SlickFranky
Active Member
Do they? Our subways have tons of intersecting bus routes, but there are very few routes that run parallel for more than a few blocks.
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Transit City: Sheppard East Debate
- Thread starter unimaginative2
- Start date
Do they? Our subways have tons of intersecting bus routes, but there are very few routes that run parallel for more than a few blocks.
leopetr
Active Member
There's a Yonge bus and and a Sheppard bus. However, there's no daytime Bloor-Danforth bus and no Spadina-University bus at all.
54 Lawrence East will likely continue to provide local service on Eglinton between Yonge and Leslie.
The Mad Navigator
Banned
That's when you increase Wheel Trans funding.
For the rest of us. Don't think about it, just walk it. It's not like braving the elements will kill if you have to walk 500 or so metres....
kEiThZ
Superstar
Cause raising funding for Wheel Trans for every senior is really cheap as opposed to just running a few more buses.
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
Yeah, and most of the reason they pushed so hard for 100% low-floor is so they could cut back on Wheel Trans eventually - it's an incredibly inefficient way to spend transit dollars.
kettal
Banned
Funnily enough, my grandmother was in her 80s, and living east of Sheppard & Bayview when the subway there opened. She used to catch the bus a lot before 2002 which would be frequent and only a few steps from her home, but once the subway opened, the bus service was cut dramatically, and Bayview station was too much of a walk for her.
Now, that doesn't mean that it would have been much better if LRT was there, but I can say for certain that the subway didn't improve her situation.
Dan416
Senior Member
Is this seriously an argument for trams over subways? I mean I'm sure there's seniors living midway between Kipling and Islington who can't walk to either station. But that doesn't mean we're going to replace the B-D line with trams. Not everyone is going to be within walking distance of a subway or even a tram stop or bus stop for that matter.
kettal
Banned
Read the last paragraph and find out.
acetradamus
New Member
The old guy with the cart certainly counts as "old, fat, lazy, immobile"... but im not scorning them... I'm saying these people are being negatively impacted by the current Sheppard LRT plans. And its not just about seniors who will have difficulty... there's plently of middle aged women for who a 5-10min walk in the 6months of cold weather and snow/ice we have is just not possible.
The transit "experience" for these riders will become more painful than pleasant. Theres 3 things transit users hate: 1) long travel time 2) long walks/waits to anything 3) transfers
1) Sheppard LRT doesn't appreciable improve travel time over the bus especially in off peak hours when the bus can go Meadowvale - Don Mills in 30min.
2) Making people have to walk longer distances to reach a transit stop than before is not appealing to anybody. Especially when the elimination of a bus stop results in an additional 5-10min walk.
3) The Sheppard corrider will still have 2 transfers between Yonge (84 Sheppard W to Sheppard Subway), Don Mills (Sheppard Subway to LRT)... We're still taking 3 different vehicles (84 bus, subway, LRT) in 15min
The current LRT doesnt offer any functional benefits to the transit rider that are worthy of such a costly/disruptive plan. Reliabilty of service isn't alone worth the scope of Sheppard LRT. Improving travel time along the length of the corrider would be most valuable to the transit user. This can be accomplished by increasing the distance between stops. This stop spacing configuration has the benefit of allowing signal priority to be made more useful because you can pass through more intersections without facing the delay of station stops and red lights.
The vunerable people mentioned before as "old, fat, lazy, immobile" would be be taken care of by an infrequent service accessible bus which would run in traffic. This only makes sense if you increase the LRT stop distance to Bloor/Danforth length with connections to bus routes and high volume minor intersections. If the LRT actually functions as a subway comparable service that can be provided along the route for its entirity Don Mills to Meadowvale for a lower construction cost than subway... then we can say the LRT is a successful project.
The addition of a parallel bus route will increase operational costs (buses, operators), and that has to be taken into account when comparing the overal big picture LRT vs subway service cost breakdow... (LRT construction vs subway construction costs, LRT vs subway operating costs) But if the cost is minimal enough yet still able to allow the LRT to function as a near-subway comparable service, the parallel bus+increased stop spacing combo would solve 2 major issues hampering the current LRT configuration... 1) no improvement in travel time, 2) increased distance to stops (which is amplified in importance considering Sheppard Ave suburban residential land usage)
kEiThZ
Superstar
The subway didn't improve her situation because it wasn't going where she needed it to go. That's a different issue. What the subway didn't do is make her situation worse. The LRT is removing bus stops. That's actually a downgrade for people who have mobility issues. Is it that difficult to acknowledge that some people might have problems walking 200m?
They pushed for low floor because there's a provincial mandate (the Ontarians with Disabilities Act) that all transit services in Ontario must be fully accessible by 2025. Hence the new streetcars, kneeling buses, and elevator installations at subway stations.
