FIXING Transit City

[kEiThZ]

I've always felt Scarberian was pretty knowledgeable about Scarborough (or maybe I'm just influenced by his username).

If I were to trust two people to come up with a new subway alignment from Kennedy to STC, I'd trust scarberiankhatru and keithz.

And when it comes to things like exact alignments, I'll defer to Scarberian.

It's funny to see some folks who've left Scarborough argue against extending the BD line to STC. You'd be hard pressed to find any Scarborough resident actually saying they'd rather get LRTs on Sheppard and from STC to Sheppard/Progress, over a subway connection to STC.

 

[Voltz]

And when it comes to things like exact alignments, I'll defer to Scarberian.

It's funny to see some folks who've left Scarborough argue against extending the BD line to STC. You'd be hard pressed to find any Scarborough resident actually saying they'd rather get LRTs on Sheppard and from STC to Sheppard/Progress, over a subway connection to STC.

I have always lived in Scarborough and would absolutely prefer what is currently planned on Sheppard and the SRT corridor instead of just one short subway extension from Kennedy to STC. "hard pressed" is a complete exaggeration, please stop trying to pretend your opinion represents all of Scarborough.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Jane will still be largely overcrowded since it still services 4 malls and traffic going to these malls and high rises and community housing areas. What's this theory that other higher priority transit routes takes off 90% of the original route's load. Also, the areas Jane serves yields LRT and rocket service is going to either be a joke or too far spaced that only a couple could benefit from direct service.

Jane station itself is not very busy...most of the Jane bus' riders are not going to Jane station. Maybe 1/4? Maybe less. We know that there's massive turnover along Jane and relatively little in the way of peak crowds because people are going every which way, and future transit lines will only weaken those peak crowds (though 90% is your number, not mine). Of course there's "overcrowding"...what route isn't overcrowded during rush hour? The TTC runs just enough service to maintain an acceptable level of crowding.

The Spadina extension will no more funnel off Jane's loads than the sheppard subway did on Finch. Even when they tried to force it by diverting Finch buses to Don Mills stn it still failed miserably to do so.

Look at a map (or, better yet, actually ride the routes). The Spadina extension will bring the subway a heck of a lot closer to Jane & Finch and Jane & Steeles and some people will switch to Finch/Steeles instead of taking Jane down, especially for Finch. The same is true if they build Eglinton. Peak ridership on Jane could drop even if total ridership goes up. That's what happens when you begin splitting a route up by adding intervening transit lines. There's a reason the Jane LRT was projected to see rather puny peak crowds...it doesn't move the same peak crowds now that other routes do and the numbers aren't going to go up by magic.

They weren't running very many buses along Finch to Don Mills, and there's a few specific reasons why it was never expected to do much, regardless of what some press release way back when may have promised. The Sheppard line is not long enough to make shifting over worthwhile, not when the Finch bus operates as well as it does. Over 10km, yeah, you'd get more people switching, but not over 5km. The Sheppard line needs to run at higher frequencies, too - it's inexcusable that people sometimes get left on the platform when they can easily run the trains more often. Also, if they're going to the Yonge line, people lose a seat by switching to Don Mills (not that they *will* get one at Finch, but there's a good chance).

The reason I'm hesitant on simply extending the subway is because as is, the trains would not be able to handle the tight turns. So either you would need a full extension of the line up McCowan (which would probably be completed several decades after a Downtown Relief Line is constructed), or a complete rebuild of Kennedy station and surrounding track.

You're ignoring options. Just turn north and you can run up Midland or Brimley. The turn isn't as impossible as you think it is, though these days the TTC pooh-poohs anything that isn't 100% ideal. It'd be no Union or Museum curve. If they rebuild a short segment of the tail track, they can probably turn up Midland without screeching/slowing down (though they wouldn't be going too fast through that curve anyway because the station is right there).

I have always lived in Scarborough and would absolutely prefer what is currently planned on Sheppard and the SRT corridor instead of just one short subway extension from Kennedy to STC. "hard pressed" is a complete exaggeration, please stop trying to pretend your opinion represents all of Scarborough.

Your fringe views may be shared by dozens of transit geeks on the internet but not by any significant quantity of people in real life.

 

[Dan416]

I was playing around with possible plans that could be done with the money for transit and came up with this map. I would like input and/or corrections to it just for something I can compile. Where possible I have posted links for my cost figures. Depending on costs the Sherway Gardens extension and the western half of the DRL could be held off saving roughly $2.4- 2.9 billion. I left room for the extension of the Eglinton Crosstown and Yonge Expansion. My total cost varies between large numbers that are impossible and lows that are probably impractical.

