Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

[Ansem]

Wow, 21 signatures (ignoring duplicates and retractions) in 5 weeks - and I think that's being generous, as it includes one from another province, and at leat 1, where the comment seems to oppose the position.

Clearly there is no significant opposition to the LRT!

Perhaps those opposing this can be a bit more pragmatic and rejoin the real world now?

None of that matter since Miller and Giambrone will be leaving. If Miller stayed then yes, it would be pretty much done deal. But it will be all up to the next mayor...

Politicians have massive ego and I don't see how a successor would continue ''Miller's vision''. I think that he would rather have his own.

Does it ring a bell?

That's right... Sheppard was ''Lastman's vision'' the same one calling him stupid. Did Miller continue ''Lastman's vision''? No. He replaced it with his own...

For once, I hope history will repeat itself...

By judging the Anti-Miller climate around the city, who would want to have a campain pushing ''Miller's vision''? Associating yourself with Miller is not really a ''winning strategy''?

 

[lead82]

what happens if next mayor has a scheme to privatize transit and build more and wider roads instead?

 

[kEiThZ]

Wow, 21 signatures (ignoring duplicates and retractions) in 5 weeks - and I think that's being generous, as it includes one from another province, and at least 1, where the comment seems to oppose the position.

Clearly there is no significant opposition to the LRT!

Perhaps those opposing this can be a bit more pragmatic and rejoin the real world now?

1. That's rather snide and mean spirited. I don't think putting down someone who is fighting for something they believe in is correct.

2. He does not have the publicity machine of the TTC behind his efforts. Since my father's business is on Sheppard East, I can assure you that if he walked down Sheppard with a clipboard he would have done way better than 21. Don't assume that just because there's no signatures on an unpublicized petition on a not-so-well-known website that there's widespread support or endorsement for the project.

3. Do you define being pragmatic as caving in? Why should he do that? Let him (and others) do their best. It should be for them to decide when they've had enough, not for their opponents to jeer at them and suggest they quit.

 

[lead82]

i would rather see some transit improvement than endless talks about subways that take 25 years to materialize!

 

[lead82]

sp

everyone here wants subways but who is willing to pay to operate them? Lrt will have lower op costs than buses and subway.

 

[Ansem]

i would rather see some transit improvement than endless talks about subways that take 25 years to materialize!

It's that kind of mentality that makes Toronto a city below it's potential. If people stood up and asked for more, we would get more. Transit City is supposed to be completed by 2020. What does it matter if a new mayor completes the subways by 2020.

I would rather wait until 2020 to get DRL,Sheppard,Eglinton,RT becoming subway

then having LRT by 2015 until 2020

 

[scarberiankhatru]

i would rather see some transit improvement than endless talks about subways that take 25 years to materialize!

Let's see how long it takes LRT lines on Jane or Don Mills to get built...

A subway project or two or three could have been well underway today if the city desired it a few years ago...Transit City is *not* proceeding relatively quickly (in parts) because it's an LRT plan, it's proceeding because record billions in funding are being handed over.

 

[nfitz]

None of that matter since Miller and Giambrone will be leaving. If Miller stayed then yes, it would be pretty much done deal. But it will be all up to the next mayor...

I hadn't heard that Giambone was leaving ... where is he going?

Though how is that even relevent? It will be December 2010 before anyone new comes in. Even assuming that the first thing they do when they walk through the door is suspend the project ... it will be way too late by then, with construction already well underway.

And even if was stoppable? Can you imagine any candidate being stupid enough to run on a platform of trying to spend an extra $billion or so to build subway where the demand doesn't warrant it?

I really think the rest of the city is tired of spending $billions on North York subways ... the last 12 subway stations have all been in North York, or north of North York. I can't imagine that such a local issue, is going to play well in the rest of the city. And it certainly doesn't have the support of Scarborough councillors.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

1. That's rather snide and mean spirited. I don't think putting down someone who is fighting for something they believe in is correct.

