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saveoursubways (SOS)
- Thread starter kEiThZ
- Start date
- Status
kEiThZ
Superstar
That's an awesome poster. As soon as we populate that website, feel free to plaster that anywhere you like in the city. Guerilla marketing is the best we can do for now.
DavidH
Senior Member
A sample poster is here.
The core part of the poster is great, but the logo looks like it doesn't belong. The red "TTC" outlining is really not working for me here.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Same here. I think we just need a black and white subway train or something like that in the top banner beside "save our subways".
kEiThZ
Superstar
To all the SOS'ers.
Please check in to the group and give us a hand with getting the map right.
Please check in to the group and give us a hand with getting the map right.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
I'm hoping this map incorporates frequent GO services and doesn't run subways in rail corridors. Think about the Yamanote line and how there would be no point running a subway right next to it along the same path.
I also hope that Etobicoke gets some love with a north-south subway. Kipling would be nice as it would hit Humber College, Kipling subway and GO station and the new Etobicoke Centre, high-rise residential areas at Eglinton and Dixon, and the Etobicoke North GO station north of which the line could curve to meet the westerly extention of the Sheppard Line. Really this could be part of a Sheppard-Etobicoke Line running from Scarborough Centre via Sheppard to North York Centre via Sheppard to Sheppard West station via Sheppard and Hydro Corridor to Etobicoke North GO via Kipling to Etobicoke Centre. This would hit the three "Places to Grow" centres and if one accepts that connecting North York Centre to Scarborough Centre is important because Scarborough Centre is a centre then perhaps Etobicoke Centre needs greater focus as well. This route also acts like a transit ring road connecting most of the GO lines that exist to the subway system at places where GO stations are existing or planned.
I also hope that Etobicoke gets some love with a north-south subway. Kipling would be nice as it would hit Humber College, Kipling subway and GO station and the new Etobicoke Centre, high-rise residential areas at Eglinton and Dixon, and the Etobicoke North GO station north of which the line could curve to meet the westerly extention of the Sheppard Line. Really this could be part of a Sheppard-Etobicoke Line running from Scarborough Centre via Sheppard to North York Centre via Sheppard to Sheppard West station via Sheppard and Hydro Corridor to Etobicoke North GO via Kipling to Etobicoke Centre. This would hit the three "Places to Grow" centres and if one accepts that connecting North York Centre to Scarborough Centre is important because Scarborough Centre is a centre then perhaps Etobicoke Centre needs greater focus as well. This route also acts like a transit ring road connecting most of the GO lines that exist to the subway system at places where GO stations are existing or planned.
kEiThZ
Superstar
We are working on a Scarborough plan for now. The rest of the city will come later. One step at a time.
Long Island Mike
Senior Member
Save Our Subways graphics...not bad!
Victor: Those SOS sample signs should incorporate the subway car front graphic some way-it looks actually like a TTC car instead of just a generic graphic.
That TTC logo outline just doesn't do it for me either...LI MIKE
Victor: Those SOS sample signs should incorporate the subway car front graphic some way-it looks actually like a TTC car instead of just a generic graphic.
That TTC logo outline just doesn't do it for me either...LI MIKE
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Fresh Start
Banned
The DRL western leg would at least partially follow it, I'd imagine. I'm not in favor of it continuing along the rail corridor for the east-west downtown section or the swing back towards Pape though. DRL best exhibits the R function via alleviating congested streetcar bottlenecks within the core itself.
As for more GO service. Yes by all means. And if not GO, then another transit operator should step in and provide a comprehensive intra-416 rail transit network. I'd love to see new stops on the RH and Lakeshore Lines as well 5-10 minute headways along all corridors.
