Inkarnate
Active Member
Looking good. That's all I can say, pretty much.
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Whose vision of transit in Toronto do you support?
- Thread starter Dan416
- Start date
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
That map has some strange elements. What's the point of a Don Mills LRT line that's only 6km long and doesn't serve the enormous quantity of residents, schools, and jobs north of Sheppard? What's the point of that Jane LRT after Eglinton and the Spadina extension are built? Why run a BRT line to UTSC along the 401 instead of actually serving Ellesmere? Why run a BRT line through the hydro corridor near Kipling instead of up the 427 where there are actual people? Will Dundas between Dixie and Kipling have no transit? Why extend the Sheppard subway eastward and still build the LRT when there's no traffic or ridership out east? If these route choices are just the result of taking X billion dollars and dividing it up based on assumed costs of $X per km for each mode, recognize that that could be wildly off from the real costs, especially without a list of potential stations.
I should have been more specific: look at a map of Toronto. Downsview and Kennedy are not at centres. Yonge wasn't built as far as Steeles because York Region wasn't supposed to grow, and after the subway was extended to a few blocks north of Finch, North York Centre was created, also extending a few blocks north of Finch. Same with Kipling...the centre came after the subway.
I can disagree and I can also point out how amusingly ignorant you are of travel patterns and on-the-ground contexts. Look, no one needs a subway to Square One and almost no one would use it. Hordes of people in the Square One area would have to take transit just to get to the subway – and if they're doing that, they can do things like take transit to nearby Cooksville GO station. The best reaction to Transfer City is not to build a different set of projects that's just as purposeless.
It's fun to put an extension to Square One on fantasy maps and play connect the dots and it's fun to pretend that malls and clusters of towers and bus connections and so on are less important than 'designated centres.' One mall is probably worth 50,000 people and when one mall sees condo development and an increased number of bus connections, one mall like Sherway would be worth two or three Etobicoke Centres. Incremental expansion is an ideal policy as long as each increment is sound and you don't end up coming short of major hubs and forcing people to transfer in the middle of nowhere, like Kennedy. Going from Islington to Kipling wasn't a good outcome (though limited by funds at the time) when Sherway, the airport, the 427, and Cloverdale all beckoned on the horizon.
The only way to make an extension to Square One not ridiculously long and circuitous is to go in a straight line west of Kipling under about 10km of houses. Doing this would mean skipping everything between Kipling and Square One worth bringing transit to. Even going west of Sherway accomplishes nothing other than replicating the GO line. The only other place to go would be up the 427 to the airport, and there's few obvious benefits of extending the subway there instead of any other transit. Maybe in 50 years, if Burnhamthorpe gains 30,000 condo units, we'll see an extension to Square One as a serious option, but until then it's just about transit map aesthetics. GO improvements, a Hurontario LRT, etc., could render a Bloor extension into Mississauga as impotent as a eunuch.
I should have been more specific: look at a map of Toronto. Downsview and Kennedy are not at centres. Yonge wasn't built as far as Steeles because York Region wasn't supposed to grow, and after the subway was extended to a few blocks north of Finch, North York Centre was created, also extending a few blocks north of Finch. Same with Kipling...the centre came after the subway.
I can disagree and I can also point out how amusingly ignorant you are of travel patterns and on-the-ground contexts. Look, no one needs a subway to Square One and almost no one would use it. Hordes of people in the Square One area would have to take transit just to get to the subway – and if they're doing that, they can do things like take transit to nearby Cooksville GO station. The best reaction to Transfer City is not to build a different set of projects that's just as purposeless.
It's fun to put an extension to Square One on fantasy maps and play connect the dots and it's fun to pretend that malls and clusters of towers and bus connections and so on are less important than 'designated centres.' One mall is probably worth 50,000 people and when one mall sees condo development and an increased number of bus connections, one mall like Sherway would be worth two or three Etobicoke Centres. Incremental expansion is an ideal policy as long as each increment is sound and you don't end up coming short of major hubs and forcing people to transfer in the middle of nowhere, like Kennedy. Going from Islington to Kipling wasn't a good outcome (though limited by funds at the time) when Sherway, the airport, the 427, and Cloverdale all beckoned on the horizon.
