Metrolinx: Sheppard East LRT (In Design)

[scarberiankhatru]

My favourite comment was from the rather learned individual who said that a certain transit advocate would advocate LRT to the moon.

Or LRT as a cure for cancer!

I took the Sheppard subway to get to the meeting and the train was full, with multiple people holding onto each pole and everyone touching everyone else. Lots of people got off at Bayview and even at least 20 people got off at Bessarion (virtually everyone that lives near Bessarion station takes the subway, and almost 10,000 people will soon move into ParkPlace).

edit - also, every time I asked any of the professionals in attendance if the ridership was there in Malvern to support a combination of an RT extension, a Sheppard LRT, a Morningside LRT, and a Midtown GO line - let alone any one or two of them - they either clammed up and changed the subject or disputed my numbers, or acknowledged that the plan was pure politics and running these lines out there bordered on lunacy.

 

[Voltz]

lets not forget that the sheppard subway uses shorter trains on wider headways, although it may appear to be well used, compared to the other lines it is not. An sheppard subway extenson to to stc would only cover about half the distance on sheppard for about 3-4 times the cost.

But, both a lrt line and subway extension shuld each be fairly looked at, without the political masters interference, (such interferance has occoured in almost every transit project to date)

 

[RedRocket191]

Unless we want to move to a dictatorship run by registered professional planners (a prospect which sounds more attractive now that I think of it), we'll always have to have politicians involved in the process. Its a fact of living in a democracy.

All glory to the RPP...

 

[scarberiankhatru]

lets not forget that the sheppard subway uses shorter trains on wider headways, although it may appear to be well used, compared to the other lines it is not. An sheppard subway extenson to to stc would only cover about half the distance on sheppard for about 3-4 times the cost.

But, both a lrt line and subway extension shuld each be fairly looked at, without the political masters interference, (such interferance has occoured in almost every transit project to date)

Uh, do you understand that Sheppard's only 5.5km long? Of course it won't carry as many people as other lines. And who cares that a subway extension won't run out to Morningside...almost no one uses the Sheppard bus out there, anyway.

A subway extension is not being looked at unfairly, it's not being looked at at all.

Unless we want to move to a dictatorship run by registered professional planners (a prospect which sounds more attractive now that I think of it), we'll always have to have politicians involved in the process. Its a fact of living in a democracy.

All glory to the RPP...

There's a big difference between politicians being involved and politicians running the show, excluding *everyone* else other than Steve Munro.

 

[nfitz]

I'm surprised there's no stops between Don Mills and Consumers Road. Years ago, I used to get on the Sheppard bust at Don Mills Road, and get off at Yorkland, where there are several office buildings and apartment buildings.

It's an 800-metre distance, and a very cold, windy walk over the 404. I'd have thought the use of that stop would be a lot more than at say Brenyon Way (not that stop isn't deserving). Of course, you know where this goes ...

 

[Rainforest]

Rainforest

I'm surprised there's no stops between Don Mills and Consumers Road. Years ago, I used to get on the Sheppard bust at Don Mills Road, and get off at Yorkland, where there are several office buildings and apartment buildings.

It's an 800-metre distance, and a very cold, windy walk over the 404. I'd have thought the use of that stop would be a lot more than at say Brenyon Way (not that stop isn't deserving). Of course, you know where this goes ...

Several buses will continue to serve that section of Sheppard: 24A, 224, 167, 169.

 

[Dan416]

As I stated in my poll #4, Sheppard East has the most support for subway expansion compared to DRL, SRT or Eglinton. And it makes the most sense, since it was PLANNED as subway from the beginning!

 

[drum118]

Doing the math for 3,000 riders at Victoria.

D40LF with 54 riders at peak time, you need 56 buses operating every 65 seconds.

D60LF with 75 riders would need 40 buses operating every 90 seconds.

LRT with 150 riders would require 20 unites operating every 3 minutes. Since it is the goal to use 5 minute headway, you will need 12 pair of mu LRT that can carry 3,600 riders in total.

A subway car carrying 200 riders would require 15 cars, but since they operate in a 4 pack you, would get 4 4 car trains operating every 15 minutes. Using a 2 car set, service would be 7.5 minutes.

This does not allow for extra riders that will get on over the ones that got off at a stop east of this point. If you factor those riders in, it blows the bean counter out of the water for what is noted above.

