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Chicago Tribune compliments Toronto's transit system -- thoughts?

Burnt creek said:
Hmm i missed a couple events last summer because of closures on the on yonge line on the weekend. The closures were due to signal upgrades. Arent signals there for safety reasons?

Didnt we shut down a couple of weeks ago or months ago during rush hour due to a fire? Maybe not for day. But it has happened frequently. And almost everytime its for safety reasons.
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We've never shut down the entire system during rush hour or on the weekend.
 
Ok i will give. Maybe it is safer. But, all other things being equal, i will take any system with the most coverage in the world and best at moving people in the world over any system thats the safest in the world. To certain limitations of course.

Quite honnestly, compared to airlines, cars and trains, subway systems are pretty safe. I cant recalls incidents in the news other than terrorist or man made than resulted in large amouts of fatalities on a subway system. Also consider the number of people they carry relative to airplanes and highways. So i dont know why safety should be the primary consideration.
 
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If a city has larger rapid transit system but it doesn't have the money to maintain the system or provide good service, then of course that should be pointed out. If you want to cherry pick and ignore those other systems' problems and just focus on Toronto's problems, then who's really the one being smug?

The transit ridership of Washington and Chicago and Boston are terrible compared to Toronto. They don't even come close. That's just the facts.

Yeah their rapid transit systems have more coverage. What are we supposed to learn from that? Don't vote for the Progressive Conservatives? Last I checked, the PCs haven't been in power for over 10 years now. Unless we can go back in time and stop the cancellation of the Eglinton Subway and the truncation of the Sheppard Subway, I don't see the point of going on and on and on about the "coverage".

The most important question is how much subways have those cities built in the past 60 years? Toronto first subway was built in 1954, in the post-war era. How much rapid transit has Chicago built since 1954?

Chicago's L system
1913: http://www.chicago-l.org/maps/route/maps/1913map.jpg
1954: http://www.chicago-l.org/maps/route/maps/1954map.jpg
2003: http://www.chicago-l.org/maps/route/maps/2003map-lowres.jpg

Toronto population's in 1911 was 381,383 while Chicago's population was 2,185,283 in 1910. Do you guy seriously think a city of 383k people should have a rapid transit system with 4 lines and over 100 stations just like a city of over 2 million people? Just think about that.

Boston had population 1.5 million in 1910. They built the first subway line ever in the USA. Yet despite their huge head start, the ridership pales in comparison to Toronto. Boston's transit's glory days are long gone. It doesn't impress me at all.

Even though the ridership of Washington is terrible compared to Toronto (WMATA has 1/3 the ridership of the GTA systems), it is a younger city with a younger system, just like Toronto. It is still impressive what they have achieved. But again they didn't have to deal with Mike Harris.

Aside from Washington, all of the new cities in the US are in the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt cities rose to prominence in the post-war era and grew mostly in the post-war era, just like Toronto did. And none of them built as much rapid transit as Toronto.
 
doady said:
If a city has larger rapid transit system but it doesn't have the money to maintain the system or provide good service, then of course that should be pointed out. If you want to cherry pick and ignore those other systems' problems and just focus on Toronto's problems, then who's really the one being smug?

The transit ridership of Washington and Chicago and Boston are terrible compared to Toronto. They don't even come close. That's just the facts.

Yeah their rapid transit systems have more coverage. What are we supposed to learn from that? Don't vote for the Progressive Conservatives? Last I checked, the PCs haven't been in power for over 10 years now. Unless we can go back in time and stop the cancellation of the Eglinton Subway and the truncation of the Sheppard Subway, I don't see the point of going on and on and on about the "coverage".

The most important

Even though the ridership of Washington is terrible compared to Toronto (WMATA has 1/3 the ridership of the GTA systems), it is a younger city with a younger system, just like Toronto. It is still impressive what they have achieved. But again they didn't have to deal with Mike Harris.

Aside from Washington, all of the new cities in the US are in the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt cities rose to prominence in the post-war era and grew mostly in the post-war era, just like Toronto did. And none of them built as much rapid transit as Toronto.
Click to expand...

Gotta agree. The decision to cancel the Eglinton subway was the biggest blow ever to public transit in this city. That line would have solved so many problems and really would have changed things in terms of needs today. Thats why i found It so hypocritical to hear the Ford's championing subways. If i am not mistaken, their father was an mp in that government.
 
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Burnt creek said:
Gotta agree. The decision to cancel the Eglinton subway was the biggest blow ever to public transit in this city. That line would have solved so many problems and really would have changed things in terms of needs today. Thats why i found It so hypocritical to hear the Ford's championing subways. If i am not mistaken, their father was an mp in that government.
Click to expand...

What does that have to do with it? I doubt he understood any of these issues in the 90s lol
 
Cobra said:
What does that have to do with it? I doubt he understood any of these issues in the 90s lol
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Subway expansion of any kind was as much of a need in the 90's as it is today. And, that line would have addressed the need for ground transportation and service access to Pearson airport. Ground transportion at canadian airports might have been the worst in the western world until the last few years. Thats nothing new. Before the arrival of UPX, The talk of inproving transit to Pearson has been going on for ever. That eglinton line would have solved it. Or would have laid the ground work to solve it. We might not have needed UPX today.

