Transit City Plan

[isittimetomoveyet]

^ To be honest, it didn't even come to mind that the construction period might cause a decrease in business... is there a way to plan around this to minimize those effects?

That period under Rae must have been the closest thing to utopian democracy if that was the attitude the government had at the time. Somewhat similar to what the EU has done in local communities and municipalities in member countries... and as I understand it, it has worked well.

 

[RedRocket191]

^ To be honest, it didn't even come to mind that the construction period might cause a decrease in business... is there a way to plan around this to minimize those effects?

Perhaps a commercial property tax break during the construction period would be a good place to start, but it would only have to be for drastic changes and not just for repairs.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I just read that article, and while I am very sympathetic to businesses and commerce in general, is it not the case that these arguments are proven wrong time-after-time when being raised in opposition to a project?

Maybe I just lean a little bit to the left too much, but is it really so outrageous to ask these people to see the larger vision? ... that automobiles create more problems than they solve and that we need to build real, smart, transit options (debatable, I know) that can actually be convenient to use, and is generally much more affordable than car ownership?

Yes, it is too much to ask, and any transit line that manages to "improve" service by doing little more than punishing drivers and businesses that rely on them is obscenely unacceptable. You can't risk screwing up a road like Sheppard...the traffic can't go anywhere else. In some places, there are literally no parallel roads or detours available for short trips and it's not like the 401 can handle many more long trips (it's functional east of the Allen but would cease to be so should traffic spill over from Sheppard). If traffic shifts to Finch, you'll destroy the city's busiest bus route.

Alter a road downtown and, fine, cars or transit users can use the parallel street a block away, or people can cycle or take a taxi or walk since trips are typically shorter. You can't interfere with a critical arterial road and offer nothing but a streetcar ROW promising to move a few minutes per hour faster in return. Perhaps business concerns will prove to be unfounded, but there's no real precedent here - neither St. Clair nor Spadina were lined with plazas and the two roads were not widened as substantially as Sheppard will be...who knows how long construction will last. Autocentric suburbia may not be the best thing to ever happen to Toronto but Transfer City is a sinister and backwards way of dealing with it, not an enlightened, comprehensive solution. All stick, no carrot.

edit - disclaimer: I don't drive.

 

[isittimetomoveyet]

Yes, it is too much to ask, and any transit line that manages to "improve" service by doing little more than punishing drivers and businesses that rely on them is obscenely unacceptable. You can't risk screwing up a road like Sheppard...the traffic can't go anywhere else. In some places, there are literally no parallel roads or detours available for short trips and it's not like the 401 can handle many more long trips (it's functional east of the Allen but would cease to be so should traffic spill over from Sheppard). If traffic shifts to Finch, you'll destroy the city's busiest bus route.

Alter a road downtown and, fine, cars or transit users can use the parallel street a block away, or people can cycle or take a taxi or walk since trips are typically shorter. You can't interfere with a critical arterial road and offer nothing but a streetcar ROW promising to move a few minutes per hour faster in return. Perhaps business concerns will prove to be unfounded, but there's no real precedent here - neither St. Clair nor Spadina were lined with plazas and the two roads were not widened as substantially as Sheppard will be...who knows how long construction will last. Autocentric suburbia may not be the best thing to ever happen to Toronto but Transfer City is a sinister and backwards way of dealing with it, not an enlightened, comprehensive solution.

So if we were to develop this enlightened, comprehensive solution, would it still be too much to ask? I personally think that if it is built right we can get a significant amount of cars off of the road, and onto transit.

Agree or disagree?

 

[isittimetomoveyet]

edit - disclaimer: I don't drive.

LOL, that's the last thing I expected to read when I refreshed!

 

[scarberiankhatru]

So if we were to develop this enlightened, comprehensive solution, would it still be too much to ask? I personally think that if it is built right we can get a significant amount of cars off of the road, and onto transit.

Agree or disagree?