The only way to make an extension to Square One not ridiculously long and circuitous is to go in a straight line west of Kipling under about 10km of houses. Doing this would mean skipping everything between Kipling and Square One worth bringing transit to. Even going west of Sherway accomplishes nothing other than replicating the GO line. The only other place to go would be up the 427 to the airport, and there's few obvious benefits of extending the subway there instead of any other transit. Maybe in 50 years, if Burnhamthorpe gains 30,000 condo units, we'll see an extension to Square One as a serious option, but until then it's just about transit map aesthetics. GO improvements, a Hurontario LRT, etc., could render a Bloor extension into Mississauga as impotent as a eunuch.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
I think it is mandatory to have a connection from Malvern and Sheppard East to the Bloor line at SCC. Current travel patterns are bus routes taking people to SCC or Kennedy from the Sheppard East and Malvern area. Eliminating the Malvern to SCC connection means the existing travel patterns aren't served by the "improvements".
jwill
Active Member
Scarberian
I really don't think it helps your case to call me 'amusingly ignorant'.
Anyway, I disagree about the "situation on the ground" as you call it. Mississauga Transit and GO have put a lot of resources into making Square One a major hub for local and regional transit service. An extension to Sherway or even Cooksville will likely not change the fact that a lot of service goes through Square One. The reason being that Square One is a major employment centre, with a growing residential population and planned transit-oriented developments. Yes, all those people who daily go through the Square One Terminal could just take a bus down to Cooksville, or Sherway (or Kipling). But whats the advantage to extending the subway to those points at all? Can't people from Sherway just take a bus to Kipling?
I haven't heard anyone say that an extension to Square One is needed, or even a realistic possibility at this point. I personally don't ever expect to see it happen. But if we can't manage to bring the subway all the way out to Cooksville, then up to Square One, then it might as well stay where it is now. The money needed to extend to Sherway could be better spent elsewhere, and that alignment might not be the best for continuing extensions to the west. Toronto's experience has shown pretty conclusively how much more development is spurred when subways run under streets.
Maybe I just don't understand the need to constantly expand our subway system toward the periphery. I can't imagine how an extension to Sherway will help Etobicoke or Mississauga more than an equivalent amount of money being put into GO improvements, Eglinton LRT grade separations, the Mississauga busway, Dundas LRT, etc. All of those should be higher priority than an extension to Sherway; a mall surrounded by parking lots, a ravine, light industry, a highway interchange, an unfriendly arterial, and single family homes. Explain to me why a subway needs to go here.
I really don't think it helps your case to call me 'amusingly ignorant'.
Anyway, I disagree about the "situation on the ground" as you call it. Mississauga Transit and GO have put a lot of resources into making Square One a major hub for local and regional transit service. An extension to Sherway or even Cooksville will likely not change the fact that a lot of service goes through Square One. The reason being that Square One is a major employment centre, with a growing residential population and planned transit-oriented developments. Yes, all those people who daily go through the Square One Terminal could just take a bus down to Cooksville, or Sherway (or Kipling). But whats the advantage to extending the subway to those points at all? Can't people from Sherway just take a bus to Kipling?
I haven't heard anyone say that an extension to Square One is needed, or even a realistic possibility at this point. I personally don't ever expect to see it happen. But if we can't manage to bring the subway all the way out to Cooksville, then up to Square One, then it might as well stay where it is now. The money needed to extend to Sherway could be better spent elsewhere, and that alignment might not be the best for continuing extensions to the west. Toronto's experience has shown pretty conclusively how much more development is spurred when subways run under streets.
Maybe I just don't understand the need to constantly expand our subway system toward the periphery. I can't imagine how an extension to Sherway will help Etobicoke or Mississauga more than an equivalent amount of money being put into GO improvements, Eglinton LRT grade separations, the Mississauga busway, Dundas LRT, etc. All of those should be higher priority than an extension to Sherway; a mall surrounded by parking lots, a ravine, light industry, a highway interchange, an unfriendly arterial, and single family homes. Explain to me why a subway needs to go here.
There is a plan to put in a BRT Light (queue jump lanes, signal priority, etc) along Neilson from MTC to the 401, where it will use the 401 BRT into STC. It wasn't put on the map because it is not true BRT. It will be mentioned in the report though.
Don Mills LRT: That is one of the things we're debating, which is extending the DMLRT up to Steeles. My only concern is that that section will need to be designed to allow VIVA buses to use the same lanes to go to Don Mills station.
Jane LRT: The most redundant part of the current Jane LRT proposal is the section from Eglinton to Bloor. By eliminating that section, and rerouting the southern end into Weston station, it will be a 1 transfer route to downtown (the current Jane proposal would be a minimum of 2). I think it would be a pretty important N-S lane for western Toronto.
