saveoursubways (SOS)

[rbt]

SOS is subversive because it takes the initials of a NIMBY group that everyone hated and uses it for the good of the city and not blockade needed improvements.

Just as an FYI, but Save Our St. Clair was also in favour of a subway underneath St. Clair avenue instead of the LRT. I believe it was an example they used of how they were pro-transit and pro-neighbourhood building.

Either way, speaking with Margaret might be a good idea. She has a ton of knowledge about how government works, is pretty good with media, and can get enough support to create a ruckus.

 

[Dan416]

Just as an FYI, but Save Our St. Clair was also in favour of a subway underneath St. Clair avenue instead of the LRT. I believe it was an example they used of how they were pro-transit and pro-neighbourhood building.

Either way, speaking with Margaret might be a good idea. She has a ton of knowledge about how government works, is pretty good with media, and can get enough support to create a ruckus.

Please, Save Our St. Clair was a bunch of NIMBYs through and through and everyone knows it. Nevermind the fact that there are no plans for a St. Clair subway. Sheppard has a subway. Eglinton had funding for a subway that was pulled by Harris. The DRL has been under study for decades.

Save Our Subways is about a reasonable, continuous program of subway expansion, primarily on our current subway corridors augmented by needed new lines.

 

[nfitz]

Seems quite comparable to me ... a 6-km subway on St. Clair instead of 6-km of LRT. I guess that would be a stubway though, as it's about the same length as Sheppard.

Anyways that's the same distanec from Don Mills to Agincourt.

In neither case is a subway currently planned. And in neither case does the $2-billion exist.

It's a perfect name!

 

[Dan416]

Seems quite comparable to me ... a 6-km subway on St. Clair instead of 6-km of LRT. I guess that would be a stubway though, as it's about the same length as Sheppard.

Anyways that's the same distanec from Don Mills to Agincourt.

In neither case is a subway currently planned. And in neither case does the $2-billion exist.

It's a perfect name!

Comparing St Clair to Sheppard is like comparing apples to oranges and really takes down your credibility.

 

[nfitz]

Comparing St Clair to Sheppard is like comparing apples to oranges and really takes down your credibility.

Sigh ... that was exactly my point ... do Torontonians lack the gene required for irony or something?

 

[kettal]

It's a due to lack of iron in our diets

 

[andrewpmk]

Having to build several superfluous LRT lines to compensate for the lack of capacity along one stand-alone Transit City Line should infer to you just how much better the subway is by contrast. The much lauded Sheppard subway which began with lower patronage than the SRT (41k vs. 44k) nows sees on average 55,000 daily users and growing. An ill-conceived SELRT + Sheppard subway menagerie could tamper with all that as travelling via car could get one from SCC to NYCC in far less time given the 5 minute headways precedent. Hence we'd be turning away potential users by the inconvenience of the slower speeds, greater instances of stop/stall and the transfer at Don Mills.

For the same amount of money, you can build either ONE subway line or several parallel LRT lines. This is not superfluous at all, it provides greater coverage by increasing the number of people who are within walking distance of higher-order transit.

Your subway proposal totally ignores people on Finch East or York Mills/Ellesmere, who will have at best a minimal improvement in service as they will have to take a bus 2km north or south to use the Sheppard subway. With the LRT proposal, there is at least a reasonable chance that they will get higher-order transit in their lifetimes.

See this for a cost comparison.

 

[victor]

Guys, do you need a logo? I made few sketches...


1.

2.

3.

4.

 

[Ansem]

Guys, do you need a logo? I made few sketches...


1.

2.

3.

4.

cool initiative! maybe combining the new rocket trains image with SOS would be better

 

[kEiThZ]

For the same amount of money, you can build either ONE subway line or several parallel LRT lines. This is not superfluous at all, it provides greater coverage by increasing the number of people who are within walking distance of higher-order transit.

Your subway proposal totally ignores people on Finch East or York Mills/Ellesmere, who will have at best a minimal improvement in service as they will have to take a bus 2km north or south to use the Sheppard subway. With the LRT proposal, there is at least a reasonable chance that they will get higher-order transit in their lifetimes.

See this for a cost comparison.

