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Rocco Rossi wants subways too!

The issue here is the next potential mayor's plan that is pretty questionable, and will push the DRL even further down the table. Yet you want turn it into a another "It's Miller's fault" issue. The fact of the matter, Miller was supportive of the subway to York U, and you just could not resist jumping in with your typical nonsense posts trashing Miller. God, you would resort to defeding Rossi for wanting to delay the DRL even further. Somehow you'll try to blame Miller for it!
 
Toronto’s plan to give its suburbs second-class transit service

I spend a lot of time talking about public transit, not because I use it, but because I would like one day to live in a city, like Berlin or Madrid, where public transit is convenient and fast. In other words, a city that builds subways to move its residents quickly and efficiently. I would like one day to be able to consider public transit a viable option.

Public transit is not an option for most in Toronto. It is simply too slow and inefficient. What is wrong with transit in Toronto was made clear to me after a debate on radio with TTC Chair Adam Giambrone a couple of years ago. The T.Dot (Downtown Toronto) crowd really don’t care about folks who live in Scarborough or Etobicoke — parts of the city that were merged with the old city of Toronto by the Mike Harris Conservatives many years ago.

I mentioned to Adam that it takes me 20 minutes to drive to my office. On transit it takes more than one hour. Light rail street cars in Scarborough isn’t going to improve that time by much (or at all in winter) and I will still drive — as will the vast majority of my neighbours. Build subways that move people around quickly in places like Scarborough and and I will get out of my car with pleasure.

Adam’s response? It was along the lines of: You can use your BlackBerry on the new light rail cars that will serve Scarborough to do your work, or read the paper during the two-hour commute back and forth to work each day.

The message was clear — my time and that of people who live in places like Scarborough isn’t as valuable as people living in the core.

Adam and mayor David Miller have very much the same perspective, I assume, because the Transit City plan they have come up with proposes light rail for Scarborough and more subways for the old city of Toronto.

That means Scarborough will be left with permanent second-class public transit that will keep people in their cars and ultimately prove counter-productive. It will mean less access to the rest of Toronto and, for those who have to use public transit, more time sitting on buses or streetcars rather than spending time with their families.

But there is hope. David Miller’s reign is at an end, as is Adam Giambrone’s, and there is still a chance to change the transit plan they proposed. It is possible to still build a transit system that offers better subway service across the entire city — something that is done in many European cities.

Answering that hope for change at present is mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi — so far the only candidate who has a plan that could succeed and entails building subway extensions to Scarborough, rather than delivering second class transit options as David Miller and Adam Giambrone would do and that, apparently, mayoral candidate George Smitherman agrees with.

You can find his plan on his website.

Much of the debate about the future of transit has been dominated by the T.Dot crowd that seem to think the majority of residents that live in communities that circle the core are not entitled to the same transit service they want. It is time they realized that the city of Toronto includes communities like Scarborough. At least Rocco Rossi gets that.

National Post



Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/0...s-second-class-transit-service/#ixzz0nBKktcfY
 
Bang on. And that's the point all of us inner suburbanites have been trying to make. It's not about subways or LRTs or buses. It's about speed. You want people to get out of their cars? Give them true rapid transit. TC doesn't do much to get inner suburbanites where they want to go quickly. But it might make a few corridors pretty, I suppose.
 
Justin10000 said:
For one, the "streetcar" will be mostly in tunnel, and on the surface in ROW with signal priority. The stops are considerably wider than the current downtown streetcar stops.

You made a really poor comparison, or you do not really understand why Eglinton LRT is just as good as a subway.
Click to expand...

A 10 kilometre tunnel out of 58 kilometres of Transit City LRT is not sufficive as credible evidence that Transit City LRT in entirity will be any more sophisticated than 510 Spadina or 512 St Clair. And in the absence of a parallel bus route those wider stops will inconvenience a lot of people.
 
nfitz said:
No ... not a cent. They aren't paying for the subway extension.

What's with this arrogrant usage of non-Toronto terms anyways?
Click to expand...

I do believe York Region is on the hook for 15% of the construction of this subway.
 
Here's my proposal for improved TTC transit in the 'burbs:

1)TTC leases 100,000 small made-in-canada cars (aka locally assembled version of Gordon Murray's radical new T25 city car.)

2)Functioning sort of like Zipcars/Autoshare only cheaper, and branded with TTC logos and advertising, you "commute" either on a journey basis for say $4/trip or weekly for $60/week. etc.