401 BRT: I'll let Fresh Start handle that one, he's the one who championed that alignment.
Kipling BRT: Making the modifications to the 427 to build that type of BRT would be magnitudes more expensive than running it through the hydro corridor. I do see some sort of BRT service (likely express) along the 427 at some point, but Kipling is a much easier build.
Sheppard East LRT: If I had my way, it wouldn't be built. But someone at the TTC decided to make it a priority, so we have to live with a certain degree of sunken costs into the project, and by the time the election happens, a good portion of the line may be past the point of no return.
Costs: We just used the standard estimates from similar types of projects. $300 million/km is pretty much the run of the mill cost for suburban subway construction (Spadina is costed at $306 million, and that's with Cathedral-like stations). We used $70 million for in-median LRT, which is what Sheppard is costing. Yes the costs may vary a bit once full EAs are done, but we definetly will not be seeing the doubling or tripling in costs that we've seen with Transit City.
Dan416
Senior Member
I think calling Square One the "periphery" is pretty ridiculous. Oakville or Burlington or Oshawa are periphery. Mississauga is as close to downtown as Scarborough is (UTM and UTSC are about the same distance out from UT-St George). Mississauga is home to 700,000 people, and Peel Region to over 1 million. Yet not a single subway crosses the border into this supposed "periphery" of a million people.
If Hazel McCallion wanted a subway, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. It'd be like discussing the current Spadina extension.
Fresh Start
Banned
Because there is nothing directly along Ellesmere to serve through this entire stretch apart from Centenary Hospital. The 95 York Mills can and would be the only bus route serving this area per our proposal. The intention of the Hwy 401 busway is to provide true rapid transit connectivity between Scarborough Town Centre and the major nodal areas/destinations of eastern 416 which are identified as Malvern Town Centre, Progress Centennial College, UTSC and the Kingston Rd corridor. All TTC bus routes that presently funnel out of SCC travelling in a generally northerly or easterly direction would be able to share the right-of-way along the busway, unmitigated by surrounding traffic or numerous stop lights en route to destinations. The Hwy 401-Scarbrough Busway is the optimal alignment for offering a direct rapid transit connection right on the Progress Campus grounds, reducing walk times between transit and classrooms.
What is not included on that map are a series of ramps that would allow buses to freely enter and exit from the busway onto the major north-south arterials between SCC and UTSC (McCowan, Markham, Neilson, and Morningside). As such, routes such as the 102 and 116 can have abridged run times, getting commuters to their end destinations in less time than having to board these route buses all the way from Warden or Kennedy Stns if hypothetically their destination is truly north of Ellesmere. Neilson in particular will have dedicated bus lanes its entire length whereby after travelling express along the busway, normal route 133 operation can commerce once on-street just with smart-signal lighting and queue-jumps to make a direct SCC – MTC connection more palatable.
For costing reasons it was not included. However, I absolutely agree that a Highway 27 busway is the superior alignment best capable of linking up all of Etobicoke with the one line, basically stretching from Long Branch to Albion Road via Sherway, Woodbine Live and Humber College. IMO, the Kipling Hydro alignment has zero demand sans mimicking the Martin Grove route and may prove disruptive to the surrounding communities. Were the Sherway Gardens subway extension apart of SOS’ phase one plans, it would be more politically viable to shoot for this and we could even get other cities/transit operators on-board to pitch in on the building costs as the busway could be shared mutually by TTC, MT, BT, OT, YRT and GO Transit.
sixrings
Senior Member
price exluded is it not possible for the queen line to go west to S kingsway up to bloor and then north on jane. This would make a grid like system instead of lines going diagnally.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Here's the thing. I liken Mississauga to New Jersey in terms of the two cities relationship with it's larger neighbour. And as far as I can remember there is no subway service into Jersey from New York but there is regional rail. You can say it's geographic favourtism but the distances to be travelled would be better served by a regional rail system, then by extending the subway out just because we're "right at the border". A subway ride into Toronto from Square One would likely take 20 mins or more, where GO could probably be done in half that time.
nfitz
Superstar
In additional to the Regional Rail there is also the two PATH subway tunnels from Manhattan to New Jersey (one to Hoboken, and one to Jersey City). There are 6 stations in Manhattan and 4 underground stations in New Jersey, plus one line heads to Newark with 3 outdoor stations.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
I always thought the PATH system was closer to an electric railroad than a subway. Both are similar enough I guess.
kEiThZ
Superstar
A Mississauga subway (to Square One) only makes sense if the goal is to integrate Mississauga with Western Toronto. Is there that much demand for travel from Mississauga to Etobicoke? I don't see it. A subway would also do nothing for travel inside Mississauga, since the stop spacing being proposed is almost GO like and the stops aren't necessarily being placed at major nodes in Mississauga.
