Whose vision of transit in Toronto do you support?

[Dan416]

Whether they'll sign on is the question. Mississauga is not in the same boat as York region. As far as SOS goes that's why any subway plans to Mississauga have to remain fully tentative. Nothing can or should be offered beyond Sherway. If and when, Mississauga decides to join the party then they can negotiate a York style agreement. Till then, an extension to Sherway should not be held hostage by the distant potential of a subway to Mississauga.

No one has ever suggested holding an extension to Sherway hostage. But saying a subway to Sherway would help Mississaugans is disingenuous because a subway to Sherway is going in the wrong direction. A subway to serve Mississauga would continue along Bloor, not Dundas and would not dip all the way down to Sherway.

As for the rest of your post, I can't be bothered to go through and write why I disagree with virtually your entire post.

 

[Fresh Start]

Sherway extension would definitely help out southern Mississauga (Dundas, Queensway, Lakeshore); and arguably all of Mississauga (SQ1, UTM, Clarkson, Erin Mills, Meadowvale, Malton, Pearson) via a network of dedicated BRT lanes running along the QEW, 427/27 and Eastgate/403 that'd all originate out from a massive bus terminal at Sherway right next to the highway. And the City of Mississauga can afford BRT today. A Bloor extension makes absolutely no sense unless one plans on wying the Bloor Line from Islington Stn, which is both costly and redundant. The problem with any subway into the 905 is the rationale that the line should go just one more stop over which perpetually jacks the price and makes subway transit as the preferred expansion model lose public favor and momentum. It's already happening with this poll. Regionalist greed will forever mean that the city at large gets nothing, particularly through priority areas and corridors *cough* downtown core *cough* where the inadequate surface transit just isn't enough.

 

[GTS]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the longest distance a single subway line is stretched? New York City's system is overall the second largest, next to London, England's system, but I am wondering how far does an individual line stretch into somewhere like Queens or somewhere. The reason I ask this is because I wonder if a Bloor Line extension would make sense for a long distance like Mississauga or should they just work on increasing the frequency of the regional rail. I know subway's have a lot more stops then regional rail so I wonder how heavily such an extension be used when they might be served better by a good regional rail connection to the heavily used Square One Transit hub. I am guessing with all the new stops it would take over an hour to get from Square One to St. George Station if it were a subway line, that is quite a lot of time to add on any commuters days. My commute is a little over an hour from where I start in Scarborough and that one hour includes one bus, then the subway and finally another bus. I don't think I would appreciate transit if it were longer then this.

 

[nfitz]

I don't know the longest ... but a couple of the longer ones I've ridden (part of) are the Central Line in London which is about 55 km from Epping to West Ruislip. Though perhaps the Metropolitan to Amersham is further ... and surely Aylesbury was before they shortened that line.

And then there's Line 1 in Seoul ... which is now 167 km from Soyosan to Sinchang (a 3.5 hour journey) ... I haven't taken it past Suwon, but it looked and felt like a (mostly overground) frequent subway line to there. The more conventional Line 4 is 70.5 km and feels like an underground subway similiar to Toronto.

The problem with these super long lines, is it's difficult to know where subway ends, and regional express trains begin ... some of the Paris RER trains travel a long way.

 

[gweed123]

If those in what would be Zone 1 pay less than now, and those who live in Zone 2 pay the same as now, then it wouldn't be revenue neutral. In that kind of scheme, those in Zone 2 would have to have an increase. And those in zone 3 already pay more now ...

Not that I disagree with this ... I think this is where we are headed.

I hope this is the case. As a resident of downtown, I really don't think it's fair that I'm paying the same price to go 6 stops that someone else is paying to go 20 stops. Right now, I'm paying the extra operating subsidy for people to travel further.

 

[gweed123]

It'll definitely be part of a larger shift that sees Metrolinx take a larger role in service delivery. If the directive comes from that agency it means no one has to take the fall politically.

I see it as unavoidable - most other large transit system have some kind of fare-by-distance scheme. If things continue as they are, the TTC's primary purpose of local travel becomes ridiculously overpriced. $3 to take the subway from Queen to Bloor already seems crazy.

Phasing in fare-by-distance alongside a timed transfer system (say 2 hours?) would make it more palatable as well. I'd support that move.

And yes, I also support the idea of doing time-based transfers. If I'm taking the TTC 10 minutes down the road to do groceries, I shouldn't have to pay another fare to double back 15 minutes later.

