Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

[gweed123]

I wasn't in Toronto when the Danforth was served by streetcars but I have a friend who is a senior and he tells me the Danforth was a lot nicer when a streetcar was there. Now there is a lot of cheque cashing stores and dollar stores because the streetcar is gone and the subway doesn't bring a lot of high end economic activity that the streetcar did to the eastern portion of the Danforth. The part of the Danforth that is still economically vibrant is around Broadview to Pape about. and then the types of business decline the further east I go. I am just hoping that Sheppard East LRT brings the type of economic activity that the old Danforth Streetcar had brought to the Danforth years ago, before I was born. Also my friend is a senior and does not feel safe on the eastern end of the Danforth at night because of all the prostitution and other types of activity on that stretch during the night. I imagine that a visible LRT on Sheppard might sort of police the neighborhood along Sheppard and keep illegal activity like that away.

Your friend is confusing cause and effect, or rather not seeing the actual cause. It wasn't the loss of the streetcar that killed sections of the Danforth, it was the fact that shopping malls came into being, and people who lived along the Danforth who used to walk to it and shop along it instead chose to drive to the nearest shopping mall. And because of the relatively low density in the area, the stores along it did not have enough clientel within walking distance to stay in operation. The removal of the streetcar and construction of the subway had very little to do with it.

Just look at areas along Queen Street, many of which suffered the exact same fate as areas of the Danforth. There's still a streetcar there, so why are they still 'cheque cashing stores and dollar stores' along much of Queen? It's only in the past 10 years or so that Queen West has regentrified itself into the Yuppyville that it is today, which again, has nothing to do with the streetcar being there.

My point is that there are many economic, social, and technological changes that happend during that time period. Boiling it down to streetcar/LRT = vibrant main street, subway = dead main street, is foolish, and ultimately incorrect.

 

[kEiThZ]

Sheppard East from Yonge to Don Mills was and is vastly different from Sheppard East till Agincourt which is different from Sheppard East in Malvern. Underststanding this is important. There are no large bungalows along Sheppard East in Malvern. The houses don't even face Sheppard for most of Scarborough. It's most townhouses and single family homes with small backyards on Sheppard. I'd like to see a proposal on how this can be developed into some medium density paradise. Are residents on those streets going to accept their streets being turned inside-out with Sheppard-backing lots being reversed to face Sheppard? I can't wait for the battles at the OMB and the lawsuits. And with the subway we saw development start right away, even as the subway was being built. There is virtually no real notable development along Sheppard that has been brought about because of this LRT, even now, on the eve of construction. So where's the demand for this medium density apparently coming from?

I don't doubt that a few plazas, and the industrial and commercial areas will be developed. But I can't see these developments in any way creating the medium density avenue that Transity City advocates envision.

And again, I go back to the original question. Should we building transit that maximizes ridership or building corridor enhancements that bring in development?

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't see Sheppard subway area as a good model. They've just built massive condos filled with people who drive anyways, and traffic has only become worse and worse.

Not true. They don't use transit as much as a downtowner and that's simply because they are still in the suburbs where not everything is decently accessible by transit. But I'll bet that these people certainly use transit a lot more than their suburban counterparts elsewhere. With developers making parking more and more expensive in new developments, we're also starting to see more and more people going car-less on Sheppard.

 

[sixrings]

Not true. They don't use transit as much as a downtowner and that's simply because they are still in the suburbs where not everything is decently accessible by transit. But I'll bet that these people certainly use transit a lot more than their suburban counterparts elsewhere. With developers making parking more and more expensive in new developments, we're also starting to see more and more people going car-less on Sheppard.

I agree with this. Yes some people still use cars but slowly but surely the temptation to use cars is less and less. Also just because you live downtown doesnt mean you dont use your car. Maybe not to shop because you can walk to queen street west or eaton centre but have you noticed the traffic leaving the city during the morning.. Sure some ppl work live and do everything downtown but dont kid yourself it too can be a bedroom community...

Id hope that all the stops along the eglinton LRT are treated equally to the Sheppard line or the younge line with some increased density. SUre the city might have a goal of having medium density everywhere but these spots are prime places for some real growth. The problem is I cant see Bathurst and Eglinton being ripped up to be developed. I deffinately cant see Avenue road and eglinton being ripped up and developed. However if you take the eglinton bus across eglinton in between Leslie and Keele you will see at least a dozen if not 2 dozen places for potential mid rise to high rise buildings. Anything to make the area denser to cause some walkability and to help the businesses stay afloat.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

because public transit should only be limited to ultra high capacity and/or non local, and/or regional purposes. And that York regional residents will not live anywhere else other than along Yonge st. and Jane st.

Are you trying to ask a question? You are aware that the Yonge and #7 corridors are already home to an enormous proportion of York Region's people and jobs and stores, and this is slated to increase, right? Next you'll be saying Canada's high speed rail plans should not be focused on the Windsor-Quebec corridor.