Assuming a round trip can be done in 60 minutes, TTC will require 16 less driver going to D60 buses, will require 36 less driver for single LRT, 44 less driver for mu LRT and 52 less driver for subway.

Less driver has a real cost saving as well fuel cost that has an impact on operation cost as well what riders have to pay at the fare box.

The extra drivers get resign to out routes, or are not replace as they leave the system.

When I looked at Mississauga BRT vs LRT over 25 years time frame, LRT would save $250 million in capital cost as well operation cost. I even allow for higher fuel cost that will not be as high as what is coming at us now.

Current headway for the Sheppard subway is 5.30. If we move to the 5 minute headway, you will need 10 more 4 pack as well drivers. You would be able to carry up to 4,800 riders

I am taking the all types out to the very end of Sheppard.

I maybe wrong, but I remember there were stops at Yorkland before the 404 was widen.

If a tunnel is built under the 404 for future use as a subway tunnel, there has to be a 3% grade to allow LRT to surface before Consumer RD.

I support 3 stops to be remove as they will be an operation problem base on their location. I can see a few more going, but not the 50% as plan.

I don't know what other thoughts are related to the Tuesday meeting, but I found the room willing to look at LRT in place of Subway. Thursday meeting was the opposite and had more people out to it.

I ran into Mitch Sandler who just walked up from Sheppard as I was walking down to it.

Below is a 360 view of various spots the SRT can run in north of Sheppard and there are major issues that goes against what was presented Tuesday night as to width as well elevation. There is as much as 30' different from one side to the other side in the same section.

The view is small as I didn't notices I change setting from Wed shooting for some reason, but still view you an idea what the corridor looks like.

I talked to 7 owners along the route and none of them know about the current EA.

As I see it, the SRT is DOA east of STC.

Time to move to scrap the existing system and replace it with LRT's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FesFxIZmtfo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P6EW0E1eM8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-igCSC7IgZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW2H9wJZRVo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dxhBtDI8xs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uztkp0rP3jc

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I don't know what other thoughts are related to the Tuesday meeting, but I found the room willing to look at LRT in place of Subway. Thursday meeting was the opposite and had more people out to it.

I didn't go to the second meeting...you're saying the crowd was less satisfied with the LRT plans? If so, there's a few obvious reasons why. First, almost no one in Malvern uses Sheppard, so they won't care what replaces the bus and, second, Malvernites at the first meeting were much more concerned about the RT or other eastern transit problems, but the meeting at Mac would surely attract lots of people that use the Sheppard bus daily and would benefit far more from a subway extension than an LRT, especially since the subway extension has been public knowledge for years. The Sheppard and RT components were lumped together to get the Sheppard LRT rammed through with as little public input as possible, to ensure the subway extension is not built. Even if 10,000 people showed up to complain that it shouldn't be a streetcar line, they wouldn't care.

 

[acetradamus]

And who cares that a subway extension won't run out to Morningside...almost no one uses the Sheppard bus out there, anyway.

Yea whatever man... I use that bus everyday and I can say from EXPERIENCE.. the seats are all gone and it's standing room only BEFORE the bus reaches Morningside Ave during the morning rush. By the time it gets to Neilson Rd, most of the standing room is gone and the bus is delayed heavily at every stop by trying to squeeze more people on. The bus is overcapacity until McCowan Rd and doesn't reach the same level of capacity again along the rest of the route.

If people coming from east of Progress Ave were smarter, they'd catch a southbound 134 and that would get them to the RT in half the time. Either people haven't tried it (established transit commuter patterns are hard to change), aren't aware that it's faster and less congested, or just don't have faith in the frequency. It would nice though, if the driver would mention if one was nearby during times of heavy passenger loads.

There's a lot of transit trips originating east of McCowan with intentions of heading south to STC (RT to Kennedy to Downtown), and to destinations west of McCowan and north/south of Sheppard, and some directly to Don Mills station. Almost all passengers arriving at Don Mills end up transferring eventually to Yonge southbound trains.

The majority of passengers originating east of McCowan heading downtown take the STC route. Downtown trips originating west of McCowan fill up every 85 bus by the end of the route on approach to Don Mills, however the 190 with lower frequencies, less capacity (due to vehicle type), and express stops is less often as packed arriving into Don Mills. The 190 gets the greatest share of its passengers en route, rather than STC-Don Mills trips. High passenger turnover on the 85 occurs between Don Mills and McCowan.

