The provincial government is about to implement new dedicated taxes for transit. You can't expect people to pay new taxes and at the same time just accept not getting the improvements they were promised on transit.
That's what a lot of people simply don't understand. Perception. If you don't live near Sheppard or Eglinton, you aren't seeing squat in Scarborough. You will still be waiting in the cold, for a bus, to take you to your RT station to an unnecessary (as perceived) transfer. Only, you'll now be paying more for it, possibly taking a hit in home values, and you'll have to go for 3-5 years with no RT just to retain status quo.
How much of that is walk-in, and how much of that is bus transfers? There would be a new station at Lawrence East and McCowan, which would directly serve Scarborough General Hospital.
I would venture to say that with the exception of SC and McCowan, most SRT ridership is transfer traffic.
Should it work that way, though? If another project elsewhere would carry more passengers and do more to reduce congestion wouldn't it make more sense to find that rather than the Oprah Winfrey school of transit planning?
You get a rapid transit project! You get a rapid transit project! You get a rapid transit project!
Methinks we are in for lots of these stories.......everyone is gonna be in favor of revenue tools.....as long as the money is spent on them!
I get the slippery slope arguments. But realistically, I can't think of another place where you could apply it. This is the only corridor where the subway is within 22% of the price tag of the LRT. There is no other corridor where it would apply. Sheppard is an argument over cost multiples. And where in the 905 do you have these kinds of debates? The 905 debates are over whether or not to build an LRT or a BRT. I have yet to see a 905 fight over which mode of higher-order transit to build.
I'm really starting to wonder how many councilors will back a Bloor-Danforth extension. Mayor Ford will most likely vote no to it, and Doug Ford has said he will not support it. Josh Matlow and Paul Ainslie have said they want to stick with the LRT plan. I'm guessing Doug Holyday, Vincent Crisanti, Giorgio Mammoliti, Shelley Carroll and Frances Nunziata will vote it down too.
Here are the ones backing a B-D extension:
Karen Stintz, Glenn De Baeremaeker, Raymond Cho, Chin Lee, Michael Thompson, Gary Crawford, Michelle Berardinetti, Joe Mihevc, and Josh Colle. And possibly Norm Kelly and Ron Moeser.
The Scarborough councillors have no choice. Their constituents will be hopping mad when they get that letter in the mail advising them of the SRT shut down, right after they get a notice about all the "revenue tools" they'll be "using". They better have something to show for it. As for the other councillors, some are Rob Ford types and simply won't vote for it, because they don't support the new taxes. It has nothing at all to do with opposition to the subway. The anti-SRT subway crowd is actually small. And in the end, they'll come together. Because they all fear Rob Ford's populism and a possible backlash at a provincial election (electing Hudak), far more than they really care about the money being spent here.
This move by Stintz puts Ford in a very difficult position. He votes against revenue tools and there will be posters all over Scarborough about how he voted against the Scarborough subway. Or he votes for the "revenue tools" (far-fetched I know) and Ford nation will give their founder the boot. Either way, Stintz wins. Rob Ford loses.
An idea of how many students attend the Centennial College Progress Campus would be a good addition to this discussion.
(And the numbers for the co-located UTSC+Centennial College Morningside Campus would be useful for comparison)
Serving the Malvern Centre will be relatively easy, using a branch of Sheppard LRT or BRT, going up Neilson.
The loss of connection to Centennial College is a weak point of the subway option. If they are building the Durham - Ellesmere BRT, I would look at the possibility of veering it north off Ellesmere at some point just west of the Highland Creek bridge, then following the Highland Creek valley and reaching Centennial campus from the south, and finally going to STC. However, I am not familiar with the area, and do not know whether such route is technically and fiscally feasible.
One bus route from STC successfully suports Centennial now. There's just not enough students at Centennial to drive transit planning in all of northern Scarborough. UTSC is massive. But again, UTSC is better served by the BRT along Ellesemere, than even the Morningside LRT.
As for Malvern. The station at Sheppard/McCowan simply moves the rapid transit transfer point 2 km West. So about 5-7 mins further west on the bus. But now, many more Malvern bus routes can intercept the station. The Sheppard/McCowan station is sufficiently north enough that some of the travel time will be reduced. And there will be no transfer and fewer stops till Kennedy. All in all, the travel time from Malvern on the subway and LRT extension would be similar, except that the comfort level is much higher (shorter bus ride, one less transfer) and many more bus routes are intercepted (reflected in the 5M additional annual riders).
