Smitherman's Transit plan

[Fresh Start]

Talk of building Lawrence-Dixon LRT lines to alleviate Eglinton in the future saddens me. The Richview corridor for the time being is still very much available, so are the parking lots lining the Golden Mile. It's not too late to get a completely grade-sepaparted ROW right across the Eglinton corridor such that God forbid if we're stuck with light-rail for the long-term, they can at least run it in 5-car trainsets. Talk of the DRL siphoning away passengers from Eglinton is a foolish point when one considers the possibility of interlining. One's trip could start from either the airport or Scarborough Centre, run down to and across Eglinton for a spell then continue down Don Mills or the Weston-Galt towards the downtown core. How would one even go about assessing which line is more heavily used in such case if passeneger boardings on both DRL and Eglinton subways would significantly overlap?

PPH should not be the only determinant when assessing route mode feasibility because ridership can never be allowed to grow if we seek out to sabotage that growth from the onset (with smaller trains, infrequent scheduling, lengthy mixed traffic sections, multiple minor "stations" en route, etc.).

 

[rbt]

I think Lakeshore East is way too far south from SCC, and the is no good rapid route from SCC to any Lakeshore East station. Although, some riders from Scarborough can reach Lakeshore East directly, not going via SCC.

I'm not so sure of that, assumming the SRT is rebuilt as an independent line and not a subway extension. If we spend roughly $6B on electrification/high frequency service for LakeShore East/West (current rough estimate for Hamilton to Oshawa), tacking on an additional $500M to bring the SRT south to Scarborough station by tunnel doesn't seem out of line.

The difference for an SCC to Pearson trip would be an additional transfer at union but likely a much faster trip overall than even a Skytrain service on Eglinton could provide.

 

[Long Island Mike]

The tram is not rapid transit. Therefore the development that a tram can attact will be undoubtedly less than what the subway can attract. Nowhere is this more apparent than a few kilometers east from don mills on sheppard.

I also reject the idea that all these lines will or should be upgraded to subways in the near or far future. Finch having a subway? No thanks. Basically, the tramming is a short term strategy. It was used by Belgrade... they picked to expand tram lines rather than build a subway. There was the need for a subway for some 40 years, but no mayor wanted to allocate such money. It's simply too costly, and would take money away from other things. Belgrade is probably the best example of tossing subway expansion in favor of cheap alternatives that are achievable in the near future. Why would the mayor bother spending so much money? Let other generations deal with that problem. It's a sad short sighted policy.





Oh man did you ever go to fat johnny's? You know, that shitty looking hot dog stand? Man, they have the best hot dogs in chicago... it's at 71st and western I think.

Asides, regarding the maps... I can not really point you in a particular direction where you can just extract lots of stuff. But, I can probably provide a few more maps. On top of that I can pretty much create whatever kind of map you want - I have had quite a bit of experience on making maps of census tracts. So if there is something in particular that you want let me now.

Bellow are two maps from the encyclopedia of chicago... I don't like the book much, but meh, I guess it has some okay stuff in it.

1980

2000

LAZ: Thanks for the reply - I must remember The Encyclopedia of Chicago for more information...Western Avenue (2400 W.) was a very famaliar street to me thinking of Chicago-the City's longest continuous street in length N/S as well as the "dividing line" on the S side back during most of my visiting days (1973-1988) between Black and White neighborhoods (Black E and White W)
and 71st and Western is just two miles from my relatives near 79th and Kedzie Avenue (3200 W.) but I don't remember that hot dog place though...
I did not want to stray away from the topic here but I must answer back with my thanks...LI MIKE