Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

[sixrings]

I dont agree fully with her argument because younge has experienced growth and pedestrian style traffic dispite not having a streetcar line. However younge is at least mid-rise to high-rise density. I dont understand why the bloor corridor hasnt been built the same way.. City planners should have been on top of this. In stead we have condos and appartments in no mans land. At the same time I could see how a street car could bring back some zest to the neighbourhood.. It would be great if younge street south of bloor could be streetcar and Pedestrian ONLY... But thats a dream..,

 

[The Mad Navigator]

I dont agree fully with her argument because younge has experienced growth and pedestrian style traffic dispite not having a streetcar line. However younge is at least mid-rise to high-rise density. I dont understand why the bloor corridor hasnt been built the same way.. City planners should have been on top of this. In stead we have condos and appartments in no mans land. At the same time I could see how a street car could bring back some zest to the neighbourhood.. It would be great if younge street south of bloor could be streetcar and Pedestrian ONLY... But thats a dream..,

Newsflash: Yonge Street DID have a streetcar line prior to the subway.

 

[sixrings]

I realize that. What Im saying is that a Pedestrian oriented Younge street would be welcome in this city.. The streetcar would simply allow people to navigate younge from a different perspective.. It quite possibly could help younge north of college to become less seedy and revitalized...

 

[golodhendil]

Neither mode is a guarantee of success or failure. All those successful streets are better designed and more pedestrian oriented than the hole we call East Danforth, though.

Exactly my point, and seems to be something that scarb has brought up a few times too - that zoning and planning is what ultimately makes the biggest difference, and just by building an LRT (or HRT) route is not going to magically turn a neighbourhood dense and walkable. The same LRT lines I showed pass through vibrant neighbourhoods (though usually not because of the LRT), and so do the HRT lines pass through less than walkable suburban areas.
I would also say the BD corridor between, say, Bathurst and Pape had hardly become "desolate" because of the subway, though I don't know how it looked during the streetcar era.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Good grief!!! Ms Porter and Sixrings are totally misguided. The B-D subway didn't kill the neighbourhood (granted it likely didn't help) there were a number of factors that led to the decline of those neighbourhoods not the least of which was the rise of the automobile. Perhaps their idea of an urban ideal is a streetcar ROW with stripmall parking lots lining the street and businesses many metres away from the street side. Better have good sight or you won't even see what business you are passing while on the LRT.

That said I have brought up the idea in the past that the original B-D setup was more than adequate and that the outer reaches of the line might have been better served by streetcar. Had we taken that 10 km or so of subway extension out to Kipling and Kennedy we could have built another downtown E-W subway (either DRL, King, or Queen). Would our transit system be better off with this set up?

 

[sixrings]

Had we taken that 10 km or so of subway extension out to Kipling and Kennedy we could have built another downtown E-W subway (either DRL, King, or Queen). Would our transit system be better off with this set up?

I Totally agree that this would have been better use of SUBWAY.. I was just thinking that a Street car could help bring back the neighboiurhood... I do recognize that zoning is a massive factor...

In fact I agree so much with your post about the added 10 KM of subway that is why I dont support a Sheppard Extension.. It doesnt make sense.. However a sheppard conversion to LRT and one continued line all the way across sheppard as LRT would make me happy. I support TC in their assesment of Eglinton as well with the exception Id say it should be Underground until both DOn MILLs and JANE street not before...

And sure Id love to see a DRL... Street cars and subways serve different needs. But I do believe that places like younge or bloor could probably support both systems even if its on the same line.

 

[kEiThZ]

What a load that article was. It's zoning and planning that changes neighbourhoods, not tram lines. I'd like her to explain how cafes and walkable streets are going to pop up east of McCowan. She demonstrates exactly, how downtowners fail to understand the dynamics of the suburbs. That's not to say that SaveOurSheppard isn't wrong at times. But she is definitely not right either.

I really want to know what vibrancy the LRT will generate that the current decently frequent bus service has not. The ridership base will essentially remain the same with some slight increases (but not much...even the TTC thinks so). And what's the goal for transit here? Are we building transit to fix up Sheppard East or to get people out of their cars?

 

[kEiThZ]

I Totally agree that this would have been better use of SUBWAY.. I was just thinking that a Street car could help bring back the neighboiurhood... I do recognize that zoning is a massive factor...

What neighbourhood? The reason people aren't walking on Sheppard is because for most of the length of Sheppard East there is nothing to walk to. Where there is stuff, like the core of Agincourt for example, people do take transit to those areas and you will find more pedestrians there. And nothing is going to change this unless the city wants to expropriate single family homes with their backyards on Sheppard and then re-zone the land. Merely changing zoning will do nothing for what's already there unless you are willing to wait 3-4 decades for the LRT to have an impact. If you want to see what a subway can accomplish, have a look at the impact of the Sheppard subway. There is no way though, that the Sheppard LRT will even come close (although it'll cost nearly as much as a decent length subway extension). And the worst part of it, is that by the TTC's own admission the Sheppard LRT will have less ridership than a subway extension. So we'll be waiting decades for the LRT to convert Sheppard to some kind of avenue with five storey buildings with cafes, while tons of people keep driving on our already congested roads.

 

[sixrings]

What neighbourhood? .

I was referring to the east danforth because thats the area she was referring to.. I use to live at midland and Sheppard so I can empathize with you that their isnt much of a neighbourhood to save. With that said I disagree with your assumptions of how the LRT will not cause development VS subways that have cuased development. OBviously the city changed its zoning to accomodate the subway extention. Id assume that eventually they will do the same with the LRT routes.

