All aboard for more subways

[GraphicMatt]

I am a right-wing candidate running for Mayor of Toronto! Here is my proposal: Subways! Here is how I will pay for them: Magic!

Now give me all your votes. All of them. I hunger.

 

[nfitz]

I am a right-wing candidate running for Mayor of Toronto! Here is my proposal: Subways! Here is how I will pay for them: Magic!

Now give me all your votes. All of them. I hunger.

I think you forgt to thank Pitfield for stealing her campaign platform!

 

[Fresh Start]

Hey, I didn't start that, Justin was the one who brought up the whole "latching on" thing, I just rebutted it in an attempt to show him how hypocritical is arguments are.

And they may not have invented it, but they're the ones who have been trying to sell 'LRT everywhere in Toronto' to the City for the past 5 years. And based on the number of people that have called in to McGuinty to "Save Transit City", their sell hasn't really worked. The vast majority of the people that I have talked to do not like Transit City, they want subways. Even those who do want Transit City, want it because "it's better than nothing". Call them uneducated or unenlightened as to the wonders of LRT, but people want subways. I am educated, I know the benefits of LRT, yet I still want subways. Why? Because it's a better long-term investment.

+1

Miller/Mihevc/Giambrone squandered $120 million on rebuilding an existing line and couldn't even bother to extend it any further west. And that was touted as the Transit City prototype line. I attended that so-called protest rally at City Hall and people that I spoke with there were confused why we're even talking about linking Emery to Rouge Park with light-rail trams at a time it takes the light-rail trams downtown nearly 40 minutes to get from Roncesvalles to Riverdale.

With great power, comes great responsibility. The 300 people a day that would make such long voyages across the inner suburbs aboard the combined LRT line are far outnumbered by the 300,000 people daily that'd use a Downtown Relief subway line. Over 100,000 would ride an Eglinton West subway connected directly to the airport. That's what the LRT Lobby keeps forgetting, every penny spent on Transit City could be going towards more worthwhile transit investments. Investments the TTC refuses to study or even address for fear that such talk will obstruct their own self-serving agendas. The LRT Lobby can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[LAz]

road space is vital. That is why you maximize road space by building ROW's for transit. One Transit vehicle carry a lot more passengers than a car. Efficient use of road space. You argument is so anti-transit it's funny.

Transit? I laugh in your face silly peon.
We should deal with rapid transit, and that in fact is known as Metro. A tram stops. It stops a lot. It's shit. If you make it a full ROW, then you may as well make it a full metro.

Those cities have a diverse mix of metros, LRT, BRT, and bus lines that complement each other in a good transit network.

Correction. Those systems are based on a Metro backbone that is a HUGE system that can take you pretty much anywhere. We do not see extensive tram systems there. Trams are form ore local things, while their long and dense metro systems take you all over quite quickly.

The Sheppard line replaced a bus line. Failure! You need streetcars/LRT to the fill role between buses, and subways.

Bullshit. Chicago has no tram system, and works quite fine without it.

The sheppard line is an outstanding success. Failure to understand that is mental retardation or refusal to admit reality.

The low-end cutoff may be 10,000 pph, but what's the upper cut-off for LRT? 25,000 pph-is (depending on various factors, in-median is around 20,000 pph)? Hence, unless the projected capacity is above 25,000 pph, the argument would be made today that LRT is the more efficient solution. And that's my point, a lot of these TC lines COULD work as subways, and they COULD work as LRTs. However, history has taught us that 40yrs down the road, we're glad we built that extra capacity, or the potential for that extra capacity.

I put that low end at 7,000. For the LRT, it's 10,000.

All of this ridiculous "Let's build more expensive transit with money we don't have!" crap seems at least partially motivated by a widespread belief that the TTC is incapable of running effective surface transit.

Money is not the issue. We do not have money for anything. The only way to get it is for the federal government or ontario government to pay up big time.

if you promise people subways everywhere

Stop trying to tarnish our image. Our plan is one that will take decades. The point of it is that subways will continue to be expanded at a steady rate. That there is vital. Moscow opens a new station every year. They laugh in our faces.

