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saveoursubways (SOS)

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Speaking about Steve Munro, someone mentioned SOS on his site and he gave a quick reply under the Eglinton LRT Project Open Houses (Updated) thread (http://stevemunro.ca/?p=2918) :


Rodney says:
November 24, 2009 at 2:10 pm

Hi Steve,
Have you heard about this group before?

http://www.saveoursubways.ca


Steve: Heard of, but not followed closely. My opinions on widespread subway expansions are well-known, and there is no point in trying to engage this group in a conversation. I only have so many hours in the day.
 
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This is a map showing the full build out in Mississauga. Busway completed with stations at Mavis and Erindale, subway, all-day service on GO, and Hurontario and Dundas LRTs.
 

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Two years ago in an article, Steve Munro said that the TTC should get its house in order before it expands. The house is still not in order, yet he is embracing rapid LRT expansion.
 
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Juan_Lennon416 said:
Two years ago in an article, Steve Munro said that the TTC should get its house in order before it expands. The house is still not in order, yet he is embracing rapid LRT expansion.
Click to expand...

Good call. I agree that catching those in charge or who have influence doing 'double-talk' is good, but finding contradictions in reports and such is even better, because then they can't be dismissed as "I mis-spoke" or "I was mis-quoted", or "I didn't have the same set of facts that I do now".

If it's in a report, it's assumed to be fact-checked, reviewed numerous times (although with recent TTC publications (ref: location maps in stations), this quality assurance step seems to have been missed completely), and accurate. Catching factual or 'double-talk' errors in those is much more likely to lead to something.
 
And for the record, I think that once we have a full report written out, going to Steve and having a talk with him (even if it comes with a few compromises in the plan), and hashing out something better may be the way to go. Even though we may disagree with him on some points, he's still an expert in the field, and even if he doesn't endorse us, he may still have some feedback to make our plan more solid.

Just look at several people who have posted in this group. They disagree with our basic purpose, but they're providing critical feedback which has in turn made our proposal stronger than it would have been if it was purely a result of 'group-think'.
 
Juan_Lennon416 said:
Speaking about Steve Munro, someone mentioned SOS on his site and he gave a quick reply under the Eglinton LRT Project Open Houses (Updated) thread (http://stevemunro.ca/?p=2918) :


Rodney says:
November 24, 2009 at 2:10 pm

Hi Steve,
Have you heard about this group before?

http://www.saveoursubways.ca


Steve: Heard of, but not followed closely. My opinions on widespread subway expansions are well-known, and there is no point in trying to engage this group in a conversation. I only have so many hours in the day.
Click to expand...

There is no point engaging Steve Munro. He's got his opinions. While I respect them, I disagree with them. Despite all his advocacy, I have come to see him as part of the problem that lead to Transit City.

He was so convinced that the city would never get money for subways that they pushed this multi-billion dollar tram plan that costs almost as much as subway expansion.

He's an advocate that's gotten so involved, he's forgotten what it's like to be an everyday person who doesn't know much about transit but just wants to get somewhere quickly and conveniently. They don't want 3 transfers and rides on 'medium' speed streetcars if subways could be built.

Transit City would have been a great plan if it had been built on a fully developed subway system, similar to what many Europeans are doing. Steve Munro led David Miller and Adam Giambrone to put the cart before the horse by telling the public the horse was too expensive.

SOS' aim has to be to show what the alternative to Transit City is. Steve Munro is free to counter us with his agenda for trams to the zoo.
 
gweed123 said:
And for the record, I think that once we have a full report written out, going to Steve and having a talk with him (even if it comes with a few compromises in the plan), and hashing out something better may be the way to go. Even though we may disagree with him on some points, he's still an expert in the field, and even if he doesn't endorse us, he may still have some feedback to make our plan more solid.

Just look at several people who have posted in this group. They disagree with our basic purpose, but they're providing critical feedback which has in turn made our proposal stronger than it would have been if it was purely a result of 'group-think'.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I highly doubt Steve will offer constructive advice that helps sink his baby. nfitz, graphic matt, etc. as UT members and while they might disapprove of our efforts, they don't have an agenda. In Steve Munro's case, he has pliable politicians putting his plan to work. Transit City is as much Steve Munro's legacy as David Miller's. Keep that in mind.
 
Interesting discussion, but SOS really doesn't have to do anything, except sit back and wait. Transit City will be a total failure (guaranteed), and that will be the end of LRT in Toronto.

So, just let the TTC hang itself with its own noose. I've been around long enough to know that things will eventually come back full circle to subways all by themselves -- just give it time. In the meantime, buy yourselves cars and ditch the hope for any decent transit in this city in the next 10 years.

As for Miller, Giambrone, and Munro ... Miller and Giambrone are on their way out. Munro, well, none of the transit planners who have any sway pay much attention to him anyway. He's only taken seriously on the internet, and I think you guys are giving him far more credit (or fault) for Transit City than he deserves. It just boggles my mind that this supposed transit know-it-all/guru was never offered a planning job at the TTC or Metrolinx.
 
It's hard to take comments from someone seriously who has been maintaining for over 40 years that service would be improved by having trains head from 3 different directions at Museum!
 
Anyway, enough talk about this so-called transit expert who is a joke in my mind. He is a transit expert only to those people who do not know anything about transit and would nod up and down to everything he says.

I also hope he learns to butt out of projects that occur in areas that he does not frequently travel to (i.e. Sheppard East and Spadina extension area).
 
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That's two different directions, and yes, because that's the way the system was designed to operate -- go read the Bloor-Yonge crowd control thread for the fallout of a decision made over 40 years ago.

Bloor-Yonge would have been designed differently if the architect (Norman Wilson) knew that the integrated service pattern would have been dropped after just six months.
 
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Actually, I should re-phrase that. Bloor-Yonge would have been Queen-Yonge. It would have been a hybrid Bloor/Queen subway from the start -- the "flying U" as they called it, with no University line. People don't realize that the system was built as it was because of that connection.
 
They need to remodel Yonge-Bloor station. Having University trains interline would create more problems then it would solve. To send half of the University trains on to Bloor East would mean capacity limits would force half the trains on Bloor West to turn around at St.George. It would also mean that crowding at many stations would actually be worse because people would wait for the train going where they want to go on the platform. Platforms where all people are getting on or off the train in the station work better than platforms where there is a third of the people in the station standing around blocking the flow of people.
 
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