Transit City Plan

[BurlOak]

LRT is attractive but we are talking value for the dollar.

Toronto should get moving on BRT for Finch and Sheppard. This was the one area that I agreed with with Ford.......Finch should be BRT but so should Sheppard. The money saved could be used to make the one line that needs total grade separation the true rapid transit corridor it needs to be.........Eglinton.

Eglinton elevated through Scarborough is an extra +/- $600M. SELRT switched to BRT is a savings of +/- $600M. Pretty close to break even.

Then switch each LRT line to BRT and each line would be +/- $300M, instead of $1B plus. Toronto could probably fund one every two years of so without any new revenue tools - roughly equal to this years "surplus". Maybe even build a bit faster with nominal additional revenue.

Each of these Transit City locations was promised some improved transit and BRT would provide it. We could then start campaigning for the DRL. With Transit City LRT, the next $5B would have to finish TC before we could start thinking about the DRL. With a pavement life of +/- 20 years, many of these BRT routes can hope to expand to LRT if numbers warrent at a later time. You can even tell Sheppard they may get their subway in 20 years time.

 

[rbt]

Then switch each LRT line to BRT and each line would be +/- $300M, instead of $1B plus. Toronto could probably fund one every two years of so without any new revenue tools - roughly equal to this years "surplus". Maybe even build a bit faster with nominal additional revenue.

Toronto could take on $5B in debt for transit projects issued via 30 year fixed-rate bonds without any difficulty. GTAA gets rates around 4.5% for those and Toronto should be able to do a little better than that since property tax revenue is much more predictable than terminal/landing fees.

This means Toronto's annual payments would be roughly equivalent to last years surplus; under $300M/year.

For projects like the DRL and Yonge extension the Feds and province would match (they're both very very interested in Yonge). Those two projects could provide enough property tax revenue to pay down the debt (DRL brings 30,000 more commutters downtown; that's a half dozen office towers).

That leaves the city with $3.5B which could build a ton of BRT and LRT to hopefully tackle operating expenses.

 

[superman]

Eglinton elevated through Scarborough is an extra +/- $600M. SELRT switched to BRT is a savings of +/- $600M. Pretty close to break even.

Then switch each LRT line to BRT and each line would be +/- $300M, instead of $1B plus. Toronto could probably fund one every two years of so without any new revenue tools - roughly equal to this years "surplus". Maybe even build a bit faster with nominal additional revenue.

Each of these Transit City locations was promised some improved transit and BRT would provide it. We could then start campaigning for the DRL. With Transit City LRT, the next $5B would have to finish TC before we could start thinking about the DRL. With a pavement life of +/- 20 years, many of these BRT routes can hope to expand to LRT if numbers warrent at a later time. You can even tell Sheppard they may get their subway in 20 years time.

I don't really get the aversion to Skytrain / Elevated / Surface "Subways" technologies in Toronto. It would cost much less than a subway, but would still provide the same speeds. Would avoid this whole red light / frequent stop mess TC will face.

 

[gweed123]

I don't really get the aversion to Skytrain / Elevated / Surface "Subways" technologies in Toronto. It would cost much less than a subway, but would still provide the same speeds. Would avoid this whole red light / frequent stop mess TC will face.

It's the same why there's an aversion to BRT, and to LRT in certain camps for that matter. People had a bad experience with something similar, and therefore don't want anything like that built.

 

[dowlingm]

I don't really get the aversion to Skytrain / Elevated / Surface "Subways" technologies in Toronto. It would cost much less than a subway, but would still provide the same speeds. Would avoid this whole red light / frequent stop mess TC will face.

Do you accept the argument that elevated alignments are more noisy and blight the lands underneath - basically running mini-Gardiners around? I enjoyed my time on the Skytrain during the Olympics but some of the station environs are pretty sketchy like VCC Clark.

 

[ssiguy2]

I don't really get the aversion to Skytrain / Elevated / Surface "Subways" technologies in Toronto. It would cost much less than a subway, but would still provide the same speeds. Would avoid this whole red light / frequent stop mess TC will face.

Elevation if fo non "world class" cities that don't know how to build transit like Berlin, London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Shanghai. Who the hell would want to have rapid transit system like theirs? Besides didn't you know that Torontonians don't want real rapid transit to get to where they want to go? Torontonians want transit for "great city building" so everyone can take in their urban utopia nice and slowly.......since when are any of those cities great?