What makes Sheppard a primary corridor? How is it any more of a primary corridor than Lawrence or York Mills or Finch? Would you support LRT on Lawrence?

The fact that it has a subway, while lawrence has sh..

How about Eglinton-style, underground LRT?

*facepalm*
If we are gonna bother to dig so much on eglinton, then why the hell not make that a full metro. The cost would be only slightly more, for the under-ground section. It would help future generations, as it would allow for more capacity, whereas tram would not.

If you need more capacity, you can run longer LRT trains.

That causes even more problems, as trams usually run with cars. Intersections. Stops. And so forth.

your above claim that planners working for the city deliberately lied about passenger numbers in an effort to give the public substandard transit

They bloody well are deliberately lying bastards. They're cheap c**ts that are selling out our future.

(Eglinton West did justify a subway, and still justifies a subway, obviously - it's getting underground transit - making it LRT is an effort to avoid another stubway situation.)

Stubway is perfectly fine. Sheppard is a great success.
If you bother to dig, the cost to upgrade the stuff to a metro from underground LRT is quite small. Why dig if it won't be a metro? Why?

 

[gweed123]

Doesn't matter if the capacity is not utilized to it's fullest, or close to, extent. Hence why building subways when a surface ROW can suffice makes no sense. Show me a demand model where a subway is justified on the TC corridors.

The Don Mills LRT south of Eglinton, the Central portion (and possibly the west portion if the surface routes are modified properly) of Eglinton, the SRT revamp to STC.

When the sbways were first planned, were the existing streetcar lines not bursting at the seams too? All right then. Streetcars lines at full capacity = justification for subways.

Bus routes at capacity (as is the case on Eglinton) = justification for subways.

I'll just look at the Sheppard line, and tell you the capacity is barely being utilized. Building a subway in the hope that it may one day reach capacity is stupid.

So you're only going to look at cases that help support your predetermined opinion?

I love how you argue. You see a statement, and try to twist to your needs.

"Tell me why building a subway "for the future" makes sense, especially when it will be lightly used?" You were referring to the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth lines. You referred to their condition afterwards.

I am talking about the general condition the lines are in. Both lines are 40-50 years old, and require a lot of maintenance to upkeep at the moment.

How many times have streetcar lines had to have portions ripped up in the past 20 years? The section on Queen at Kingston Rd has been ripped up like 3 times in the past decade and a bit! Every technology type has its associated maintenance costs.

The point is, subways, like any major infrastructure need to be maintained in good woking condition. You tell me why it is makes snese to build a subway now that may never see it's full capacity for another 30-40 years, and pay for the upkeep? Makes no sense. What makes sense is building subways where they are needed, and not because it a freaking subway!

Because why would you spend money twice, on the same corridor, in a time period that close together?

LOL. Keep on believing that! Chris Sellors could care less about transit. Same with the rest of the Conservative candidates.

I seriously think that transit is much less of a left vs right issue, even conservative candidates are coming around to supporting transit.

And getting stable yearly funding is going to be a piece of cake.....?

We've never really tried the yearly funding approach. It has been proposed by candidates, but has never actually been implemented. And hate to break it to you, but with the delay in Transit City, yearly funding is pretty much what we're getting anyway, just under a different name.

Just admit it, man. You hate LRT, and all forms of LRT. Don't hide it. Honestly, the TTC models projected BRT cannot handle the projected demand. Why do you insist BRT should have been part of the plan? I do not get this modal bias. And please, do not even say I am biased towards LRT. I have pledge my support for the DRL, and Yonge extension. I admit, BRT is a joke though. Especially the ludicrous claims South American style BRT systems can work here.

Yeah, that's why I said 2 posts ago that I would be strongly in favour of Lawrence and Queen LRTs... I don't hate the technology, I don't like where and how it's being implemented in Transit City.

And for the record, I'm from Ottawa, so I've lived with BRT all my life. The system as a whole works well, it's only the downtown portion that places a constriction on the rest of the system. Especially on suburban corridors, it is the best option in my opinion. And BRT can't handle the projected ridership on the Jane LRT? Give me a break. Jane is barely even above LRT's mimmum requirements. Same with the SMLRT and the outer portion of the SELRT.

