2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Transit Plans

[ssiguy2]

First, forget comparing Toronto to third world countries. Those cities are struggling just to feed their citizens, rapid transit is a dream for another century,

Second, saying Toronto is good compared to most US cities isn't a very high bar to leap over. US cities have incredibly low ridership levels but at least most are investing massive amounts in transit expansion and much of this is due to it's own citizens approving sales/gas tax increases to pay for which Toronto doesn't consider an option because Queen's Park {ie the rest of the province} should pay for it.

As far as Rome goes, it's not as simply as it sounds. Rome is on a very high earthquake prone area and the times they have starting underground lines they end up having to cancel or delay them for years. This is because when they dig they keep hitting catacombs, burial, and archeological sites. Often when the start tunneling in Rome they find corpses, statues, underground homes, and even old roadways that are over 2000 years old. Rome is a very unique case and having rail on the city surface ways is problimatic because many of the roads are far too thin or go thru the city's vast historic areas which would be a blight on the urban landscape.

 

[11th]

Second, saying Toronto is good compared to most US cities isn't a very high bar to leap over. US cities have incredibly low ridership levels but at least most are investing massive amounts in transit expansion and much of this is due to it's own citizens approving sales/gas tax increases to pay for which Toronto doesn't consider an option because Queen's Park {ie the rest of the province} should pay for it.

The US also has much lower sales tax when compared to Canada.

Forget about gas tax increase, parking tax. Reduce the HST to 12%, and let cities/regions levy an additional 1% for transit.

 

[nfitz]

I'm comparing Toronto transit as a whole to other cities. It's doesn't look good right now.

Even though the media recently reported that "Toronto is building more transit than any other city in North America"?

 

[Solid Snake]

Even though the media recently reported that "Toronto is building more transit than any other city in North America"?

I think he means as of today. We are pretty ridiculous "today"

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Even though the media recently reported that "Toronto is building more transit than any other city in North America"?

Yeah we just have eglinton under construction and spadina, a bunch or LRT lines up in the air and the DRL has not even been planned out yet. "Under construction can mean anything. In this case, we have one more line under construction then NY and Chicago.

I think he means as of today. We are pretty ridiculous "today"

exactly.

 

[rbt]

Really?, because it looks like you named those cities and not NYC and London or purpose.

I thought I was extremely clear in my post that I chose ALL cities from the UN urban agglomeration list (published 2011) which were close to Toronto's population in size (within 1 million above or below). I did not skip any, I did not add any.

Why urban agglomerations or continuous built areas? Government jurisdiction borders suck for this kind of thing because they're random and not flexible to the built form.

Neither New York nor London are Toronto's peers population wise. Heck, New York is nearly 4 times larger than Toronto.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I thought I was extremely clear in my post that I chose ALL cities from the UN urban agglomeration list (published 2011) which were close to Toronto's population in size (within 1 million above or below). I did not skip any, I did not add any.

Why urban agglomerations or continuous built areas? Government jurisdiction borders suck for this kind of thing because they're random and not flexible to the built form.

Neither New York nor London are Toronto's peers population wise. Heck, New York is nearly 4 times larger than Toronto.

I'm not saying you biased just curious as to why NYC was not chosen.


Anyway, this is Toronto's official future map.

This is a start, but more needs to be done.

 

[rbt]

I'm not saying you biased just curious as to why NYC was not chosen.

... Heck, New York is nearly 4 times larger than Toronto.

NYC has 20.5 million people. Toronto has 5.5 million (GTA's built form is not continuous; this is 2010'ish Urban Agglomeration population size).

NYC's peers would include Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, and Shanghai. All 5 of these cities, and no others, are between 19M and 21M population size using the UN methodology.

If we do include NY which is much larger than Toronto then we should also include cities smaller by a similar ratio. There are probably hundreds of 1.5M cities (the list didn't actually go down that far), and ranking them against Toronto would be both time consuming and probably not tell us much.


As for NYC's peers go Mumbai does not have a Metro yet with the first line opening June 2014 but Shanghai will soon, if not already, kick NYC's ass.

 

[JasonParis]

I'm not saying you biased just curious as to why NYC was not chosen.
Anyway, this is Toronto's official future map.View attachment 27409
This is a start, but more needs to be done.

Toronto, due to a variety of reasons that mostly has to do with density doesn't really require a massive subway system anyway. The above map, plus a DRL, and maybe a few minor extensions to existing lines is all we will need for a VERY long time.

 

[BurlOak]

Anyway, this is Toronto's official future map.

This is a start, but more needs to be done.

And maybe a quarter of that may never get built.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Toronto, due to a variety of reasons that mostly has to do with density doesn't really require a massive subway system anyway. The above map, plus a DRL, and maybe a few minor extensions to existing lines is all we will need for a VERY long time.

And maybe a quarter of that may never get built.

