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TTC: Transit City Bus Plan

The problem lies when you have politics come into the equation as LRT makes for far better ribbon cutting ceremonies than does a BRT line and taxpayers and transit users be damned. This is what miller did with TC to every street he could think of regardless of whether it was the right choice or not.

Still wanta know..........where the hell did those pics of those mega-buses come from and which companies on working on them?
 
Hi, I'm a long time lurker on this forum, not sure if this is the right thread for this (I can't start a new thread):
What do you think of the idea of running a frequent express bus line down Mt. Pleasant & Jarvis?

Currently there are two Mt Pleasant busses, north & south. The North one runs between a loop north of Lawrence to Eglinton station. The south one loops at Eglinton & Mt Pleasant and travels down to St. Clair station I believe. As far as I know, both lines are infrequent. There is also a premium express bus running on Mt. Pleasant/Jarvis a few times in the morning & afternoon only. The idea would be to unite all these into a continuous line. As far as I know, there are no busses on Jarvis regularly.

The route is a pretty fast one for cars when there isn't heavy traffic, so if the stops are not very close, busses should be able to run fairly fast. I would expect the main cost would be the increase in number of busses and it could be implemented quickly.

I guess the main argument against it would be that the Yonge subway line is a 10 min walk away. However I wonder if this could be useful as an alternative or minor relief of Yonge, if people's origin/destination is east of Yonge.

Disclaimer: I live near Mt Pleasant :).
 
ehlow said:
Hi, I'm a long time lurker on this forum, not sure if this is the right thread for this (I can't start a new thread):
What do you think of the idea of running a frequent express bus line down Mt. Pleasant & Jarvis?

Currently there are two Mt Pleasant busses, north & south. The North one runs between a loop north of Lawrence to Eglinton station. The south one loops at Eglinton & Mt Pleasant and travels down to St. Clair station I believe. As far as I know, both lines are infrequent. There is also a premium express bus running on Mt. Pleasant/Jarvis a few times in the morning & afternoon only. The idea would be to unite all these into a continuous line. As far as I know, there are no busses on Jarvis regularly.

The route is a pretty fast one for cars when there isn't heavy traffic, so if the stops are not very close, busses should be able to run fairly fast. I would expect the main cost would be the increase in number of busses and it could be implemented quickly.

I guess the main argument against it would be that the Yonge subway line is a 10 min walk away. However I wonder if this could be useful as an alternative or minor relief of Yonge, if people's origin/destination is east of Yonge.

Disclaimer: I live near Mt Pleasant :).
Click to expand...

Interesting idea. If I were going to do it, I'd probably start the express service at St. Clair station, in order to intercept St. Clair streetcar riders, and give them an alternative to the Yonge Subway (which is usually jam packed by the time it even hits St. Clair).

The biggest drawback IMO to using Jarvis is that there would be no Bloor-Danforth connection. Although if you spaced the stops properly, that may not be too big of an issue. I know when I was living at Sherbourne & Wellesley, that it was pretty much a toss up between walking up to Sherbourne Stn or taking the Wellesley bus to Wellesley Stn to get downtown. But if there was an express bus stop at say Jarvis & Mt. Pleasant (in front of the Rogers building), with a frequent route that headed downtown, I would have taken that as my preference.

To put it bluntly, N-S transit between Yonge and the DVP south of Bloor sucks. I'm not sure if an express bus service is the way to help that, but it would be an interesting thing to look at.

And welcome to UT!
 
One of the "new" express buses in the Bus Plan, never implemented, was an express 89 Weston. It would have run up to the Finch LRT.

Current plans call for an express Weston bus WHEN the Crosstown LRT opens. That south terminal would be the Mt. Dennis Station. Unknown about the northern terminal.

Too bad the plan didn't follow part of the old 93 Woodbridge bus route. Different jurisdiction however, north of Steeles. Lot of zone fares in those days.

93-woodbridge-06.jpg

I think the label for the "Weston Rd." in the HUMBER SUMMIT area should read "Islington Ave."
 
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The weather this weekend makes me wonder: is it feasible to heated surface stops for TTC shelters, like the ones on the highway 7 BRT (does Ottawa's transitway have them too?).

If there were a heated shelters in some major surface stops such as the LRT surface stops, and there were also LED signs showing the next few vehicles, it would make one of the most unpleasant experiences taking transit (waiting for an unreliable bus in the cold) much more pleasant.
 
W. K. Lis said:
One of the "new" express buses in the Bus Plan, never implemented, was an express 89 Weston. It would have run up to the Finch LRT.

Current plans call for an express Weston bus WHEN the Crosstown LRT opens. That south terminal would be the Mt. Dennis Station. Unknown about the northern terminal.

Too bad the plan didn't follow part of the old 93 Woodbridge bus route. Different jurisdiction however, north of Steeles. Lot of zone fares in those days.

93-woodbridge-06.jpg

I think the label for the "Weston Rd." in the HUMBER SUMMIT area should read "Islington Ave."
Click to expand...
I agree. Not just that, but some of that is actually Plunkett. Woodbridge Road became an extension of Islington.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
The Commission is recommending that the TTC Board endorses what is essential the Transit City Bus Plan from 2007: http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...ies_to_Improve_Transit_Service_in_Toronto.pdf
Click to expand...

Its from August, 2009. See link.

Looks like after careful consideration, any plans of Rob Ford have been filed under "G" for garbage. The TTC is returning back to the past. The bad news is that we have had four wasted years.

At least, we will be reviewing and improving those plans, not throwing them out.
 
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In the new OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE TRANSIT SERVICE IN TORONTO report, see link, I noticed something interesting. See this example:

Today there is wide support for more and better-quality transit service in Toronto. There are many improvements underway or under study to expand the availability of rapid transit, such as the Eglinton-Crosstown Light-Rail Line, the “Scarborough Subway†and the Sheppard and Finch Light-Rail Lines. However, these are all 7-20 years away from implementation. But Toronto needs better transit now, and this report documents how this can be done, starting right away, and building continually over the next four years.
Click to expand...

What I find interesting is that the report is using quotes around "Scarborough Subway". To me that means, "Scarborough Subway" is subject to change and could be something other than a subway, like a light rail line.
 
W. K. Lis said:
In the new OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE TRANSIT SERVICE IN TORONTO report, see link, I noticed something interesting. See this example:



What I find interesting is that the report is using quotes around "Scarborough Subway". To me that means, "Scarborough Subway" is subject to change and could be something other than a subway, like a light rail line.
Click to expand...

Well we already know that the TTC doesn't think this thing is getting built. There's a reason why they're doing as little as possible on the subway extension. Why waste the money? IIRC, TTC officials have actually said this publicly.
 
W. K. Lis said:
What I find interesting is that the report is using quotes around "Scarborough Subway". To me that means, "Scarborough Subway" is subject to change and could be something other than a subway, like a light rail line.
Click to expand...

Interesting, but quotations alone are hardly worthy of speculation. Your interpretation would be more valid had they simply said "SRT replacement", which could obviously mean either subway or LRT. The liberal budget for example said "transit solutions for Sheppard East and Finch West in Toronto", which did not mention LRT at all.
 
It's more accurate to call it a Bloor-Danforth extension than Scarborough Subway anyway.
 
Update on new express bus network:
http://www.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Com...orts/Express_Bus_Route_Network_Study_Plan.pdf

I like that they're looking at branding & marketing as well. If the service is better than a regular bus, sometimes marketing and signage can differentiate it. For example in Waterloo when they had a new express bus they called it "iXpress", they had specially branded buses, stops and simple to understand maps.

Hopefully some improvements can happen soon.
 
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