Disagree, as long as the larger vision is you wanting others to stop driving, as if it's their fault that they need to drive. Why on earth would anyone think the first step in improving autocentric suburbia should be to physically rip up the roads? What's next, trying to get smokers to quit by removing their lungs? A streetcar ROW that promises to save a couple of minutes per trip will simply not get people out of their cars, especially without a proper subway/commuter rail network in place first. Everybody knows that. The only reason Transfer City is being aggressively moved forward by the city is to try to get it done before the public knows what's happening (they certainly didn't plan the project based on which routes need urgent help).

 

[unimaginative2]

It's worth noting that most European cities have much more impressive road networks, including urban expressways, than ours. The reason that people ride transit is that it's extremely convenient, fast, and accessible.

 

[isittimetomoveyet]

Disagree, as long as the larger vision is you wanting others to stop driving, as if it's their fault that they need to drive.

I agree there... some people simply have no choice, and there is no way we can build enough transit to get everyone off the roads... but I think if we build it in the right places (which I know nothing about) we will give people a viable alternative, and I think that is the goal.

 

[isittimetomoveyet]

It's worth noting that most European cities have much more impressive road networks, including urban expressways, than ours. The reason that people ride transit is that it's extremely convenient, fast, and accessible.

I don't know personally, but I do know that when one of my uncles is here from Holland, here he lives about an hour south of Amsterdam, and he loves the highways here. He feels likes Kramer in that episode of Seinfeld when he paints over the lines and widens the lanes - he simply loves it. He also cant believe how many lanes we have in some places - 10 to 12 on the 401 - he much prefers it to the crowded highways, in his part of Holland at least.

 

[Whoaccio]

It's worth noting that most European cities have much more impressive road networks, including urban expressways, than ours. The reason that people ride transit is that it's extremely convenient, fast, and accessible.

Related to this, from the Economist (granted, car ownership isn't car use, but the whole 'in Europe they ride trams/bikes to their HSRs while drinking fair trade coffee' thing is getting a bit old)

 

[lead82]

I find it interesting that per capita, Canada has more cars than the US. I would have thought it to be the other way around since Canada has a more transit culture than the US does. I guess it could be due to the fact that US has more larger cities(1M+), where as Canada only really has 6 (Van, Tor, Mtl, Ott, Cal, Edm)

I've been to Iceland and in that country everyone drives except maybe the tourists and students. That country has no railroads at all and basically just one circular highway around the island (some parts are not paved). A very cool place to visit if anyone ever gets a chance. Direct flights from Pearson in the summer.

 

[CDL.TO]

but the whole 'in Europe they ride trams/bikes to their HSRs while drinking fair trade coffee' thing is getting a bit old)

Well, they do do the whole 'ride trams/bikes to their HSRs while drinking fair trade coffee' thing a heck of a lot more than North Americans. Like you said, car ownership is not car use. Munich is well known for being a high-income city where basically everyone owns a BMW or Benz, but yet they still have really high transit ridership because people leave them at home and ride the S/U-Bahn.

But your point still stands. People's mental image of Europe does not mesh with reality. Roads networks in Europe tend to be both well-developed and very busy.

 

[kEiThZ]

I've always been curious why the TTC chooses to deploy LRT/streetcars in a centre ROW instead of a curbside ROW. To me this would seem safer for passengers. I know efficiency might be impacted by cars turning right, but I wonder where the balance lies between safety for passengers and traffic efficiency.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I've always been curious why the TTC chooses to deploy LRT/streetcars in a centre ROW instead of a curbside ROW. To me this would seem safer for passengers. I know efficiency might be impacted by cars turning right, but I wonder where the balance lies between safety for passengers and traffic efficiency.

The TTC considers passengers a nuisance that distracts from the well-being of TTC employees or the operational efficiency of shuffling vehicles around the city.