 

[smallspy]

The other issue with BRT in Toronto though is TTC's deathly fear of artics, only gotten over in recent months.

Artics are not something that the TTC has a "deathly fear" of.

What they are deathly afraid of is getting stuck with shit that costs them too much in the long run. The Orion artics, CNG-fueled buses and various vintages of New Flyer products over the years are just some prime examples of this.

The fact that they went from putting out to tender for a FIRM order for 153 articulated buses over 3 years, to signing an order for just 27 buses in 2013 (with the rest as potential options) is proof-positive of how the TTC is willing to take a tepid first step to make sure that they aren't wading into whole lot of trouble. And hey, if the Novas turn out to be garbage, at least they only have 27 of them.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[BurlOak]

Toronto should get moving on BRT for Finch and Sheppard. This was the one area that I agreed with with Ford.......Finch should be BRT but so should Sheppard. The money saved could be used to make the one line that needs total grade separation the true rapid transit corridor it needs to be.........Eglinton.

There are several reasons to re-evaluate the decision to continue to go with Transit City style LRT.

1. The initial Transit City Estimate was low since it did not include the underground portions.
2. The provincial government reduced their funding contribution.
3. The provincial government spread the reduced funding over a longer period of time.
4. The economic crisis hit, which resulted in not only reduced government funding, but also reduced ability of taxpayers to fund additional revenue sources.
5. Priorities and travel patterns may have changed and perhaps the DRL is more urgent.

For these reasons, not just the election of Rob Ford, Transit City could not be completed under the original timelines, or anywhere close to it, and less expensive options are needed.

The only reasons that a grade separated Eglinton makes sense is that it is a small percentage extra cost above all the tunnelling that is being done, and since it is a true crosstown route - Sheppard and Finch are discontinuous.

 

[Rainforest]

The only reasons that a grade separated Eglinton makes sense is that it is a small percentage extra cost above all the tunnelling that is being done, and since it is a true crosstown route - Sheppard and Finch are discontinuous.

The extra cost is not so small when we take into account the future section between Jane and Pearson.

Most importantly, if Eglinton attains full subway speed but uses 3-car LRT rolling stock, the demand might grow beyond capacity. A lot of riders will switch from parallel routes, in particular from BD subway.

Perhaps it would make sense to build subway on Eglinton. But a fully grade-separate LRT, for the cost of full subway and lacking its capacity, is not a good idea.

 

[Rainforest]

With respect to running to Bloor in mixed traffic, I suggest you take a look at Montreal Road in Ottawa's Vanier neighbourhood. What they've done is turned the outside lanes into peak period buses only lanes, to be used for general traffic and/or parking outside of that time. I would venture to say that that would be the best solution for Jane between Eglinton and Bloor.

This is a very interesting point. I can't think of any theoretical reason not to use such arrangement.

On the other hand, this arrangement (a 4-lane road with 2 lanes designated as transit-only during the peak) seems to be fairly uncommon. As far as I understand, Ottawa's Montreal Road does not have it end to end, but only for 2 km east of the river. In Toronto, it can be found on parts of King (two inner lanes are transit-only during the peak), but I am not aware of any other examples. Normally, 2 lanes in each direction are given to general traffic before the 5-th and 6-th lanes can be designated as transit-only.

Just wonder, is that entirely due to political reasons, or are there technical reasons not to set 2 transit lanes on 4-lanes roads?

 

[ssiguy2]

Funny thing is that Vancouver built the Canada Line Metro for just $2.2 billion and only finished construction 2 years ago.
It is 21km long of which most is underground including downtown and under False Creek and then also has 2 large bridges over the mighty Fraser River.

Many are critical of the line, and rightfully so, because the stations are just 50 meters long and cannot be expanded without massive costs but the funny thing is is that it will still have higher capacity that the Eglinton Line but cost a third of the price. It will also be much cheaper to run as it is an automated system and of course is significantly faster and more reliable than how they have the Eglinton LRT set up.

Toronto choses the system that is triple the cost, has lower capacity,is less reliable, is more expensive to run, and slower to boot..................that's a hell of a way to run a railroad.

 

[gweed123]

This is a very interesting point. I can't think of any theoretical reason not to use such arrangement.