And I agree, it's much cheaper to have wheelchair accessible vehicles and stations than it is to run a parallel service just for wheelchairs/seniors/etc.
GraphicMatt
Looking forward to a FRESH START for Toronto
It sounds more like she (kettal's grandmother) had a bus stop right near her house and now she doesn't. That's literally a case of the subway making someone's situation worse.
Honestly, though, I don't think these kind of anecdotal stories are all that relevant when you're talking about big public works projects. Everything you do on this scale will inevitably have a negative impact on SOMEONE. What matters is that the good outweighs the bad.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
The Yonge bus between York Mills and Eglinton does not have the same headway as the HRT subway, because few riders want to get on the bus between the stations.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
The 97 Yonge is one of the least reliable routes in the city, almost impossible to use. The only people that use it in any real numbers are those between York Mills and Eglinton, where you have two long stretches between stations.
Wrong. The bus stop is still there, but the bus is less frequent (though it's still every 15-20 minutes, which you can't even consider bad service).
Wrong. The bus stop is still there, but the bus is less frequent (though it's still every 15-20 minutes, which you can't even consider bad service).
Electrify
Senior Member
I've been looking for a reason to start an account here, and replying to this thread seems like a good reason.
First, I see no reason why we cannot run buses along Sheppard East once the ROW is implemented. Many cities have local bus routes serving local needs along side LRTs serving regional needs. With that said, the TTC has shown poor judgment when doing this with the Yonge and Sheppard buses. Ideally, the Sheppard West bus would terminate at Bayview and there would be a North Toronto bus route running between Eglinton and Sheppard to accompany the current Yonge buses. What this would do is provide acceptable local headways along corridors with subways serving long distance travel.
Another thing worth pointing out is the argument about the poor Asian walking along Sheppard... how do we know that this person has/had a bus stop at his front door? Odds are he had to walk a distance to get to Sheppard. Walking to transit is an accepted reality for those outside downtown. It is accepted because the time getting to the bus is made up by the actual transit travel. By making transit faster, people will travel from longer distances to get to it.
On topic, the mayor is touting these lines as "rapid transit." While there is no golden rule about stop spacing to make a route "rapid," the general consensus is stops placed every kilometer (half city block), further in low density areas and closer in core areas. SELRT will be far from this standard, with stop spacing closer to local bus routes than rapid transit.
What is most frustrating is that this is a lost opportunity. Imagine if the Sheppard East LRT operated like an above ground subway, like the mayor said. Soon LRT would be demanded in every part of the region. And unlike a subway, it could be done affordably. Optimistically speaking, we could have a European style rapid transit network serving the GTA within 50 years! However, people will see all these tight local stops, perceive it as a multi-billion dollar version of St. Clair, and it will give the province the clear to kill off the rest of these projects.
If the city doesn't have the guts to give these lines with proper stop spacing, they should just do a Viva style BRT system with prepaid boarding, high capacity buses, and exclusive bus lanes. This could be done at a far lower cost than LRT.
First, I see no reason why we cannot run buses along Sheppard East once the ROW is implemented. Many cities have local bus routes serving local needs along side LRTs serving regional needs. With that said, the TTC has shown poor judgment when doing this with the Yonge and Sheppard buses. Ideally, the Sheppard West bus would terminate at Bayview and there would be a North Toronto bus route running between Eglinton and Sheppard to accompany the current Yonge buses. What this would do is provide acceptable local headways along corridors with subways serving long distance travel.
Another thing worth pointing out is the argument about the poor Asian walking along Sheppard... how do we know that this person has/had a bus stop at his front door? Odds are he had to walk a distance to get to Sheppard. Walking to transit is an accepted reality for those outside downtown. It is accepted because the time getting to the bus is made up by the actual transit travel. By making transit faster, people will travel from longer distances to get to it.
On topic, the mayor is touting these lines as "rapid transit." While there is no golden rule about stop spacing to make a route "rapid," the general consensus is stops placed every kilometer (half city block), further in low density areas and closer in core areas. SELRT will be far from this standard, with stop spacing closer to local bus routes than rapid transit.
What is most frustrating is that this is a lost opportunity. Imagine if the Sheppard East LRT operated like an above ground subway, like the mayor said. Soon LRT would be demanded in every part of the region. And unlike a subway, it could be done affordably. Optimistically speaking, we could have a European style rapid transit network serving the GTA within 50 years! However, people will see all these tight local stops, perceive it as a multi-billion dollar version of St. Clair, and it will give the province the clear to kill off the rest of these projects.
If the city doesn't have the guts to give these lines with proper stop spacing, they should just do a Viva style BRT system with prepaid boarding, high capacity buses, and exclusive bus lanes. This could be done at a far lower cost than LRT.