andrewpmk
Senior Member
Miller lowballed the ridership projections by assuming very low employment/population growth along the corridor. The ridership projections for the Sheppard subway in the 1980s were much higher.
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Metrolinx: Sheppard East LRT (In Design)
- Thread starter Le Gique
- Start date
Yes, but to be fair many of the forecast models that those ridership projections were based in the 1980s on turned out to be wayyyy off in terms of the amount of development that has actually taken place. The only "node" that has really developed even close to what was projected is NYCC.
Yes, I know it's a bit of a chicken and egg scenario, but there's no way, even with a subway, that those density targets and unit counts can be reached for a long long time.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Well Sheppard is going to be LRT........slow but certainly a vast improvement on what is there now.
That said the Sheppard subway should still be continued west to hookup with Spadina. That section MUST be subway as in this case there really are no alternatives. It must be made one continous route so it is no longer just a "stubway" and even the biggest LRT lovers on the planet know LRT is out of the question due to creating another transfer but also it would require a complertely new yard just to serve that small section as it is completely unconnected to any other TC LRT line.
Some may not love the Sheppard subway but it's there so they should extend the line west to Downsview to make it useful.
I never supported the Sheppard subway east to STC at the price the TTC was going to pay but the western extension makes very good sense and is far cheaper than the eastern extension.
For those who say it has too low of ridership the reality is that when the Spadina ext, Sheppard LRT, and Finch LRT all open the line will become a major connection route and ridership will soar.
Connecting Spadina to Yonge on Sheppard subway is money well spent.
That said the Sheppard subway should still be continued west to hookup with Spadina. That section MUST be subway as in this case there really are no alternatives. It must be made one continous route so it is no longer just a "stubway" and even the biggest LRT lovers on the planet know LRT is out of the question due to creating another transfer but also it would require a complertely new yard just to serve that small section as it is completely unconnected to any other TC LRT line.
Some may not love the Sheppard subway but it's there so they should extend the line west to Downsview to make it useful.
I never supported the Sheppard subway east to STC at the price the TTC was going to pay but the western extension makes very good sense and is far cheaper than the eastern extension.
For those who say it has too low of ridership the reality is that when the Spadina ext, Sheppard LRT, and Finch LRT all open the line will become a major connection route and ridership will soar.
Connecting Spadina to Yonge on Sheppard subway is money well spent.
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Ridership will soar as transit through nowhere to get to somewhere else. They didn't allow proper densification and kept Sheppard too suburban. A missed opportunity since there could have been more side streets created with townhouse complexes and mews along the whole south of the street, and sold it as having the best of both worlds. Access to a subway and the 401 at the same time.
nfitz
Superstar
Miller? The projections were done when Ford was mayor, just after election, when Stintz was still a Ford brown-noser. Clearly showed that the demographic projections from the 1980s for 2011 were not accurate.
What's Miller got to do with anything ... he stopped pushing the Sheppard subway years ago.,
andrewpmk
Senior Member
The Sheppard LRT will provide a tiny time savings for most users, and zero or negative time savings for people going to STC and will cause 4 years of traffic jams during construction (dumping even more cars on 401). Yes Sheppard subway will also cause disruption but it will cut the time from STC to Sheppard/Yonge in half and provide a real alternative to driving which a slow light rail line will not.
denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
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Frankly, what is your plan for McCowan to the Zoo? Because the subway only serves the mall.
nfitz
Superstar
Subway might be faster to STC ... but that's not where LRT is going, and there is no money for subway. It makes about as much sense to compare the LRT to a fantasy unfunded subway, as it makes to compare it to a Star Trek transporter. LRT goes to Morningside - subway doesn't help those going there much, stranding them the wrong side of the 401.
Don't see the point of highjacking a thread to discuss LRT construction updates, with posts about fantasy subway that's not part of this project. There are other threads for that.
Lone Primate
Active Member
That's an interesting idea. Or maybe a short loop that gives people the option of going that way. I'd still like to see something that keeps heading east as well.
Lone Primate
Active Member
Yeah, I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. I think Andrewpmk's right. I rode the Sheppard Subway to and from work for a year and a half, till last fall. The thing was routinely standing-room-only by 5 heading east. It's needed.
