News   May 17, 2024
Masterplanned Community Proposed Near Northfield ION in Waterloo
 338     0 
News   May 17, 2024
Sevoy's 1515 Pickering Parkway to Join Pickering's Growing Downtown
 270     0 
News   May 17, 2024
Canada’s Most Important Transit Oriented Development
 3.5K     5 

GTTA "Quick Start" Expansion

If the next 'round' involves a TTC light-rail line, I wonder which will be deemed the priority. Eglinton would seem to make sense, since it will be the busiest by far and also take the longest to complete due to tunnelling. I'm quite excited at the prospect of what will effectively be an Eglinton subway--after all, those monster LRVs are about the size of subway trains in a lot of other cities.

But, knowing how things can work with TO transit, the priority will probably be something in oh, say, north-east Scarborough.
 
It's disappointing to hear that Dundas East LRT will go ahead before Hurontario, but I think there is more development potential in that corridor than in Hurontario (not to say there isn't any there tho). I hope MT doesn't cave and agree to this BRT nonsense since Hurontario has potential to get more people on transit, and it's a cross-town route to boot. Let BT have their BRT, and run the LRT up to Shoppers World, and build a new northern Hurontario Transit terminal there. MT lacks a real "northern" terminal on Hurontario which has always surprised me, but I guess it's the lack of a destenation up there.

If the GTTA is pushing for more parking structures at GO stations, I hope they consider the way that some of the ones near Port Credit GO work. The 4storey one across for it (Queen and Helene) has a mixture of stores on the west side (Convenience Store, dry cleaning, chocolate store, hair salon and a clothes store), the first level is rented privately to GO customers (but I think this is done informally/illegally but if you watch during the morning commute you'll see it happening), @ the 2nd or 3rd floor I believe it is connected to the 20ish floor apartment next to it, and while it's connected to that one apartment, it's shared between 2 or 3 other ones in the area, limiting the amount of underground garages in the area, which developers like since they save the cash. The other main above parking structure in PC isn't as large, but it's used by two apartments and has a deal with some nearby stores to give them reserved parking spots. The one big reason I think that GO should start putting these up is the fact it will clear up more land for stores. Just look @ Clarkson GO and the sea of parking around it. If you built a 4 or 5 storey garage on the north lot, you've almost cleared up enough land to put up another City Place there. While the cities and GTTA should start pushing more public transit rides to GO, the fact is people will still keep driving since GO itself still unreliable, and driving downtown is still about the same amount of time as driving from most locations, and people will are always garunteed a seat in their own car.
 
jeicow said:
It's disappointing to hear that Dundas East LRT will go ahead before Hurontario, but I think there is more development potential in that corridor than in Hurontario (not to say there isn't any there tho). I hope MT doesn't cave and agree to this BRT nonsense since Hurontario has potential to get more people on transit, and it's a cross-town route to boot. Let BT have their BRT, and run the LRT up to Shoppers World, and build a new northern Hurontario Transit terminal there. MT lacks a real "northern" terminal on Hurontario which has always surprised me, but I guess it's the lack of a destenation up there.
Click to expand...

BT is ready to go with Acceleride (which, BTW, like Viva really isn't "BRT"), and wants a direct service to York U and to Square One - it is against forcing transfers if it can help it.

But LRT to Downtown Brampton is the best idea. Dundas isn't as great a corridor as Hurontario.
 
GregWTravels said:
This seems like the way to go to me as well. Maintain the number of spots, while starting to move more res/office close to the stations.
Click to expand...

Does spending the billions of dollars this idea actually implies make more sense than the thousands it costs to build adequate parking? Honestly?

I'm not faulting the idea in terms of its intentions, just its execution. If you're in a position to use public transit efficiently to get to work, by all means, it makes sense to be close to the station you need.

But suppose you change jobs?

Suppose your office moves to a different location?

Here's something even more likely. Okay, you live a five minute walk from, say, Agincourt GO station. Zip! You're at work on Bay Street in under an hour. But suppose your spouse works in Bramalea, or Burlington or Ajax? Even if they use public transit, odds are, they're going to have to drive to get to it, and again, they're going to need to park. This was the case for my folks, years ago. They worked at opposite ends of the Golden Horseshoe, and we wound up living about half way between each place so that each of them would have some chance of preserving their sanity. "Best of" scenarios are a good starting point, but we can't stop planning there. We need to take real life examples into account, and I'm sure if you stop and think, you probably know plenty of people in the same situation as my folks were. This is why I'm saying we need to think of things like parking. Fine, you might live on top of YOUR station, but your wife's GO station might be 20 miles away. It's drive or take a bus to another city and switch buses and take a train. A lot of people are simply going to drive at least that first leg just so they actually have some life left over beyond work hours.
 
jeicow said:
If the GTTA is pushing for more parking structures at GO stations, I hope they consider the way that some of the ones near Port Credit GO work. The one big reason I think that GO should start putting these up is the fact it will clear up more land for stores. Just look @ Clarkson GO and the sea of parking around it. If you built a 4 or 5 storey garage on the north lot, you've almost cleared up enough land to put up another City Place there. While the cities and GTTA should start pushing more public transit rides to GO, the fact is people will still keep driving since GO itself still unreliable, and driving downtown is still about the same amount of time as driving from most locations, and people will are always garunteed a seat in their own car.
Click to expand...

I strongly agree with the sentiments here. The multi-story garage at Fairview was, to me, a step in the right direction. Get off the 404, get out of your car, grab the Sheppard Line and take Yonge south, if that's where you're going. Multi-story parking costs more to build, but as said above, keeps the footprint small and frees up valuable land for other uses (not to mention lowering the cost of parking by a factor of the land necessary). If we're going to charge for it, then I think we should give people an incentive. Something like, if you buy a monthly GO pass, your parking is free. That'd probably convince me to do it. People love stuff like that, and the province has got your money, and it's got you out of your car, and that's less smog and less road wear. We have to reverse the paradigm from thinking of ways of punishing people for using cars to rewarding them for using them less. It's the old honey vs. vinegar routine.
 