I don't know what all this has to do with my disputing your quote: "unlike the TTC, York Region has a long way to go before they need to worry about really shifting any quantity of car drivers onto transit."

If you bring up a random example and then "dispute" the response, no, you're not going to get it. York Region has tons of low-hanging fruit to grab and a long way to go - unlike the TTC - before they've maxed out 'easy' sources of transit trips and need to worry about seriously eating into all that traffic that clogs up the highways and megarterials to reach lofty transit usage goals and take noticeable numbers of cars off the roads. Viva is only a small part of the push to boost ridership and the improvements that will have the most impact (fare integration, GO service upgrades, subway extensions, etc.) are not York Region-specific and are things that York doesn't really have much control over. Even if just leisure/shopping trips were doubled and just half the people currently driving to GO stations or universities switched to YRT/Viva, that would be a gigantic and successful percentage of ridership growth.

If you read the official city plan, the whole idea behind these LRT lines is to encourage medium density.

You don't seem to have read the official plan...or you're just not understanding what you're reading. LRT lines do not encourage medium density. It's that simple. The city (or the OMB) has explicit control over the height of buildings, how they meet the street, how many residential units are added, which areas see development, and on and on.

The city is more likely to approve or want higher densities along subway lines, but between cases like Glencairn and the fact that many of the most intensely built up places in the city are served by just buses (like Bathurst & Steeles or Warden & Finch) even a subway/highest-density relationship is only sporadically evident.

I don't see Sheppard subway area as a good model. They've just built massive condos filled with people who drive anyways, and traffic has only become worse and worse.

Put these buildings absolutely anywhere and people will drive anyway, but if you don't put them next to good transit, far fewer will take transit. It's not like you can deny residency for people that own cars or dictate that they must work/travel to somewhere along the subway. Development adds both transit users and drivers, and the only ways to handle this are to do crazy things like serve these areas with more useful transit service, or change the parking requirements.

 

[kettal]

My personal theory is that Sheppard has failed so miserably to be walkable, that walking is off the table. That means condo tower dwellers are starting up the car to pick up a carton of milk. Walkable design should be a precondition of density, it's a more important factor than a subway line. Sheppard is not a good model.

 

[sixrings]

My personal theory is that Sheppard has failed so miserably to be walkable, that walking is off the table. That means condo tower dwellers are starting up the car to pick up a carton of milk. Walkable design should be a precondition of density, it's a more important factor than a subway line. Sheppard is not a good model.

It is far from perfect but it is vastly superior to the MCC model...

Bayview is quickly becoming my favourite suburban walkable area... I understand theres not much street life. But they have a great variety of mid rise high rise town houses semis and singles... PLus they have a walkable park and a nice walkable mall.. If they turned bayview village parking lot into a kinda outdoor mall like whats on Don Mills I think it would be pretty perfect.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

My personal theory is that Sheppard has failed so miserably to be walkable, that walking is off the table. That means condo tower dwellers are starting up the car to pick up a carton of milk. Walkable design should be a precondition of density, it's a more important factor than a subway line. Sheppard is not a good model.

You're ignoring the fact that hardly anything along Sheppard has been redeveloped yet, especially on the south side of Sheppard. If you add 10 condos all at once on interior blocks huddled along the 401, and then wait 5 or 10 years to add the convenience stores and elementary schools and parks and stores and everything else, including the overwhelming bulk of the street retail and landscaping on Sheppard, you're not gonna get a good head start...which Sheppard needs because it's not perfect.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

If you read the official city plan, the whole idea behind these LRT lines is to encourage medium density, not the kind of super density we have around subway stations, yet surrounded by sprawling single family homes. Look at what is happening in NYCC. Massive over-development along the subway line with super high-rises, yet a block away from Yonge and you get super expensive McMansions. This causes massive congestion along the main artery (ie. Yonge), overloads public transit (Yonge subway is top heavy). The city wants to encourage more mid-rise buildings along the avenues so that you spread out the development yet focus it along a central corridor. So instead of having monster high-rise condos along a subway line and then single family housing just a block away, they would like to see 3-6 storey buildings along the main road, so that development is spread along longer distances and spread out among multiple corridors instead of what we have before and that is to try to crowd everyone onto one street (Yonge), while ignoring the rest of the city from development.

It is a long term view, and they will need to provide incentives to get developers onboard with this scheme.

I wonder what would be more palatable to local ratepayers associations. A thin strip, say a few hundred metres to each side, of Very High Density (The high watermark seems to be 30 stories for suburban developments) along a suburban subway. Or a much wider swath of Medium Density (average of 10 stories or so?) along the same corridor but as an LRT line. Both might likely bring the same number of new residents but have very different effects on the existing neighbourhood.