 

[kEiThZ]

I was referring to the east danforth because thats the area she was referring to.. I use to live at midland and Sheppard so I can empathize with you that their isnt much of a neighbourhood to save. With that said I disagree with your assumptions of how the LRT will not cause development VS subways that have cuased development. OBviously the city changed its zoning to accomodate the subway extention. Id assume that eventually they will do the same with the LRT routes.

The point is, even zoning won't help. No developer is going to buy tons of backyards at inflated prices to put condos along a LRT line. It could happen. But it won't be anything like the development we've seen over the last decade with the Sheppard subway. If development does come because of the LRT, it'll come in drips and drabs over the next few decades. Is that really worthwhile, for a project which will squander an opportunity to vastly improve speeds fo commuters for more than just those who live/work within a few hundred metres of Sheppard? The Sheppard subway will pay for itself over the years to come with all the development it's attracted (and the taxes that the city collects from them). Can we be sure the LRT will even come close to pulling something similar off?

 

[Voltz]

The point is, even zoning won't help. No developer is going to buy tons of backyards at inflated prices to put condos along a LRT line. It could happen. But it won't be anything like the development we've seen over the last decade with the Sheppard subway. If development does come because of the LRT, it'll come in drips and drabs over the next few decades. Is that really worthwhile, for a project which will squander an opportunity to vastly improve speeds fo commuters for more than just those who live/work within a few hundred metres of Sheppard? The Sheppard subway will pay for itself over the years to come with all the development it's attracted (and the taxes that the city collects from them). Can we be sure the LRT will even come close to pulling something similar off?

How can you be sure that a subway will pay for it self? That is several billion dollars in taxes that will need to be raised, above and beyond the operational loss.

 

[lead82]

If you read the official city plan, the whole idea behind these LRT lines is to encourage medium density, not the kind of super density we have around subway stations, yet surrounded by sprawling single family homes. Look at what is happening in NYCC. Massive over-development along the subway line with super high-rises, yet a block away from Yonge and you get super expensive McMansions. This causes massive congestion along the main artery (ie. Yonge), overloads public transit (Yonge subway is top heavy). The city wants to encourage more mid-rise buildings along the avenues so that you spread out the development yet focus it along a central corridor. So instead of having monster high-rise condos along a subway line and then single family housing just a block away, they would like to see 3-6 storey buildings along the main road, so that development is spread along longer distances and spread out among multiple corridors instead of what we have before and that is to try to crowd everyone onto one street (Yonge), while ignoring the rest of the city from development.

It is a long term view, and they will need to provide incentives to get developers onboard with this scheme.

 

[kettal]

The point is, even zoning won't help. No developer is going to buy tons of backyards at inflated prices to put condos along a LRT line. It could happen. But it won't be anything like the development we've seen over the last decade with the Sheppard subway. If development does come because of the LRT, it'll come in drips and drabs over the next few decades. Is that really worthwhile, for a project which will squander an opportunity to vastly improve speeds fo commuters for more than just those who live/work within a few hundred metres of Sheppard? The Sheppard subway will pay for itself over the years to come with all the development it's attracted (and the taxes that the city collects from them). Can we be sure the LRT will even come close to pulling something similar off?

I don't see Sheppard subway area as a good model. They've just built massive condos filled with people who drive anyways, and traffic has only become worse and worse.

 

[GTS]

I don't think LRT is going to change Sheppard overnight but I think when developers see the potential of retail along this rapid transit line this property is going to be worth a lot more. I am from Montreal originally andl lived most of my life in Vancouver, where I go hooked on public transit, and moved here to Toronto for 5 years ago. I wasn't in Toronto when the Danforth was served by streetcars but I have a friend who is a senior and he tells me the Danforth was a lot nicer when a streetcar was there. Now there is a lot of cheque cashing stores and dollar stores because the streetcar is gone and the subway doesn't bring a lot of high end economic activity that the streetcar did to the eastern portion of the Danforth. The part of the Danforth that is still economically vibrant is around Broadview to Pape about. and then the types of business decline the further east I go. I am just hoping that Sheppard East LRT brings the type of economic activity that the old Danforth Streetcar had brought to the Danforth years ago, before I was born. Also my friend is a senior and does not feel safe on the eastern end of the Danforth at night because of all the prostitution and other types of activity on that stretch during the night. I imagine that a visible LRT on Sheppard might sort of police the neighborhood along Sheppard and keep illegal activity like that away.

 

[sixrings]

The point is, even zoning won't help. No developer is going to buy tons of backyards at inflated prices to put condos along a LRT line. It could happen. But it won't be anything like the development we've seen over the last decade with the Sheppard subway. If development does come because of the LRT, it'll come in drips and drabs over the next few decades. Is that really worthwhile, for a project which will squander an opportunity to vastly improve speeds fo commuters for more than just those who live/work within a few hundred metres of Sheppard? The Sheppard subway will pay for itself over the years to come with all the development it's attracted (and the taxes that the city collects from them). Can we be sure the LRT will even come close to pulling something similar off?

One of the reasons sheppard was able to be developed arround the subway was because of the small detached bungalos that developers were able to buy up.. That doesnt mean that it still wouldnt be profitable to build along the danforth even if houses were 500000 each for a semi... 20 houses 10 million dollars. Im such you could build a condo on a space that once held 20 semis or townhouses. You may have to charge more per unit but im sure it could be profitable... Maybe the city can give developers who do this a break on development fees or something...