1. Turn all of Sheppard into a LRT and have it go to the Agincourt GO to allow commuters to flow onto the line, and make use of the grade separation that is being built. This would eliminate the transfer at Don Mills and could be done for between $550 million to $1 billion assuming savings from total line could cover conversion costs. It is a large cost, but one I feel is better then extending the subway line to STC.

I did not look at your plan in full. I did notice you converted the Sheppard line to LRT and only extended it to Agincourt.... um, then what was the point of doing that? IF you were to convert the Sheppard line to LRT, you'd better damn sure make it much longer than a subway could ever be to make up for it (like, west to the airport and east to the zoo). As is, you're better off just extending the subway to Agincourt and save on the conversion costs.

EDIT: On your map, you should rename Downsview to Sheppard West, and Sheppard West to Downsview Park, and Vaughan Corporate Centre should be Vaughan Centre. Those were the most recent naming proposals by the TTC

 

[Amy Rose]

Jane station itself is not very busy...most of the Jane bus' riders are not going to Jane station. Maybe 1/4? Maybe less. We know that there's massive turnover along Jane and relatively little in the way of peak crowds because people are going every which way, and future transit lines will only weaken those peak crowds (though 90% is your number, not mine). Of course there's "overcrowding"...what route isn't overcrowded during rush hour? The TTC runs just enough service to maintain an acceptable level of crowding.



Look at a map (or, better yet, actually ride the routes). The Spadina extension will bring the subway a heck of a lot closer to Jane & Finch and Jane & Steeles and some people will switch to Finch/Steeles instead of taking Jane down, especially for Finch. The same is true if they build Eglinton. Peak ridership on Jane could drop even if total ridership goes up. That's what happens when you begin splitting a route up by adding intervening transit lines. There's a reason the Jane LRT was projected to see rather puny peak crowds...it doesn't move the same peak crowds now that other routes do and the numbers aren't going to go up by magic.

I take the 35 nearly daily and I'm not saying lots of people get off a Jane Stn. but there are still people that will still take Jane regardless of the extension or not, since its personal preference, and the majority of Jane riders are not near the area, in fact you would be insane just to be on the northern tip of Jane in Toronto. And if you think the Jane ridership is so small? Make TTC gradually inject articulated buses from rush hour to all round and by the end of say a reasonable amount of years, they would have to run FS, but then you would have to consider the overpass between Weston and Trethewey in the winter. About that overcrowding, call me a hypocrite but the reason TTC is managing overcrowding is that they would have to look at the number of riders, the traffic, and the number of buses available without using too many spares. And about the puny crowds, projections are just projections since you don't know if X number of people will ride the route, but the sort of magnet theory is that if the driver is stuck in traffic and sees LRV after LRV after LRV pass by, one would think that they should use public transit at a transit friendly workplace etc. etc. and the message I'm not trying to convey is that all routes should be LRT by my theory, but Jane can be a suitable candidate, and theres still *time* if Ford doesn't cancel since Jane LRT isn't there until 2017, and the hype could generate more riders.

 

[Dan416]

Wasn't the Jane LRT somewhat shelved since a good portion of it would have to be tunnelled? Doesn't that actually make it more likely to be endorsed by Ford? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Amy Rose]

Wasn't the Jane LRT somewhat shelved since a good portion of it would have to be tunnelled? Doesn't that actually make it more likely to be endorsed by Ford? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Only south of Eglinton, and the controversy was that there would only be one lane of traffic both direction in Jane since south of Eglinton its building to sidewalk and sidewalk to road, and to even make it 2 lanes, one would have to say good bye to front lawn and extended outdoor driveway

 

[smarches]

I did not look at your plan in full. I did notice you converted the Sheppard line to LRT and only extended it to Agincourt.... um, then what was the point of doing that? IF you were to convert the Sheppard line to LRT, you'd better damn sure make it much longer than a subway could ever be to make up for it (like, west to the airport and east to the zoo). As is, you're better off just extending the subway to Agincourt and save on the conversion costs.

