Transit City Plan

[Electrify]

I find it hard to believe it took 15 min by car to get downtown and 1 hr by transit. Define downtown and the start and end points. I can get to Bloor and Bathurst street on Sat morning in 20 min (before 10 am)from couple blocks south of Lawrence and Keele St. But it takes 15 min by Lawrence bus to Lawrence west subway, roughly 10 min to St George and then subway to Bathurst which is few min. Its 5 min walk to lawrence for a total of about 35 min But again for both options this is early Sat morning. Later in the morning, traffic on Lawrence, more people getting on the bus and it has taken 30 min to get to Lawrence West subway. But it would be the same case by car. Later in the morning by car and specially by afternoon, there is traffic and it takes way more than 20 min. And this is no matter where you go downtown. There is less traffic than on the weekday but there is traffic.

For clarification, I was paraphrasing a comment from another website. I've dug it up for this discussion:

Are you sure the difference is 6 minutes?
Under the original LRT plan, a trip from Kennedy to Yonge was pegged at over a half hour and closer to 40 minutes.
While the whole trip from Scar Town Centre to Black Creek is pegged at 45 minutes for a fully underground option?


I think what the government has to do is actually post stats on each mode in an easy to read table. As it is, the planners and leaders of all these projects have been very quiet about ridership, travel time, etc.

And the general number of riders the old TC project would carry on all lines did nothing. In fact I found the system wide numbers they used showed that the TC plan actually attracted very few people to transit.

I want to know what the daily ridership is now on a specific corridor, and what that ridership will be on opening day with LRT, subway/elevated rail, BRT, etc.

Translink did this. It showed that LRT to UBC would be so slow that a Skytrain extension would carry something like double the ridership the LRT was proposed to carry.

At the end of the day I don't care what the technology is. I care about if we are shifting people to transit, building mode share, thinking of future development, and providing service that is attractive to the residents and visitors to the area.

Given that I live in the area these lines will serve, and having talked to people in the area. The most important aspect for us is travel time.
We already have frequent transit service, etc. What we don't have is a fast ride to anywhere.

We are 20 minutes from downtown by car. But 1 hour or longer by transit.

We are 10 minutes from Yonge Street by car. But 45-60 minutes from Yonge street by transit.

The people who don't use transit in these corridors don't use it because there is not frequent service, etc. They don't use it because it is slow.

My father did not drive downtown to work for 30 years because there was not a bus every 5 minutes. He drove, because it took him 20 miuntes vs 1.5 hours by transit.

http://www.humantransit.org/2012/01/toronto-earth-to-mayor-subways-are-expensive.html

EDIT: I want to add that I think this guy makes a good point about a modal shift to transit. Sure, currently most of the transit travel along Sheppard, Finch, and Eglinton is local in nature, but what about other transportation modes? A quick look at this map (http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/starmaps_090610.html?xml=091021_commuting_transit.xml) seems to show a 60/30/10 split between driving, transit, and other. Along areas serviced by subways, the split is about 45/45/10, give or take. After these LRT lines are complete, are these areas going to be closer to where they are now, or closer to the areas served by subways?

 

[BurlOak]

Brentcliffe is a minor street with a low passenger volume, there will be no turnback facility there.

Either they will extend the high-capacity section to Don Mills (the south side of the road option won't cost much more than street-median), or will run consistently low capacity all the way from Kennedy to Yonge.

As I recall, the turn back will be at Laird and not Brentcliffe - still nowhere near as large of a stop as Don Mills would be.

As for the South Side alignment, we have waited over 3 years and nothing of the sort has been proposed in any official way. This includes the time of Giamrone-Webster and Stintz-Webster. If this does actually occur and we at least get a grade-separated link from DM to Yonge, we really do owe someone new a great big round of applause.

 

[Palma]

Why?

Service at Eglinton will be kept low enough to allow people at Bloor to transfer to southbound Yonge.

This makes no sense. Your saying people riding Bloor have a higher priority in transferring to the Yonge line than those riding the LRT on Eglinton. Can you explain this? Actually there is no justifiable explaination. On top that, people riding Eglinton can transfer at Eglintn West subway. You are assuming they all want to transfer at Yonge. Most people riding Spadina will continue all the way down the University line and around to get off at King, Queen or Dundas, I use to do it when I went to Ryerson and later when I got a job at Queen st. And I see others doing the same thing. I found that if I got off at St George to go over to Yonge and then south to Dundas it would take the same time as going all the way around from Spadina due to connection time at the transfer stations. Perhaps you could save a couple of min if you were lucky and made all the connections right away as you got to the station. But how many times would you be lucky enough for that to happen.

