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Sheppard Stubway

What course of action should be taken in regards to the Sheppard corridor?

  • Do nothing

    Votes: 2 1.1%

  • Keep the Sheppard Subway + Transit City Sheppard LRT to 'Malvern'

    Votes: 12 6.8%

  • Finish the Sheppard line to Scarborough Town Centre (at least)

    Votes: 138 78.4%

  • Downgrade the Sheppard subway to LRT + Transit City Sheppard LRT

    Votes: 24 13.6%
  • Total voters
    176
scarberiankhatru said:
Yes, it would be a bad idea. The idea deserves to be ditched...along with a few others.
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Adding stops between Eglinton and York Mills would increase the length of time the trip took, but it would make the subway more accessible to people who live and work on that stretch.

In your opinion, it is a bad idea. I respect your opinion, but I think that its not so clear cut and it depends on what our priorities are.

Fast trips: Bad idea
Bringing stations closer to the people: Good idea.

I think I understand how you want transit to serve people, and alot of people share that view. However, I have a different view and know a lot of people who share it too.
 
You're right Red Rocket in that you need a balance between speed of service and proximity of stops. For example, you could make a case for another stop between Eglinton and Lawrence, but a stop between Lawrence and York Mills would be a very poor choice.

Since LRT is inherently slower than subways, it can less afford constant stopping. On the other hand, adding stops is much cheaper for (surface) LRT.
 
RR191: I very clearly said 400m station spacing between Lawrence and Eglinton would be a bad idea, and you responded with the equivalent of planning buzzwords and giant arrows on maps.
 
Fast trips: Bad idea, Bringing stations closer to the people: Good idea.
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We can make compromises for both. I don't think someone whose journey began in Rexdale should be subjected to multiple hours of commuting to get to SCC for the sake of a few hundred intermittant stops for a handful of people per pause.

400m should be the standard distance between stops outside of areas of density concentration (condo/high rise clusters, shopping malls). That way relative speed of vehicles could match or come close to subway reliability and frequency. I've mentioned before that Eglinton Crosstown west of Weston Rd would have stops occuring at every 400m. As well I'd imagined the tunneled portions of all TC lines would route in a subwaylike fashion, hence for instance, kiss the 2 stops between Don Mills Stn and Consumers goodbye if they go ahead with the LRT proposal.
 
400m stop spacing is already pretty much standard on suburban routes unless there's a high-rise cluster or mall or whatever.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
RR191: I very clearly said 400m station spacing between Lawrence and Eglinton would be a bad idea, and you responded with the equivalent of planning buzzwords and giant arrows on maps.
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My apologies.

I would be willing to make that very same argument at 400m. I might not be able to persuade you, but I would still make it.
 
The fastest way between any two points is to run express between those two points. That's impossible to do, so no matter what, there's going to be tradeoffs between speed and service. It really does depend on the context. Spacing downtown is considerably different than spacing in the suburbs.

But if Giambrone is serious about Transit City just being regular old streetcars with non-subway spacing, we're screwed.
 
At the end of the day stops need to go where they're needed.

Unless we deal with real numbers and real context, this speed vs accessibility debate threatens to be utterly meaningless (every transit thread becomes a red herring farm eventually). The dirty little secret is that if bus/streetcar stops were spaced on average every 800m instead of every 400m, only a small minority of people would actually have to walk any farther - remember, most people aren't starting out standing on Sheppard equidistant from two stops, they're starting out a block or two or three off Sheppard and must walk to the stop through parks and along crescents, cutting through walkways and parking lots wherever possible.

Most people would gladly walk for an additional minute or two if it means saving ten minutes of travel time. Faster travel will boost ridership more than adding stops along an existing line for the sake of accessibility...even if stops were spaced every 100m, someone living 600m north of Sheppard is going to have at least a 600m walk to any stop.
 
The problem that the TTC will face on the Transit City routes is that the average rider isn't going to buy this idea of a subway-on-the-surface. They're going to see them as a much-improved bus-on-rails. People consider it natural that stops on the subway are less frequent than they would be on a bus route, but I suspect people will fight like hell not to lose their local bus stop when it's replaced with a streetcar.
 
Jane Street's the only one of the seven which is highly residential from start to finish. In my opinion it should not have been selected for Transit City becuase the 35 bus often routes half-empty through parts of the day. Kipling from Humber College to Steeles West would've been the wiser choice.

In the tunnel and west of Jane St I'd believe Eglinton-Crosstown will be more like a pre-metro than a ALRV-type service with stops spaced every 500 m apart (e.g. Kipling-Wincott-Islington). A few minor stops might be lost along the routes but the greater good is met by this. There's some stops on Sheppard between Warden and Pharmacy that I've never seen a passenger pick-up/drop-off for. Stops like these can go.
 
DENTROBATE54 said:
Jane Street's the only one of the seven which is highly residential from start to finish. In my opinion it should not have been selected for Transit City becuase the 35 bus often routes half-empty through parts of the day. Kipling from Humber College to Steeles West would've been the wiser choice.
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Funny you should mention that. There were always rumours that Kipling was going to be on the list but was passed over at the last minute. I'm hesitant to eliminate Jane, but I hope Kipling is included in any future proposals.
 
Why not have the TC routes stop twice every concession block, and have local buses supplant this express service? This could combine speed and accessibility.
 
Sorry for being a quote whore but:

unimaginative2 said:
People consider it natural that stops on the subway are less frequent than they would be on a bus route, but I suspect people will fight like hell not to lose their local bus stop when it's replaced with a streetcar.
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Stop spacing of 400m-500m would mean only about 1/3 of the stops are eliminated, but on a long route like Eglinton that could still mean a few hundred people fight it. The St. Clair SOS campaign was probably really only fought by a core group of a few tens/dozens of people, so only a small number of people might cause problems/delays. Especially, as you say, when they find out their bus will be replaced by "evil" downtown streetcars.

DENTROBATE54 said:
Kipling from Humber College to Steeles West would've been the wiser choice.

There's some stops on Sheppard between Warden and Pharmacy that I've never seen a passenger pick-up/drop-off for. Stops like these can go.
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Yes, Kipling would be a pretty good choice. So would Wilson/Albion, so would Lawrence East, perhaps Dufferin or Bathurst, etc. Transit City should have targeted corridors like these, which are ideal for streetcars/LRT, first.

As for those rarely used mid-block stops, every suface route has a few of them. When they're taken into account, suburban routes already have a practical stop spacing of 400m...the stops that will be removed for Transit City are stops that no one uses anyway.

urbanfan89 said:
Why not have the TC routes stop twice every concession block, and have local buses supplant this express service? This could combine speed and accessibility.
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The Yonge subway/97 bus setup proves that this could work. An average 1km stop spacing would still be extremely accessible to the vast majority of people, and would speed up travel for everyone. Transit is one place where we must provide for the majority first and at least 90% of people would benefit handsomely by ~800m-1km stop spacing.
 
I don't think any suburbanites will object to streetcars per se. I just think that they'll flip out once they hear that their roads will lose two lanes, a whole bunch of trees will be chopped down, people's front lawns will be destroyed, and after all that their local bus stop is removed. Of course, not as angry as they'd be after all that when bunches of streetcars only show up ever 25 minutes, and it takes just as long as the old bus.
 
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