EDIT: On your map, you should rename Downsview to Sheppard West, and Sheppard West to Downsview Park, and Vaughan Corporate Centre should be Vaughan Centre. Those were the most recent naming proposals by the TTC

Thanks for the update to the station names, I will change those. My quick reasoning for turning Sheppard Subway into LRT to Agincourt was to have a GO connection point that is open to future expansion. Also, the savings of not building the subway to STC could go to the other projects. I also would like the LRT to extend one day to the zoo, I was going to make an extended future plan map for fun after hearing input on this.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I take the 35 nearly daily and I'm not saying lots of people get off a Jane Stn. but there are still people that will still take Jane regardless of the extension or not, since its personal preference, and the majority of Jane riders are not near the area, in fact you would be insane just to be on the northern tip of Jane in Toronto. And if you think the Jane ridership is so small? Make TTC gradually inject articulated buses from rush hour to all round and by the end of say a reasonable amount of years, they would have to run FS, but then you would have to consider the overpass between Weston and Trethewey in the winter. About that overcrowding, call me a hypocrite but the reason TTC is managing overcrowding is that they would have to look at the number of riders, the traffic, and the number of buses available without using too many spares. And about the puny crowds, projections are just projections since you don't know if X number of people will ride the route, but the sort of magnet theory is that if the driver is stuck in traffic and sees LRV after LRV after LRV pass by, one would think that they should use public transit at a transit friendly workplace etc. etc. and the message I'm not trying to convey is that all routes should be LRT by my theory, but Jane can be a suitable candidate, and theres still *time* if Ford doesn't cancel since Jane LRT isn't there until 2017, and the hype could generate more riders.

It's not just the Spadina extension and Finch, it's Eglinton, too. People are either already making short-medium length trips on Jane or are transferring to other routes, and more will do so once these new lines are built. Jane just isn't going to have the same peak crowds that other routes will. Maybe if Jane had large numbers of jobs along it or large amounts of redevelopment and population growth, but it doesn't. Total ridership can go up as peak ridership goes down. Light rail on Jane was pledged and may not be deliverable. That promise alone and a sentiment that, "Well, the crowds might show up" doesn't justify spending god knows how much on it. But that's Toronto...promising transit and then having it snatched away.

 

[nfitz]

EDIT: On your map, you should rename Downsview to Sheppard West, and Sheppard West to Downsview Park, and Vaughan Corporate Centre should be Vaughan Centre. Those were the most recent naming proposals by the TTC

Proposals that the TTC didn't approve. Hopefully at least Vaughan City Corporate Metropolitan I'mABigCity Town Centre get's a shorter name ...

 

[EnviroTO]

Weren't the Downsview and Sheppard West naming changes going ahead with the Vaughan Centre change contingent on getting York/Vaughan's approval which seems to not be happening?

 

[nfitz]

Weren't the Downsview and Sheppard West naming changes going ahead with the Vaughan Centre change contingent on getting York/Vaughan's approval which seems to not be happening?

During the (first) September 30th meeting they voted to:

1. Refer consideration of the name for the Vaughan Centre to the next scheduled Commission meeting; and
2. Refer consideration of the names for the Finch West, Steeles West and Downsview Stations back to staff to consult with the public on names for those stations and report back once completed.

I don't believe the issue was raised at the next scheduled meeting (yesterday), nor am I aware of any staff report or consultation on the other 3 stations.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Yeah, the Spadina names seem to be on hold while the TTC deals with, um, more pressing matters. It wasn't on the agenda yesterday. But they weren't really waiting on York and Vaughan who already made it clear they prefer Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

Also, hate to be picky but that map has the new Clark station south of both Cummer and Steeles...

And my dream map has Sheppard going out to Downsview with at least one stop (Bathurst) in between.

 

[Amy Rose]

It's not just the Spadina extension and Finch, it's Eglinton, too. People are either already making short-medium length trips on Jane or are transferring to other routes, and more will do so once these new lines are built. Jane just isn't going to have the same peak crowds that other routes will. Maybe if Jane had large numbers of jobs along it or large amounts of redevelopment and population growth, but it doesn't. Total ridership can go up as peak ridership goes down. Light rail on Jane was pledged and may not be deliverable. That promise alone and a sentiment that, "Well, the crowds might show up" doesn't justify spending god knows how much on it. But that's Toronto...promising transit and then having it snatched away.

If Jane goes off the phase 2 budget, it should be on the transit city BRT plan according to you since the infamy of Jane street won't make ridership higher within 25-50 years.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

If Jane goes off the phase 2 budget, it should be on the transit city BRT plan according to you since the infamy of Jane street won't make ridership higher within 25-50 years.

There is no phase 2 budget. Jane was thrown to the wolves. Infamy isn't why ridership will probably stagnate. Things like the population decline along its entire length and the lack of much of anything along Jane, as well as intervening transit lines, are. Jane ends quite unceremoniously at a whole bunch of nothing at Bloor at one end and at the Spadina line at the other. If most people along Jane are only taking the bus a few stops or using the bus to get off Jane, where will the crowds come from? Yeah, if we were given $50 billion and told to go crazy, then maybe it'd sneak up the priority list and people would start becoming eager over the thought of long LRT tunnels that move few people (unless we get another mayor/TTC commissioner who thinks infamy alone is justification for a new transit line).