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Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

nfitz said:
Obviously derailing the Sheppard East LRT isn't going to happen at this stage. That boat has sailed ... and with signed committments from different levels of government, it could be the hardest to stop, the rest of Transit City being 100% paid by the province.

But perhaps fixing the subway/LRT connection, by advocating conversion of the existing subway to LRT. TTC is clearly opposed to the Finch East LRT, and this opposition could be used as leverage to find an alternate compromise that would keep all governments and Metrolinx happy.

The funding for Finch East could easily be used to pay for the conversion - and add a Willowdale Avenue station; perhaps even pay for a surface extension on Sheppard to Downsview ... and up the then-unused BRT to Finch to intersect the Finch West LRT. Yeah ... I know, I'm dreaming ...
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I disagree. Projects closer to being completed have been cancelled (ever heard of the Eglinton subway?)

Converting Sheppard subway to LRT is an untenable option. People along Sheppard would never accept it. Plus it costs more to convert it to LRT, and downgrading a successful line is just so ass backwards it can't be justified.
 
In light of the just-announced TC Bus Plan: perhaps the solution is to swap Finch East and Sheppard East?

Finch East gets LRT, while Sheppard East gets enhanced / express bus service, both to the Zoo and to STC.

The cost would go down: Finch East is shorter than Sheppard; 2 km on Don Mills are eliminated; and expensive underground LRT station at Don Mills is eliminated.

Senece College gets LRT service to its doorsteps.

No awkward bypass is needed, Finch becomes a crosstown LRT route.

And in future, Sheppard subway still can be extended.
 
Rainforest said:
In light of the just-announced TC Bus Plan: perhaps the solution is to swap Finch East and Sheppard East?

Finch East gets LRT, while Sheppard East gets enhanced / express bus service, both to the Zoo and to STC.

The cost would go down: Finch East is shorter than Sheppard; 2 km on Don Mills are eliminated; and expensive underground LRT station at Don Mills is eliminated.

Senece College gets LRT service to its doorsteps.

No awkward bypass is needed, Finch becomes a crosstown LRT route.

And in future, Sheppard subway still can be extended.
Click to expand...

I also think having a Crosstown Finch LRT makes more sense than building the Sheppard East LRT and amputating the Sheppard Subway forever.

That said, here's my updated petition:

We the undersigned petition the City of Toronto, the Toronto Transit Commission, the Province of Ontario and the Government of Canada to cancel construction of the Sheppard East LRT (and it's Finch West-Don Mills LRT connector) immediately.

We believe this is necessary due to its imposition of needless transfers (Don Mills, Yonge Street), the lack of any speed gains to be had from the addition of LRT (the LRT will still be stopping at red lights, just like the bus) and its convoluted stringing together of disparate corridors (Finch and Sheppard). A Sheppard East LRT would fragment transit services on Sheppard Ave. for decades to come (bus, subway, LRT).

In it's place we strongly consider extending the Sheppard Subway as originally planned East to Scarborough Town Centre and West to Downsview to connect with the Spadina Subway to create a true northern crosstown subway route to supplement Bloor-Danforth and connect two Urban Growth Centres (North York Centre and Scarborough City Centre) under the Ontario Places to Grow initiative. Currently Scarborough is the only Urban Growth Centre in the City of Toronto not served by a subway line. Furthermore, a Sheppard Subway stretching from Downsview to Scarborough Town Centre would make connections with three rapid transit lines: the Spadina Subway, the Yonge subway and the Scarborough Rapid Transit line (and possibly the Danforth Subway line in the future).
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Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I disagree. Projects closer to being completed have been cancelled (ever heard of the Eglinton subway?).
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Given I discussed the cancellation of the Eglinton subway already in another thread, then it's safe to say that I've heard of it. The situation isn't comparable. My point is that the signed agreement with the federal government makes this a very difficult project to cancel. I'd be much less suprised to see the 100% provincially-funded lines - such as Eglinton or Finch West cancelled (say in the the event of a Tory government being elected - which is what killed Eglinton).

Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Converting Sheppard subway to LRT is an untenable option. People along Sheppard would never accept it. Plus it costs more to convert it to LRT, and downgrading a successful line is just so ass backwards it can't be justified.
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Why would they object? More frequent service. Less changing vehicles. Same travel times. I bet those near Willowdale wouldn't be complaining!

With more frequent service waiting time will be reduced, and people's time to take a trip would be less. People won't complain about that.
 
Ed Drass said:
So that was then, a time when genuine network planning was a mere dream.
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It still is. The difference is that funding has been ramped up so there's so very many proposed lines on the map.

Whoaccio said:
Why the hell is everyone so obtuse about this?
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Calm down, you'll get an ulcer.