This doesn't have to be a subway line though. A BRT corridor could link together all these areas sufficiently and carry greater than 3400 pphpd. Instead of Kipling, I'd choose Highway 27 which could perform a similar task without as many obstructions to speed (i.e. traffic lights). Say it runs from Queen and Roncesvalles then along Lakeshore stopping at every major road (Park Lawn, Mimico, RY, Islington, Kipling, 30th, Long Branch GO). Then north along Brown's Line into Sherway Gdns, and then up the highway to Humber College Blvd, followed by a looping of Albion Centre and Westwood. Special branches would loop into Etobicoke North GO during rush hour. At Dundas, Burnhamthrope and Dixon special stations along the highway ROW could be partitioned off whereby customers can safely access the BRT line.
A subway line of that length would never fly in today's political and economic climate. Your map would be perfect had subway construction here started 200 years ago and this was Industrial Era Europe. It's obtuse to think rail transit geared for locally-spaced travel has to embark on such long journeys when an efficient network of BRT can cover those distances in half the time and at less than half the costs of either LRT or HRT.
We have to be realistic here. We can never afford to build subways where they are really desperately needed (the airport, downtown, Midtown, Thorncliffe/Flemingdon, Agincourt, SCC) if we're dually concerned with routing cost-prohibitive LRT lines into low-density suburban sprawl where half the people gladly commute by personal car and won't be dissauded to do otherwise. We are sacrificing our urban city centres for handfuls of riders that are better off by just taking their local bus to the subway.
You can't have it both ways. We have to choose, and choose wisely. I'm a realist. Try for too much and we'll wind up with nothing. TC's already being downscaled. Not offsetting the higher cost of subway ROW construction by balancing it out with BRT ROW that can built for as little as $6 million/km and doesn't have to be affixed to any one corridor (i.e. it's mutable) is the best way to salvage the system.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
I know. Transit City is what flies in today's political and economic climate. That is why Transit City exists... the current political climate created Transit City and funded it.
This is a thread about going beyond that reality to have subways connecting one inner suburb to another. If the plan is to have an east-west subway on Eglinton in Scarborough, east-west subway on Sheppard in Scarborough, and a north-south subway in the area of Midland to replace the RT... but to only have one subway built in Etobicoke which serves the city just as much as it does Etobicoke by going straight to the airport as directly as possible leaving Etobicoke Centre with a single subway and Scarborough Centre with two plus an LRT... do you think Etobicoke Councillors will be very supportive? While selling the conversion of Transit City's Eglinton LRT to subway might be seen as a benefit to the whole city, a conversion of multiple other plans east of Victoria Park to subway without new subway plans west of Keele there will likely not be much councillor support from all the wards in the west end. There are 12 wards west of Keele (1-9,11-13) and 10 wards west of Victoria Park (35-44).
A subway starting from Sheppard West could reach Dixon and Kipling and be the same length as a subway from Yonge-Sheppard to SCC. The subway from Kennedy to the SCC would be the same length as the subway from Dixon to Kipling-Dundas.
It is interesting to note that Dundas and Cawthra are the same distance from the financial district as SCC, and MCC the same distance as Malvern.
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Couldn't agree more. Take money from the less necessary LRTs, downgrade them to BRTs, and put that extra money back into subway construction. That way if the plans do get chopped, the BRTs are the first things to go, leaving the subways (ie the more important projects) able to proceed.
Making the SOS plan as close to cost-neutral with TC should be our main priority. It needs to be a balancing act to figure out what else we can build within the pre-set TC budget. If we go too far outside that budget range, we'll be seen as being unrealistic, and the plan is shot.
I'd say that getting an Eglinton Subway (or in the case of our plan, BRT with a direct connection to a central Eglinton subway, with the promise of a subway extension), the Jane LRT, an Islington BRT, and a B-D extension to Sherway should appease them, and not go much beyond what TC is proposing in terms of cost.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Wow. So the plan may be to not even have a connection to the airport and have a rail corridor extension to Sherway which wouldn't make the subway closer to that many residents, but to deliver two new subways to Scarborough? Sounds like a plan only Scarborough councillors could love. Why would BRT be held in high regard in Etobicoke if LRT is unacceptable for Scarborough? Transit City was designed to deliver benefits to every part of the city. The Kipling and Kennedy subway extensions were done at the same time, and the Islington and Warden subway extensions were done at the same time. I doubt you can get buy-in by telling people in the west that BRT is good enough for them but LRT isn't good enough in the east. You certainly won't get buy-in after taking the airport off the network.
