Waterfront Transit Reset Phase 1 Study

[W. K. Lis]

I have a problem with Metropasses being a taxable benefit for councillors. Parking for councillors at city hall is free and not a taxable benefit.

From link:

The federal agency has since agreed not to tax councillors' city hall parking privileges or their office budgets, according to Celine Chiovitti, the city's director of pension, payroll and employee benefits.

"It is interesting that their policy sees a [city hall]parking pass as not taxable and a TTC pass as taxable," Councillor Joe Mihevc, vice-chair of the TTC, said. "It really should be the other way around."

 

[BurlOak]

We must take them at face value and provide criticism as necessary - giving it a pass and say "but it won't be implemented because it is so blatantly flawed" is inviting bad decisions to be made.

AoD

When they decided to put the Eglinton LRT on-street through Leslie, I remember people saying exactly that (i.e. "it won't be implemented because it is so blatantly flawed"). We know how that turned out.

 

[Rainforest]

I have a problem with Metropasses being a taxable benefit for councillors. Parking for councillors at city hall is free and not a taxable benefit.

From link:

Logically you are right, but there might be a practical problem in that Metropasses are issued on personal basis, while free parking isn't tied to personal parking spots. It wouldn't be reasonable to tax a councilor for the free parking privilege if they don't actually bring a vehicle to city hall.

 

[drum118]

Something was said last Tuesday doing a high overview of the west end that caught my ear since I don't recall it coming up in the June Meeting. Because of Union, it slip my mind to asked about what I heard.

At tonight meeting for Mississauga Lakeshore study, what I heard last week show up as an option for High Order Transit between Long Branch Loop and the Imperial Oil Site on the west side of Port Credit or AKA Mississauga Rd. The option calls for TTC 501 to cover this route which make sense in a lot of way since the Hurontario LRT wouldn't do this at all other than being a short east-west line on Lakeshore with no real connection to Hurontario. You could do it east of Hurontario, but not to the Imperial Oil site. There isn't any need in our life time or the next 30 or so years having High Order Transit west of the Imperial Site due to poor density that it will be hard to support an express bus at all.

What is not known, is how this line would service the current Long Branch Loop without some type of ramp to the west because of different elevation as well on the curve. The only option would see switches cut in at Browns line to take the line into Mississauga and would require an on street stop to allow riders to use the GO Station or the bus routes. Then what happens to the current MT routes 5 & 23 that will duplicate the 501 service with the lines not stopping elsewhere?

There is no plan for the Long Branch Loop Hub at this time that I know of showing what could happen there.

I wasn't impress with what being proposed for Lakeshore.

 

[TransitBart]

Why do I have less faith in 'experts' after reading this exchange? This is a tragic discussion.

 

[crs1026]

Some notes from the public meeting in Etobicoke last night

- The project is being posed in phases, partly because it's a long route and partly to address cost - an incremental approach.
- The priorities are clearly the east end and Exhibition-Dufferin link. The link to Union (which I will leave to the other thread) is the elephant in the room to that.
- The Dufferin- Humber Bay link is ten years away and is not expected to save much travel time over today's 501/504, although it will be far more reliable, and adds capacity. The success of the King transit mall, and its potential expansion to other parts of 501 and 504, is likely the realistic solution to faster street cars towards the Humber, although no solution to the King/Queen/Roncy intersection is being offered. The study may help get some transit priority signalling started on the Queensway.
- Extension to Port Credit was highlighted, but the details of hubs and service design remain to be worked out. Several options suggested, but only as raw ideas. A rearrangement of Long Branch Loop is recommended, one objective being to bring the street car platform much closer to the GO platform.

The other elephant in the room was the Humber Bay transportation master plan study, which is not progressing as fast as expected and won't be done before the Reset study recommendations go to Council. That study, and not the Reset study, will reveal whether ML is willing to move the GO station. Councillor Grimes was present for the first part of the meeting, and judging from how he jumped into the discussion about the timing of the Humber Bay study, he's feeling the pressure on resolving this.

The other unknown remains the resolution to the Christie Lands, which affects where the Humber Bay hub will go.

As someone living near Humber Bay, it was disappointing to hear how little relief this project is going to bring to this area, although the analysis of what's needed on Lakeshore west of the Humber was reasonable enough. Clearly, RER is the only hope for a faster link to downtown. Moving the GO station is what residents need to put pressure on. The rest of the presentation struck me as interesting detail, and all good planning for the waterfront - but move the damn GO station and you could leave the western terminus of the QQ line at Dufferin.

- Paul

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The Dufferin- Humber Bay link is ten years away and is not expected to save much travel time over today's 501/504

In ten years, we’ll likely be in the midst of planning the DRL extension west to Humber Bay (the extension to Sheppard should be well underway by then).

 

[DSC]

In ten years, we’ll likely be in the midst of planning the DRL extension west to Humber Bay (the extension to Sheppard should be well underway by then).

