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Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

Hipster Duck said:
It would be optimal in a dense, urban setting like Toronto south of Bloor street, or Paris where, as Daniel mentions, the city is famously known for placing a metro stop within 500m of everyone's house. Of course, the city of Paris has an average density that's higher than St. Jamestown and a street layout that's wonderfully suited for pedestrianization, with little warrens and mewses that jut off in every direction.

The residential side streets of Scarborough, however, are very suburban in nature, with single family detached homes on sidewalk-less cul de sacs and crescents. Moreover, these areas are filled with NIMBYs who are resistant to densification, and the price of property acquisition is too high and the demand for living in these areas too low for any reasonable developer to buy up these subdivisions at market value, demolish them and upzone them for higher density. Other than highrises at arterial intersections, the built form of suburbia isn't going anywhere.

And because of this, there is no reason to have intermediate stops on a rapid transit system through suburbia. There is no need to build a stop at Massie St. and Sheppard Avenue because the stop will generate as much ridership as a bus stop, and all of the ridership will come from the handful of people who live in the adjoining cul de sac who take public transit. What suburbanites need from their transit system - and above all, their rapid transit system - is speed. They need to travel through the miles of subdivisions and industrial parks at a speed that is competitive with the car. That's not to say that LRT can't do this. It can, and for those who doubt that on street LRT can't travel fast, I invite you to go to Seattle where you can travel from the southern edge of downtown to the Airport (a distance of over 20km) in about 22 minutes. But, what we can't have is a light rail line, or any form of rapid transit, that serves as a milk run.

Again, you can do this downtown or in Paris because the ridership generated at those stations every 500m is significant, and because the distance needed to travel to destinations is quite small. Additionally, consider that the frequent stop spacing of the Metro system led the regional government to create a secondary rapid transit network - the RER - for longer distance, regional rapid transit needs.
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Precisely. The city of Paris has roughly the same population as the city of Toronto, on a land 1/6 of Toronto's. In fact, Paris is about the same size of the old City of Toronto (about 100km2), yet old Toronto has about 700k residents vs Paris 2.2 million. Of course Paris can afford and need to provide more frequent stops because the density jusifies it.

In suburban Toronto, it is a different story. those who live in the suburbs should not expect closely spaced subway stations in the first place. You live in low density area, you get less service coverage, simple as that. To have 500 meter spacing on Eglington, or on Sheppard East will be a stupid decision. Do we really want a whole car full of 800 people to stop so that 4 passengers get off at Sheppard and Pharmacy? These people can get off at the nearest major intersection (Victoria park) 450m away and save everyone a lot of time. Only by larger space can rapid transit be rapid. Otherwise, it is just a large bus where everyone stops to wait for 3 others to get on and off every 90 seconds. What's the point?
 
You guys are using fine logic and all, but the political reality tends to be that, as projects get into the design/consultation phase, residents demand more stops and/or overlapping bus service.

In any case, removing stops on an LRT line -- or not using them as peak times -- is not a big deal. Stop spacing was and is a ridiculous reason to oppose Transit City.
 
GraphicMatt said:
You guys are using fine logic and all, but the political reality tends to be that, as projects get into the design/consultation phase, residents demand more stops and/or overlapping bus service.

In any case, removing stops on an LRT line -- or not using them as peak times -- is not a big deal. Stop spacing was and is a ridiculous reason to oppose Transit City.
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They can have something like the Bus 97 but it will be infrequent.
 
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Close stop spacing can be mitigated by operating the LRT like bus/streetcar routes rather than subway routes. Instead of stopping at every stop like the subway does, stop only at stops where passengers are waiting to board or on demand by riders. However I'm not sure if this operation is compatible with ATU operation.
 
GraphicMatt said:
Stop spacing was and is a ridiculous reason to oppose Transit City.
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Why? The whole philosophy of Transit City was to prioritize local accessibility and community building over improving capacity, speed and mobility. It was motivated more by urban design theories rather than meeting real transportation needs. My evidence for this is that Transit City was never supported by any serious travel demand survey and regional travel model. One fine day in 2006 I just opened the papers and here was this jolly good plan to build $8 billion worth of light rail on somewhat arbitrary roads (surely some other line would take precedence over a Scarborough-Malvern LRT, but I digress...).