2. He does not have the publicity machine of the TTC behind his efforts. Since my father's business is on Sheppard East, I can assure you that if he walked down Sheppard with a clipboard he would have done way better than 21. Don't assume that just because there's no signatures on an unpublicized petition on a not-so-well-known website that there's widespread support or endorsement for the project.

3. Do you define being pragmatic as caving in? Why should he do that? Let him (and others) do their best. It should be for them to decide when they've had enough, not for their opponents to jeer at them and suggest they quit.

Don't be surprised...some people are just petty enough that they could join the Heartbreakers.

 

[nfitz]

1. That's rather snide and mean spirited. I don't think putting down someone who is fighting for something they believe in is correct.

It was simply an observation of the state of affairs. Clearly there is no support (or money) for building a large chunk of it as subway instead.

2. He does not have the publicity machine of the TTC behind his efforts. Since my father's business is on Sheppard East, I can assure you that if he walked down Sheppard with a clipboard he would have done way better than 21.

If I walked down any street with a clipboard asking people to sign a petition to ban cupcakes, I'm sure I'd get more than 21 signatures ... that doesn't speak to the validity of the cause though, simply that people sign petitions to avoid confrontation.

3. Do you define being pragmatic as caving in? Why should he do that? Let him (and others) do their best. It should be for them to decide when they've had enough, not for their opponents to jeer at them and suggest they quit.

Surely I'm being kind by pointing out the futility of the cause, and advising that they don't waste their time or energy ...

The LRTs are simply one aspect of a huge bunch of plans I'm sure we'll see a lot more subway built in the next half-century or so.

 

[Ansem]

I hadn't heard that Giambone was leaving ... where is he going?

I meant as head of the TTC

Though how is that even relevent? It will be December 2010 before anyone new comes in. Even assuming that the first thing they do when they walk through the door is suspend the project ... it will be way too late by then, with construction already well underway.

Well underway, like St.Clair. Because if there’s one thing the TTC has showed us over the years is that they are a well oiled machine, efficient and fast…

Allow me to be skeptical on how far the rail will reach…

If they get to McCowan…that would be a miracle…

And even if was stoppable?

Eglinton west…
and why stoppable? Why not upgradable. Even if I dont think the LRT would be necessary, it could co-exist with the subway.
Subway=Downsview to STC
LRT=Agincourt to Zoo or combine it with Malvern LRT.

Can you imagine any candidate being stupid enough to run on a platform of trying to spend an extra $billion or so to build subway where the demand doesn't warrant it?

1-Stupid like getting all the votes from the suburbs…Yes that would be stupid…You can’t win Toronto with only the suburbs…wait a minute…Lastman did.

2-And how Morningside warrant an LRT how exactly?

3-I don’t believe everything ‘’studies’’ says.
Surely Sheppard wouldn’t attract:

1-Agincourt Go commuters will leave the Train to use the line to get to the Yonge or Spadina line…not for a bus or a streetcar

2-Markham drivers would leave their car for a subway not for a streetcar

3-Those leaving near Sheppard avenue and with the proper bus reroute, would gladly leave their cars…not for a streetcar.

4-Demand doesn’t warrant according to who? An international guideline or the TTC manipulating numbers to justify cancelling a plan that had a consensus until he came along? On international standars, Sheppard is doing extremely well for an incomplete subway going nowhere…Imagine complete…

I really think the rest of the city is tired of spending $billions on North York subways ... the last 12 subway stations have all been in North York, or north of North York. I can't imagine that such a local issue, is going to play well in the rest of the city. And it certainly doesn't have the support of Scarborough councilors.

And the rest of the city would rather see over a billion in a streetcar line instead???
Have you been to North York Centre lately? It has become its own downtown with thousands of jobs. There are many condo high-rise existing, under construction and planned along Yonge and Sheppard Avenue corridors.

With a subway linking the north together, it will grow even faster and be beneficial for the whole city. In case you forgot, North York and Scarborough are Toronto now.
Their successes are the success of Toronto. That kind of mentality makes Toronto a city below its potential. We’re all Torontonians. The mayor who will get that will make Toronto easily close or if not the best city in the world.