The curse of Toronto, the real curse of this city, is how awful it is at anticipating, even shaping, its transit patterns. "If you build it, they will come" isn't just a movie tagline. It's reality. The Brooklyn Bridge was built where it was because there'd been a ferry line there, and businesses had clustered there for that reason. Likewise, I've been watching Sheppard East explode vertically from the quaint post-war CHMC strip it was to something akin to joining the downtown. And I put that down to the subway. It can't be a coincidence that that amenity opens in, what, 2002, and then over the next ten years, several thousand high rise units land on top of it.
If the money were there... IF... I would definitely extend the Sheppard Subway. It's wonderfully well-placed. Sheppard is the last major street north of the 401; it gives people coming into the city from the north (like we have a south?) their last opportunity to get out of their cars without running the gauntlet of crossing the 401, or facing the DVP. But, I honestly don't believe the money's there, and Ford's vagueries about getting the private sector to pay for it almost made me laugh out loud. Yeah, sure... and does that come with a beer, a BJ, and winning lottery ticket while we're at it? Colour me dubious. So I'm happy to take what we can get. LRT lines are less expensive, probably easier to maintain, constantly visible to people stuck in traffic and wondering about alternatives, and they'll get the job of moving people around done. And most important, I think, that "if you build it..." spirit will provide a chance for the verticality of our city to spread out, rather than be concentrated so much in the city south of Bloor and pretty much just along Yonge Street north of it. Look, I'm a car fan... I wish they'd finished the Spadina, and no apologies. But even I'm saying I think Transit City is great. A longer Shep Subway would be fantastic but a Sheppard LRT is nearly as good, and if we didn't already have the Sheppard Subway in the ground, arguably a better idea on the whole.
But let's get something DONE. This town is 50 years behind its own future already.
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nfitz
Superstar
You don't buy it??? The ridership numbers are well documented. There's only a short period of the day, when the trains aren't mostly empty - and even then they are not overflowing - yes some people stand. But the trains only run every 6 minutes or so, and are still only 2/3 the designed length. Almost 1-year into operation, they still haven't had to increase the frequency, even in rush-hour.
But most importantly, this is the piece that is already built. The forecast for ridership east and west of here is even lower - particularly east of Victoria Park, and even more so east of Kennedy.
Indeed. Let's get something done ... and build some subways where the ridership is forecast to be much higher than Sheppard, and built LRT on other routes where it's appropriate.
rbt
Senior Member
6 minute frequencies, 4-cars long gives Sheppard Subway a capacity of about 7000pphpd. Since you don't get left on the platform regularly, it is still somewhere below this number (6500 perhaps).
This is well within what LRT is capable of delivering (Eglinton and SRT will both give double) BUT it is nearing the limit of what you can do with LRT in a roadway median.
So the LRT east of Don Mills will have similar capacity as you get today at Sheppard Station.
nfitz
Superstar
Presumably it's well below that number. The Metrolinx forecast for the Sheppard subway in 2031 with the Sheppard LRT and Don Mills LRT constructed was only 5,900. Given that there's 2-3 Yonge trains at Sheppard station for every Sheppard train, it's easy to imagine, that up to 4 Yonge trains in a row might dump passengers onto a single Sheppard train, if they all just miss the Sheppard train, and the Yonge trains are a bit closer together than scheduled. So yes, you get some standing - and the train frequency is selected so that you DO have people standing. Especially in the middle, where people seem to bunch.
Lone Primate
Active Member
Even if not a single extra person moves onto Sheppard East -- which, let's face it, is hardly the case; have seen what's going up at Provost? -- the thing already serves a purpose. I was there, I saw it, I lived it, and I'm here to tell you. There are numbers that purport to look into a future none of us actually knows (like the dire 1890s projections I've seen about how many feet deep horse manure would be in the streets of Manhattan by 1940), and then there's the real life experience of something. And I have to go with the latter.
The Sheppard Subway isn't just for people who live on, or around, Sheppard Avenue. It's for people coming in from York who want to get out of their cars before they hit the full-on traffic south of the 401. Those cars parked at Fairview weren't from MY neighbourhood, after all.
Lone Primate
Active Member
I'm not arguing against the LRT. In fact, I'm arguing for ANY kind of integrated, relatively high-speed transit on Sheppard, because having lived at the junction of the 401 and 404/DVP for all these years, I understand what Sheppard Avenue practically represents to the GTA. Essentially, it's the last chance to get out of your car before you hit the wall.