Andrew,

Nice quote of Andrae's site. I take issue with your logic though. Coverage can be a flawed metric. It's like Metrolinx's logic of trying to place the bulk of the population within 2 km of a "rapid transit" line, with no judgement as to how rapid said transit is. If the sole concern is coverage, then why even LRT? For the same price as Transit City we could have bus lanes on virtually every artery in the city that would increase average bus speeds to somewhere close to what the Transit City LRTs promise. Why waste money on LRTs when bus lanes can be built for a fraction of the cost, and we can blanket the city with them?

 

[waterloowarrior]

It's been noted on this forum several times that the numbers from the pro-LRT website/blog are out of date. Sheppard is priced at $40.8 million per KM on the site, but the most recent price is $63-80 million per KM. Eglinton is priced at $74 million per KM on the site but the most recent price is $140-150 million per KM

 

[Dan416]

Guys, do you need a logo? I made few sketches...

I like this one a lot. But always open to seeing other logos. But this one is great because it'll work in black and white.

 

[andrewpmk]

Andrew,

Nice quote of Andrae's site. I take issue with your logic though. Coverage can be a flawed metric. It's like Metrolinx's logic of trying to place the bulk of the population within 2 km of a "rapid transit" line, with no judgement as to how rapid said transit is. If the sole concern is coverage, then why even LRT? For the same price as Transit City we could have bus lanes on virtually every artery in the city that would increase average bus speeds to somewhere close to what the Transit City LRTs promise. Why waste money on LRTs when bus lanes can be built for a fraction of the cost, and we can blanket the city with them?

Because LRT provides higher passenger capacity than bus lanes. Bus lanes simply cannot provide adequate capacity to provide good service on high volume bus corridors such as Eglinton, Sheppard, Finch, etc, because of the limited capacity of buses. However, subways are prohibitively expensive to build (it would cost about $40 billion to build all of Transit City as subway, which is money we do not have) and their very high capacity is not needed. The Transit City plan provides better service to a larger area (and thus more customers) than the alternative of one or two fairly short subway lines with overcrowded feeder buses (even if they run in reserved lanes), even though subway is faster (though not by much, if the subway stops frequently).

I am not suggesting that we build LRT on every major artery right away, I am just saying that building a parallel relief line is an option, which is prohibitively expensive, if an LRT line reaches capacity.

It's been noted on this forum several times that the numbers from the pro-LRT website/blog are out of date. Sheppard is priced at $40.8 million per KM on the site, but the most recent price is $63-80 million per KM. Eglinton is priced at $74 million per KM on the site but the most recent price is $140-150 million per KM

Cost overruns are common to both LRT and subway construction, so naturally estimates are revised upwards for both. But subway construction still remains many times more expensive per km than LRT construction.

 

[victor]

I like this one a lot. But always open to seeing other logos. But this one is great because it'll work in black and white.

There is a small face lift for #4 (now use bold typeface, wider letter spacing to look more like real subway station names).


old

new

 

[Second_in_pie]

Because LRT provides higher passenger capacity than bus lanes.

I certainly don't think anywhere near LRT capacity is needed at Sheppard and Morningside, or even Markham and Sheppard. Yet there's a lot of capacity needed between Midland and Don Mills, because it's between several high density growth points, along a well established high density corridor, and is strung between two large urban growth centres.

However, subways are prohibitively expensive to build (it would cost about $40 billion to build all of Transit City as subway, which is money we do not have) and their very high capacity is not needed.

I don't think anyone's asking all of Transit City to be subway, and that's been stated before.

The Transit City plan provides better service to a larger area (and thus more customers) than the alternative of one or two fairly short subway lines with overcrowded feeder buses (even if they run in reserved lanes), even though subway is faster (though not by much, if the subway stops frequently).

You can't just say that Transit City'll attract more customers cause there'll be more lines. Would it be better to attract 20 or 30% more riders on a lot of lines, or a 300% increase in ridership on two or three already densely populated lines that would also bring in more bus commuters?

Cost overruns are common to both LRT and subway construction, so naturally estimates are revised upwards for both. But subway construction still remains many times more expensive per km than LRT construction.

The TTC's cost estimates for subway are grossly "overestimated," if you can even call it estimation. They advertised LRT at the bare minimum cost, and that cost has inflated to about two times as much right now, and construction hasn't even started. With subway, they gave huge, totally inaccurate costs and didn't take alternative building techniques into account, such as trenching, cut and cover or raised guideways.

EDIT: @ victor: I like the 3rd option myself
But there could always be a combination, like one logo and then a fancier version.