 

[car4041]

As for the South Side alignment, we have waited over 3 years and nothing of the sort has been proposed in any official way. This includes the time of Giamrone-Webster and Stintz-Webster. If this does actually occur and we at least get a grade-separated link from DM to Yonge, we really do owe someone new a great big round of applause.

I know a south-side alignment is often discussed, but what would its benefit be? The only traffic signal between Brentcliffe and Don Mills is at Leslie, where there would be a stop regardless. Otherwise it's a non-stop run. How would a south side alignment differ in speed or capacity from an in-median alignment?

 

[ssiguy2]

You could run the GO trains every 20 seconds if you want, it will make little difference to Torontonians.
GO is expensive made even worse by the fact that you don't {unlike Translink} get any kind of credit for your bus trip. In Greater Vancouver, every cent you paid for your local transit trip is deducted from your WCE commuter rail fare.
Torontonians will never embrace GO until the fare are integrated like Translink and will only consider it a real, affordable option when all GO trips within the city are the same price of a TTC ticket...............in other words, complete integration.

 

[rbt]

This makes no sense. Your saying people riding Bloor have a higher priority in transferring to the Yonge line than those riding the LRT on Eglinton. Can you explain this?

Yup. Safety. You cannot have the platforms on bloor so full that people are waiting on the lower level to get to the upper level. This is only about 10 minutes worth of people during morning rushhour.

There must be space on the train for them to board southbound at Bloor or the fire marshal will get involved (forcing Bloor trains to run non-stop through Yonge station).

If Yonge doesn't have capacity then feeder route must be throttled back and I really don't see them running Bloor trains through Yonge station without stopping; do you?

 

[BurlOak]

Yup. Safety. You cannot have the platforms on bloor so full that people are waiting on the lower level to get to the upper level. This is only about 10 minutes worth of people during morning rushhour.

There must be space on the train for them to board southbound at Bloor or the fire marshal will get involved (forcing Bloor trains to run non-stop through Yonge station).

If Yonge doesn't have capacity then feeder route must be throttled back and I really don't see them running Bloor trains through Yonge station without stopping; do you?

Lets assume that the same number of people are coming from Scarborough and going downtown. Either they take the B-D and transfer at Yonge - the current situation, OR, some go to Yonge and transfer there. If we want to prevent platform overcrowding, it seems better to spread these transferring passengers out between 2 stations instead of concentrating all of them at Yonge-Bloor.

 

[BurlOak]

I know a south-side alignment is often discussed, but what would its benefit be? The only traffic signal between Brentcliffe and Don Mills is at Leslie, where there would be a stop regardless. Otherwise it's a non-stop run. How would a south side alignment differ in speed or capacity from an in-median alignment?

Anytime there is a car-transit interaction there is potential for cars blocking transit lanes, either by accidents or from turning vehicles. In a way, south-sdie would be insurance.

Could a similar arguement not be made for the Sheppard LRT where several hundred million is being spent to avoid a couple of intersections at 404. By comparison, this is very cheap (and it would probably minimize construction disruption at Don Mills underground station).

 

[gweed123]

You could run the GO trains every 20 seconds if you want, it will make little difference to Torontonians.
GO is expensive made even worse by the fact that you don't {unlike Translink} get any kind of credit for your bus trip. In Greater Vancouver, every cent you paid for your local transit trip is deducted from your WCE commuter rail fare.
Torontonians will never embrace GO until the fare are integrated like Translink and will only consider it a real, affordable option when all GO trips within the city are the same price of a TTC ticket...............in other words, complete integration.

That type of fare integration already exists between GO and local agencies like Burlington Transit (where the price of the bus fare is discounted if you tap onto GO after tapping onto BT, or vice versa).

And I don't think it needs to be the same price as the TTC, it just needs to be in the same ballpark. People wouldn't mind paying an extra dollar for a service that's 30% faster. This especially holds true for people in suburban Toronto. If you want proof of this, just look at the popularity of express buses in places like Ottawa. They charge a premium fare, and they're very well used.

If you can integrate it in such a way that it's the same price as the TTC in Old Toronto (aka Zone 1), and $1 more in suburban Toronto (Zone 2), then the service would be well used I would think.

 

[car4041]

Anytime there is a car-transit interaction there is potential for cars blocking transit lanes, either by accidents or from turning vehicles. In a way, south-sdie would be insurance.

The only car-transit interaction would be at Eglinton & Leslie, which could alternatively be protected by C-Train style crossing arms.