The Sheppard East corridor needs a direct connection to the RT at or east of McCowan Rd. An RT extension to Markham Rd addresses this need.

 

[ShonTron]

I support 3 stops to be remove as they will be an operation problem base on their location. I can see a few more going, but not the 50% as plan.

Wow. A reduction of a mere three stops? Did someone say streetcar? If Transit City is going to work, it needs to act like it's LRT, not the neighbourhood trolley in the land of make-believe "LRT".

It's a beautiful day in the [priority] neighbourhood!

 

[drum118]

Wow. A reduction of a mere three stops? Did someone say streetcar? If Transit City is going to work, it needs to act like it's LRT, not the neighbourhood trolley in the land of make-believe "LRT".

It's a beautiful day in the [priority] neighbourhood!

I did not say a mere 3 stops will be only removed. I do support the removal of various stops, but not all of them. 90%

I had a look at some of the proposed stop to be removed and that 300m or 5 minute walk will end up being 500-700m and 10 minutes walk. There are stops that can be removed causing some impact for the rider, but they can live with it. Think what this mean to a person who has a walker or an elderly person carrying bags of groceries.

I will say again, walk, ride and drive a route to get a real feel as what is taking place alone this route. You need to look at some stops in more detail to see what is happen around it on a daily base. I only looked at a few due to lack of time that I felt would see major problems if removed.

The 2 stops between Midland and Brimley have to be remove for operation reason. Harisfarm Gt ends up to close to Brimley, but has a greater walking distance at the end of the day. The one thing that needs to be looked at for this area, what happens when a GO station gets added to the CP corridor down the road as to where a stop should be as well how they connect to the 2 systems?

Talking to the consultations and the team at the end of Tuesday meeting, I made the recommendation that circles and boxes be drawn around the plan stops to show what the new walking distance will be for the removed stops, and it will show up at the May meeting.

I said at Thursday meeting there needs to be a board showing the number of vehicles and quality of service based on ridership for the various types of vehicles. 90% of the public have no idea what 3,000 or 10,000 means when it comes to quality service. I believe there maybe a board showing this for May meeting. The one thing the board should not show is crush load figures by TTC as they are wrong in the first place. We should not be looking at crush loads in the first place and using standard ridership loads if we want people getting out of their cars.

Good luck for putting in a stop for the proposed SRT extension as the SRT will be right next to the Chinese Culture Theater.

I ended up talking to 5 residents alone the ROW and they have no idea TTC is looking at putting the SRT in next to them.

This is the area just before entering the ROW west of Malvern Town Centre. I some how change the setting to low quality and never notice it. The reason for small video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW2H9wJZRVo

Further into the ROW. Notices the elevation difference and not as shown on the board. About 30' difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW2H9wJZRVo

This is at the first street into the ROW call Wiggens Ct. Notice the different of ROW width as well elevation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-igCSC7IgZ8

Mid way between streets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P6EW0E1eM8

Mid way between street and creek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FesFxIZmtfo

At Sheppard Ave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trZ5RR27a9w

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Yea whatever man... I use that bus everyday and I can say from EXPERIENCE.. the seats are all gone and it's standing room only BEFORE the bus reaches Morningside Ave during the morning rush. By the time it gets to Neilson Rd, most of the standing room is gone and the bus is delayed heavily at every stop by trying to squeeze more people on. The bus is overcapacity until McCowan Rd and doesn't reach the same level of capacity again along the rest of the route.

The Sheppard corridor is busier east of Don Mills than east of McCowan, which is why the 85 buses leave people behind on the platform at Don Mills even as the 190, the route one bus bay over that has stolen 8000 rides a day from the 85, also leaves people behind on the platform. I'm not going to play OMG I HAVE MORE LOCAL EXPERIENCE THAN YOU since it would be a wash, but I will say, once again, that Sheppard out in Malvern (and Neilson and Morningside and other routes) need Rocket bus service more than anything else, not subway extensions that go on forever. When routes are as long as Sheppard and buses only carry fortysomething people before they're more or less full, it only takes a few thousand riders a day to make the route crowded.