That eglinton line might also have address the need for smart tracks. So alot of the recent funding fior the big move could have been invested elsewhere.
 
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Burnt creek said:
Subway expansion of any kind was as much of a need in the 90's as it is today. And, that line would have addressed the need for graound transportation and service access to Pearson airport. Ground transportion are canadian airports might have been the worst in the world. Thats nothing new.
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Not really - by the time it was canned the line was a mere stumpway from Eglinton West, along the lines of Sheppard. Killing the momentum for further extension of the line is one thing - killing the portion of the line itself is another.

Honestly, there are worse tragedies - how about the utter lack of movement on downtown lines since what, University in the early 60s and Bloor in the mid 60s?

AoD
 
doady said:
If a city has larger rapid transit system but it doesn't have the money to maintain the system or provide good service, then of course that should be pointed out. If you want to cherry pick and ignore those other systems' problems and just focus on Toronto's problems, then who's really the one being smug?

The transit ridership of Washington and Chicago and Boston are terrible compared to Toronto. They don't even come close. That's just the facts.

Yeah their rapid transit systems have more coverage. What are we supposed to learn from that? Don't vote for the Progressive Conservatives? Last I checked, the PCs haven't been in power for over 10 years now. Unless we can go back in time and stop the cancellation of the Eglinton Subway and the truncation of the Sheppard Subway, I don't see the point of going on and on and on about the "coverage".

The most important question is how much subways have those cities built in the past 60 years? Toronto first subway was built in 1954, in the post-war era. How much rapid transit has Chicago built since 1954?

Chicago's L system
1913: http://www.chicago-l.org/maps/route/maps/1913map.jpg
1954: http://www.chicago-l.org/maps/route/maps/1954map.jpg
2003: http://www.chicago-l.org/maps/route/maps/2003map-lowres.jpg

Toronto population's in 1911 was 381,383 while Chicago's population was 2,185,283 in 1910. Do you guy seriously think a city of 383k people should have a rapid transit system with 4 lines and over 100 stations just like a city of over 2 million people? Just think about that.

Boston had population 1.5 million in 1910. They built the first subway line ever in the USA. Yet despite their huge head start, the ridership pales in comparison to Toronto. Boston's transit's glory days are long gone. It doesn't impress me at all.

Even though the ridership of Washington is terrible compared to Toronto (WMATA has 1/3 the ridership of the GTA systems), it is a younger city with a younger system, just like Toronto. It is still impressive what they have achieved. But again they didn't have to deal with Mike Harris.

Aside from Washington, all of the new cities in the US are in the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt cities rose to prominence in the post-war era and grew mostly in the post-war era, just like Toronto did. And none of them built as much rapid transit as Toronto.
Click to expand...

You seem to start off with a focus on subway/metro (which is fair, since I think that's sort of the focus and what got the ball rolling on the discussion). But then you deviated a bit by comparing all transit ridership for the greater metro areas of these cities. As a comparison between ridership specific to subway/metro systems, I think Washington, Boston, and Chicago are fairly healthy when compared with TO's ridership. Ours is obviously larger, but the other cities' aren't in any way "terrible".

And while I think it's apt to bring up politics into the discussion, I wouldn't solely focus on Mike Harris. Blatant politicization of Toronto's subway expansion started well before him, and continued well after. With the completion of the first leg of Yonge, a line below Queen was by all accounts supposed to be next in line. Yet over six decades later and we'll be lucky to get anything built under Queen until the 2030s. Higher levels of government tended to dole out moneys to projects that win votes, and the Metro government formed a bloc where the building of hefty new infrastructure seemed to focus on projects in areas with political merit (in place of areas with actual merit).

Another point worth bringing up is the per km costs of building. While there's now apparently some unwritten rule that TO's subways can only be built underground (with any mention of at-grade or elevated seemingly viewed as a non-starter), it wasn't always like that. Just like Chicago, NYC, London, and numerous other cities, Toronto/TTC used to make a considerable effort to find significant per km cost-savings (while providing the exact same service). Today? We're spending serious sums tunneling within areas where tunneling is technically not optimal, and below farm fields, highways/expwys, and industrial lots with no residents for 2km. I can't think of many cities that would ignore all options but the Cadillac solution. And if Cadillac solutions were considered the only way of expanding a subway/metro in cities like Chicago, NYC, or London their systems would logically be a fraction of the size they are today.

Chicago's most recent subway line was built 100% open-air (with the benefit of reaching an airport), and DC's most recent expansion is also built open-air for much of its length (also with the benefit of reaching an airport). No subway airport connection for us. Our leaders spent half a billion on a non-transit premium service. Then there's Vancover. It started building its system three decades after ours - and it now surpasses ours in terms of length (and will continue to do so even with TYSSE coming online).
 
W. K. Lis said:
Since this thread is about Chicago, they have service where they deliver passengers to the mezzanine level at a station.

Click to expand...

Of course this happens in Toronto too

2009_08_11unioncrash.jpg


(Source torontoist)
 
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