Yes, transit planning in Toronto is our great passion. Unfortunately we seem unable to actually BUILD anything!

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

In ten years, we’ll likely be in the midst of planning the DRL extension west to Humber Bay (the extension to Sheppard should be well underway by then).

I actually don't think this would be a bad idea.

Basically, the western leg could go anywhere and be a useful subway extension.

Funny how the exact opposite applies in the suburbs.

 

[Momo49]

I actually don't think this would be a bad idea.

Basically, the western leg could go anywhere and be a useful subway extension.

Funny how the exact opposite applies in the suburbs.

I dont see how you can justify a subway to "anywhere" in the west when the ridership to south etobicoke is less than 2000 in 2041. Maybe connecting up to bd around dundas west but we have yet to see those ridership #s

 

[aquateam]

In ten years, we’ll likely be in the midst of planning the DRL extension west to Humber Bay (the extension to Sheppard should be well underway by then).

I actually don't think this would be a bad idea.

Basically, the western leg could go anywhere and be a useful subway extension.

Funny how the exact opposite applies in the suburbs.

It's funny, early versions of the DRL looked at going to HBS!

Personally, I think that with the WWLRT and Lakeshore GO, it doesn't make sense to have all three modes going east-west in the same corridor. Having a Sunnyside hub for transfers from GO/LRT to the DRL would be a good solution but first we would have to extend the DRL west of University.

I dont see how you can justify a subway to "anywhere" in the west when the ridership to south etobicoke is less than 2000 in 2041. Maybe connecting up to bd around dundas west but we have yet to see those ridership #s

According to the Downtown Rapid Transit Expansion Study (2012) there are more peak hour boardings+alightings west of line 1 (11 800+9 600) than east of it (8 300+10 700). Overall the numbers for local ridership are about equal but the higher transfer volume at Pape results in greater ridership on the eastern leg

What this analysis really shows though is the benefit that comes with reaching Liberty Village.

 

[crs1026]

Having a Sunnyside hub for transfers from GO/LRT to the DRL would be a good solution but first we would have to extend the DRL west of University.

The more I hear about the likely impact of GO's intentions for a fifth track and electrification through Sunnyside, the more I wonder if anything further is possible here. Right now it's a pretty pleasant streetscape (if you can call anything that has about ten lanes of roadway/expressway in it pleasant!). The amount of concrete retaining wall, loss of open space, and vegetation loss will be substantial. ML will have to work very hard to do something attractive. Adding a couple of RER platforms at Sunnyside may just not fit.

What this analysis really shows though is the benefit that comes with reaching Liberty Village.

True, although that ridership is not all going to/from the east of Liberty. I wonder what the potential for ridership along the Sherway-Humber Bay - Liberty Village axis will be, especially as development happens along the Queensway. If you are feeding both Lakeshore and Queensway towards Liberty, and on to downtown, the ridership will be pretty darn good. At the least, one might do an LRT tunnel from Sunnyside to the DRL at Liberty. That would greatly improve auto traffic, and create a speedier transit link. At the public meeting, someone asked about the views on LRT along the Queensway. The response was "not in this study, but yes eventually".

- Paul

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Have light metro systems ever been evaluated for the eastern waterfront and Portlands, similar to the very successful DLR in London?

 

[44 North]

Have light metro systems ever been evaluated for the eastern waterfront and Portlands, similar to the very successful DLR in London?

I read an old archived article from the late 80s a few weeks back and I believe the answer is yes. But for one I think it was mostly just a concept idea, but more importantly also it was wholly contingent on an Expo or Olympics. In the article I read it was only really mentioned briefly, so not certain what this subway-like line would've looked like. Probably like Line 3. But maybe a standalone standard Toronto subway running 2-4 cars, or maybe something dumb like a monorail. This is actually something about any recent Olympics or Expo bid that I was interested in: how would we have brought throngs of visitors to the site. As it stands now when looking at the EBFLRT ridership numbers the line will be slow and over-capacity. So obviously something more than an in-median LRT running cramped legacy streetcars would be needed for an Expo or Olympics. But maybe a newer idea like a RL spur could also work.

 

[drum118]

Have light metro systems ever been evaluated for the eastern waterfront and Portlands, similar to the very successful DLR in London?

Yes it was and rejected since it couldn't interline with the network. We didn't want another SRT on our hands.

When the Expo plan surface, it made no different what system was used, it would fail since Union was the weak link. Monorail was the prefer choice of the city, but what do you do with it after Expo was over since it only service a small area of the big plan was their concerns.

During the 2004-2006 Master Plan EA, I prepared a list showing every mode for transit that show carrying capacity of every type of vehicle, peak point load that would determined the number of vehicles and headway. At the end of the day, streetcars won hands down and this was before talk of a new fleet that exist today.

Even though we were only looking at a small section, we took into consideration how other lines could interline with the Portland Master Plan. We saw then a full east-west line bypassing Union as well having any 5XX being part of the east-west line, as well going to Union. That idea still exist today.