's a delay on the system, all the trains pause until it's resolved to maintain spacing) instead of TTC surface operating practices (i.e. if there's a delay on the system, short turn everything and kick everyone to the curb because the holy schedule has been desecrated). I see no reason for a properly built LRT to not run the sensible way, especially since Metrolinx and not TTC will own the infrastructure.
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That makes no sense. Frequency of service is driven by capacity required. Bunching doesn't prevent them from running frequent service on the Dufferin bus. Afterall it is Metrolinx that will own it and there mindset is that of GO not subways and the corresponding frequent service of subways.

.[/QUOTE]You make no sense. I remember people saying Spadina is not at capacity yet the trains run frequent on there - I read a post that the LRT was going to run service in non rush hour every 20-25 min and during rush hour 10-15 min. Does that sound frequent to you.? In that time period I can be in a carat keel st and be past Dufferin st. That is not subway time service which is what I believe people are expecting (that do not follow the subway vs LRT, etc debate). I could be among a handful of people at wilson yet I know the train will not take 10 min to get there. It has to be reliable - afterall, it needs to get downtown where there are more people so it needs to by pass Wilson as an example
 
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