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Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

An LRT would make perfect sense if that's what the transit reality of that area of the city demanded. It would be unrealistic of me to expect one mode of transit to take me where I want to go.

Stop talking sense. Some people from Scarborough don't want to hear this type of talk.
 
An LRT would make perfect sense if that's what the transit reality of that area of the city demanded. It would be unrealistic of me to expect one mode of transit to take me where I want to go.

Would it be nice if I could stay on the subway and get dropped off at Square One? Sure. But I realize there's a reason why there's no Mississauga Subway. Getting on Mississauga Transit isn't a big deal for me. Neither is using YRT/Viva when I get off at Finch.

Of the many times I've used the RT, I've never once considered it an inconvenience or a 'lesser' form of transit. I don't see it as any different than any other transfer I'd make when using the subway, whether it's the RT, getting on the streetcar or a bus.

If you want to talk about numbers, the King & Queen Streetcar lines carry over 100,000 riders a day. Would it be reasonable of me to expect a subway that takes me straight to King & John?

The 510 Spadina has greater ridership than the RT too. Should I expect a direct subway connection to Queen & Spadina?

Instead of a single one-stop subway, a better solution would be a network of LRT lines that provides far greater transit access to Scarborough residents.

In any case, I'm not holding my breath that this extension is going to be be cost-effective. The entire process has been irrational, so I don't see that suddenly changing when it comes to actually planning and implementing it.

Square One is not in Toronto nor part of the TTC. SCC is.

For sure the entire process has been irrational. But transit building has always been irrational. I look at most existing stops north of Yonge and Eglinton and East & West of DT on the Bloor Danforth line and wonder how in the hell to we can justify subways so easily to these areas and now that it time to integrate Scarborough Center which if given multiple stop along the way would see some of the BEST ridership in the current system outside of Downtown itself. If we are going in another direction In Toronto an beyond lets atleast finish connecting Scarborough Growth Center to the same main transit trunk in this City. The subway line alteast goes extends to a "Business/ Growth Center" a "central" part of the line in each Borough (Aside from the bypassed East York CC) all the main Borough's in Etobicoke (Islington), NYCC.

I agree the one stop is absurd. But I think last weeks votes had more to to do with moving forward than approving the one stop as final. Another "Consultant" is being retained & It wont be one stop.
 
Mississauga is not technically part of Toronto, but it is part of the GTA and plenty of Mississauga residents work in Toronto. A significant portion of funding for the Scarborough Subway is coming from other levels of government. I'm sure Mississauga residents could make a very similar case for a subway extension.

I don't think 'transit planning has always been irrational' is sound justification. It's not true either. The original Yonge line was a very rational decision, as was the Bloor Line (though you could argue the merits of placing it on Bloor as opposed to further south).

The reason the extension was reduced to one stop is because there isn't funding for a more comprehensive extension. I seriously doubt they're going to add more stops at this point.

If this extension goes ahead, I hope it's entirely above ground, along the current RT alignment. I'm not sure there's any point in putting any of it underground.
 
I don't think 'transit planning has always been irrational' is sound justification. It's not true either. The original Yonge line was a very rational decision, as was the Bloor Line (though you could argue the merits of placing it on Bloor as opposed to further south).

If I went back to 1954 and told the planners that Bloor and Eglinton got a subway before Queen, they would not be very pleased. East-west subways were supposed to be Queen then Bloor then Eglinton, with subways spreading radially from the core up Dufferin and Don Mills.
 
If I went back to 1954 and told the planners that Bloor and Eglinton got a subway before Queen, they would not be very pleased. East-west subways were supposed to be Queen then Bloor then Eglinton, with subways spreading radially from the core up Dufferin and Don Mills.[/QUOTE

This makes perfect sense to me.
 
If I went back to 1954 and told the planners that Bloor and Eglinton got a subway before Queen, they would not be very pleased. East-west subways were supposed to be Queen then Bloor then Eglinton, with subways spreading radially from the core up Dufferin and Don Mills.

What if you told them Scarborough would be getting a subway before Queen? ;)

You're right. I'm not saying that the Bloor line was unanimously accepted - it wasn't. Few transit proposals are. But it was the TTC's preferred route and there were plenty of reasons it made sense.
 
If I went back to 1954 and told the planners that Bloor and Eglinton got a subway before Queen, they would not be very pleased. East-west subways were supposed to be Queen then Bloor then Eglinton, with subways spreading radially from the core up Dufferin and Don Mills.

There is a fully built east/west subway station under the Yonge Queen subway station!

You can see how to combine a Queen subway with the Stouffville Go line and tie in Don Mills by using EMU's in SmartTrack 2.0 and if the UPX goes by Dufferin, we can throw it in, too.
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/transit-fantasy-maps.3005/page-292#post-1109076

BTW let's extend our cut and cover project on Midland to Steeles. :)
 
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Cut and cover everything!

Why did they put the 401 extension in an open cut depression instead of cut-and-cover? It was in a suburban area, it deserves to be out of sight as well.


How much real estate space would any subway extension or LRT take in comparison.
 