Miller didn't get that and that's why he's trying to force SELRT down our throats. He doesn't care about outside the old Toronto. He didn't see what a north crowstown would bring to the City of Toronto as a whole. Having 2 downtown is a luxury that very few cities in the world possess. You don't sabotage something like that. You use it to attract major corporations, new residents etc...

And besides I fully support Eglinton and the DRL.

 

[Dan416]

It would actually be a really good idea to go knocking on doors of people who live where the Sheppard Subway was supposed to be built and see what they think of the subway plan being downgraded to LRT by Miller & Giambrone.

 

[drum118]

It's that kind of mentality that makes Toronto a city below it's potential. If people stood up and asked for more, we would get more. Transit City is supposed to be completed by 2020. What does it matter if a new mayor completes the subways by 2020.

I would rather wait until 2020 to get DRL,Sheppard,Eglinton,RT becoming subway then having LRT by 2015 until 2020

No new mayor is going to get TC built as subway by 2020 considering Metrolinx is paying for it in the first place as well owning them without the city picking up the full cost to do so. You are dreaming if you think so.

How much longer do you thing it going to take to build subway over LRT?? 2020 is not even close. You need another 2 years on design work alone per line as well investigation of what is in the way of doing it so it is in the design work.

Are you willing to pickup the full tab on your tax bill for subway expansion as most people are not willing?

As much I support subway expansion, there is so many $$$$ to go around to be spend on ""ALL"" people, not just a few.

When you have to rely on the farebox to support the system, you are cutting the rungs off the ladder for people that cannot afford to pay higher cost to ride it when it gets built let alone today.

It will become worse if you go on the spending spreed to build 50-350km of new expansion like most people here want to do.

I will support RT been converted to subway as well building the DRL to Subway. I mix on Eglinton been a subway. I don't support Spadina at all or Yonge north of Steeles nor Sheppard east.

If you are keeping Sheppard as a subway as is, then expansion has to go to Downsview first. I cannot see the Subway going STC and it needs to stay on Sheppard 100%. Ridership east of Kennedy, if that does not support a subway now or in 30 years. I Still say convert the line to LRT now and you can run the full length of Sheppard as LRT.

If you want something cheaper and faster than surface lines, you need to elevated it and it will cost 50-75% cheaper than a subway. Construction of it will be faster and less disruption than subway or LRT.

If Transit City is costing over $10B now, what is the cost to do it as a full blown subway?

Keep in mind there is more LRT lines and extensions to be added to the current plan.

Given the fact that the Fed's for over the 30 years have not supported transit, the money to do so comes from the city or the Province.

Since the Province is pushing transit outside of the GTHA now after MoveOntario2020 plan surface as well adding a few things to it, that $11B is not even going to come close to pay for all of it as proposed. Even the so call $50B over 25 years is only a 1/4 of what is needed to do it without adding LRT conversion to Subway.

Are you willing to tell 100,000's riders they are only going to get bus service for the rest of their lives so you and a small group can ride first class on a subway as I'm not????

You do the math as to how much it cost to build any type of service, the cost to operate it and then divide it by the number of riders who use it, the riders per/km, the ratio of seat turn over and you will get a cost ratio to show how much it really cost to ride a line. It will show how much has to be paid for by all the riders for that line to exist in the first place.

TTC doesn't have the cost ratio of each line on line at this time and in most cases, it five years outdated. There is very few routes that have 75% cost recovery system wide and none over 85%.

 

[Ansem]

No new mayor is going to get TC built as subway by 2020 considering Metrolinx is paying for it in the first place as well owning them without the city picking up the full cost to do so. You are dreaming if you think so.

How much longer do you thing it going to take to build subway over LRT?? 2020 is not even close. You need another 2 years on design work alone per line as well investigation of what is in the way of doing it so it is in the design work.

Are you willing to pickup the full tab on your tax bill for subway expansion as most people are not willing?

As much I support subway expansion, there is so many $$$$ to go around to be spend on ""ALL"" people, not just a few.

