GenerationW
Senior Member
It would have to be Don Mills, and it would make perfect sense to delay the most contentious part of the route (heck, go further west!), but of course they don't want to risk alienating Scarborough even more.
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TTC: Sheppard Subway Expansion (Speculative)
- Thread starter LAz
- Start date
Electrify
Senior Member
The whole Sheppard issue reminds me of Viva Purple in York Region. Despite the fact that 90% of the people who ride the route are going between Yonge St and York University, the route does get off the fast Highway 7 to detour into the bus loop at Fairview, after which it must take Centre St which has many more lights and is slower. There is a GO bus which runs between thw two points and takes the highway the entire way, but the extra cost sees most people use the local service over the regional one.
LAz
Active Member
I would like to see a permanent funding solution. Like a casino or something that will always sends revenues towards subway construction. So that this would be used for future subway construction, not just a little bit of sheppard.
Lets keep in mind, some people are willing to travel in order to waste their lives gambling. May as well have them do it locally, right?
Lets keep in mind, some people are willing to travel in order to waste their lives gambling. May as well have them do it locally, right?
EnviroTO
Senior Member
If we will only get $8B once then LRT is exactly what we should spend it on because it lowers the operational costs of busy surface routes and provides capacity that doesn't quickly dwindle with street congestion. We do need to build subways in Toronto, but not where Transit City routes are being put because those routes are busy local crosstown bus routes, not relievers to an overloaded subway or overloaded express bus routes. The only way to reduce the operational costs of busy bus routes is to reduce staff per passenger km and energy per passenger km. We need to focus subway building on places where a subway is required, not where it is nice to have and where the cost recovery will be poor. Right now the only places a subway makes sense are (a) the DRL, (b) an SRT replacement, and assuming the DRL is completed to Danforth possibly (c) a Yonge extension. Beyond that we should focus on ways to get the surface route to be cheaper to operate such as with dedicated lanes and signal priority where congestion slows vehicles, articulated buses, and LRT conversion.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Exactly how does Tridel profit off a subway station that might arrive in ten years when, A), the condo units have already been sold and, B), they were already advertising them with “future GO, TTC subway, and bus station†access? Are they going to advertise them with “future GO, TTC subway, and bus station – no, really, for real this time†access?
So if we build a DRL/King subway, that won't subsidize downtown developers or transfer wealth to downtown landowners? Or do you only have a problem with Sheppard because it's the suburbs? Are downtowners so peeved with crappy surface transit in the trendy neighbourhoods east and west of the core that they bare their teeth and hiss every time progress is made towards transit-oriented development elsewhere in the city?
It may not be Tridel that builds more condos near Metrogate, but someone else will. Menkes, Concord, Pemberton, whoever. Remember, you didn’t know about the larger development plans for the area when you went on your rant. What determines whether there are more buildings? Not transit, that's for sure. The city and the province decide where development will go - not transit. Of course, the city and province also decide where transit will go, so they have complete control.
Spending over $1 billion on an on-street streetcar ROW on Sheppard is a frivolous waste of money when we can spend $100 million and achieve everything promised by the LRT with improved bus service. If the goal is to get the longest rail line as possible on Sheppard to make our transit maps prettier, yes, an LRT line is cheaper than a finished subway line, but if the goal is to improve transit on transit on Sheppard and actually deal with real transit problems in an affordable way, LRT becomes hideously expensive for what you get. You do know that the city wanted to validate the LRT by rezoning Sheppard and opening up the strip malls and backyards of east Agincourt and Malvern to low-rise development, right? What do you call that? What would you call that if Tridel wanted to build there?
The reality is that we're doing a poor job aligning transit and development. Instead of spending billions of dollars running lines to places that we think might possibly be rezoned one day to add a few thousand residential units, why don’t we spend the money running them to places that have actual trip generators and *are* seeing development and are the places officially slated for more growth by every body (including the real estate market at large) that has the power to make further growth materialize?
Tulse
Senior Member
Actually, casinos do not bring in much money. According to the OLG annual report for 2009-2010, Toronto made $15 million on Woodbine Racetrack in 2010, and any new similarly-sized casino would be unlikely to pull in more. As for the large "resort casinos", such as Fallsview, they actually lost money in 2010.
Casinos are not a panacea. (And given that it took all of 2 minutes with Google to find those figures suggests that Doug Ford didn't bother to do any research at all before shooting his mouth off.)
Palma
Senior Member
And that place would be.....
voxpopulicosmicum
Senior Member
^The airport and surrounding commercial environs.
JWBF
Senior Member
Yes, but don't forget old, new and present "city centres", and transit hubs.
Mississauga City Centre, STC, & Vaughn Met. Centre for example.
voxpopulicosmicum
Senior Member
Agreed, except I thought we were talking about building RT connections to places that don't already have them. STC is already served by RT. The line to VMC is being built right now. I tend to reflexively avoid news about Peel, but IIRC there is a plan to build an RT corridor on Hurontario that would serve MCC.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Certainly not places like Sheppard & Morningside or Eglinton & Jane.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
As it is right now Sheppard is relatively useless. Ford, as we all know, will never come up with enough money to take the line from Spadina to STC. I do think that doing the small section from Spadina to Yonge is quite doable with some private money, limited money from the city from a small fee {ie parking}, the $350 million from the feds and the $650 from Queen's Park.
The worse possible thing, which is why Toronto is considering it} would be to extend the line eastward but not get to STC ie just getting the line to VP. It wouldn't make almost no difference in the time saved and would do nothing to get rid of the transfers along the route.
Spending money to just extend the line in 3 km east or west is an obscen waste of funds as it will result in very little difference in the commute time for people going east to west. Extending the line from DM to STC or Yonge to Spadina would help make the line useful but which ever route they decide one end of the line should either end at Spadina or STC.
The worse possible thing, which is why Toronto is considering it} would be to extend the line eastward but not get to STC ie just getting the line to VP. It wouldn't make almost no difference in the time saved and would do nothing to get rid of the transfers along the route.
Spending money to just extend the line in 3 km east or west is an obscen waste of funds as it will result in very little difference in the commute time for people going east to west. Extending the line from DM to STC or Yonge to Spadina would help make the line useful but which ever route they decide one end of the line should either end at Spadina or STC.
I'm sure many Scarberians would rather see the money that's currently going to Eglinton East be used to bring the B-D line to STC. Deal with Eglinton East and West at the same time, in a later phase.
But honestly, at this point, I just want to see something built, and I think we have a better chance of getting changes done if we push for minor upgrades as opposed to a completely new concept.
Dan416
Senior Member
Extending the Danforth line to STC is the most optimal and logical and sensical solution. Of course the TTC won't go for it. What do you think the TTC uses in its decision-making? Logic? Ha!
SlickFranky
Active Member
There is a crippling bottleneck on Sheppard at the 404, an employment node at Consumers, and a busy bus route at Vic Park. I don't know if that's worth $700M or whatever it is, but I could think of way stupider things to spend money on.
Lately I'm preferring the idea of running the SE-LRT to Don Mills Stn, then bringing it south to Eglinton to meet the DRL. Can't recall who brought that up but I think it's genius.