 

[Justin10000]

+1

Miller/Mihevc/Giambrone squandered $120 million on rebuilding an existing line and couldn't even bother to extend it any further west. And that was touted as the Transit City prototype line. I attended that so-called protest rally at City Hall and people that I spoke with there were confused why we're even talking about linking Emery to Rouge Park with light-rail trams at a time it takes the light-rail trams downtown nearly 40 minutes to get from Roncesvalles to Riverdale.

With great power, comes great responsibility. The 300 people a day that would make such long voyages across the inner suburbs aboard the combined LRT line are far outnumbered by the 300,000 people daily that'd use a Downtown Relief subway line. Over 100,000 would ride an Eglinton West subway connected directly to the airport. That's what the LRT Lobby keeps forgetting, every penny spent on Transit City could be going towards more worthwhile transit investments. Investments the TTC refuses to study or even address for fear that such talk will obstruct their own self-serving agendas. The LRT Lobby can't see the forest for the trees.

That $120 Million was for rebuilding the entire street, and not just the ROW. It was an $120 Million road project.

 

[Fresh Start]

Do you notice that every candidate is proposing nearly the exact ideas to fund subways? Does this not concern you? Not one of the conservative candidates have an original idea to fund subways!

Thomson - Road Tolls
Ford - Air Rights; P3s
Rossi - Selling Toronto Hydro

Pantalone, Mammoliti, Smitherman - Ideas? Wtf is that? Let's suckle on the Provincial teat some more while the city falls further and further behind. Subways? No, we need to keep CAW/ATU/Bombardier workers working. To hell with transit speed.

 

[LAz]

That $120 Million was for rebuilding the entire street, and not just the ROW. It was an $120 Million road project.

I would want to roll over and die if I ever see them rebuilt pape to put a stinky tram going up and down it.


We need to keep aesthetics in mind.
I don't want to be disgusted looking at how a certain street was ruined, but cramming things together as the road was pushed to widen.








I don't get how someone can be on board with the stupidity of tramsit city. I really don't.

 

[gweed123]

But, hey, Andrew Johnson, who assumedly wants to pursue a career in urban planning in Toronto, are you going to put your above claim that planners working for the city deliberately lied about passenger numbers in an effort to give the public substandard transit on your résumé? That sure does make you sound professional.

The planner says "we need to run", the politician says "we need to jump", and the planner is then forced to reply "how high?". Planning is a political exercise as much as it is a theoretical one. At the end of the day, the politicians decide what happens. Transit City was a political plan from Day 1. It didn't start in the TTC planning offices (unlike RTES), it started with Miller and Giambrone who decided to throw the previous plan out the window and start from scratch. If a planner is asked to come up with a planning rationale to support outcome A, they will come up with a planning rationale to help support outcome A. It's the sad truth, but a truth none the less.

 

[gweed123]

That $120 Million was for rebuilding the entire street, and not just the ROW. It was an $120 Million road project.

How convenient. "It wasn't a transit project, it was just a road project!" Give me a break. That's like saying "it wasn't the fall that killed him, it was hitting the ground that killed him". It was billed as the "St. Clair Streetcar ROW Project". I think that qualifies as a transit project. And it wasn't a $120 million road project, it was a $45 million streetcar project that more than doubled in cost and took over twice as long to finish as initially promised.

 

[Fresh Start]

I think you forgt to thank Pitfield for stealing her campaign platform!

She made sense five years ago and subways still make sense today. Just think, if not for this exercise in testing out the Mayor's little pet project LRT experiments; a DRL or Eglinton West subway or B-D to Scarborough Centre could have been well under way today. Lines that would be at-capacity from day one the way they're desperately needed.