When you have to rely on the farebox to support the system, you are cutting the rungs off the ladder for people that cannot afford to pay higher cost to ride it when it gets built let alone today.

It will become worse if you go on the spending spreed to build 50-350km of new expansion like most people here want to do.

I will support RT been converted to subway as well building the DRL to Subway. I mix on Eglinton been a subway. I don't support Spadina at all or Yonge north of Steeles nor Sheppard east.

If you are keeping Sheppard as a subway as is, then expansion has to go to Downsview first. I cannot see the Subway going STC and it needs to stay on Sheppard 100%. Ridership east of Kennedy, if that does not support a subway now or in 30 years. I Still say convert the line to LRT now and you can run the full length of Sheppard as LRT.

If you want something cheaper and faster than surface lines, you need to elevated it and it will cost 50-75% cheaper than a subway. Construction of it will be faster and less disruption than subway or LRT.

If Transit City is costing over $10B now, what is the cost to do it as a full blown subway?

Keep in mind there is more LRT lines and extensions to be added to the current plan.

Given the fact that the Fed's for over the 30 years have not supported transit, the money to do so comes from the city or the Province.

Since the Province is pushing transit outside of the GTHA now after MoveOntario2020 plan surface as well adding a few things to it, that $11B is not even going to come close to pay for all of it as proposed. Even the so call $50B over 25 years is only a 1/4 of what is needed to do it without adding LRT conversion to Subway.

Are you willing to tell 100,000's riders they are only going to get bus service for the rest of their lives so you and a small group can ride first class on a subway as I'm not????

You do the math as to how much it cost to build any type of service, the cost to operate it and then divide it by the number of riders who use it, the riders per/km, the ratio of seat turn over and you will get a cost ratio to show how much it really cost to ride a line. It will show how much has to be paid for by all the riders for that line to exist in the first place.

TTC doesn't have the cost ratio of each line on line at this time and in most cases, it five years outdated. There is very few routes that have 75% cost recovery system wide and none over 85%.

2020 is unrealistic I know. I was just saying I’d rather wait longer for a subway than having an LRT. In the Toronto sun, a TTC official was reacting to the opposition to SELRT, he said when subway will be viable on Sheppard; they would take off the LRT and dig…

How on earth do you find it logical? Jumping to a technology back and forth on the same corridor is freakin irresponsible. So what? I’ll just waist a billion their and when I know down the road I’ll need a subway anyways. At that time cost will have triple not counting the cost of removing everything and repairing the road. I’ll take the subway on Sheppard now instead of combining the cost of building SELRT+Removing SELRT+building the subway later. All this for what? Ego?

I didn’t meant cancelling TC entirely. I was focused on Sheppard and always wished Eglinton to be a subway. Building spree? DRL, Sheppard, although Eglinton should be 100% subway the central part makes it better and the fact that they plan on forbidding left turns and redoing some intersections. Why haven’t they put that kind of effort on Sheppard?

You think I would be fighting this that hard if they simply did the following:
-No direct left turns
-800m spacing for an almost subway speed
-Connections to scarborough Center.

No. They are spending a “BILLION” for a Streetcar…because I don’t see the difference with St.Clair here.

Also North York and Scarborough needs the northern “Rapid transit”. Both Scarborough Centre and North York Centre are impressive and growing fast. The corridor is changing and even at Downsview, there’s a lot of development going on.

How is it normal to you that someone going to STC from Sheppard-Keele has to take 5 different routes with 4 transfers??? Find me a corridor where you transfer 4 times to go east to west…

Even if it’s called North York and Scarborough, it’s Toronto in the end and everyone is Torontonian. Cities having different town centers like we do are very rare. Can you imagine what 2 subway lines ending at scarborough would do for their town centre?

Right....Miller never did care about what was happening outside of old Toronto and TC is a mirror of that snobby attitude.

What do you think other cities would do with such an asset? Link them by LRT because people want their LRT at their doorsteps? No. Paris, London, New York, Chicago wouldn't what they are today with that kind of foolish mentality.