I can see two compelling arguments for a south-side alignment: ease of construction and lack of traffic disruption at Eglinton & Leslie. But the speed and capacity of the LRT don't really seem to be at stake (nor the reliability, if crossing arms were used).

Could a similar arguement not be made for the Sheppard LRT where several hundred million is being spent to avoid a couple of intersections at 404.

I don't think it's comparable. There are several other reasons for tunneling the Sheppard LRT west of Consumers. It avoids several intersections where there wouldn't be LRT stops, including two highway accesses. It allows the bridge over the 404 to remain as-is. And it gets the line underground for a same-platform connection with the rather deep subway.

 

[Voltz]

I know a south-side alignment is often discussed, but what would its benefit be? The only traffic signal between Brentcliffe and Don Mills is at Leslie, where there would be a stop regardless. Otherwise it's a non-stop run. How would a south side alignment differ in speed or capacity from an in-median alignment?

Service can only run so often through a intersection, once service frequencies drop below a certain point then half of the trains will have to be short turned at Laird even though a large number of riders will be going to Don Mills. If the line is separated through to Don Mills then presumably there will be no need to build storage and crossover tracks at Laird, this would likely save a significant amount of money and disruption as those tracks more than double the length of the underground structure required.

The seems to be a much larger about of left turning traffic at Leslie and Eglinton than at most major intersections as it is T shaped. As I recall, currently at Leslie and Eglinton there are dual left turn lanes for the south and east bound directions; and eastbound through and southbound left turning movements can be made at the same time. The planned layout for this intersection will remove one of the eastbound left turn lanes and no longer allow for southbound left turns to be made at the same time as eastbound through traffic. So the planned design would have a greater effect on traffic at this intersection than at most, so I would say it is worth the effort to change the design.

 

[ssiguy2]

Yes, people might be willing to pay a small premium of, for example, a $1 one way but I think that's about it.
Finch is one of the busiest bus routes and most people taking it from Humber will be getting off at either Yonge now or Spadina Ext in a few years. This despite the fact that there is a Kitchener GO station nearby which is far more convient and fast.
People, however, don't take it because it's just too much damn money.
This is one of the many faults of transit in the GTA............a bunch of small systems guarded as fiefdoms. Metrolinx has done precious little to relieve that situation.
The GTA views transit as a purely local affair where crossing an imaginary boundary requires a transfer and another fare. Vancouver's Translink knows that transit services can not be viewed individually but rather must be viewed as a system.
Due to municiple politics, insular vision, a fiefdom mentaility, and ridiculous petty rivalries Toronto has a completely disjointed, uncoordinated, confusing, wasteful transit service.

 

[Solid Snake]

Those of you who keep saying Torontonians will take the GO are sadly mistaken. Montreal is using the Opus card which is like Presto for the whole region.

Zone 1 is for the Montreal subway and buses
Zone 2 is for Commuter trains on Montreal Island
Zone 3 and + is for outside the city.

The cost is incremental depending in which zone you live.

Before 2000, the CAM (Zone 1) included Commuter Trains near downtown and Montrealers were using it. At the minute commuter trains became zone 2, what do you think happened? Montrealers stopped using it, myself included.

Bottom line is, TTC riders will rather stay on the bus than pay the premium to get on the GO and PRESTO won't change anything.

 

[gweed123]

Yes, people might be willing to pay a small premium of, for example, a $1 one way but I think that's about it.
Finch is one of the busiest bus routes and most people taking it from Humber will be getting off at either Yonge now or Spadina Ext in a few years. This despite the fact that there is a Kitchener GO station nearby which is far more convient and fast.
People, however, don't take it because it's just too much damn money.
This is one of the many faults of transit in the GTA............a bunch of small systems guarded as fiefdoms. Metrolinx has done precious little to relieve that situation.
The GTA views transit as a purely local affair where crossing an imaginary boundary requires a transfer and another fare. Vancouver's Translink knows that transit services can not be viewed individually but rather must be viewed as a system.
Due to municiple politics, insular vision, a fiefdom mentaility, and ridiculous petty rivalries Toronto has a completely disjointed, uncoordinated, confusing, wasteful transit service.

No, people don't take it because the trains don't run frequently enough. There are too many variables with the bus service itself in order to actually get to the station on time in order to catch one of the few trains into Toronto. If that train was running every 5-10 minutes during peak, and every 15 outside of peak, that time variable wouldn't be an issue at all.

 

[ssiguy2]

Run it every 20 seconds, it won't make a hoot of difference, if people don't have the money they still won't take it.