This philosophy was supported in practice by placing the stops at the closest intervals of any light rail system proposed for a suburban environment. To me, the stop spacing was the primary reason to oppose Transit City. I have no qualms with the mode nor even with most of the routings, even if they were not empirically supported by any evidence of [transport] need.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Instead of stopping at every stop like the subway does, stop only at stops where passengers are waiting to board or on demand by riders.
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That might help off-peak travel, but for peak travel in a 3-car train, with the length of 6 ordinary streetcars, or 8 buses? You'd likely have at least one person getting on/off at each stop. Even in a regular streetcar at rush-hour, there is rarely a stop where the streetcar doesn't stop.
 
I don't see a problem running local buses alongside light or heavy rapid transit. They serve two completely different types of passengers with two different travel needs. For example, from where I am in Richmond Hill if my destination is nearby I will take the first bus which comes - whether it be a local YRT or rapid Viva. If I am heading further out, such as to the subway, I will opt for the Viva.

If a route is congested enough to warrant an investment in rapid transit, chances are there are enough passengers to support both rapid and local services.

Finally, is operating the Lakeshore GO a waste, since the Queen streetcar covers much of its territory?
 
Hipster Duck said:
Why? The whole philosophy of Transit City was to prioritize local accessibility and community building over improving capacity, speed and mobility. It was motivated more by urban design theories rather than meeting real transportation needs. My evidence for this is that Transit City was never supported by any serious travel demand survey and regional travel model. One fine day in 2006 I just opened the papers and here was this jolly good plan to build $8 billion worth of light rail on somewhat arbitrary roads (surely some other line would take precedence over a Scarborough-Malvern LRT, but I digress...).

This philosophy was supported in practice by placing the stops at the closest intervals of any light rail system proposed for a suburban environment. To me, the stop spacing was the primary reason to oppose Transit City. I have no qualms with the mode nor even with most of the routings, even if they were not empirically supported by any evidence of [transport] need.
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Stop spacing was not set in stone the day the plan was revealed, longer spacings were evaluated and found not to result in Warp 10 velocities as some are suggesting. To be against the plan because of a few unneeded stops is really doing the city disservice.


And if you are such a fan of wide stop spacings then what is your problem with the SM LRT? It had the widest stop spacings of all the surface sections including some that were more than 800 metres. Never mind the fact that its section of Eglinton is among the busiest bus corridors in the entire city and will soon be unable to support ridership demand using buses. Kingston Rd is packed with traffic and riders are often standing in packed buses all the way to Meadowvale Rd. Morningside itself has two post secondary institutions that are continuing to expand and unless you want to build another yard then it will have to go up to Sheppard.
 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ght-rail-systems/article2311004/?from=2311140

nw-Eglinton-LRT21_1365549a.jpg
 
The stop spacing of TC was one of my big problems with it as well. If the stop spacing an consequently speed of the Eglinton line were identical to Bloor-Danforth, I don't think anyone has a problem with that (and it did in the tunnelled portion).

But it's a travesty to build LRT in the suburbs that makes as many stops as a bus. WTF is the point? Just run the bus, it's way cheaper!
 
Voltz said:
I see you are still posting nonsense about Transit City that you know it not true.
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i am not normally a supporter of coruscanti cognoscente because typically hes all subway however i am pretty sure that the original lrt stop spacing was much larger before going to public consultation. its not that i dont think the public should be consulted but what can happen is that people put their needs infront of the projects. not all the time but sometimes. in this case i feel residents lobbied for more stops that benefitted them but was ultimately detrimental to the system by causing it to slow down. i think thats a fair argument. at what point would you say there are too many stops? and i also agree with the point that if you buy in the suburbs you shouldnt be expecting the same level of service as downtown users. it reminds me of a friend i know who bought a house in caledon then said hed take transit but there is no alternative. well no kidding (theres no service because it would cost tooo much to provide and because it would take forever to get anywhere.)
 
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