 

[CDL.TO]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know the longest distance a single subway line is stretched? New York City's system is overall the second largest, next to London, England's system, but I am wondering how far does an individual line stretch into somewhere like Queens or somewhere. The reason I ask this is because I wonder if a Bloor Line extension would make sense for a long distance like Mississauga or should they just work on increasing the frequency of the regional rail. I know subway's have a lot more stops then regional rail so I wonder how heavily such an extension be used when they might be served better by a good regional rail connection to the heavily used Square One Transit hub. I am guessing with all the new stops it would take over an hour to get from Square One to St. George Station if it were a subway line, that is quite a lot of time to add on any commuters days. My commute is a little over an hour from where I start in Scarborough and that one hour includes one bus, then the subway and finally another bus. I don't think I would appreciate transit if it were longer then this.

It's a tough question to answer because, as nfitz points out, many lines serve a dual purpose of being a metro in the central area and a regional rail line in the outer area and it's tough to tell where to draw the line between the two categories. Stations on the outer part of the Central Line in London can be up to 3.2 km apart. Amersham to Chesham on the Metropolitan line are 6.3 km apart. In New York and London, these lines often include express sections or express trains.

I think better measures of how long a line is are travel time or number of stops.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

I hope this is the case. As a resident of downtown, I really don't think it's fair that I'm paying the same price to go 6 stops that someone else is paying to go 20 stops. Right now, I'm paying the extra operating subsidy for people to travel further.

Many Thanks from Scarborough!

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Fill in the blank:

If the cost of Transit City exceeds $________, it should be cancelled

 

[GraphicMatt]

Shouldn't we be looking at individual lines and not 'Transit City' as a whole? Transit City is just a branding campaign.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

So how much is too much for the Sheppard East and Eglinton LRTs?

 

[fanoftoronto]

IMO
Sheppard East LRT should be a subway if cost of LRT goes more than $1.6 billion
Eglinton Crosstown LRT should be a subway if cost goes more than $6 billion

At that point there is just no point in going with LRT for such a high capital.

 

[Rainforest]

IMO
Sheppard East LRT should be a subway if cost of LRT goes more than $1.6 billion
Eglinton Crosstown LRT should be a subway if cost goes more than $6 billion

At that point there is just no point in going with LRT for such a high capital.

It is unlikely that Sheppard climbs to $1.6 billion. But Eglinton might climb to $6 billion, given the long tunnel, the complex U-turn arrangements in the works, and the Weston / Mt Pleasant controversy.

Unfortunately, by the time the costs get there, the construction will be well underway and changing the technology will be impractical because of the large sank costs.

The decision about change has to be made well before that, if it is made at all.

 

[Dan416]

Sherway extension would definitely help out southern Mississauga (Dundas, Queensway, Lakeshore); and arguably all of Mississauga (SQ1, UTM, Clarkson, Erin Mills, Meadowvale, Malton, Pearson) via a network of dedicated BRT lanes running along the QEW, 427/27 and Eastgate/403 that'd all originate out from a massive bus terminal at Sherway right next to the highway. And the City of Mississauga can afford BRT today. A Bloor extension makes absolutely no sense unless one plans on wying the Bloor Line from Islington Stn, which is both costly and redundant. The problem with any subway into the 905 is the rationale that the line should go just one more stop over which perpetually jacks the price and makes subway transit as the preferred expansion model lose public favor and momentum. It's already happening with this poll. Regionalist greed will forever mean that the city at large gets nothing, particularly through priority areas and corridors *cough* downtown core *cough* where the inadequate surface transit just isn't enough.

Fresh Start and kEiThZ I suggest you both visit the following link before spouting off about Mississauga (Transit). http://www.mississauga.ca/file/COM/WeekdayMap_Jan2010.pdf

You see how many routes would serve Sherway? The same as it is now: one (1): Route 4. That is how important a Sherway terminal is to Mississauga, i.e. not at all. An East Mall station could be used as a terminal for certain MT routes (e.g. the ones coming off the 427). However at this point we don't even know how many routes will service the Kipling terminal once its built versus how many will stay at Islington. Even if the subway were extended as far as Dixie/Dundas, Route 1 would very likely continue and would probably service both the Dixie subway and the East Mall stop. I could see Route 3 rerouted to the East Mall stop, but they may just have it continue on to Islington as it does now.

My point is, the subway extension doesn't become useful to Mississauga Transit until it breaches the border and hits Dixie/Dundas at the very least (where it would bisect the 1 and the 5 so they could feed it from both directions). What would be more useful, in the medium term, would be the Dundas LRT since the subway will never serve the portion of Dundas between Dixie and East Mall, which according to Google Maps is 3.8 km, so the LRT will be needed there regardless.

 

[GenerationW]

Shouldn't we be looking at individual lines and not 'Transit City' as a whole? Transit City is just a branding campaign.

There wouldn't be pages of arguments over TC on this forum if it was just a branding campaign.