What Mississauga really needs is better connections to the TTC's subway network. As has been pointed out before, an extension to Sherway would pull this off. So would an extension of say the Eglinton LRT for example. Or better connections with Mississauga LRTs so that they connect with the TTC subway network better. That's what would help Mississauga residents.
I fail to see why any of them would take the subway for other than travel to western Toronto. The analogy to Scarborough is flawed. Scarborough being part of Toronto, residents expect to pay one fare for their bus ride to the station and then their subway ride to the core. With a subway in Mississauga, residents would be paying a MT fare and the TTC fare. If that's the case why not pay a tad more and take GO anyway?
On the broader scale, if demand does not materialize will Mississauga taxpayers still be amenable to keep paying for the operating expenses of the subway, above and beyond what they'd have to pay to get their portion of the subway? I doubt it. And that reason alone is enough to caution any expansion into Mississauga. Sherway is good for the foreseeable future.
What Mississauga really needs is better connections to the TTC's subway network. As has been pointed out before, an extension to Sherway would pull this off. So would an extension of say the Eglinton LRT for example. Or better connections with Mississauga LRTs so that they connect with the TTC subway network better. That's what would help Mississauga residents.
I fail to see why any of them would take the subway for other than travel to western Toronto. The analogy to Scarborough is flawed. Scarborough being part of Toronto, residents expect to pay one fare for their bus ride to the station and then their subway ride to the core. With a subway in Mississauga, residents would be paying a MT fare and the TTC fare. If that's the case why not pay a tad more and take GO anyway?
On the broader scale, if demand does not materialize will Mississauga taxpayers still be amenable to keep paying for the operating expenses of the subway, above and beyond what they'd have to pay to get their portion of the subway? I doubt it. And that reason alone is enough to caution any expansion into Mississauga. Sherway is good for the foreseeable future.
CDL.TO
Moderator
Naw, it's a straight-up subway/metro line. There's lots of transit lines out there that can be hard to categorize, but PATH isn't one of them.
That said, Jersey across from New York is still VERY old and urban. PATH opened in 1908, which tells you something.
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Dan416
Senior Member
How is the ONLY reason to integrate with "western Toronto"? That makes no sense. Do Scarberians only travel to "eastern Toronto"? Why is Mississauga being held to a different standard than Scarborough or Vaughan? I haven't heard anyone say that Vaughanites or Scarberians are only allowed to travel so far and not all the way downtown. This line of reasoning is frankly ridiculous.
A subway would do nothing for travel inside Mississauga? Um, does no one travel one or two stops in Toronto? WTF. And the stop spacing proposed is not "almost GO-like" since 1) there is no proposed stop spacing at this point and 2) the stops that I've proposed are not GO-like any more than stops on the Eglinton LRT are "GO-like" or stops on the northern Yonge line are "GO-like". Talk about a red herring.
As someone from Scarborough who lives in Ottawa, what exactly makes you an expert on what Mississauga needs? I could just as easily turn to the LRTista argument that long distance commuters (i.e. Scarborough and Mississauga) should use GO instead of subways, which is why STC and MCC should never get subways.
Furthermore, an extension to Sherway is just that: an extension to Sherway. I've said it before and so has either doady or drum, MT buses would not be using Sherway except the ONE bus that already goes there (which runs maybe once an hour). An East Mall/Cloverdale stop would be used, but they're already building an MT terminal at Kipling anyway and that'll help compared to now since MT buses go all the way to Islington there's another logic fail).
The analogy to Scarborough is not flawed. If there was a subway in Mississauga, why and how would they pay two fares? That would be ridiculous. AFAIK York region residents aren't being charged a double fare on the subways going to their region. And FYI the people who would take GO are already taking GO. Most GO stations in Mississauga have pretty good off-peak train-bus service.
If Mississauga or any region signed on to pay part of the operating expenses of running a subway somewhere, I'm sure they'd abide by their agreement to pay them. Governments can't just decide they want to get out of an agreement they made like that.