 

[GraphicMatt]

The planner says "we need to run", the politician says "we need to jump", and the planner is then forced to reply "how high?". Planning is a political exercise as much as it is a theoretical one. At the end of the day, the politicians decide what happens. Transit City was a political plan from Day 1. It didn't start in the TTC planning offices (unlike RTES), it started with Miller and Giambrone who decided to throw the previous plan out the window and start from scratch. If a planner is asked to come up with a planning rationale to support outcome A, they will come up with a planning rationale to help support outcome A. It's the sad truth, but a truth none the less.

Any plan that gets anywhere needs to be a political plan. The DRL for a long time was seen as politically unwise, especially in the post-amalgamation environment, as it'd be Mass Transit For Downtown when the suburbs have nothing. Transit City was a reaction to the Sheppard subway which, despite ridership numbers (and I know they're not at all bad when put in a global context), is seen as a largely ineffective vanity project. Transit City proposed to take a realistic amount of funding and create a light rail network in the suburbs, which some would see as a better outcome than spending a decade planning and building (and dealing with funding cuts, etc) a five-stop stubway on Eglinton West or a short extension to Sheppard that, come on, no provincial government is going to consider a priority when they need to reduce the deficit.

There is a lot to debate about this strategy. Why are we putting all our eggs in the on-street rail basket when TTC management seems entirely unwilling to do anything to improve service on existing streetcar lines (even those in medians)? Why is Eglinton on-street in the west when there's some real potential to run it on the side of the road? The arrangement at Sheppard with the subway-LRT transfer is still odd, and if the goal there is to eventually shift the subway to LRT technology, it should at least be articulated and planned.

Saying "Just scrap it all and build subways" isn't a constructive argument, however. Nor is yelling and screaming and insinuating there's a widespread conspiracy in this city.

 

[nfitz]

How convenient. "It wasn't a transit project, it was just a road project!" Give me a break. That's like saying "it wasn't the fall that killed him, it was hitting the ground that killed him". It was billed as the "St. Clair Streetcar ROW Project". I think that qualifies as a transit project. And it wasn't a $120 million road project, it was a $45 million streetcar project that more than doubled in cost and took over twice as long to finish as initially promised.

You all seem far to focused on "what things are billed as" or "how things are touted".

It wasn't just a streetcar project. You know that. Stop acting like a slimey politician and trying to blur things.

All you have to do is read the report, and you can see where things went wrong. They went wrong primarily because of all the add-ons.

 

[Fresh Start]

The Don Mills LRT is nowhere near ready to start construction and will surely go through a number of changes should it ever get to that point (it won't) - as of now, the Don Mills LRT is little more than a line on a map indicating 'hey, we need more transit here.' It's the same with Jane and the Waterfront LRT.

If Toronto was given the entire $9.2 billion they asked for, Miller would have made it his mandate to commence all the Transit City lines.

But, hey, Andrew Johnson, who assumedly wants to pursue a career in urban planning in Toronto, are you going to put your above claim that planners working for the city deliberately lied about passenger numbers in an effort to give the public substandard transit on your résumé? That sure does make you sound professional.

Wow, using a member's personal info to discredit him. Low blow. Yes of course the TTC, if it has a very strong incentive to lie about the numbers, will do so because is a monopoly wherein no one else can conduct their own study to demonstrate what ridership actual and projected levels really are. The public's compelled to either take their word for it or pound sand.

At any rate, none of the LRT lines even come close to just is industry standard minimum threshold for light-rail transit in dedicated ROW. Finch West, Jane, Don Mills, Waterfront, Morningside and Sheppard East barely scratch the surface each with under 5,000 pphpd. Only Eglinton is within LRT range, but it's so disproportionately leaning towards the upper echelons of that threshold that within the next 20 years the LRT ROW will become outdated, so many people will desire the Crosstown LRT that will not be any standing room left during rush hour.

(Eglinton West did justify a subway, and still justifies a subway, obviously - it's getting underground transit - making it LRT is an effort to avoid another stubway situation.)

