Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Here's a billions dollars non-LRT plan that screws STC over (just STC):
Stouffville all-day + Sheppard East to STC (line 4) + B-D ends at Kennedy (line 2).
Interchange stations at: Agincourt (Stouffville/line 4), Kennedy (Stouffville/line 2/line 5 - crosstown)
New tunnel through downtown from east of Broadview (the DRL route); Stouffville trains alternate between running to Union and running through the downtown tunnel.

Sounds great. I could agree to that if the actually prepared STC for it.

 

[GenerationW]

Fare integration my friend, fare integration. If a universal fare zone system gets adopted for the GTHA, whole new ballgame.

'If' being the key word. I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Ellesmere could go from being one of the least used stations to one of the busiest on the GO!

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the Globe:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ach-for-ttc-subway-extension/article19086015/

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Yes - excellent. The suggested alignment doesn't give a lot of bang for the buck, and this will help to maximize the benefit from the extension.

AoD

 

[mrxbombastic]

From the Globe:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ach-for-ttc-subway-extension/article19086015/

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Yes - excellent. The suggested alignment doesn't give a lot of bang for the buck, and this will help to maximize the benefit from the extension.

AoD

I suddenly feel slightly better about this whole fiasco knowing that there may yet be a more reasonable outcome. I love forward to what planning says

 

[diminutive]

From the Globe:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ach-for-ttc-subway-extension/article19086015/

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Yes - excellent. The suggested alignment doesn't give a lot of bang for the buck, and this will help to maximize the benefit from the extension.

AoD

Without trying to defend the current proposal, I'm skeptical of why City Planning should be given lead here. Based only on what's in that article, many of the justifications seem incredibly weak.

For instance...

The city planning-led EA will look beyond the role of transit as a mechanism purely for moving people.

“Part of the lens that city planning is going to bring to this exercise is really that city-building lens, that place-making lens,” Ms. Keesmaat said.

That's just insane. Using transit as a development scheme has a proven track record of failure in Toronto. At best, it's just a high cost subsidy to developers. Planning/Keesmat has been all gung-ho on this Avenues/Midrise scheme, and this makes me worry we'll just see a project designed to juice a few dozen midrise projects in Scarborough.

The point of transit IS to be a mechanism for moving people. It's incredible that someone would criticize transit EAs for focusing on moving people. The more things you start lumping into the EA, the more likely are you just end up skewing the entire process to support a predetermined option. Kind of like 20 questions.

The shift comes after concern on the part of some city staff that the TTC was moving ahead too quickly amid the uncertainty – with two of the five major mayoral candidates vowing to revert to the original plan for light rail – that continues to surround the Scarborough transit plan.

This is just pure bureaucratic turf squabbling. Nobody who wasn't trying to carve off some of the TTC's kingdom would ever, ever, accuse the TTC of "moving too quickly."

 

[Solid Snake]

That's just insane. Using transit as a development scheme has a proven track record of failure in Toronto. At best, it's just a high cost subsidy to developers. Planning/Keesmat has been all gung-ho on this Avenues/Midrise schemes, and this makes me worry we'll just see a project designed to juice a few dozen midrise projects in Scarborough.

The point of transit IS to be a mechanism for moving people. It's incredible that someone would criticize transit EAs for focusing on moving people. The more things you start lumping into the EA, the more likely are you just end up skewing the entire process to support a predetermined option. Kind of like 20 questions.

This is why Rapid transit planning should be taken off municipalities hands.

 

[M II A II R II K]

So long as that's not the only rapid transit plan for Scarborough, where everyone is forced to sit through the Danforth and converge on that Bloor/Yonge bottleneck.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Without trying to defend the current proposal, I'm skeptical of why City Planning should be given lead here. Based only on what's in that article, many of the justifications seem incredibly weak.

For instance...

That's just insane. Using transit as a development scheme has a proven track record of failure in Toronto. At best, it's just a high cost subsidy to developers. Planning/Keesmat has been all gung-ho on this Avenues/Midrise scheme, and this makes me worry we'll just see a project designed to juice a few dozen midrise projects in Scarborough.

The point of transit IS to be a mechanism for moving people. It's incredible that someone would criticize transit EAs for focusing on moving people. The more things you start lumping into the EA, the more likely are you just end up skewing the entire process to support a predetermined option. Kind of like 20 questions.

This is just pure bureaucratic turf squabbling. Nobody who wasn't trying to carve off some of the TTC's kingdom would ever, ever, accuse the TTC of "moving too quickly."

The city already chose the mode with the highest possible cost (with provincial politicians of all stripes lining up behind it, so much for removing it from the municipalities' hands). If you are going to put that much money into it, it would make sense to to milk as much new riders out of the project as possible and chose a route that offers the most development potential within reasonable costs.

AoD

 

[Dan416]

I'm very concerned by this notion that moving people isn't the purpose of transit.

The precedent being set here could be very bad, and could affect the DRL too.

That said, I guess I'll wait to see what they come up with before I start bashing it.

 

[innsertnamehere]

its not so much about not moving people, its considering things beyond ensure absolutely ideal train operations. Ensuring maximum ridership and ensuring the project is well integrated into its environment. the Spadina extension focuses only on moving people, and comes up short in placemaking and urban design. It'll still work as a transit project, but it will be better integrate with land use planning and urban design elements than previous TTC EAs.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

If Chow switches back to the RT make it run through with the crosstown and be done. I can't believe this would become an issue.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

its not so much about not moving people, its considering things beyond ensure absolutely ideal train operations. Ensuring maximum ridership and ensuring the project is well integrated into its environment. the Spadina extension focuses only on moving people, and comes up short in placemaking and urban design. It'll still work as a transit project, but it will be better integrate with land use planning and urban design elements than previous TTC EAs.

The SRT is a better example of what happens when you don't integrate transit into it's environment.

 

[diminutive]

The SRT is a better example of what happens when you don't integrate transit into it's environment.

The SRT is fine for its environment. No amount of super expensive design and "place making" would change the fact it runs behind recycling plants.

its not so much about not moving people, its considering things beyond ensure absolutely ideal train operations. Ensuring maximum ridership and ensuring the project is well integrated into its environment. the Spadina extension focuses only on moving people, and comes up short in placemaking and urban design. It'll still work as a transit project, but it will be better integrate with land use planning and urban design elements than previous TTC EAs.

The Spadina subway is hardly a case study of "focusing only on moving people." Particularly its intention to jump-start development in the "Vaughan Metropolitan Centre."

Nobody's against vague goals like place making and integrating land use functions, but by including policy areas beyond the movement of people you can more or less skew the results to suit your purpose. Especially since urban design goals are themselves fairly subjective (there's no settled notion of what makes a place great), the assumptions implicit in them will inevitably influence transit analysis.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Steeles West and Finch west really do have wonderfully integrated stations and a strong land use planning area surrounding them don't they?

York region also did the EA for the area north of Steeles, so VMC is actually a great example of what is possible from an EA done by the city instead of the transit agency.