I'd rather my city invest in LRT today rather than 30 years down the line. It's an investment. It will appreciate property values. It will attract more riders. It will help support a transit network.
So while the other corridors are waiting for LRT funding they should be stuck with regular bus routes? Why not give more corridors that need a service boost NOW a decent service boost, instead of giving only parts of a couple selected corridors a service boost beyond what they need, while leaving other corridors high and dry?
I'd much rather see 4 well functioning BRT lines in the city than a couple LRT lines that are overkill for the time being.
York Region has a significantly lower density than Suburban Toronto.
Does it though? When you take away nodes like NYCC and STC, the density isn't really all that different. Of course when you factor in all the undeveloped land in YR, of course. But when you look at the density of the built up areas, minus the two density nodes in eastern Toronto, it really isn't all that different.
With your rational they should just keep conventional bus routes as that can handle the demand with articulated buses. Same thing goes for Peel and in Waterloo where they are also building an LRT. Just keep your regular bus service. That's good enough. So why spend the extra capital?
You missed my point. My point is that the type of infrastructure and service that should be built should be in line with the demand. Right now, the majority of Sheppard East doesn't have the demand for LRT, and even when it's "avenueized" in ~20 years, it's barely into the low end of LRT viability. Why would we waste money building a piece of infrastructure that isn't even going to be close to reaching a point where the added infrastructure cost won't even be needed for another 30 years?
Right now, there are a lot of corridors that would be viable for BRT NOW. We have the money sitting in 2 LRT projects where 2/3 of that capital is being wasted on infrastructure capacity that isn't needed. Put that money to use in places where it could actually benefit people NOW.
That's your position. It's unambitious, and it's too conservative to support significant growth.
2 LRT lines is ambitious, but 4 BRT lines which combined would actually carry more people than the 2 LRT lines combined is unambitious? I don't really get that one...
And won't support significant growth? Tell that to the people who are building a new downtown in Markham centred around a BRT line (actually technically 2 BRT lines, 1 is there now and 1 is planned). I'm sure they'd love to hear that they're not being ambitious enough, and that they can't build until they get LRT, because BRT isn't good enough...
Yes, but it's still over 50,000 per day.
A medium load spread out over an entire day is perfect for BRT. What kills BRT is when there's a large influx of passengers during peak hours (like in Ottawa, where it's over 10,000 pphpd). Outside of rush hour, a Transitway bus every 3-5 minutes works beautifully.
Fair enough, but the other LRT lines are still much, much higher than this Cleveland BRT.
No doubt, but the Cleveland BRT is also very much at the low end of the BRT ridership spectrum. It's as much of a showcase of how many people BRT can handle as the Scarborough-Malvern LRT would be a showcase of how many people LRT can handle.
The subway was forecast to be only 5,900 pphpd in 2031. Still these are big numbers compared to Cleveland.
I know, but I'm not arguing for the subway
. In fact, I'm arguing for going in the other direction. Many people are saying that the subway option is too expensive and would be a waste of capacity when LRT would do just fine. I'm arguing that LRT is too expensive and would be a waste of capacity when BRT would do just fine.