With a DRL at least to Eglinton (on both ends), this map should carry us for a while. But the DRL east should go to Fairview, push riders east.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Toronto, due to a variety of reasons that mostly has to do with density doesn't really require a massive subway system anyway. The above map, plus a DRL, and maybe a few minor extensions to existing lines is all we will need for a VERY long time.

If you love subway, Toronto isn't the city to live. In. There only 4 routes that I'd consider barely viable for heavy rail subways:

Relief Line (Dundas West to Bloor)
Yonge North
Scarborough
Spadina

Like most other NA cities of our size, most of Toronto's rapid transit system will need to be light rail. Sheppard, Finch, Jane, Eglinton and Don Mills are the only places I see LRT working.

I always have to laugh when I hear people talk about how our subway system should have been expanded more in the 80s/90s. It's a popular sentiment in this city, but in what locations would a subway have made sense to build in the 80s/90s? I can't think of any. The rapid subway expansions of the 60s and 70s had built sufficient subways for at least the next 40 years (today)

Even the Relief Line would have had horribly low ridership in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, probably well below 10,000 pphpd (in 2031, the line will just reach 14.5k pphp).

In fact, if I could go back to the 80s I'd actually build less subways during those two decades with the cancelation of Sheppard.

 

[ehlow]

If you love subway, Toronto isn't the city to live. In. There only 4 routes that I'd consider barely viable for heavy rail subways:

Relief Line (Dundas West to Bloor)
Yonge North
Scarborough
Spadina

Like most other NA cities of our size, most of Toronto's rapid transit system will need to be light rail. Sheppard, Finch, Jane, Eglinton and Don Mills are the only places I see LRT working.

I always have to laugh when I hear people talk about how our subway system should have been expanded more in the 80s/90s. It's a popular sentiment in this city, but in what locations would a subway have made sense to build in the 80s/90s? I can't think of any. The rapid subway expansions of the 60s and 70s had built sufficient subways for at least the next 40 years (today)

Even the Relief Line would have had horribly low ridership in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, probably well below 10,000 pphpd (in 2031, the line will just reach 14.5k pphp).

In fact, if I could go back to the 80s I'd actually build less subways in those two decades with the cancelation of Sheppard.

Agreed. This city is no where near NYC and is mostly not dense enough for subways. Frequent bus lines, BRT and LRT would likely be more appropriate for most of the GTA. It will never have a massive subway system like NYC or London within our lifetimes (not that anyone believes it will), but it could have a dramatically improved transit system.

Look at LA: the city is massively bigger than Toronto (several times bigger) and has 2 subway lines and 4 LRT lines. And it didn't have any of those until 1990.

As for the comparisons to other cities, we can say "we should have built the DRL" etc, but we are where we are and the only productive thing we can do is improve & expand our current system.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

If you love subway, Toronto isn't the city to live. In. There only 4 routes that I'd consider barely viable for heavy rail subways:

Relief Line (Dundas West to Bloor)
Yonge North
Scarborough
Spadina

Like most other NA cities of our size, most of Toronto's rapid transit system will need to be light rail. Sheppard, Finch, Jane, Eglinton and Don Mills are the only places I see LRT working.

I always have to laugh when I hear people talk about how our subway system should have been expanded more in the 80s/90s. It's a popular sentiment in this city, but in what locations would a subway have made sense to build in the 80s/90s? I can't think of any. The rapid subway expansions of the 60s and 70s had built sufficient subways for at least the next 40 years (today)

Even the Relief Line would have had horribly low ridership in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, probably well below 10,000 pphpd (in 2031, the line will just reach 14.5k pphp).

In fact, if I could go back to the 80s I'd actually build less subways during those two decades with the cancelation of Sheppard.

Actually with ridership dipping in the early 1990s Sheppard would not have looked as bad. The reality is these thing s change every couple of years. Part of the reason sheppard and eglinton west and even the BD extension to STC and to the West Mall/Sherway/Square One look bad is because most of the system has high ridership. That will change if gas becomes cheap again.

Agreed. This city is no where near NYC and is mostly not dense enough for subways. Frequent bus lines, BRT and LRT would likely be more appropriate for most of the GTA. It will never have a massive subway system like NYC or London within our lifetimes (not that anyone believes it will), but it could have a dramatically improved transit system.

Look at LA: the city is massively bigger than Toronto (several times bigger) and has 2 subway lines and 4 LRT lines. And it didn't have any of those until 1990.

As for the comparisons to other cities, we can say "we should have built the DRL" etc, but we are where we are and the only productive thing we can do is improve & expand our current system.

It seems we care more here then most others. People in Greater Torotno just want their pet projects and could care less about anything else, which is why we have been in a stalemate since 1990 really.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Actually with ridership dipping in the early 1990s Sheppard would not have looked as bad. The reality is these thing s change every couple of years. Part of the reason sheppard and eglinton west and even the BD extension to STC and to the West Mall/Sherway/Square One look bad is because most of the system has high ridership. That will change if gas becomes cheap again.

An subway route moving only 4,000 pphpd is horrible no matter how you frame it. That is BRT level usage.