Transit City Plan

[reaperexpress]

There will be speed governors on light rail vehicles that could limit them to 70 km/h, like in other cities. The greater the distance between stops/stations, the quicker the light rail vehicles will be able to reach 70 and stay there. The 22km-25km figures mentioned includes the stops, or the average include going 0 km/h at the stops.

Why would they deliberately limit LRV speed to 70km/h? Flexities are slow enough as it is.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Safety concerns, I'd imagine - plus, do any of the TC routes operate on streets with speed limits in excess of 70 km per hour?

 

[EnviroTO]

The DRL was only put up for study in reaction to the apparent momentum at the time of the Yonge extension. There was nothing visionary about it.

It wasn't visionary since it had come up before as a solution to overcrowding. It was however based deeply in reality. The reality that an extension of the Yonge line clearly adds new riders to an over-capacity route.

Only about a year before signing off on Giambrone's plan, Miller was pushing hard for a Sheppard subway extension. If any plan was written on the back (or front) of a napkin, it was TC.

If Miller was pushing hard for a Sheppard extension he must have realized something to change directions. The end result is that he came up with a plan based on reality in terms of transit needs across the city, the budget that would be available to build it over the next 10-15 years, and the capacity that would be required.

 

[Ed Drass]

Nothing can stop a train powered by politics
Marcus Gee
Published Sunday, Jan. 02, 2011 6:45PM EST
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...p-a-train-powered-by-politics/article1855627/

 

[Solid Snake]

This is reality
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...p-a-train-powered-by-politics/article1855627/

The main advocate for Transit City, former mayor David Miller, is gone, gone, gone. The provincial government, which once backed Mr. Miller’s plan with public enthusiasm, has no particular interest in going to bat for an ex-mayor’s pet project that a new and popular mayor is determined to kill.

With an election coming in the fall, how likely is it that Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty will pick a fight with Mr. Ford if the mayor insists he wants to build subways and nothing but subways? Mr. McGuinty has spent the past few months struggling to take any possible ammunition out of the hands of his surging opponent, Conservative Tim Hudak. Mr. McGuinty is in a battle for survival. Fighting to save an unbuilt new rail system that the public barely understands may not look like a winner from the Premier’s office.

For better or for worse, Ford will get his way since in Toronto, transit is political

Rapid transit is so expensive that it needs a forceful champion to push it through. The existing five-stop Sheppard subway went ahead partly because of the advocacy of Mel Lastman, mayor of North York and then Toronto. The Spadina extension is going ahead because it had the backing of a powerful McGuinty cabinet minister, Greg Sorbara, whose Vaughan riding the subway will eventually serve. Mr. Ford has now become the champion of extending the Sheppard line to Scarborough, yet another political subway. Who is going to stand in his way?

This is for those who still think that Metrolinx will do something about it

The TTC’s chief general manager, Gary Webster, is a professional manager paid to do the bidding of his political masters, not stand in their way. The same could be said of the regional transit agency, Metrolinx, a bureaucratic animal whose role is to study and advise and implement decisions, not make them.

 

[Asterix]

For better or for worse, Ford will get his way since in Toronto, transit is political

Which will be too bad for the thousands of residents (or should we call them 'taxpayers'?) across the city who will be without improved transit for decades to come.

 

[Solid Snake]

Which will be too bad for the thousands of residents (or should we call them 'taxpayers'?) across the city who will be without improved transit for decades to come.

we're not talking about Scarborough here, are we?

 

[reaperexpress]

Safety concerns, I'd imagine - plus, do any of the TC routes operate on streets with speed limits in excess of 70 km per hour?

If you're hit by a streetcar at speeds that high, I don't think it matters whether it was 70 or 80km/h.

The SRT has stop spacing as long as 2km. The current ICTS system also has a top speed of 70km/h, but the ICTS vehicles accelerate very quickly. To achieve the same average speed as the ICTS, LRVs will have to travel faster to make up for their slower acceleration.

 

[Asterix]

we're not talking about Scarborough here, are we?

We're talking about all those residents who would have gotten improved transit from Eglinton and Finch West but instead are being apparently told that they will have to make do with buses because there is only enough money to build a shortened subway in one corner of Scarborough. But at least those few Scarberians will be able to enjoy roomy subways that will get them through that short stretch a few percentage points faster than the planned LRT line.

 

[nfitz]

we're not talking about Scarborough here, are we?

If the Eglinton LRT is cancelled (above ground at least), the Sheppard LRT is turned into a Sheppard Subway to Scarborough Centre, and the Danforth subway is extended to Scarborough Centre to replace the SRT to Malvern, then Scarborough gain a total of only 6.5 kilometres of higher-order transit and 2 stations (gaining 5 on the Sheppard line, but losing 3 on the SRT). With Transit City Scarborough would gain about 35 kilometres of higher-order transit (about 5.5 kilometres grade-separated) and 56 stations - with about 18 km and 33 stations already funded.

56 new stations compared to 2 stations? We are most certainly talking about Scarborough here!

 

[Solid Snake]

The lost of Eglinton Crosstown would be tragic but I have hope for a compromise. How will he oppose the underground section of Eglinton since it fits his criterias...

Has for Finch, they could start with
-Express branch on the 36 Route
-Reserved lane

 

[nfitz]

The lost of Eglinton Crosstown would be tragic but I have hope for a compromise. How will he oppose the underground section of Eglinton since it fits his criterias...

True - but it's also the only project with enough funding in the 2010-2015 period to provide money for a Sheppard subway.

 

[Solid Snake]

True - but it's also the only project with enough funding in the 2010-2015 period to provide money for a Sheppard subway.

Then we'll have to wait and see...

Maybe a Federal election might bring most needed extra cash

 

[Asterix]

Then we'll have to wait and see...

Maybe a Federal election might bring most needed extra cash

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Throw away guaranteed project funding for Eglinton that could start building in mere months in favour of waiting for a Federal election where the two contenders either don't have much aspirations to hit it big in Toronto or are quite sure of picking up most of the seats. That'll likely unearth billions in transit funding in an era of deficit slashing.

 

[nfitz]

Then we'll have to wait and see...

It will be interesting. It's quite the dilemma ... the funded cost through 2020 of the Sheppard LRT, Finch LRT, Eglinton LRT and SRT update end extension is only a bit more than a Sheppard and Danforth extension would cost. Perhaps there'd be enough money left to build 3-4 stations on Eglinton East.

Maybe a Federal election might bring most needed extra cash

The Conservatives have already said no. And it wouldn't give much payback to any of the other parties.

Giving $ to Toronto hurts you in every other part of this country, unless there it money for all. And then it become very expensive ... which is why the Feds only contributed about $0.3 billion to Transit City compared to the $7.9 billion that Ontario contributed.