On the other hand, this arrangement (a 4-lane road with 2 lanes designated as transit-only during the peak) seems to be fairly uncommon. As far as I understand, Ottawa's Montreal Road does not have it end to end, but only for 2 km east of the river. In Toronto, it can be found on parts of King (two inner lanes are transit-only during the peak), but I am not aware of any other examples. Normally, 2 lanes in each direction are given to general traffic before the 5-th and 6-th lanes can be designated as transit-only.

Just wonder, is that entirely due to political reasons, or are there technical reasons not to set 2 transit lanes on 4-lanes roads?

For what it's worth, Ottawa is considering implementing the same setup on Bank St from Billings Bridge to downtown, as well as on Holland from Tunney's Pasture to Carling, so it looks like the planners seem to like it.

It makes a lot of sense, because that extra freedom of movement for buses matters most during peak. Outside of peak, that lane can be used for parking or general traffic. I can see this being used on a lot of pre-WWII arterials where there is demand for increased transit service, but nothing near warranting a tunnel or elevated structure. It's much easier to implement this with buses than with streetcars, because operations can switch between general lanes and dedicated lanes depending on the time of day.

As far as Toronto goes, I can see this being implemented on Dufferin during peak periods, because it's never going to get a tunnel, and the street is never going to be widened, but demand on the Dufferin bus only seems to be going up.

And I think it's partly political, partly technical. It's political in the sense that store owners don't want to see the parking in front of their stores disappear (just look at St. Clair West). The parking is already taken away during rush hours on most streets like that anyway, so it's no loss to the businesses if it's buses or cars, because people can't stop there anyway. It's technical in the sense that having only 1 general traffic lane can be bad news on a lot of streets. During rush hours they usually ban left turns, so the one lane moves pretty well, but I don't think that would fly outside of rush hours when left turns are allowed. 1 car turning left and the whole street stops dead. It CAN be done, but there are a lot of technical and political maneuvers that need to be done in order to make sure it isn't a complete disaster, and I think a lot of cities just shy away from it for that reason.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Eglinton LRT is the only capacity that would be needed for a rapid transit line because it's not going to have the kind of density as the major routes downtown with short stop spacing to also provide short range transit for mass volumes of people.

It should connect with a DRL as well as when the GO routes are electrified and integrated, then there will be a lot of people transferring off of Eglinton, and also in some cases not have to get onto the Yonge Line at all.

 

[Rainforest]

Eglinton LRT is the only capacity that would be needed for a rapid transit line because it's not going to have the kind of density as the major routes downtown with short stop spacing to also provide short range transit for mass volumes of people.

It should connect with a DRL as well as when the GO routes are electrified and integrated, then there will be a lot of people transferring off of Eglinton, and also in some cases not have to get onto the Yonge Line at all.

The demand on Eglinton will strongly depend on the network context. Density near the street itself will never generate demand that exceeds the LRT capacity. However, this line is located in the middle of the grid, and hence there are many travel patterns that can be switched to Eglinton. If the riders start switching to Eglinton en masse, LRT capacity won't be enough. We have seen the revised Metrolinx's projections for the combined, fully grade-separated Eglinton - SRT line: the peak demand on Eglinton shot from 6,000 - 7,000 pphpd to 12,000 - 13,000 because of the expected influx of riders from SRT (who would mostly take Danforth subway if Eglinton and SRT lines are not combined).

It is a good idea to relieve Eglinton by redirecting the riders to DRL and the enhanced GO lines. However, none of those lines are funded at present.

In that situation, I would not go for a fully grade-separate Eglinton LRT, as that would create a speed / capacity mismatch. The accelerated line would attract more riders than it can handle.

 

[Rainforest]

Many are critical of the line, and rightfully so, because the stations are just 50 meters long and cannot be expanded without massive costs but the funny thing is is that it will still have higher capacity that the Eglinton Line but cost a third of the price. It will also be much cheaper to run as it is an automated system and of course is significantly faster and more reliable than how they have the Eglinton LRT set up.

Potentially, the line with 90-m stations (Eglinton) will have a higher capacity limit than the line with 50-m stations. Obviously, TTC will have to revise the way that line is operated: use ATO in the central tunneled segment, and short-turn 1/2, or even 2/3, of the trains at the ends of that central segment.

But that can be done, for a relatively minor cost compared to the cost of initial construction.

That's why the emphasis should not be on making all of Eglinton fully grade-separate for the sake of speed, but rather on making the short 3-km section between Brentcliffe and Don Mills fully grade-separate for the sake of capacity. That would enable very frequent, ATO-controlled service between Don Mills and Jane.