Policy experience tells otherwise... economically speaking, subsidies (or rewarding less use) are much, much less efficient than taxes or fees used to discourage/penalise use. The reason is because there are freeloaders. People who would have changed their behaviour without the incentive, but are receiving the incentive just the same.
 
afransen said:
Policy experience tells otherwise... economically speaking, subsidies (or rewarding less use) are much, much less efficient than taxes or fees used to discourage/penalise use. The reason is because there are freeloaders. People who would have changed their behaviour without the incentive, but are receiving the incentive just the same.
Click to expand...

Your argument doesn't make any sense in the context of my point; how can you "freeload" on parking for free at a GO station when in order to do so in my example, you have to buy the monthly pass? So what's the freeloading aspect here? You spend over a hundred bucks to buy the pass, haul into the GO station, freeload parking for ten seconds and then drive away snickering at the suckers as you take your car to work anyway?

I'm talking about tipping the scales to convince people who might choose to continue driving if they had to pay both to take the train AND pay to park. Your point, basically, is that I should be penalized for agreeing to take my car no further than the GO station. Is this a sensible policy if we're trying to get people out of their cars and onto public transit?

Incentives work. Ontario Hydro, or whatever we're calling it these days, has a number of initiatives going right now to help people get rid of inefficient appliances and replace them with new ones. Do you think it would be more effective to slap a punitive tax on old fridges, stoves, air conditioners and make it that much harder for people to be able to afford to replace them? Personally, I don't. But you tell me "Hey, we'll help you get some new appliances that will lower your hydro bill," and I'm right there with you.
 
Speaking with some TTC staff, Sheppard East and Don Mills will likely be the first off the block, since they are already well underway with their EAs. Kingston Road and Eglinton are probably my bets to follow.
 
These EAs are being done with virtually no consultation. I guarantee that if people on Sheppard East knew that a study was well in progress that will permanently stop the extension of the Sheppard Subway, they would be very upset.
 
unimaginative2 said:
These EAs are being done with virtually no consultation. I guarantee that if people on Sheppard East knew that a study was well in progress that will permanently stop the extension of the Sheppard Subway, they would be very upset.
Click to expand...

Don Mills has been a very public process for the last 2 years. Heck, it started out as a Don Valley highway upgrade until the public got involved.

Sheppard East, on the other hand, is new to me.
 
Let's look at the bright side: maybe the Sheppard streetcar will be so useless that enough people will be forced to switch to the RT to overcrowd it to the point that it's replaced by a Danforth extension...
 
Lone Primate said:
Your argument doesn't make any sense in the context of my point; how can you "freeload" on parking for free at a GO station when in order to do so in my example, you have to buy the monthly pass? So what's the freeloading aspect here? You spend over a hundred bucks to buy the pass, haul into the GO station, freeload parking for ten seconds and then drive away snickering at the suckers as you take your car to work anyway?

I'm talking about tipping the scales to convince people who might choose to continue driving if they had to pay both to take the train AND pay to park. Your point, basically, is that I should be penalized for agreeing to take my car no further than the GO station. Is this a sensible policy if we're trying to get people out of their cars and onto public transit?

Incentives work. Ontario Hydro, or whatever we're calling it these days, has a number of initiatives going right now to help people get rid of inefficient appliances and replace them with new ones. Do you think it would be more effective to slap a punitive tax on old fridges, stoves, air conditioners and make it that much harder for people to be able to afford to replace them? Personally, I don't. But you tell me "Hey, we'll help you get some new appliances that will lower your hydro bill," and I'm right there with you.
Click to expand...

The freeloading comes in where people who would have done kiss-and-ride or taken the bus or walked to the GO station drive and park at the station instead, since the cost of doing so is lower than the utility they derive from it. In other words, I'm all for parking at GO stations, but I think it should be done on a cost recovery basis. Those parking lots cost GO money, and the people who don't drive to the GO station are essentially paying for you to have free parking--hence the freeloading.

Hydro One's rebate scheme does work, but what would work better is charging market rates from hydro as a means of managing demand. Any profit can be used to improve Hydro One's transmission infrastructure or even a rebate for low-income households. People will lower their bills by buying appliances only if the present value of their cost savings is higher than the present value of the cost of the upgrade. You can create this incentive through government subsidies on appliance purchases (which the government will then take out of your other pocket through income tax), or by making electricity cost what it's worth (saves the government money, thereby reducing your tax burden in other areas).

In the latter scenario, you decide how much you pay. If government subsidizes appliances, you pay whether you take advantage of the subsidy or not. I guess the point is that subsidies aren't pennies from heaven. They're just taxing you indirectly and handing it back. Why not tax directly--at least then people have some control over their tax burden.
 
I would expect the agenda for Sheppard to be an eventual conversion of the subway to LRT - I imagine the thinking is that with Don Mills LRT the amount of people connecting to the Yonge line will decline, or will use DM LRT+Eglinton LRT if they don't mind standing. Certainly that's how Steve Munro and the other Sheppard-sceptics would like to see it go.

I would entertain that expensive refurb if frequency was high - 90-120 sec - and there was a commitment to continue the LRT to Downsview so York U commuters would have 1-change travel from East Sheppard East to York, otherwise leave it alone. Extending Finch West LRT to Finch East, at least as far as Don Mills and linking to DM LRT there, might also be a prerequisite.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top