Transit City Plan

[Dan416]

The Eglinton LRT I can live with, since it'll be tunneled for a major portion with subway-like stop spacing and built for future conversion to subway (questionable as it may be that that will ever be done).

Finch West I can also live with, but I think it should just be a Finch LRT covering both West and East of Yonge.

Waterfront and Jane LRTs I have no problem with.

It's the Sheppard East LRT that just aggravates me. Finish the Sheppard subway to STC, and expand it at least to Downsview (how far West is Sheppard avenuizing?), with the possibility of it going to the airport in future.

Then there's the SRT. In my opinion, it's the thing that has screwed over Scarborough, and the Danforth line should be extended to STC. Once Sheppard and Danforth meet at STC, that's all the subway that needs to be built out east. LRT lines can radiate out from STC wherever they're deemed needed.

When I make my subway fantasy maps, I like to go overboard. But I think having the green line go from MCC to STC and the purple line go from STC to NYC to Downsview, and building a DRL and short extensions of Spadina and Yonge are sufficient subway expansions for the time-being.

 

[nfitz]

Finish the Sheppard LRT to STC, and expand it at least to Downsview (how far West is Sheppard avenuizing?), with the possibility of it going to the airport in future.

So basically your in favour of converting the subway to LRT, and building it on Sheppard East as well. I think converting is going backwards, but I can see why one would be in favour of that.

 

[ShonTron]

Perhaps you should humour yourself and read the rest of it. Plan 2 and section 2.2.2 for example.

Section 2.2.2: Centres: Vital Mixed Use Communities.

I feel like Rev. Lovejoy:

Lovejoy: Homer, I'd like you to remember Matthew 7:26. "The foolish man who built his house upon the sand."
Homer: And you remember... Matthew... 21:17.
Lovejoy "And he left them and went out of the city, into Bethany, and he lodged there?"
Homer: Yeah. Think about it.

 

[nfitz]

Section 2.2.2: Centres: Vital Mixed Use Communities.

Sigh ... keep reading through the end of 2.2.3.

I feel like Rev. Lovejoy:

uh, okay ... have fun with that.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Keithz:

Miller provided the social policy: we shall raise land values in struggling neighbourhoods by blanketing them with LRT lines.

Social policy it may be, but TC as a way to "raise land values" coming out Miller? Where did you get THAT from?

AoD

 

[ShonTron]

Sorry, I still don't get your point, nfitz.

For all the spectators following along, Section 2.2.3 is entitled Avenues: Reurbanizing Arterial Corridors. The words "light" or "rail" or "LRT" do not appear once in the section. There are nods to high-quality transit services and priority ("including priority measures for streetcars and buses") and a mention that not all lands in Avenues will necesssarily be redeveloped.

I still can't find TC anywhere specifically in the OP. The Hydro corridor would have resulted in a high speed LRT or busway, instead we got a quasi-LRT on Finch West (though it is one of the routes I don't have a big problem with). Sheppard East looks like the planned subway to STC to me.

 

[nfitz]

Sorry, I still don't get your point, nfitz.

Are you trying to be obtuse? You claimed that Transit City and the Avenues weren't in the plan. The Avenues are in 2.2.3 and Map 2. And the higher-order transit on Map 4 virtually mirrors Transit City, with the exception of the eastern Scarborough stuff, and the slight shift of the Finch alignment to the south.

I don't think anywhere it says that higher-order transit = LRT. But at the same time, given that St. Clair, Spadina, and the downtown waterfront lines all show as the same line-type, that it wasn't precluded. I admit Sheppard East might not fit that assumption, but the big picture of Transit City was in the city plan. And that plan is virtually unchanged since before Miller became mayor.

 

[ShonTron]

I never claimed that the Avenues weren't in the plan. They're right there! I have the OP, so I don't know where you got that idea from. My claim was that the TC doesn't follow the Avenues very well, which I, Scarberian, and others have said many times here.

I do claim that TC is not in the official plan, that while I even don't mind the general idea, I think it is badly flawed on many of the corridors. The official plan, since it is a bit of a vague document, you wouldn't have necessarily expected TC, as later revealed in 2007, as coming from it.

I'm trying to be civil, but I am a bit frustrated.

 

[nfitz]

It's always appeared to have come out of the higher-order corridors as far as I can tell. Isn't there quotes from councillors early in the first Miller government talking about putting LRT down those corridors?

 

[Dan416]

So basically your in favour of converting the subway to LRT, and building it on Sheppard East as well. I think converting is going backwards, but I can see why one would be in favour of that.

I misspoke. I used the word "finish" so I meant to type "Sheppard Subway" not "Sheppard LRT". (the previous sentence I stated the Sheppard East LRT aggravated me. Regardless, I edited my post to fix that error. My mistake.

I wholly do no want the subway downgraded. I want the subway expanded west to at least Downsview and as far west as reasonable, and in the east to STC, which would be the eastern terminus/hub.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Personally, I think Sheppard should indeed be downgraded just to make for a transfer-free ride - but at the same time, SRT should be upgraded as a full subway extension to STC by the same token.

AoD

 

[kEiThZ]

Keithz:
Social policy it may be, but TC as a way to "raise land values" coming out Miller? Where did you get THAT from?
AoD

Sorry...quick thought expressed poorly....

I look at Miller's social policy of rescuing poor neighbourhoods through LRT as a rather cynical ploy. LRT will raise land values and over time just drive the poor out. He'll improve these neighbourhoods by gentrifying them rather than raising the income of the residents who live there.

Personally, I think Sheppard should indeed be downgraded just to make for a transfer-free ride - but at the same time, SRT should be upgraded as a full subway extension to STC by the same token.

AoD

EXACTLY.

It'd be nice to get Sheppard as a subway. However, if that's not going to happen, I'd rather see it converted, removing the transfer. For Scarborough, the priority will always be the Bloor-Danforth extension to STC. It supports STC as an urban growth centre and a hub for all of Eastern Scarborough. IMHO, Sheppard is just not as important as that 2 stop extension from Kennedy to STC.

 

[junctionist]

Sorry...quick thought expressed poorly....

I look at Miller's social policy of rescuing poor neighbourhoods through LRT as a rather cynical ploy. LRT will raise land values and over time just drive the poor out. He'll improve these neighbourhoods by gentrifying them rather than raising the income of the residents who live there.

I see it a little differently. While I think that LRT is seen as a tool towards neighbourhood improvement, it's not as desirable as a subway, so it improves the neighbourhood, but not to a degree that the low income residents are forced to leave.

 

[Second_in_pie]

I see it a little differently. While I think that LRT is seen as a tool towards neighbourhood improvement, it's not as desirable as a subway, so it improves the neighbourhood, but not to a degree that the low income residents are forced to leave.

This is it. Not that it wouldn't be nice to simply improve poor communities, if you were to build a subway in a low income neighborhood, rich and middle class people will flock to it, but this will really just displace the poor people instead of helping them.

 

[urbanfan89]

This is it. Not that it wouldn't be nice to simply improve poor communities, if you were to build a subway in a low income neighborhood, rich and middle class people will flock to it, but this will really just displace the poor people instead of helping them.

Oh really?

Virtually every Transit City render had sexy streetcars in the middle of Sheppard/Don Mills/Finch surrounded by faux-European buildings five stories high and street level cafes and boutiques.

I doubt some guy surviving on minimum wage at a retailer can afford to live there. We're hiding the problem, not solving it.