What if you told them Scarborough would be getting a subway before Queen? ;)

You're right. I'm not saying that the Bloor line was unanimously accepted - it wasn't. Few transit proposals are. But it was the TTC's preferred route and there were plenty of reasons it made sense.

Now Scarborough's population is almost 3/4 of the population of what was Toronto in the 50's. It's almost 3 times what the population of Toronto was when the first subway was being built in Toronto. And the areas within Scarborough are we talking about providing subway stops have less "low density" than most of the existing stop outside the core currently. But you would never know reading some the crap posted in the media.

Its all Politics. Always has been. Although now the divide between the transit "haves" and the "have nots" has created extreme polarization so its a bit uglier. 50 years after these lines are built no one cares about the Politics.
 
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Stop talking sense. Some people from Scarborough don't want to hear this type of talk.

Because strawman and red herring arguments constitute rational discussion?

Last I checked Scarborough is part of the City of Toronto. It’s residents pay taxes to the City of Toronto. And are represented by councillors on Toronto City Council. As such, their transportation and transit framework should generally be under the TTC umbrella. There is no such expectation for Mississauga. And this constant comparison to Mississauga only bolsters the subway proponents arguments that downtown elites don't think Scarborough is part of Toronto. So why bother with this line of argument?

What makes that transfer at Kennedy illogical is the fact that the bulk of riders are transiting between Kennedy and Lawrence or SC. Transfers in the same corridor for a bulk of riders are illogical. I'd argue the same for Eglinton (this is why I've argued in the past that Crosstown should be a through service at Kennedy, not terminating there), or at Finch (where bulk of riders are going north).

If we’re going to compare to a streetcar or Queen, heck, why even bother with LRT? Clearly streetcars are enough. We can save even more money. Of course, this is a red herring that completely ignores the distance and travel time involved.

I’ve said before that LRT made sense in the context of suburban rail expansion, specifically because suburban rail would ameliorate a lot of those travel time concerns, enough, so that transfers wouldn’t be as consequential. But feel free to keep thinking, it’s all about “subways, subways, subways”. Then you can watch it all go down again on Sheppard…..
 
I'd argue that it's comnute time to the core (or more broadly outside Scarborough), and by extension economic access, since the bulk of jobs are in the core.

Yes, most trips are in Scarborough. But those aren't there ones that really take long. Very few people are spending 1 hr commuting inside Scarborough. And the LRT wouldn't have done much for most of these trips anyway.

Guys like @Forgotten slam me for supporting Smart Track. But from where I stand, I can see some palpable frustration with those commute times. And I can see that the subway has come to represent progress, investment, and economic access. This is why I sincerely hoped that we could have suburban rail and kill the mythology behind subways.

LRT can succeed in Scarborough. Needs a whole different sales pitch and implementation. And we really, really need to start pushing suburban rail (RER or Smart Track) for core bound commuters. Pitch LRT as the luxury streetcar to your 25 minute RER ride.

Let's get real here. ScamTrack is nothing but air. As far as the whole transit file is concerned Tory has Toronto moving backwards. It seems like each new day with him takes us one step back.

You can call that slamming if you want but aside from your perpetual mental gymnastics fit for Tory's PR team each time he breaks a promise, moving goal posts whenever Tory fails again, and hubris in race baiting as if no immigrants live north of the 401, I got no problem with your posts.
 
Let's get real here. ScamTrack is nothing but air. As far as the whole transit file is concerned Tory has Toronto moving backwards. It seems like each new day with him takes us one step back.

You can call that slamming if you want but aside from your perpetual mental gymnastics fit for Tory's PR team each time he breaks a promise, moving goal posts whenever Tory fails again, and hubris in race baiting as if no immigrants live north of the 401, I got no problem with your posts.

Meh. Enjoy you internet rage. My posts on here aren't part of any agenda than my own views based on my experience and those of my family and friends. I'm sick of watching my 60 year old mother spend 3.5 hrs on transit each day. I'm sick of spending 2 hrs each way taking transit to work myself. And the rest of my neighbours don't seem to differ that far from my viewpoints. If you think that this somehow translates into, "Tory's PR", fill your boots, keyboard warrior.

My support of Smart Track has always been based on a belief that it'll end up being some modification of GO RER. If that happens, I'll be quite satisfied, since that just might mean that most of my friends and family aren't spending 1/3 of their day outside the home, in transit.
 
Now Scarborough's population is almost 3/4 of the population of what was Toronto in the 50's. It's almost 3 times what the population of Toronto was when the first subway was being built in Toronto. And the areas within Scarborough are we talking about providing subway stops have less "low density" than most of the existing stop outside the core currently.

These are actually fact-based argument points that one can have a rational, adult conversation with.

You were doing pretty well there...

But you would never know reading some the crap posted in the media.

Until this. More of the same. "It's the media's fault."

Its all Politics. Always has been. Although now the divide between the transit "haves" and the "have nots" has created extreme polarization so its a bit uglier. 50 years after these lines are built no one cares about the Politics.

And this. The paranoia is back.

Did a newspaper reporter and a politician from downtown torture and kill your dog or something?
 

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