The plan is going to need to deliver as many subway route kilometres east of Victoria Park as it does west of Keele or you simply aren't going to get the votes of the west end which are greater in number that those in Scarborough. Scarborough got the northward RT that Etobicoke never got... they only received a platform at Kipling for the RT that was never built. Transit City got buy-in by touching every ward with the same technology. Previous east and west extensions got buy-in by delivering subway extensions to both sides at similar times. The most vocal fiscal conservatives are in the west end so I think you need to give them a reason to support this. BRT after all the clean air coalition discussion in the west end will not sell.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Guys,
Nothing has been decided overall yet. CC and I got this group growing to push for more subway overall. I for one, would push for a Eglinton subway on principle from end to end. In reality, I'd like to see an Eglinton subway from the airport to Leslie and bus lanes along the rest of Eglinton East. But we have to decide this stuff as a group. We have to decide where we should stand on principle and where compromise is necessary.
The goal isn't to play off one jurisdiction against another. We'll look at what Etobicoke needs and put forward a plan for there accordingly. For now, our fight is in Scarborough and we think Scarborough needs to finish the subways to STC. These are extension, not entirely new subway lines. We're recommending downgrading the proposed SRT extension to Malvern to at-grade Transit City style LRT on Progress. And we are scrapping the Morningside LRT but transferring the Eglinton portion of it to Eglinton RT (be it subway or LRT). The only new line that we have added has been a Eglinton BRT which was added in large part because of the plans that Durham region has and the need to serve key nodes like the hospital and the UTSC....and because of its ridership.
For the west end, I foresee something similar right now: Sheppard and Eglinton subways and a north-south LRT that would act the same way as the Progress LRT to Malvern would. Whatever the plan is, it will be a mix of LRT, BRT and subway and will target high ridership routes not just areas of "socio-economic need" like TC did. We did exactly this for example by building BRT on Ellesmere and LRT to Malvern (which will capture the ridership from several bus routes today (Progress, McLevin, Nugget, Milner, etc.)).
Nothing has been decided overall yet. CC and I got this group growing to push for more subway overall. I for one, would push for a Eglinton subway on principle from end to end. In reality, I'd like to see an Eglinton subway from the airport to Leslie and bus lanes along the rest of Eglinton East. But we have to decide this stuff as a group. We have to decide where we should stand on principle and where compromise is necessary.
The goal isn't to play off one jurisdiction against another. We'll look at what Etobicoke needs and put forward a plan for there accordingly. For now, our fight is in Scarborough and we think Scarborough needs to finish the subways to STC. These are extension, not entirely new subway lines. We're recommending downgrading the proposed SRT extension to Malvern to at-grade Transit City style LRT on Progress. And we are scrapping the Morningside LRT but transferring the Eglinton portion of it to Eglinton RT (be it subway or LRT). The only new line that we have added has been a Eglinton BRT which was added in large part because of the plans that Durham region has and the need to serve key nodes like the hospital and the UTSC....and because of its ridership.
For the west end, I foresee something similar right now: Sheppard and Eglinton subways and a north-south LRT that would act the same way as the Progress LRT to Malvern would. Whatever the plan is, it will be a mix of LRT, BRT and subway and will target high ridership routes not just areas of "socio-economic need" like TC did. We did exactly this for example by building BRT on Ellesmere and LRT to Malvern (which will capture the ridership from several bus routes today (Progress, McLevin, Nugget, Milner, etc.)).
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