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Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

I am the first to acknowledge that Ottawa's Transitway has its challenges and the city has most certainly outgrown BRT.

However, we aren't talking about all of Sheppard here. We are talking about Sheppard East. This portion is most certainly not that highly or densely populated (unless you start counting the wildlife at the zoo in its catchment area). And I have not advocated BRT for the whole length. I have been clear that the subway should be extended to Agincourt at minimum with a goal of terminating it at Scarborough Town Centre. And I'd like to see it extended westward as well.

Getting back to my original point (since some of you have failed to understand my example of Ottawa).... My point was that the Transitway today handles through the core, using diamond bus lanes (not segregated corridors that you see elsewhere on the Transitway) close to 10 000 riders per hour per direction. This is significantly higher than what Sheppard East expects to see. And I am willing to bet that if you study just Agincourt to Meadowvale (the portion I'd like to see downgraded from LRT), your ridership would be significantly lower than that. I fully acknowledge that something higher order than BRT is required west of Agincourt. I'd like it to be a subway. I'd like to see the money saved from downgrading the LRT on this portion go towards extending the subway....to improve service and capacity on the portions of Sheppard East that truly need it.
 
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If it weren't for an asinine directive passed by the TTC, the option of converting the Sheppard Subway to LRT tunnel and simply building the LRT towards STC would clearly be most appropriate. However, some egos need to be preserved...
 
urbanfan89 said:
If it weren't for an asinine directive passed by the TTC, the option of converting the Sheppard Subway to LRT tunnel and simply building the LRT towards STC would clearly be most appropriate. However, some egos need to be preserved...
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Agreed. If they are insistent on keeping the LRT, why not get rid of the transfer?
 
kEiThZ said:
I am the first to acknowledge that Ottawa's Transitway has its challenges and the city has most certainly outgrown BRT...

Read this part yourself

...to improve service and capacity on the portions of Sheppard East that truly need it.
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Oh. Sorry, I misunderstood you entirely :p

Though I'd still like to maintain that I really don't believe there's a lot of demand on Sheppard east of Agincourt. It's like, from STC to NYCC, Sheppard is a model corridor, but then you hit Brimley and it all falls to pieces. I really don't think that east of Agincourt qualifies for your run of the mill BRT. For "BRT," I'd just put in Bus lanes, kind of half transit priority, and take out a few stops. Almost the same kind of service Viva is running right now.

Then down the road, I'd put Finch East as the BRT route, though that might be a bit tricky since Finch's ridership is fairly dependent on the convenient stops and high frequencies. But really, I see nothing in Sheppard East of Agincourt, nothing!

But I'd rather have subway with BRT for the other portion than LRT for the entire portion, or even Subway to Agincourt with LRT to Morningside.
 
kEiThZ said:
If we are talking the area serviced by transit and particularly rapid transit, Ottawa's geographical footprint is indeed quite large....particularly given all the recent Transitway extensions. OC transpo serves an area (with rapid transit) that's pretty close in size or bigger to the 416. Coming back to my original argument, my point was that they accomplish this rapid transit coverage using buses very effectively. So why can't it work on Sheppard?

Set aside our debate about geographic size. The Ottawa Transitway, through the core areas of Ottawa, most certainly puts through significantly more passengers per hour than the Sheppard East LRT could ever hope to have. And it does that using buses...half of which aren't even articulated. If Ottawa can do this for the whole city, why can't the TTC do it for one 15 km stretch of suburban road with half the demand (or less) that Ottawa faces?

ps. Feel free to respond to the other more substantive points I made if you want to get beyond debating semantics.
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But your debating fantasy ... it doesn't matter if it's the best decision or not to built the LRT. The deal is done. It's going ahead ... there's as much point debating this, as there is debating whether the the Yonge Line extension should head west, or turn and go up University Avenue.

kEiThZ said:
Agreed. If they are insistent on keeping the LRT, why not get rid of the transfer?
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That I'll agree to.
 
subway connecting NYC and SCC is important. beyond those two points, buses are fine
 
nfitz said:
But your debating fantasy ... it doesn't matter if it's the best decision or not to built the LRT. The deal is done. It's going ahead ... there's as much point debating this, as there is debating whether the the Yonge Line extension should head west, or turn and go up University Avenue.
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Okay I'm no mod, but this is a DISCUSSION board. Debating is part of that. If you can't handle that, get out of the thread. NOTHING is a done deal until it's up and running.
 
If you can't handle my debating style, then get out of the thread.
- Nfitz

If you can't handle a debate, get out of UT.
- Mod

Nfitz, there's nothing wrong with debating the merits of the still-proposed (work hasn't started yet) LRT. Just like there's nothing wrong with debating the merits of say the original 1978 route of the Spadina Subway.
 
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There's nothing wrong with debating it. But there are people here who are so fundamentally naive that they actually thing that they could stop it, and then take the money; multiply it by 3, and build something else instead.

And the debate then becomes about some strange fantasy about extending the one subway that doesn't have enough traffic to justify a subway, to areas with even lower ridership!

Mind you ... perhaps I should just ignore it. The great anti-Sheppard LRT petition is up to 22 signatures ... though it looks like 18 once I count the clear protests ... hmm, perhaps 17 if I discount Adam Giabrone's signature.
 
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Does the city even know what type of vehicule they want for Transit City?

Can they start without knowing that?

I bringing this up because I know it was a issue raise on Eglinton by Metrolinx
 
Even if LRT is really going ahead, I still hope the tracks and tunnels can fit subway cars, so subway cars can travel within if there really a sheppard subway extension in the future.......
 
In order for the LRT to be extended eastwards from Don Mills to Sheppard and Yonge in substitution for the existing subway, certain very expansive modifications will need to be made.

1. Tunnels must be modified to incorporate overhead wires to power the LRT vehicles.

2. The third rail that currently power the subway should need to be removed, especially in station as there are currently mounted on the platform side.

3. All platforms will need to be lowered to the floor level in order to accomadate the low floor LRTs. This will be very expansive as the platforms were not originally designed and built to be eaily taken apart. Add the fact that the station roof will need to be cut open for any type of heavy equipment, this will potentially be very expansive.

4. Either elevators will need to be modified to descend deeper or ramps will need to be built on the lowered platform to the elevator at current level for wheelchair access.

5. Stair will need to be extended.

6. Current tiles on the walls will need to be lowered. More difficult than it sounds as the tiles are mostly one-ofs. And for stations like Bayview, the station art that extends onto the floor level will be completely destroyed and would most likely need to be redone.

All these will add up to very significant costs, that’s on top of the political capital needed to convince the society that a perfectly fine subway line need to be taken apart just so that people don’t have to get off their butts and walk 200 meters on the SAME LEVEL to change trains.
 
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