I won’t even have LRT at my doorsteps when TC will be complete. I see the bigger picture. I don’t mind taking the bus to downsview but I have a problem watching a snobby mayor with an out of control ego spending billions and sabotaging both North York and Scarborough and ignoring Etobicoke even if it still Toronto. Take their taxes and keep it downtown...

Sabotage? yes.
By building SELRT and upgrading the RT, you just killed the subway and it will make it that much harder to convert them in the future.

Building Sheppard, DRL, Scarborough extension isn’t the end of LRT in Toronto. They did their homework on Eglinton and although I would prefer subway 100%, I can live with it due to the work to make sure it won’t slow down. When you have that much money at the same time coming from governments who haven’t given much in over 30 years you build subways with it. What guarantees do you have that 20 years from now, the governments will be as generous as they are now? It make more sense to built LRT later when you’ll be able to ask far less money since it cost far less than subways per km.

Between you and me, don’t you think it’s suspicious that he jumped on Sheppard as is #1 priority a little too fast?

-Dufferin
-Wilson/York Mills
-Lawrence West
-islington
-Steeles

All the above were far better choices than Sheppard and LRT is more justified on those corridors than Morningside/Sheppard.

 

[Second_in_pie]

No new mayor is going to get TC built as subway by 2020 considering Metrolinx is paying for it in the first place as well owning them without the city picking up the full cost to do so. You are dreaming if you think so.

I don't think anyone's suggested building all of TC as a subway. I support a Sheppard, Eglinton and Don Mills/DRL subway. Eglinton subway from Jane-Don Mills+ BRT lanes would probably cost less than the LRT would. Sheppard Subway to STC would cost at most $500 million more if they don't go apeshit on station design, and could possibly provide a better service to Malvernites than a LRT would. Don Mills... well a subway to Finch would easily cost more than the LRT, but DRL to Eglinton is needed. Past there can just be regular (meaning gradual over time,) subway expansion overseen by Metrolinx.

How much longer do you thing it going to take to build subway over LRT?? 2020 is not even close. You need another 2 years on design work alone per line as well investigation of what is in the way of doing it so it is in the design work.

I think I'd much rather have a proper transit system in 2025 than a poorly constructed transit system filled with holes and bottlenecks by 2018. If you're going to say "Toronto's transit right now is horrible and needs a jump start," then just wait 'till 2020 when we have no real higher order transit being built, and no room to build proper transit RT corridors because we just invested billions of dollars in the improper technology.

Are you willing to pickup the full tab on your tax bill for subway expansion as most people are not willing?

To be quite honest, YES! If it was going to transit, I'd probably be willing to give thousands of dollars a year to the government if that was the only way we'd get a truly functional transit system. Not that I'd even need to do that, because the government has plenty of money for Transit, as seen in MO2020. If that fails, Metrolinx can (and will) implement road tolls and congestion charges to get potentially billions of dollars to fund the sacred HRT.

If you want something cheaper and faster than surface lines, you need to elevated it and it will cost 50-75% cheaper than a subway. Construction of it will be faster and less disruption than subway or LRT.

I don't believe that an elevated line would be less disruptive than subway, but I'd totally agree. There's plenty of room on Eglinton and Don Mills to build elevated RT lines, and that's what they should be doing. But instead, Miller's vision of everyone having breakfast at their favorite local coffee shop then taking a pleasant LRT ride to work has forced the notion of on street LRT down our throats.

Are you willing to tell 100,000's riders they are only going to get bus service for the rest of their lives so you and a small group can ride first class on a subway as I'm not????

Oh please, cry me a river. You know as well as I that everyone currently taking the Sheppard bus will see vast improvements with a Sheppard subway, even those in Malvern. I think it's been noted before that even Malvern travel times could be improved with subway more than full blown LRT. Those hundred thousand people just got as good a service as LRT. But obviously they're too rich to take a bus to the subway, though a LRT would be a no-brainer. Does this logic really make sense to you?