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Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

Mississauga's been running a 40 year ponzi scheme. They've only been able to balance their budgets because developers kept putting money in the pot. Now that the greenfield land is gone, the scheme is crumbling.
 
Mississauga is certainly not unique in that respect. Every Greater Toronto region has done exactly the same. Every city in Canada is facing escalating infrastructure costs.
 
Mississauga is unique that they were actually able to keep up the illusion of a financial stability all these years.
 
With her ambitious ''downtown'' plan I keep seeing in the Condo guide, Subway should have been part of the plan. Imagine all the opportunities that would bring?


Going back to Sheppard, It should have been either Islington, (Wilson/York mills/Ellesmere), Lawrence) over Sheppard.
 
To quote the Sheppard/Finch LRT Benefits study:
"The operational reliability of the route will vary. Even with significant signal priority there will be delays in road intersections from cross-traffic, congestion and accidents. Experience from similar tram/LRT systems shows that this delay may be in the order of 10%, which on the proposed route could provide a variation in runtime of about 4-5 minutes for each segment. This potential variability in journey time may result in differential headways, which at peak times can increase the dwell times of vehicles at busy stops and further increase travel time."
 
It is so frustrating how the City of Toronto wants to implement something so quickly without carefully going through and addressing all of the issues!
 
Anyone know how I can lodge a complaint with Metrolinx for neglecting to study extending the Sheppard Subway west to Downsview AND east to Scarborough Town Centre?
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Anyone know how I can lodge a complaint with Metrolinx for neglecting to study extending the Sheppard Subway west to Downsview AND east to Scarborough Town Centre?
Click to expand...

Write to them. I did. But unfortunately it doesn't matter. The only complaints they'll even pretend to address are those of a certain streetcar/LRT proponent.
 
kEiThZ said:
Write to them. I did. But unfortunately it doesn't matter. The only complaints they'll even pretend to address are those of a certain streetcar/LRT proponent.
Click to expand...
Not entirely true, given the degree of concessions that were made on the Georgetown corridor.

But the only way to get something changed is to get it to the level of a major media story. And making slight changes to a plan is one thing, but getting (for example) TC replaced with subway expansion would be a major organizational reversal. What are the odds of that?

Sigh. What a mess....
 
^ This is the problem though. The opposition from Weston was intensely local and based on their concerns about the impact of the Georgetown corridor upgrades. With Transit City on the other hand, I have not met a single person yet who isn't a transit enthusiast who can actually articulate for me what the plans are and what they mean. Some think it's some kind of light subway. Others that it's a version of the LRT. Very few think of it as a streetcar. And they are all expecting it to be as fast as a subway and a cure to their transportation ills. Usually when I explain to my friends what LRT means, the usual response is, "Why spend money on that? Why didn't they just make the subway longer?" And that's not some biased explanation from me. That's me telling them that Transit City is something like a long tram with stops a little wider than a bus, running in its own lane. They all agree it's better than a bus. None would agree that it's better than a subway. Take that level of understanding into account and its very hard to get some kind of actual focused discussion with Metrolinx going. They assume that a silent public is a satisfied one. I am worried that the public is in for a big let down.
 
kEiThZ;322965" said:
Why spend money on that? Why didn't they just make the subway longer?"
Click to expand...
For most of the TC routes though, subway is clearly not an option, and the expense of 120 km of subway is clearly not in the cards. So it's not like the choice is 30-km/hr subway versus 23 km/hr LRT. It's 23 km/hr LRT versus 14 km/hr bus.

Personally, I'd like a 60 km/hr non-stop GO train from the corner by my house to my place of work non-stop that runs every 5-minutes. But I'm not holding out much hope.
 
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kEiThZ said:
^ This is the problem though. The opposition from Weston was intensely local and based on their concerns about the impact of the Georgetown corridor upgrades. With Transit City on the other hand, I have not met a single person yet who isn't a transit enthusiast who can actually articulate for me what the plans are and what they mean. Some think it's some kind of light subway. Others that it's a version of the LRT. Very few think of it as a streetcar. And they are all expecting it to be as fast as a subway and a cure to their transportation ills. Usually when I explain to my friends what LRT means, the usual response is, "Why spend money on that? Why didn't they just make the subway longer?" And that's not some biased explanation from me. That's me telling them that Transit City is something like a long tram with stops a little wider than a bus, running in its own lane. They all agree it's better than a bus. None would agree that it's better than a subway. Take that level of understanding into account and its very hard to get some kind of actual focused discussion with Metrolinx going. They assume that a silent public is a satisfied one. I am worried that the public is in for a big let down.
Click to expand...

Most people don't know much about any kind of transit, LRT is hardly unique in that matter.

And they would not all be saying "just make the subway longer", if they knew all the facts.
 
nfitz said:
For most of the TC routes though, subway is clearly not an option, and the expense of 120 km of subway is clearly not in the cards. So it's not like the choice is 30-km/hr subway versus 23 km/hr LRT. It's 23 km/hr LRT versus 14 km/hr bus.

Personally, I'd like a 60 km/hr non-stop GO train from the corner by my house to my place of work non-stop that runs every 5-minutes. But I'm not holding out much hope.
Click to expand...

Nobody is suggesting that all TC routes should be subways. However, I guarantee you that the average Torontonian would find the SE LRT to be a poorly thought out idea. The novelty of the LRT will wear off quickly once the whole TC network is up and running. And then Scarborough residents will be right back to asking why they are always the ones being forced to transfer.
 
I think that the reason Georgetown got so much heat was because there is an obvious disadvantage to people living alonjg the corridor. I'm not saying their argument is justified, but that's the reason. In Eglinton's case, the people along the corridor ARE getting an improvement, just not what should be happening from a true transit plan point of view.
I'm sure that many people along Eglinton would like a subway, and I'm sure a lot of people are fighting for it. But when you're going to be getting an improvement anyways, It's hard to say "we need a subway" without being simply labeled as self-absorbed in personal intrests. That's the point whe we need real transit specialists to say the line needs to be better, and that's simply not being considered.
 
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