 

[wyliepoon]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...9/01/09/how-toronto-went-cold-on-subways.aspx

How Toronto went cold on subways
Posted: January 09, 2009, 3:58 PM by Rob Roberts

TTC this year embarks on construction of Transit City, its plan to build a 120-kilometre network of light rail lines over the next 15 years. Peter Kuitenbrouwer continues a series of columns on the $8-billion project, which the province has endorsed but not funded, and which remains largely a leap of faith for city hall.

In 2006, the Province of Ontario gave the TTC $670-million to extend the subway north from Downsview to York University and onwards to the City of Vaughan. The province later gave the project another $200-million. In 2007, the Government of Canada gave $697-million for the subway extension to Vaughan.

The money is in a trust fund; the TTC has not begun to dig the subway.

“I just don’t understand it and it’s driving me crazy,†says Councillor Karen Stintz (Ward 16, Eglinton Lawrence), who has emerged as city council’s most vocal supporter of expanding Toronto’s subway network. She frequently rides the Yonge subway to City Hall.

“When you think about the benefit of getting a subway for 50,000 students at York, it blows my mind that they still haven’t started digging. They’ve spent the last two years moving hydro poles and letting contracts for stations.â€

The Toronto Transit Commission has recently blanketed billboard space and even those little TV screens in the subways with ads heralding its Transit City initiative, a plan for which neither Queen’s Park nor Ottawa has pledged funding. Look at a map of Transit City and one thing becomes clear: the city and the TTC are focused exclusively on building rapid transit within the boundaries of the City of Toronto.

A second plan for a subway extension outside city boundaries, up Yonge Street to Richmond Hill (which seems like a no-brainer) took a hit this week. The city’s Executive Committee, chaired by Mayor David Miller, said it won’t support the extension unless the province gives the TTC $5-billion (double the project cost) to also redo the Yonge-Bloor subway station and make other changes to help accommodate the new riders.

Ms. Stintz calls the TTC parochial. The TTC fears that if it provides regional mass transit — as promoted by Metrolinx, the province’s regional transportation agency for the GTA — Toronto will have to cede some control of its transit system.

The delay in building the subway to York and Vaughan, “is a clear example of how the city is not buying into the Metrolinx vision of a regional transportation system,†she says. “They don’t care whether it gets built or not.â€

Adam Giambrone, chair of the TTC, disputes this, noting that the TTC is busy designing the stations and tunnels on the subway to Vaughan. “Work is being done†on the line, he says, promising completion in 2016.

Even though subways are the city’s fastest and busiest mode of transportation, Toronto has gone cold on subways; the last subway to open was the Sheppard line in 2002, just five stations long. The line appears destined to remain a runt: the city has decided it will build a light rail line on a dedicated right of way on Sheppard East. After riding five stops on the subway, passengers will have to change for a streetcar, stopping at every traffic light, to get to Scarborough.

Ms. Stintz wants a subway on Eglinton Avenue, which would run through her ward. The TTC plans a light rail line on Eglinton, from Pearson Airport to the east end — running through a tunnel in the central piece — saying a subway is too expensive.

“It would cost $8-billion to $10-billion for an Eglinton subway, which would have exceeded by far any reasonable amount of money that could be spent on that corridor,†Mr. Giambrone says.

Metrolinx has yet to sign off on the Eglinton light rail solution, Rob MacIsaac, the head of Metrolinx, says.

“We have to study the economic, social and environmental impacts and make a recommendation,†he says.

Ms. Stintz points out another benefits of subways: she suggests the TTC could could make deals with developers, who would get ownership of the air rights above subway stations to condominium or office developers in exchange for building us a new subway line.

Air rights, of course, don’t exist on light rail, which has only a little electric wire above, to power the train.

Told of Mr. Giambrone’s comment that we can’t afford to build a subway on Eglinton, Ms. Stintz says “If we had taken that approach in 1950 with the Yonge line, we would not be the city we are today.â€