kettal
Banned
The subway stations on Sheppard are way bigger than they need to be.
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Transit City: Sheppard East Debate
- Thread starter unimaginative2
- Start date
nfitz
Superstar
The two stations I've spent a lot of time in are Leslie and Sheppard. Both seem pretty spartan. Leslie isn't even underground. Personally I thought the lack of money they spent on those stations seemed apparent ... bare concrete floors?
Perhaps slightly larger mezzanine's than necessary ... but even if you save $20-million off each station, it's not really going to make much difference. The whole "the subway costs twice what it should because the stations are too large" debate is just highly overstated.
LAz
Active Member
I do not see a problem with plain concrete floors. I welcome that thought. That is "enough". If there is more money down the line in the future, then why not upgrade later. But for now we really do not need lavish sending.
We should have some sort of thing where the subway is expended every year by 1 km.
Inflation is not that big. It really is not.
We should have some sort of thing where the subway is expended every year by 1 km.
Inflation is not that big. It really is not.
nfitz
Superstar
LAz
Active Member
Eglinton is not a real Metro. The Spadina Metro extension is okayish.
One km per year must be the minimum. And it must be Metro, not tram. Moscow set the bar - they expand at least one new section every year. Every year.
One km per year must be the minimum. And it must be Metro, not tram. Moscow set the bar - they expand at least one new section every year. Every year.
kettal
Banned
junctionist
Senior Member
I don't usually use the line myself, but whenever I do, I find the mezzanines to be cavernous, and not just "slightly larger than necessary". Except for Sheppard that is, because it is the fourth busiest station in the system.
nfitz
Superstar
Not sure what you mean by Metro. In Europe Metro can be LRT ... or even BRT. Even the Madrid Metro map has LRT on it. The underground Eglinton LRT will be as fast as subway, but more frequent; there's even talk of ATC.
I'm not sure what you mean by Spadina Metro ... but if you mean the Spadina subway extension ... it's only okayish? Good grief man! Are you kidding?
Well if you cancel Eglinton, the Metrolinx plan still calls for 6 km of Yonge, 8 km of Spadina, and 12 km of DRL in 25 years. 26 km in 25 years. So you must be happy if we have what is planned!!
I documented earlier how the price index on this work was about 95% in 15 years. Not one person has challenged this. If you're going to dispute this, perhaps you could provide some costing information as support.
nfitz
Superstar
I'd hardly call the mezzanine to the east entrance of Leslie cavernous. There isn't one! I seldom use the other entrance ... but it's all above ground, so hardly expensive.
I do admit Don Mills looks rather large ... but it is quite deep (presumably so the tunnel can dive under the 404) ... and also one of the busier stations on the system (same ridership as Bay) .. and likely an interchange station in the future. Sheppard/Yonge doesn't seem particularly large to me despite it's large ridership. I can't say I've been to Bayview or Bessarion ... though the surface structures don't look that significant when I've driven (gasp!) past ... and they don't look stunningly huge from the train.
LAz
Active Member
Not quite. That stuff is not certain. There are bigger priorities than going up to richmond hill, imo. I think that the thought of taking subways to the downtown should be scrapped. We need other kinds of routes. These routes only serve to take people to downtown and back, for the most part... why? Because the auto-industry is always opposed to things that can challenge the dominance of their precious auto's. Hence, we need to provide real alternatives to the automobile, by having an eglinton metro and a full sheppard metro.
My point was that it only looks so expensive. When you have the thing built the benefits of it are good. Such speed for long distances is absolutely vital to enhance livability in the city. That is what differentiates toronto from top notch cities in the world. You take madrid, london, berlin, moscow, tokyo, paris, or others... they have outstanding metro systems. Huge outstanding systems. You can go pretty much anywhere with them. Life there is better, thanks in part to the rapid transit that is continually being expanded.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
I agree that we shouldn't just build a network that assumes that everyone needs to go downtown. However, the point of transit is to take people where they want to go, and a lot of people do want to go downtown, judging by the congestion on the southern portion of the Yonge line. We might as well give them an alternative, which would increase ridership by reducing crowding and bringing more subway stations closer to people. By doing so, we would be providing a real alternative to the car.
Downtown is where they need transit improvement the most. Their streets have way less capacity than suburban streets, yet they have way more people living or working near them. Obviously the difference has to be made up in alternate modes of transportation. A line built downtown would have much higher ridership and therefore profitability than in the suburbs, because there are more people around to take the line and the car is much less competitive.
That is something I have thought about too. When the TTC decided the technology for the Eglinton line, they did so using ridership projections. This is essentially deciding what the bare minimum they can spend while still satisfying the demand. Nowhere in this process does it take into account the benefits of Subway vs LRT, or the fact that more people would take a subway than would take an LRT (particularily people transferring from other surface routes). When Hamilton was deciding whether to build BRT or LRT, they decided that both would satisfy the demand and LRT would cost more, but LRT would have more benefits, so they chose that.
That said, I still think that LRT is the way to go for Sheppard, just not the way the TTC is doing it. They need make it faster by decreasing the number of stops and if that means they have to run a parallel local bus route, then so be it. They need to stop trying to make the LRT an improvement on the 85 Sheppard East and aim at improving upon the 190 Scarborough Centre Rocket instead.
The Hamilton report is here: http://www.metrolinx.com/Docs/Agendas/Feb19_10/Hamilton_BCA_FNL_DRAFT.pdf
For an explanation of TTC's decision on technologies, see question 5 of the FAQ here: http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/eglinton_crosstown_lrt/pdf/faq.pdf
leopetr
Active Member
Ok, reality check. Moscow is the capital of a rich petrostate and former superpower. It has the most millionaires per capita in the world. The whole country loves it, or at least knows better than to complain about its pre-eminence.
Toronto, OTOH, gets no respect from Sudbury, let alone Ottawa or Calgary. We pay a lot of taxes to the province and to the feds that we never see back, and there's not that much we can do about it. When Canada decides that Toronto should be its shining jewel, well, maybe then we can start building one section a year. Until that time happens, we need to work with what we have.
At least we are doing better than Berlin. They are so broke, they had to open a three-station subway line (U55) because they don't have enough money to link it up with U5. Imagine if Sheppard went from Sheppard-Yonge to Bessarion. Now that's a stubway.
vz64
Active Member
Toronto is the business capital of a rich petrostate that is a member of elite G7 club. The problem is that TTC has to be almost self-sufficient while Moscow's metro is subsidized by its federal government.
kettal
Banned
Life in Moscow is better than in Toronto? Really?? I guess all those Russian immigrants in our city are really misguided, then.
Just this week, the Economist Intelligence unit released the 2010 best quality of life cities...
I guess they didn't get the memo that subways are everything.
vz64
Active Member
I thought we were discussing public transportation systems, specifically subways? Unless I got misguided and subways ARE the only indicator of quality of life?