Well, Sheppard is not downtown. I don't see what's the problem to have a stop every 800m and a parallel bus for local stop. Morningside to Don Mills in 50 min by LRT is really slow if you ask me.
I agree that 400m is too close for a suburban area. I would be alright with 800m, however the subway will probably have stations 2km apart. Of course there could be stations at Faywood and Senlac, but they won't we well used as all. And some politicians want this subway built without these intermediate station in order to save money, saying that we can always build them at a later date (i.e. never, I'm still waiting for Willowdale station). Regardless, subway are good for moving lots of people over longer distances, but can be terrible at serving the neighbourhood itself.
If the parallel bus service is reduced to nothing like you said it's because of a TTC decision, not because they can't have more frequent buses. The 85 Sheppard East offers a frequent parallel bus service to the Sheppard Subway, so is NYC, Montreal, Chicago etc..
I wouldn't consider the 85 to be frequent. On a weekday, headways range from 15 to 30 minutes, and the 98 Willowdale-Senlac bus it's 30 minutes all day. If that's what's going to happen west of Yonge when the subway gets extended, then these buses will be almost useless. Might as well walk forever than wait for a bus to come.
Transit City documents confirms that the LRV will wait at red lights which is the source of most of the complaints people have towards transit city.
If they mess this up then that would be unfortunate. But Metrolinx is in charge now so hopefully they will get it right. Maybe they can also cut down on the number of stations.
Sheppard Avenue West between Bathurst and Yonge is 2 lanes in each directions. Too narrow for an at grade LRT which is why I said an LRT would have to be underground...just like Eglinton central section of the crosstown. If the TTC won't run an LRT at grade with 2 lanes in each directions on Eglinton, why would they on Sheppard?
I don't think it would be impossible to widen the road, but if it has to be underground then at least there's the tail track from the sheppard subway that can be used. It extends all way to Welbeck road, so not much more tunnelling would need to be done (only up to the bridge I would imagine, and the bridge would be widened).
-Too expensive with the context of back then. Their main argument is economic. Back then, the amount of funds was limited and they chose the best value for what was available then. With that new transit tax the province is planning on imposing on us, (if the budget pass) that argument went out the window which some councillors were quick to point out to advocate for the Scarborough Subway.
"Asking for families to pay up to 500-600$ a year extra and telling them they are still getting LRT even if the ridership for subway is there is wrong"
Big move costs 50 billion as is. If we are going to upgrade every LRT to a subway, then families will be paying even more. Maybe if politicians would stop lying about LRTs, people would not feel so upset about them.
It's a matter of opinion. You don't agree yet TTC and Metrolinx sees the merits.
I see the merits. Just not sure it's good value for the money.
Double Standards. Funny how you criticize that transfer to justify not extending the subway past Don Mills but most of the pro LRT supporters kept saying a transfer is normal, nothing to complain about and exists all around the world. So Scarborough should have just shut up and accept the transfer so they get LRT and in this case, there's shouldn't be any transfer just because you want the LRT there... yeah...ok
I'm ok with one transfer, but you want to create a second one by extending the subway. You say that ridership merits a subway up to Victoria Park, but after Vic Park ridership suddenly drops to BRT levels. Seriously? Prove it. I don't think that high ridership you talk about is so great that the LRT can't handle it, so I don't see the need for spending more money on extending the subway while making the transfer situation even more annoying. At least if Don Mills remains the terminus, you have one transfer with the three option of transferring to the DRL, the sheppard subway, or the sheppard lrt.
I agree with everything you said. TTC should look at elevating rapid transit more often or at least study that option. Eglinton East Crosstown should have been elevated and I never thought underground was that necessary. But again, you ignore the fact that I brought Chicago in this debate to show that Sheppard's ridership is not abysmal and it's quite respectable when you look at how many stations it has and how short it is and most importantly, where it's located.
Yes I understood your point. Sheppard is alright compared to other cities, just not so great for Toronto standards. Unfortunately we can't build subways for cheap like in some other cities, so we have to have higher standards of what abysmal is. Until Toronto clears its backlog of other priorities, I don't agree with building the sheppard subway. But I'm not saying that you think sheppard should come before the DRL.
Overall, I see where you're coming from. Lets agree to disagree.