No one thought it would be a 4 station line that would never get extended. No one. It would never have been seriously considered, let alone built, if they knew it would never be extended and would always be a 5km line. They didn't build 3 platforms at Yonge to impress concrete fans and confuse tourists. Putting aside the difficulty of finding genuinely objective figures (let's be honest here: most are found in documents/studies with the explicit purpose of rejecting Sheppard subway extensions), if you're going to comb the internet for numerical proof that it was overbuilt, go find some peak projections for a complete Sheppard line from Downsview to STC (if not longer) and compare them to practical capacity figures (keeping in mind that even practical capacity levels are undesirable and slow service). Also account for the billions of dollars of new developments directly triggered by the subway.

It's fun to play "the money should have been spent on ____" but it's not like the money spent on Sheppard would have been spent anywhere else. The government did not dole out exactly $936M or whatever sum and say "Have fun at the transit bake sale, kids!" Would a 5km line on Eglinton have been different or better in any conceivable way? Of course not: a stubway to York. 'We should not extend Sheppard because it should never have been built in the first place.' 'We should not extend Sheppard because Sheppard is a white elephant.' Yeah, that's convincing.

Savings that are more than trivial simply do not come from lower capacity. What costs a lot is putting something underground. A train could move 5 people per hour and it'd seem so cheap and wonderful, but if you put it underground, you'll end spending pretty much the same amount as you would on a train that moved 30K per hour, as we're seeing with Eglinton. We're not paying for unused capacity on Sheppard...the trains actually run quite full during rush hour. Sheppard has a lower capacity than the Yonge or Bloor lines - money would need to be spent to increase the capacity through more and longer trains and longer platforms, though upping the frequency some would be cheap and easy.

The cold hard fact is that we paid not for capacity but for a tunnel (a tunnel that can be used by an LRT, as unappealing and unproductive as that conversion would be if it continued on in the middle of the street). The reason we won't use more of Sheppard's theoretical capacity is because the line won't be extended. If the Sheppard LRT was grade separated, fine, go ahead and disrupt service for god knows how long and spend money to convert it and you'll end up with something that functions pretty much the same in the end, but you're not going to save any money at all building rapid transit that way, no matter how much lower the theoretical capacity is.
 
Barring any further suggestions about the petition I'll post it in the next 24 hours.
 
The last part always sounded a bit awkward to me. I would change it to this:

In it's place we strongly urge all parties to reassess extending the Sheppard Subway as originally planned, east to Scarborough Town Centre and west to Downsview to connect with the Spadina Subway, to create a true northern crosstown subway route to supplement Bloor-Danforth and connect two Urban Growth Centres (North York Centre and Scarborough City Centre) under the Ontario Places to Grow initiative. Currently Scarborough is the only Urban Growth Centre in the City of Toronto not served by a subway line. Furthermore, a Sheppard Subway stretching from Downsview to Scarborough Town Centre would make connections with three rapid transit corridors (not lines): the Spadina Subway, the Yonge Subway and the Scarborough Rapid Transit line (and possibly the Danforth Subway line in the future).
Click to expand...
 
nfitz said:
Hopefully there will be an option of whether one agrees, or disagrees with the petition. If it's just the former, then it will be meaningless.
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The option to disagree with a petition is by not signing it.
 
Last edited:
Ansem said:
I've posted this in april***


That's TTC argument but let's compare...really

Toronto:2,503,281
Chicago:2,836,659

TORONTO
Daily ridership ***just to give us a rough idea**
2007-2008

Yonge-University-Spadina
672,390 (avg. weekday)
32 Stations and 30.2Km

Bloor-Danforth
484,000 (avg. weekday)
31 Stations and 26.2 Km

Sheppard
45,860 (avg. weekday)
5 Stations and 5.5 Km

Scarborough RT
43,770 (avg. weekday)
6 Stations and 6.4 Km


CHICAGO

Red Line
approx. 230,000 (avg. weekday boardings)
34 Stations
37.7 KM

Blue Line
approx. 147,000 (avg. weekday boardings)
33 Stations
55.7 KM

Brown Line
approx. 90,000 (avg. weekday boardings)
28 Stations
18.3 KM

Orange Line
approx. 59,000 (avg. weekday boardings)
17 stations
20.1 KM

Pink Line
approx. 26,000 (avg. weekday boardings)
22 Stations
18 KM

Purple Line
approx. 31,000 (avg. weekday boardings including Purple Express)
19 Stations
24 KM

Yellow Line
approx. 5,000 (avg. weekday boardings)
2 Stations
5.1 KM
*******************************************

Is it me or our useless low ridership Sheppard Subway has more ridership than Pink, purple and Yellow line?

Sheppard a 5 station and 5.5KM has more ridership than a
22 station line with 18 KM (Pink) or (Purple) 24 KM and 19 stations. Imagine a Complete Sheppard line.

May I add that the trains have similar capacity?

Not bad for a line:

-That Short
-Not Going downtown (All Chicago lines goes downtown)
-Questionable station emplacements

A complete Sheppard line would have more ridership than their orange line and close in on the top 3 of chicago busiest lines...easily

You want to believe an EA that has Miller written all over it, that's your business but I wont let a guy politically motivated to get reelected screw up the whole Sheppard East corridor just because he wants to show Scarborough and North York (who have no love for the guy) that he cares about them by showing off pictures of him at the construction site. Subway is more complicated and takes longer to built. He need to show that he did ....SOMETHING... for them.