3)You can only commute between "stations." aka, multistorey parking garages with shops, residences etc above.

4)Cost will be much much less than subways.

5)For single passenger uses, single seat version of T25 or similar small vehicle, such as Dean Kamen/GM's "Puma" city car.

6)For those that can't drive, smaller hybrid buses every 15 minutes.

Transit City is old-fashioned think. Time to move on.:)
 
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The Mad Navigator said:
Transit City isn't supposed to be addressing the needs of the core, that's for the DRL to handle when the funding becomes available for it.
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And do you not realize that every penny and all the time spent taken up addressing an issue that is nowhere as urgent as the congestion in the core and along the Yonge Line will further and further delay the start date for construction on that line?
 
Fresh Start said:
And do you not realize that every penny and all the time spent taken up addressing an issue that is nowhere as urgent as the congestion in the core and along the Yonge Line will further and further delay the start date for construction on that line?
Click to expand...

And do you not realize that providing better transit in the inner suburbs is just as urgent?

I see both projects with equal priority. Why are you so downtown focused? Because you're biased and that you live there? What makes you special? That's right, nothing.
 
kEiThZ said:
Bang on. And that's the point all of us inner suburbanites have been trying to make. It's not about subways or LRTs or buses. It's about speed. You want people to get out of their cars? Give them true rapid transit. TC doesn't do much to get inner suburbanites where they want to go quickly. But it might make a few corridors pretty, I suppose.
Click to expand...

The problem I think for torontonians is that we MOST often compare ourselves to NEW YORK CITY. I recognize that the mayor has tried to sell toronto a "european" model when in fact that isnt what we are either. However that being said we are far from NEW YORK. New York is extremely dense. It makes their lines profitable. On top of that they get support from all levels of government. And finally they have a significant number of lines which are above ground outside of the core. THe one similarity is that they built their lines along time ago just like we did.

The point is subways are expensive. We can make them cheaper by going above ground. BUt there would be uproar about the appearance of that. And even if we could make some it is ludacris to think we can make subway lines everywhere. At this point it seems the best idea is to make the eglinton line (I wouldnt even care if some of it was built above ground.Personally I think it should go from Don Mills to the airport) Build the DRl to Eglinton. Maybe they could consider above ground to Don Mills. Connect Sheppard to Downsview. AND finally make a BD expansion to ScarTownCentre. Thsi way at least the central part of Toronto is covered. It gives ppl outside the centre multiple options to get to a subway which would quickly move them anywhere else.


Finch can wait. SO can Jane. So Can the waterfront LRT.
 
Fresh Start said:
A 10 kilometre tunnel out of 58 kilometres of Transit City LRT is not sufficive as credible evidence that Transit City LRT in entirity will be any more sophisticated than 510 Spadina or 512 St Clair. And in the absence of a parallel bus route those wider stops will inconvenience a lot of people.
Click to expand...

Please, please. If you are going to make crazy assumptions and conclusions, at least back it up with a 10 page thesis!
 
The Mad Navigator said:
And do you not realize that providing better transit in the inner suburbs is just as urgent?

I see both projects with equal priority. Why are you so downtown focused? Because you're biased and that you live there? What makes you special? That's right, nothing.
Click to expand...

You don't know where I live and you do not fully comprehend the benefits of the DRL if you think that it'll only be serving the downtown. Don Mills, Wynford Heights, Flemingdon Park, Thorncliffe Park, Pape Villge, Riverdale, the Junction, Silverthorn, Mount Dennis are not apart of the downtown but would be directly served. Possibly the DRL you continue onwards to the airport serving northern Etobicoke along the way. We could probably squeeze in a Bloor-Danforth extension to Scarborough Centre as well with the money saved from deferring TC as proposed.
 
Justin10000 said:
Please, please. If you are going to make crazy assumptions and conclusions, at least back it up with a 10 page thesis!
Click to expand...

Did you or did you not post this, which I repsonded to:

"For one, the "streetcar" will be mostly in tunnel, and on the surface in ROW with signal priority. The stops are considerably wider than the current downtown streetcar stops.

You made a really poor comparison, or you do not really understand why Eglinton LRT is just as good as a subway."

The only person here making crazy assumptions is the one of the two of us who does not regularly use 510 Spadina or 512 St Clair, and as such cannot see that my criticisms are valid.
 
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