So why are spending $3 billion on a subway tunnel that carries no subway to later down the road spend $500 million or more to retrofit the line to accomodate subway cars? How will you be able to expand that subway to the outdoor sections of the line beyond that central tunnel without having to construct a brand new right-of-way for them in the future? It seems like a wasted exercise to not just build a subway in the first place such that ridership demand for it can grow over time. Every subway we've got started out undercapacity but ridership gradually picked up within a decade of opening each line. Sheppard subway already carries 126% more people than the bus service it replaced and 24% more riders than it did when the line opened in 2002.

 

[Justin10000]

The Don Mills LRT south of Eglinton, the Central portion (and possibly the west portion if the surface routes are modified properly) of Eglinton, the SRT revamp to STC.

Like I said, I agree with the DRL to Eglinton. I fully support the DRL. The central portion can stay as LRT, I do not see the demand reaching 10,000pph, and the fringes will never need a subway in our lifetimes. The subway to STC is a dead issue, and should remain as such.

Bus routes at capacity (as is the case on Eglinton) = justification for subways.

Can you not grasp the idea that there is a need for a intermediate capacity mode between buses, and subways? I do not mean to be rude, but you are a planner, and you do not seem to grasp the need for a mode to deal with ridership that cannot be handled by buses, but does not justify subway construction. I am amazed, to be honest. I would have thought most transit planners would have understood by now.

So you're only going to look at cases that help support your predetermined opinion?

So you admit the Sheppard Subway should not have been built?

"Tell me why building a subway "for the future" makes sense, especially when it will be lightly used?" You were referring to the Yonge and Bloor-Danforth lines. You referred to their condition afterwards.

Yes, their structural conditions. Replacing switches, repairing tunnel walls, linings, etc, etc. You have to maintain the infrastructure, right. So why build a subway now only for it to reach it's potential 40 years later? Why not build it when it is needed?

How many times have streetcar lines had to have portions ripped up in the past 20 years? The section on Queen at Kingston Rd has been ripped up like 3 times in the past decade and a bit! Every technology type has its associated maintenance costs.

Well, the TTC is at fault for that. The TTC built poor tracks, on wood ties, and used cheap concrete. What do you expect? The TTC changed procedures and is now using welded rail, steel ties, an better concrete. It;s going to last. Hell, the North Yonge Line needs extensive repairs after only 35 years.

Because why would you spend money twice, on the same corridor, in a time period that close together?

50 years is really long time. A lot can happen in that time-frame. Hell, you might change careers, who knows? Building for the future does not make sense because you do not know what the future holds.

I seriously think that transit is much less of a left vs right issue, even conservative candidates are coming around to supporting transit.

I have yet to see one Conservative candidate come up with a credible idea to fund their gradiose subway plans. They are repeating each other ideas! Sell a cash cow to fund subways? Come on! Even you cannot believe that.
I want to believe there is no ideological divide concerning transit, but I am not seeing any proof there is no divide.

We've never really tried the yearly funding approach. It has been proposed by candidates, but has never actually been implemented. And hate to break it to you, but with the delay in Transit City, yearly funding is pretty much what we're getting anyway, just under a different name.

Do you honestly believe the provinve is going to give 1-2 billion to the city a year? The city cannot even secure operational fuunding. It's not going to happen, especially with this crop of candidates. I'll also play the assumption game, and state once George Smitherman gets elected, the province will suddenly release the TC funding.

And for the record, I'm from Ottawa, so I've lived with BRT all my life. The system as a whole works well, it's only the downtown portion that places a constriction on the rest of the system. Especially on suburban corridors, it is the best option in my opinion. And BRT can't handle the projected ridership on the Jane LRT? Give me a break. Jane is barely even above LRT's mimmum requirements. Same with the SMLRT and the outer portion of the SELRT.

I cannot believe you are even proposing the Ottawa-Type BRT on Jane Street! I did my GIS training at Algonquin, and survived with the 95. Loved the 95. Except during rush hours. Hated waiting for aq bus at Rideau Centre, and walking up and down the platform trying to find the right bus. The Ottawa system is mostly grade-seperated with the exception of the central core, and the lanes on the Queensway. So do not take me for a fool. A transitway style BRT could never be built on Jane Street without significant widening, and property demolition. BRT only works well with grade-seperation. Not going to happen on Jane Street.