Keep you argument with the 5000 number,

If you compare this line with chicago's network, that puny incomplete line would be succesful by their standards. A complete Sheppard line would challenge many busy line around the world.

May I remind you that the EA standards are not universal and they were use to stuff that ridiculous project down our throats. You can make number say anything you want them to say when you manipulate criterias.

There nothing stoping the TTC to keep the 4 train sets and increase them over time.

The montreal blue line started with a 3 train set closing at 11pm. Now its a success. It closes at 1am and have 6 train set.
By your logic that line would have NEVER been built...

CMON
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The One thing I have seen between TTC Vs. USA, most transit lines do not use TTC numbers to say this is BRT or LRT or Subway or Heavy Rail. There are lines design for LRT using 10-15,000/day that have come on line in the last 5 years.

Then, TTC has been the only one who use the farebox ratio to say what gets built unless some big wig said otherwise.

Getting money from the Fed's in the US is no big deal compare to our Fed's regardless who is in power.

At the same time, taxpayers pay a % of the sale's tax to fund a project or the system and must be voted on to increase it or build a line.

A fair number of the transit systems are now having problems how to maintain them due to decline in sale tax revenue as people are not spending like they used to do.

If one sits down and draw up a plan on building a subway network in Toronto as well an operation budget for what they like to see, how do you do it and maintain the existing system without huge fare increases and high property taxes?

It makes no different if you run a one car or 6 train as the operation cost will be the same. The only different will be capital cost of the extra cars as well the type of headway.

Like it or not, cost of tunneling is out weight by surface 4 to 1.

If you want to change it, it time to look at an elevated system for faster service that equal to subway. Does not have to be Mark III.

The other thing with TTC thinking and will use York here also, there is to stepping stone to move from bus to HR. It buses or HR and nothing between. TTC used the comment that there a subway there now for both Spadina and Yonge to say we must build onto the existing system well Sheppard was a sink hole for $$ and therefore it must be LRT. Ridership will be higher on the Sheppard line than either of the other 2 after they open.

Now, how many riders come into Toronto vs Chicago.?

At the same time, how many rail lines services Chicago compare to Toronto?

Both cities have the lake behind them, but what is the grid system like going out of the core as well transit lines?? What about the highway system??

There are big differences between both cities.

I have said in the past that I see the Sheppard Subway going from Pickering to the Airport, but not at this time. Until you have a ridership over 100,000 daily or the Billions to spend on building on it now without hardship on others or parts of the city, an LRT is the way to go at this time.

I have said the same thing for the Spadina and the Yonge extension. Why should 45,000 riders get class 1 service while a few hundred thousand get nothing at all??

The only reason Sheppard is seeing high numbers as there is no fast route to the BD or the core in the east end other than GO that only runs a few trains on weekdays. Almost a 45 minute ride from Kennedy and Steeles to the BD on the Kennedy bus.
 
nfitz said:
Hopefully there will be an option of whether one agrees, or disagrees with the petition. If it's just the former, then it will be meaningless.
Click to expand...

This is probably one of the most deliberately obtuse things I've ever seen written on a message board.
 
golodhendil said:
The last part always sounded a bit awkward to me. I would change it to this:
Click to expand...

I liked your changes so I just am posting the whole thing again. After any modification to the petition I like to give more time for input until putting up the final version, seeing as the petition website says the wording can't be changed after the fact:

We the undersigned petition the City of Toronto, the Toronto Transit Commission, the Province of Ontario and the Government of Canada to cancel construction of the Sheppard East LRT (and it's Finch West-Don Mills LRT connector) immediately.

We believe this is necessary due to its imposition of needless transfers (Don Mills, Yonge Street), the lack of any speed gains to be had from the addition of LRT (the LRT will still be stopping at red lights, just like the bus) and its convoluted stringing together of disparate corridors (Finch and Sheppard). A Sheppard East LRT would fragment transit services on Sheppard Ave. for decades to come (bus, subway, LRT).

In it's place we strongly urge all parties to reassess extending the Sheppard Subway as originally planned, east to Scarborough Town Centre and west to Downsview to connect with the Spadina Subway, to create a true northern crosstown subway route to supplement Bloor-Danforth and connect two Urban Growth Centres (North York Centre and Scarborough City Centre) under the Ontario Places to Grow initiative. Currently Scarborough is the only Urban Growth Centre in the City of Toronto not served by a subway line. Furthermore, a Sheppard Subway stretching from Downsview to Scarborough Town Centre would make connections with three rapid transit corridors: the Spadina Subway, the Yonge Subway and the Scarborough Rapid Transit line (and possibly the Danforth Subway line in the future).
Click to expand...
 
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