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saveoursubways (SOS)

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I hope all of you understand now why we took so long. It was not just reaching consensus in the group. We want docs produced to a decent quality. Same with the website. And we want to make all this understandable for the general public.
 
Someone might want to reformat the text. The fourth line on page 1.1 is "SubwaysCoalition(S.O.S.),agroupofordinary" with no spaces visible ... at least on my monitor.

An extension to Sherway ... that's a odd one. Wasn't that a complete fail in the TTC's own studies on possible expansions? How did that suddenly come about?

Can't say I see the point of converting the existing Lakeshore streetcar to BRT west of the Humber ... wouldn't that require people to transfer?

So, essentially for Part 1 of Phase 1 - the currently funded portion of Transit City, what we will see is the Eglinton line from Don Mills to Kennedy removed, Eglinton from Jane to the airport removed, the Finch-West line cancelled. The Sheppard East LRT cancelled. The SRT extension cancelled. And instead of those 56 km of LRT, we are going to see 2 subway extensions to Scarborough Town Centre totalling only 13 km?

That's essentially what this boils down to ... you've tossed the entire funded Transit City project except for the underground Eglinton section in favour of two simple subway extensions to Scarborough Town Centre.

While it's clear that a lot of work has gone into this, and it's very impressive, I just can't imagine the Scarborough-centric nature of this is going to fly.

In the past I've been very critical of the costing I've seen here. Generally, the costing here all seems quite reasonable, at first glance.

Except the Pape-Spadina section of the DRL. How does this come in at only $1.59 billion? The length is similiar to the Sheppard East extension and that was $2.22 billion. And I'd think it would be more expensive to tunnel through downtown, not less. There would be 3 pretty expensive interchange stations ... I'd be thinking that you'd be looking at closer $3-billion for this pretty tricky piece of subway.
 
The preface does seem a bit weak in comparison to the rest of the document. Is it even correct? "From the 1950’s until the mid-1990’s, there was rapid transit construction taking place in at least one location throughout former Metro Toronto." I always thought steady construction pretty much died after the Kennedy and Kipling were opened 30 years ago. I guess there was the SRT that opened in 1985. But mid-1990s?

Also, why run the Danforth extension up Brimley? And why would it intersect the Sheppard East subway west of Brimley? Wouldn't it make sense to follow the originally proposed alignment for the Sheppard East subway and service Scarborough Town Centre itself?
 
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There seems to be some logical disconnects in the reasoning used in the document. For example:

Under the Transit City Plan, Jane was slated to receive an LRT from Jane station up to Steeles West station. However, given that the Move Toronto plan proposes a BRT along Highway 27 as well, an LRT along Jane is no longer cost-effective.
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So because there is a bus route on Highway 27 which is about as far west of Jane as Sheppard is north of Eglinton, the folks that would take Jane get a bus? How many people that would have taken Jane LRT are going to be taking the Highway 27 BRT instead? Where are these people going to?

When the TTC has consultants produce a document to validate their LRT decision they show numbers... numbers of people moving along routes, numbers of people living in areas, and projections of people using services. In the case of this report there is a quick dismissal of LRT on Jane because of buses on Highway 27.
 
Well to be fair, the only subway currently being built is in northwest Toronto ... sort of. Well it get's to Jane ...
 
nfitz said:
Also, why run the Danforth extension up Brimley? And why would it intersect the Sheppard East subway west of Brimley? Wouldn't it make sense to follow the originally proposed alignment for the Sheppard East subway and service Scarborough Town Centre itself?
Click to expand...

As far as I know, that's what it does? All of our lines follow previously planned routing. And of course it'll serve STC. The Danforth line and Sheppard line interchange at STC. We debated making Bloor-Danforth-Sheppard a continuous line, but in the end decided against it. Leaving them separate keeps operations easier I think.
 
^^ Which effectively slashes commute times from Rexdale to the subway in half. All that's needed now are dedicated transit-only lanes to funnel the masses to their closest stop.
 
Justin10000 said:
The cover is very nice. Kudos to the designer.

I skimmed the report: One question: Why no subways to Northwest Toronto?
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EnviroTO said:
None of the authors live in northern Etobicoke.
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No, it's not because we don't live there. How exactly are we to get a subway line out there? Our plan uses existing lines. The only new line is the DRL. And that could be extended into Northwest Toronto. Till then the Spadina subway will have to suffice.
 
EnviroTO said:
There seems to be some logical disconnects in the reasoning used in the document. For example:



So because there is a bus route on Highway 27 which is about as far west of Jane as Sheppard is north of Eglinton, the folks that would take Jane get a bus? How many people that would have taken Jane LRT are going to be taking the Highway 27 BRT instead? Where are these people going to?

When the TTC has consultants produce a document to validate their LRT decision they show numbers... numbers of people moving along routes, numbers of people living in areas, and projections of people using services. In the case of this report there is a quick dismissal of LRT on Jane because of buses on Highway 27.
Click to expand...


Hey, if we had the resources of the TTC, we could create manipulated stats too.

The TTC used the same rationale for basically one north-south LRT line in the entire west end. Finch and Jane are getting BRT Light and Hwy 27 is getting a full BRT. Couple that with the Sherway extension and the Spadina extension. The west-end will be alright. The BRT network will really help the entire west-end access the subway network much quicker than a single Jane LRT would have. Really, how much would the Jane LRT have helped if you lived in Rexdale?
 
kEiThZ said:
No, it's not because we don't live there. How exactly are we to get a subway line out there? Our plan uses existing lines. The only new line is the DRL. And that could be extended into Northwest Toronto. Till then the Spadina subway will have to suffice.
Click to expand...

I would have made a branch of the Spadina line turn west onto Finch. Only half of the trains would service Vaughan, you could have had the other half go on the Finch West branch.

I'm puzzled why your document does not examine any branch extensions, which exist on almost every other metro in the world.
 
For the average citizen, it would have been good to include in your report the average speeds of subways versus LRTs and buses and really rub it in that TC is a slow system. Also, I think the Eglinton line east of Kennedy will never be necessary and could easily be served by buses.
 
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