And that's not to say that high density and medium density development are intrinsically tied to subway or LRT.

 

[gweed123]

Where I see Transit City failing is the lack of integration between transit/transportation and land use policy. Yes, it's nice to draw lines to every ward on the map, and then to make nice renderings with a tree and mid-rise lined avenue, but unless they change how the policies are developed that's all they'll ever be: renderings. To date I have not seen any details on the types of land use policy changes that will be accompanying these lines other than the vague "avenuization". In order to create a truly effective transit plan, one needs to really take into account the land use policies that will accompany the transit policies.

Contrast that with the Metrolinx RTP, where nearly the entire plan was constructed around the Places to Grow Act, and specifically the concept of nodes. Take a map of PTG and the Metrolinx RTP and put them one on top of eachother, they line up and compliment eachother nearly perfectly. Most of the lines proposed in the Metrolinx RTP either start or end at a node (ex: nearly all of the lines in the west of the GTA terminate at MCC, nearly all of those in the east terminate at STC).

In my opinion, if the city really wanted TC to be successful, they would have a series of zoning amendments ready to go for strategic points along the proposed corridors before shovels even started digging. That way these projects could be opened in tandum, not 15 years later. A lot of the lines proposed in TC are barely within the range of LRT as is, and without the proper zoning policies, they may flounder very quickly.

 

[LAz]

Does anyone have year by year ridership statistics for our sheppard line?

 

[W. K. Lis]

Where I see Transit City failing is the lack of integration between transit/transportation and land use policy. Yes, it's nice to draw lines to every ward on the map, and then to make nice renderings with a tree and mid-rise lined avenue, but unless they change how the policies are developed that's all they'll ever be: renderings. To date I have not seen any details on the types of land use policy changes that will be accompanying these lines other than the vague "avenuization". In order to create a truly effective transit plan, one needs to really take into account the land use policies that will accompany the transit policies.

Contrast that with the Metrolinx RTP, where nearly the entire plan was constructed around the Places to Grow Act, and specifically the concept of nodes. Take a map of PTG and the Metrolinx RTP and put them one on top of eachother, they line up and compliment eachother nearly perfectly. Most of the lines proposed in the Metrolinx RTP either start or end at a node (ex: nearly all of the lines in the west of the GTA terminate at MCC, nearly all of those in the east terminate at STC).

In my opinion, if the city really wanted TC to be successful, they would have a series of zoning amendments ready to go for strategic points along the proposed corridors before shovels even started digging. That way these projects could be opened in tandum, not 15 years later. A lot of the lines proposed in TC are barely within the range of LRT as is, and without the proper zoning policies, they may flounder very quickly.

There is an Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study going on that deals with zoning changes. Click on this link to start your search.

From that website:

# We invite you to participate in any of the upcoming public information sessions:

* Tuesday, February 16, 2010:
Metro Hall, Room 308/309, 7:00 p.m.

* Thursday, February 18, 2010:
Scarborough Civic Centre, Council Chambers, 7:00 p.m.

* Wednesday, February 24, 2010:
North York Civic Centre, Council Chambers, 7:00 p.m.

* Wednesday, March 3, 2010:
Etobicoke Civic Centre, Council Chambers, 7:00 p.m

The website has several PDF's, including this 107 page The Avenues & Mid-Rise Buildings Study which was presented at the Ontario Professional Planners Institute program night. The presentation is available here.

The key word is STUDY, so that the new zoning will be based on the study.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I wonder what would be more palatable to local ratepayers associations. A thin strip, say a few hundred metres to each side, of Very High Density (The high watermark seems to be 30 stories for suburban developments) along a suburban subway. Or a much wider swath of Medium Density (average of 10 stories or so?) along the same corridor but as an LRT line. Both might likely bring the same number of new residents but have very different effects on the existing neighbourhood.

Far more acquisition and demolition is required to build a medium swath three blocks deep compared to a dense swath one block deep, but the dense block is obviously preferable from a transit perspective if only because so many more people would find themselves immediately next to transit, no matter what vehicles or modes were running along the corridor. Comparing 30 storeys to 10 storeys, you'd actually need to go four or five blocks deep to add the same number of people since you're taking out so many more houses (which probably have twice as many people per household as the new condos would) by building shorter, which would likely irk ratepayers groups more...that's more noise, more traffic on interior side streets, more pressure from developers to sell your house, more demographic turnover, and so on. Nothing magical happens with 8 storey buildings. There's no guarantee they'll have higher quality retail, or be better designed, or anything else.

 

[gweed123]

There is an Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study going on that deals with zoning changes. Click on this link to start your search.

Pretty recent study. Explains why I haven't seen it, haha. Thank you.

 

[LAz]

Does anyone have year by year ridership statistics for our sheppard line?

No?