The End Of The Road: Saying Goodbye To Freeways

[sixrings]

We're never going to serve ALL commutes with public transit. But we should definitely work to serve more."

no one is suggesting all commutes will be done by public transit... BUt what might happen in the next 20 years is that transit moves from about 10% to 40%.... But that will only happen if we advocate for more transit.. I know people want to complain about TC and especially sheppard and Eglinton.... But JANE, FINCH, and DON MILLS all made sense... and even more importantly it might have eventually caused other lines like LAWRENCE, KIPLING VIC PARK.

 

[Dan416]

no one is suggesting all commutes will be done by public transit... BUt what might happen in the next 20 years is that transit moves from about 10% to 40%.... But that will only happen if we advocate for more transit.. I know people want to complain about TC and especially sheppard and Eglinton.... But JANE, FINCH, and DON MILLS all made sense... and even more importantly it might have eventually caused other lines like LAWRENCE, KIPLING VIC PARK.

Jane LRT and Don Mills LRT already seemed to be off the rails even before Ford's election.

 

[ShonTron]

Toronto demolished a freeway. So did New York City, San Francisco, Portland. Each freeway was merely not needed as such as part of their core urban infrastructure. New York hardly misses the West Side Expressway, just as Toronto hardly misses the East Gardiner spur. San Francisco hardly misses the Embarcadero Expressway, it didn't reach its intended destination, and was a somewhat useless spur. Not breaking news.

Cleveland is hardly the type of city facing urban growth, and has a rapid transit system that hardly has crowding issues despite service some major trip generators. You know you can buy a house in Cleveland for the price of a VCR. If Cleveland was planning the clearance of Interstate 90 through the city centre, I would have interest, but the expressway planned for change is more the equivalent of the Ottawa River Parkway than the Gardiner or 401.

All the plans for the Central Gardiner plan for traffic redistribution, not traffic evaporation. GO and TTC aren't yet able to provide the service needed to replace it, TTC at all times, GO outside (and even within) rush hours.

 

[doady]

We're never going to serve ALL commutes with public transit. But we should definitely work to serve more.

I think about what they would need to do to make my commute doable by public transit. First, they'd have to rejoin Britannia Rd (which had been severed by the 401/410 interchange). Next they would have to merge Mississauga Transit and Brampton Transit and make a common Tomken Rd bus traversing the road in its entirety (or at least up to Steeles).

MT should have extended 51 to Bramalea City Centre along time ago. The route has very poor ridership outside of rush hour. I don't see any routes Brampton-Mississauga routes needing to be merge except for Kennedy (53 is another pathetic MT route).

Only then would public transit even be feasible for me (I consider 1 transfer feasible). But even then I'm sure it'd be slow. A BRT along Britannia would help. They just added a new lane to Britannia. It would have been better if it'd been a public transit lane.

Britannia has too low ridership, too little service for bus lanes. Plus bus lanes should be in the middle, otherwise they are difficult for police to enforce. Eglinton would have been a better choice for bus lanes. MT actually provides a lot of service along Eglinton.

no one is suggesting all commutes will be done by public transit... BUt what might happen in the next 20 years is that transit moves from about 10% to 40%.... But that will only happen if we advocate for more transit.. I know people want to complain about TC and especially sheppard and Eglinton.... But JANE, FINCH, and DON MILLS all made sense... and even more importantly it might have eventually caused other lines like LAWRENCE, KIPLING VIC PARK.

Like Eglinton, Jane is too narrow for LRT. Any higher-order transit along Don Mills should serve downtown, and LRT isn't going to work for that. Finch (and Morningside) maybe okay, but still better choices for LRT are avaiable (Wilson-Albion, Lawrence East, Kingston). Nothing in Transit City made sense really.

 

[accura407]

I have to agree with "Wilson-Albion" as an LRT route! Due to its diagonal nature, I've always wondered if that would be a nice solid route from Wilson station to Albion Mall and beyond!

Right now ridership along Albion might be low but if a higher order transit route was travelling along Albion, it would most probably intercept ridership along Weston, Islington, Kipling, Martin Grove!

That's basically the entire portion of northern etobicoke!
Definitely worth a study and surely it is time we build some diagonal routes in toronto!

Another diagonal worth studying: Danforth from Vic Park Station to STC?

 

[sixrings]

Jane and Don mills could work below ground from Eglinton South and above ground Eglinton North... LRT could Work... FINCH LAWRENCE WILSON KIPLING no problems with..

 

[Register123]

Referring back to the price of oil, I'd saying the trend to more expensive oil is pretty compelling.

 

[Register123]

How do you insert a link, it never works for me?

 

[howl]

I have to agree with "Wilson-Albion" as an LRT route! Due to its diagonal nature, I've always wondered if that would be a nice solid route from Wilson station to Albion Mall and beyond!

Right now ridership along Albion might be low but if a higher order transit route was travelling along Albion, it would most probably intercept ridership along Weston, Islington, Kipling, Martin Grove!

That's basically the entire portion of northern etobicoke!
Definitely worth a study and surely it is time we build some diagonal routes in toronto!

Another diagonal worth studying: Danforth from Vic Park Station to STC?

Agreed. A route like Wilson-Albion is exactly where you want to put a new LRT line if you are trying to encourage new growth in the City. Whenever I see a suburban mall or plaza I see a future high-density mixed-use node.

 

[gweed123]

Jane and Don mills could work below ground from Eglinton South and above ground Eglinton North... LRT could Work... FINCH LAWRENCE WILSON KIPLING no problems with..

Waste of money, especially on Jane. Don Mills south of Eglinton should be the DRL anyway. Have the Jane LRT end at Eglinton, possibly interlining with the Eglinton LRT. A Jane LRT south of Eglinton will see minimal ridership, have a really high pricetag, and will only further overwhelm the B-D subway. Might as well be dumping all those Jane passengers off onto a line that can actually handle them.

 

[TransitPolicyChanger]

Back to the "Say good bye to Freeway" debate: From Steve Munro, it appears the Finance Minister and an MP from Peterborough are planning to scrap the Peterborough GO line to be replaced with a brand new highway to be built in the rail corridor.

I guess Ford has friends in high places (not particularly smart friends) that also think the car is the future of transportation.

For everyone this is our new vision of a ride into Toronto. Likely a 2 lane "expressway" (70-80km/h) packed solid from 6 am to 10am and from 2 pm to 8 pm leading you to the Don Valley Parking Lot where you can park your car and walk to the Gardnier "missing sections due to decay" Expressway.

The future is here people, Ford you genius, spreading the anti-above-ground-transit ideas around Ontario.

 

[accura407]

April Fools

 

[TransitPolicyChanger]

haha ... duhhhhh

 

[M II A II R II K]

CNU president John Norquist stars in this video from Streetfilms about the problem of inner-city highways and the steps some cities are taking to get rid of theirs. "If you look at the real estate anywhere near a freeway, almost always its degraded," says Norquist. "You'll get surface parking lots, or buildings that have high-vacancy rates. No walking. Because it's really hard to design a freeway that would look good in a city."


[video=vimeo;21509646]http://vimeo.com/21509646[/video]

 

[sixrings]

The Allen has to be the best candidate for removal... It goes nowhere... Theres a subway built right there so it would be perfect spot for redevelopment...