If people coming from east of Progress Ave were smarter, they'd catch a southbound 134 and that would get them to the RT in half the time. Either people haven't tried it (established transit commuter patterns are hard to change), aren't aware that it's faster and less congested, or just don't have faith in the frequency. It would nice though, if the driver would mention if one was nearby during times of heavy passenger loads.

They've surely tried it...if there's one thing people in the suburbs have done, it's try other routes. No-transfer or reduced-transfer trips are usually more appealing than multi-transfer trips even if they're not actually faster.

There's a lot of transit trips originating east of McCowan with intentions of heading south to STC (RT to Kennedy to Downtown), and to destinations west of McCowan and north/south of Sheppard, and some directly to Don Mills station. Almost all passengers arriving at Don Mills end up transferring eventually to Yonge southbound trains.

Even if the Sheppard subway was extended out to Morningside, getting downtown would be faster via STC or GO...you said yourself that many of Sheppard's riders east of McCowan aren't continuing on west of there, so why should the subway be extended where it isn't wanted and where it won't be used?

The majority of passengers originating east of McCowan heading downtown take the STC route. Downtown trips originating west of McCowan fill up every 85 bus by the end of the route on approach to Don Mills, however the 190 with lower frequencies, less capacity (due to vehicle type), and express stops is less often as packed arriving into Don Mills. The 190 gets the greatest share of its passengers en route, rather than STC-Don Mills trips. High passenger turnover on the 85 occurs between Don Mills and McCowan.

Yes, people use the 190 as a Sheppard express bus more than a direct connector to STC...similar Rocket routes would do wonders for Malvern. The Sheppard bus where it overlaps the 190 is wildly slow and overcrowded.

The Sheppard East corridor needs a direct connection to the RT at or east of McCowan Rd. An RT extension to Markham Rd addresses this need.

An RT extension to Markham & Sheppard will be very lightly used and the crowds cannot justify the technology. There simply aren't enough people in Malvern to support these lines. The best, fastest, and cheapest option would be to run a Rocket route along Sheppard from STC...at least, it could be, if Glenn de Baeremaeker didn't fight bus lanes and if the city was actually interested in helping people.

 

[ShonTron]

I did not say a mere 3 stops will be only removed. I do support the removal of various stops, but not all of them. 90%

If you water down the plan too much, you lose the whole idea of LRT, and then it becomes questionable to pour $6 Billion into LRT when the time savings evaporate. The stop spacing I saw was quite reasonable, and closer together than even the Woodbine-Keele segment of the B-D subway.

I could see perhaps 2 or 3 stops added to the list as reasonable, like a stop between Shorting and Markham. But more than that, it turns into Spadina or St. Clair - where the ridiculousness of some stop spacing, like Northcliffe, having stops at Wychwood, Vaughan and Bathurst (distance of 200 metres apart from each other) and Russel Hill and Warren, remained.

 

[unimaginative2]

Transit City - Sheppard East LRT EA/Design and Construction Updates Discussion

The Sheppard East EA has been completed.

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/sheppard_east_lrt/index.htm


Comments:

Unsurprisingly, it's geared to making the case for LRT. There are few surprises. They recommended close (~400m) stop spacing.

They cite peak point ridership projections to make their case. Apparently they're expecting 3,000 per hour to ride the streetcar. 5,000 per hour would ride the route if it used subway technology. There's a catch, though: the forecast is for their insane route out to Rouge Park and the agricultural preserve. If they actually build the subway the way it's supposed to be built, to Scarborough Centre, thousands more riders per peak hour would certainly be attracted and it would benefit from major destinations at both ends.

They trot out their little chart to claim that subway only "works" above 10,000 per hour. Of course, they never look at ridership at places other than the peak point (i.e. out near Rouge Park), which I guarantee would fall well below the minimum for LRT on the chart.

They haven't come to a conclusion about whether to extend the LRT in a tunnel west from Consumers to Don Mills, or to extend the subway east one stop to Consumers. Intriguingly, they have this to say about a subway extension: "Option 3b is a much more effective 'catalyst' for denser, transit-oriented development in this development node." Perhaps it might be an interesting idea to consider just how much development could be catalyzed if the subway were extended more than just one stop.

Apparently they've also determined that single vehicles would require a headway of under 3 minutes, and the TTC apparently claims that it can't manage a route that frequent. Instead, they're going to couple them into trains to get closer to a five minute headway.