Voltz
Senior Member
^ LRT Won't work as long as someone wants a subway
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Alternatives to Transit City, the Spadina Extension, Yonge Extension, Etc.
- Thread starter kEiThZ
- Start date
CodeMonkey
Active Member
How about revisiting the GO-ALRT idea. I know there talk about electrification of the current GO lines. But would it be better to have GO have their own lines instead of GO Transit paying for time on CN and CP lines. Plus it would be more of a true Crosstown train instead of the TTC taking the burden.
LowerBay
Active Member
That also makes it a perfect street for a bus.
kettal
Banned
A bus won't easily handle the tunneled section.
LowerBay
Active Member
On the street! That stretch of Eglinton doesn't even need LRT -- why are we spending millions of dollars per km to build nothing more than a gold-plated "bus" service that uses steel wheels?
kettal
Banned
Because we were running out of Wal-Marts to build subways to?
Rainforest
Senior Member
Eglinton and Finch West LRT routes will be major improvements compared to the existing bus service, primarily because the transit vehicles will escape the severe traffic congestion that occurs on those routes during peak hours. At times, the bus service is just unusable.
lead82
Senior Member
That's true, but the problem is will the TTC just screw up this project like it does all others. Residents will complain about making left turns everywhere. As a result, the # of traffic lights will double, so not only will traffic get worse as a result, but since TTC will never get true transit priority, the LRT vehicles will stop at each light as well.
That's of course still 10 years away, since I doubt any Transit City Line will open before 2020. I hope I'm wrong, but with the TTC's track record for construction, I wont be holding my breath. Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton will be under construction for a decade before we see these projects completed. The pain for everyone will begin shortly.
That's of course still 10 years away, since I doubt any Transit City Line will open before 2020. I hope I'm wrong, but with the TTC's track record for construction, I wont be holding my breath. Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton will be under construction for a decade before we see these projects completed. The pain for everyone will begin shortly.
kettal
Banned
The number of left turns that will be lost on Eglinton is minimal. About 3 across the whole city. Sometimes the pessimism of you guys transcends reality.
xtremesniper
Active Member
A bus is not the solution for everything, either. Ever tried to just simply drive on a street like Finch? There's usually 4-5 buses clumped together and they all have to make a stop at each stop because they're all packed and they all have someone pulling the string to get off. It just creates traffic nightmares for both cars and other buses.
I'm tired of people saying things like "that's nothing a good rapid bus service couldn't fix", because it wouldn't fix anything. Streets like Finch are proof of that. I cannot wait until the LRT opens and those buses get off the road, for their own sake.
I'm tired of people saying things like "that's nothing a good rapid bus service couldn't fix", because it wouldn't fix anything. Streets like Finch are proof of that. I cannot wait until the LRT opens and those buses get off the road, for their own sake.
Disparishun
Active Member
That's basically the argument for a third, fast north-south route with an eastern alignment, alongside Yonge and University-Spadina-Dufferin to the west. I'm talking, of course, about a sort of LRT-ization of the Richmond Hill GO line -- on the grounds that doing so is far cheaper than building a new subway line -- including adding stations on the east-west routes/arteries not already present. All of the following would be either relocations (*) or new stations (**):
(...)
RHC
Finch at Leslie(*) (Finch LRT -- Stubway Bypass Line)
Sheppard at Oriole(*) (Stubway)
Eglinton(**) (Eglinton LRT)
Downtown(**) (south of Bloor -- where's good?)
Union
LowerBay
Active Member
Yeah, I do drive on Finch and I don't see a problem. You can widen the road and add in bus lanes at a much lower cost. There's nothing unique about Finch that requires LRT -- it's no different than, say, Steeles.
doady
Senior Member
Those problems are not unique to Finch, and they can be easily solved with bus lanes, signal priority, honour fare, limited stops, and articulated buses.
Disparishun
Active Member
A pretty big chunk of those people is ultimately interested in hearing south, not east or west, though. Create a third, easterly north-south route and you take that chunk off the road in the first place.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
During the TTC's express bus trial along Finch East, serviced stops saw their ridership increase by 35% over pre-existing vanilla buses, at no additional operating or capital costs. Maybe its true to say that rapid buses wont fix everything, but to say that they "wouldn't fix anything", and to use Finch as an example, is perplexing and not supported by evidence. I think proponents of greater rocket service have been quite clear that it is a "75% solution" that, while not perfect, clearly represents better value. Not a kind of mythical wundertranzit in the manner LRT is typically presented as.
Also, as doady pointed out, most of the issues you described could be easily remedied at low cost with basic solutions like larger buses and more efficient boarding regimes. Its also worth pointing out that bunching is a far more terminal issue along the City's tram routes, despite much attention to remedy the situation. Point being that fixed rail systems are typically more susceptible to route disturbances than non-rail systems, assuming an equal degree of segregation.