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Transit City Plan

Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%

  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%
  • Total voters
    120
LAz said:
Weed, how feasible is it to take the subway one more stop eastwards?
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Well considering the EA has already been done, and so has some of the engineering, I'd say pretty feasible (especially since there's already a tunnel being dug there regardless). And it's a 2 stop extension.

And with Ford at the helm, this could possibly be the only subway extension he could legitimately deliver in his 4 year term.
 
It may well be the only thing he can deliver in the timeframe he promised.

Was the EA completed for the leg of Sheppard from Yonge to Downsview?
 
Hopefully if Ford does anything related to subways it is an extension of the Danforth line to Scarborough Centre or the DRL, not some one or two station extension on the Sheppard line which would make connecting to a future Don Mills transit corridor a real pain and not deliver much benefit. Both the Smitherman plan and the Ford plan had a Danforth subway extension and it doesn't impact currently funded work in progress.
 
EnviroTO said:
Hopefully if Ford does anything related to subways it is an extension of the Danforth line to Scarborough Centre or the DRL, not some one or two station extension on the Sheppard line which would make connecting to a future Don Mills transit corridor a real pain and not deliver much benefit. Both the Smitherman plan and the Ford plan had a Danforth subway extension and it doesn't impact currently funded work in progress.
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I agree that DRL and the Danforth extension should be priorities, but Miller chose Sheppard so it's gotta be dealt with first. And Ford's plan is to change it to a subway. We shall see what happens.
 
It doesn't need to be dealt with first. It would be some 15 years from now that the DRL and the Danforth extension would get finished and streetcar tracks would not be seen as an obstacle to building a subway. There were streetcar tracks on Yonge and Bloor before the subway was built and there are streetcar tracks on King and Queen now which aren't really an obstacle to subway either. If the DRL and Danforth are a priority then they are a priority regardless of what else is going on elsewhere. The SRT is going to be modified into grade separated LRT in a form which is far more of an obstacle to rationalizing future subway development.
 
The biggest problem with the alteration of LRT plans is the cancellation fees, both the direct loss of transit funds and the psychological loss (any future transit proposals more likely to be seen with skepticism regardless of the technology).

Regarding the subway extension to Vic Park, a terminus there is no worse than at Don Mills. Both corridors are currently of similar importance, and their future largely depends on how the network is configured. For example if the Sheppard subway ends at Vic Park, you can build LRT on Don Mills (starting from the DRL subway terminus at Eglinton), and several years later, extend the DRL subway up Vic Park.
 
If the subway was to extend to Victoria Park (which was the option I was pushing when we first started discussing the Sheppard East LRT in early 2007), then you could always connect the Finch East LRT to Victoria Park/Sheppard instead of Don Mills/Sheppard, which would only add about 2-km of LRT to that route, and actually serve Seneca college, connecting to it well from both Finch and Victoria Park. Meanwhile Don Mills can simply be serviced from the Don Mills LRT ... hopefully to the end of the DRL at Don Mills/Eglinton.
 
^ I believe that if ever comes to building Finch East LRT, it should not veer south and interline with Sheppard LRT, but should continue on Finch East till McCowan and then turn south and connect to STC. Basically, like the newest version of Finch E express route.

Either way (Finch - Sheppard or Finch - Finch) it is a mediocre crosstown route (too slow), but if it stays on Finch, it will be quite useful as a local feeder route (both to Yonge and to STC) as well as a connection to Seneca C from both directions.
 
gweed123 said:
I would expect the delay would be 2 years max. Like I said before, the subway extension to Vic Park has already been EA'd, and if I'm not mistaken, preliminary engineering done on it as well.
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Building code for subways has changed since the first stage of Sheppard was prepared (tunnel diameter at very least). That stretch would need to be redone to a certain extent. Good chance materials requirements have also been changed (improved upon).

The EA itself may or may not be valid. Ford, would be unwise to use an old EA to accelerate a specific solution. He ran on a "listening to the public" campaign and as such is somewhat required to do a full Individual EA on Sheppard to decide what should be built. He can't claim to be listening to the public and not perform a lengthy public consultation.

Given the above, 2 years is optimistic.

I expect it will be March before a decision is made to cancel/continue the current project, June to negotiate with the province, +6 months for an EA (shortened process, could be much longer) + 3 years for engineering the new solution.

If a Sheppard subway is tendered during Fords first term I would be very, and pleasantly, surprised.
 
rbt said:
Building code for subways has changed since the first stage of Sheppard was prepared (tunnel diameter at very least). That stretch would need to be redone to a certain extent. Good chance materials requirements have also been changed (improved upon).

The EA itself may or may not be valid. Ford, would be unwise to use an old EA to accelerate a specific solution. He ran on a "listening to the public" campaign and as such is somewhat required to do a full Individual EA on Sheppard to decide what should be built. He can't claim to be listening to the public and not perform a lengthy public consultation.

Given the above, 2 years is optimistic.

I expect it will be March before a decision is made to cancel/continue the current project, June to negotiate with the province, +6 months for an EA (shortened process, could be much longer) + 3 years for engineering the new solution.

If a Sheppard subway is tendered during Fords first term I would be very, and pleasantly, surprised.
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The EA had to be redone for the Eglinton Crosstown. Even though the first was for a heavy rail version, the current incarnation had to be done again, this time for tunnels under Eglinton that can handle both heavy rail and light rail.
 
Why even build a Spadina Expressway? Just get rid of the right-of-way and the parking on Spadina, jack the speed limit to 90 km/h and run it one-way, southbound in the morning and northbound at night.

No downside!
 
SlickFranky said:
1) That's not happening.
2) Why would one effect the other?
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When Bill Davis (Progressive Conservative) canceled the Spadina Expressway, he let the expressway now road, be completed only up to Eglinton Avenue and work started on planning for the Eglinton heavy rail (Black Creek to Allen Road) subway. The Eglinton subway was supposed to be the alternative for the Spadina Expressway. Then Mike Harris (Progressive Conservative) canceled the Eglinton Subway and replaced it with nothing.

It did take a long time between the cancellation of the Spadina Expressway and getting the first shovels into the ground for the aborted Eglinton subway construction.

It has taken another long time between the cancellation of the Eglinton subway cancellation and the start (hopefully) of the Eglinton Crosstown.
 
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