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The Urban Jungle
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2014 Municipal Election: Toronto Transit Plans

nfitz said:
No. But you can always put pillars down the middle of the rebuilt Eglinton, and do it Vancouver-style.

The EA was done, and approved by the province to allow for LRT down the middle of the street. There's plenty of width. There was no secret this was going on. We discussed it here.

I'm surprised Mayor Ford didn't object to it. But even he didn't object to it.

What amazes me, is that John Tory and his campaign team are so unaware of what is happening in Toronto to even have suggested this. He could just have easily had the line go up the tracks do Malton, and then backed into the airport along Airport Road - it would have provided far more stops in Etobicoke than the one stop he is currently proposing.
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You're assuming that the Eglinton alignment is a genuine mistake. One of two things happened with this alignemnt:

1. Mr. Tory decided to lie about the alignment to win easy votes.
2. Mr. Tory and his campaign team are incredibly incompetent and were unaware of the state of Eglinton Avenue West

I wouldn't be surprised if either wasn't the case. After all, he is John Tory.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
You're assuming that the Eglinton alignment is a genuine mistake. One of two things happened with this alignemnt:

1. Mr. Tory decided to lie about the alignment to win easy votes.
2. Mr. Tory and his campaign team are incredibly incompetent and were unaware of the state of Eglinton Avenue West

I wouldn't be surprised if either wasn't the case. After all, he is John Tory.
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I'll never really understand this hatred & vilification of Tory's character... He's not the candidate that I see blatantly lying re: transit, that's the Fords. I personally find Tory likeable and he seems like he would be a good mayor.

Then again I never understood the hero status of Soknacki either.

But anyways... I'd say it's probably #2.

Having said that, the reason for the Eglinton alignment from what I understand is that he wanted to connect places that are big employment centres. Two of the biggest ones are: Markham near 404 & 407, and Mississauga south of the airport along Eglinton (not the airport itself). The bonus is the west end of downtown, Liberty Village & Spadina, which is tons of jobs too. Yes, it will require bus service to do the last mile from the smart track or GO RER station to the suburban office parks.

Despite making the mistake of thinking the Richview ROW is clear, yes it's a big mistake, I still found it admirable that he attempted to bring fast regional transit to places where jobs are. I often find that I don't want to consider applying for a job in the GTA because the commute would be terrible, and I keep hearing about people living downtown in condos and driving all the way out to offices in Markham and Misssissauga every day.

I honestly think that if smart track or GO RER is done right, with good local transit connections, it can make peoples lives much easier in a reasonable amount of time.
 
ehlow said:
I honestly think that if smart track or GO RER is done right, with good local transit connections, it can make peoples lives much easier in a reasonable amount of time.
Click to expand...
Indeed the GO RER is. So why then is John Tory only want to do this on the Stouffville and part of the Georgetown lines? Why has he thrown the other 5 lines (and even much of the Georgetown line) out the window? Why does he want to spend much more on 2 lines than GO thinks it will cost? Why does he keep leaving Line 6 and Line 7 off his maps, and then promise to let Metrolinx proceed with it. Why does he downplay, uplplay, or whatever the DRL depending on which way the wind is blowing?

Why does he cook up a scheme with such a bizarre station distribution:
  • Mississauga 1
  • Etobicoke 1
  • York 2
  • Toronto 9
  • North York 0
  • East York 0
  • Scarborough 7
  • Markham 2
Now I suppose you can argue that the stop in Mississauga is on the border with Etobicoke - though I can't see too many people travelling up to there to go downtown from Etobicoke. You could also argue that the Milliken stop serves Markham just as much as it serves Scarborough.

Even for political opportunism, the alignment and station selection seems bizarre. It's not like what Tory chose gave Etobicoke an abundance of service.
 
I really think there are some holes in Tory's plan...

A duplication of the Scarborough subway in the east - main street to markham (he will build both)
A duplication of the DRL east - main street to union (he said he would build both)

I find Ford's plan with the DRL and making Eglinton/Sheppard east a thru line much better... at least its around the same budget as Tory's plan without duplicating services. (although the Finch line is stupid).

Metrolinx needs to come back out with their Skytrain idea for Eg/Shep east...
 
Well it could really go anywhere.

Tram-trains are one of the versatile transport vehicles anywhere. Forget dual mode, they are quadruple mode.

The can run on it's own electrical engines and brake generation batteries, catenary, diesel, or a combination of all 3. They can also run on regular streetcar, LRT, or standard railway tracks. From Union they could fan out in all directions and be part of the TTC service and because they are versatile electrification doesn't have to be immediate to get the trains up and running.

They are not proprietary and are made by the big 3....Alstom, Siemen's , and {the TTC sole provider of trains} Bombardier. In fact the new streetcars and Eglinton LRT are part of the Flexity series and so are the tram-trains. They are referred to as Flexity Link. They can be 100% low floor and go from 50 meter to 70 meter trains. I am not sure if they can be coupled.

By using current GO rail and stations, the system could be up and running as soon as the trains arrive. I'm sure they could get a waiver from Ottawa as O-Train did and Montreal is looking at tram-train for the Trudeau-Downtown rail link and is Vancouver for suburban Fraser Valley rail. They are already running in Germany and England is building several systems as we speak and there are over 30 proposals for tram-trains in Europe alone and many more in Asia and Africa.

Not hard to see why they are exploding onto the transit scene.......they fit nearly every niche imaginable and by being able to get off the many rail lines onto the more suburban LRT or local streetcar systems, they get rid of the "last mile" problem.

Imagine how affordable and fast Toronto could have a TTC tram-train system up and running by simply using the current rail corridors that already reach every corner of the city and using the current stations{adding more as needed} tram-train could offer true rapid transit to every part of the city for a TTC fare.
 
train-trams run on mixed rail (GO lines) as well as exlusionary trackage.

Nice thought, but there is a whole host of issues with it, the most important likely being the fact that it runs on, well, you know, mixed rail, and therefor must be Transport Canada complaint for crash regulations, which means no trams.

never mind the operational headaches, etc. that would come with it.
 
I imagine they could work on something with Transport Canada especially if other large municipalities pressure them.

I don't know what you are talking about in terms of operational headaches...............they are essentially just LRT that don't need special LRT track.
 
Pressure or not, no way transport Canada will allow it. After lac magantic (did I spell that right?), there is no way it would allow a 3km long freight train carrying volotile chemicals and explosives anywhere near a small defenceless train with hundreds of people squeezed onto it. Unlike Europe we actually use our rail lines for significant amounts of freight, and need to operate differently because of that.
 
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