Dan416
Senior Member
Might as well just put a streetcar back on Bloor then, no?
I don't understand your argument. We already have a subway on Sheppard with proven ridership. It will only go UP as the line gets extended.
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Transit City: Sheppard East Debate
- Thread starter unimaginative2
- Start date
Might as well just put a streetcar back on Bloor then, no?
I don't understand your argument. We already have a subway on Sheppard with proven ridership. It will only go UP as the line gets extended.
Fresh Start
Banned
What indignation!
You talk as if the public actually had a say in any of this Transit City mess. The City Councilors of Scarborough backed by a vast majority of constituents’ support wanted subways to permeate the Scarborough City Centre, undeniably the chief transit hub and urban grown centre of that borough. But when has this political system ever done what’s in the public’s best interest? http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/data/200511120925.shtml
I am positive those advocates for extending the Sheppard Line to the Town Centre, both in and out of official office, were very active and vocal in ensuring something better than a road-median streetcar line through suburbia worth $1 billion + came to fruition. It’s not hard to understand. Like Unimaginative pointed out, people will go out of their way to access a subway line. Will folk in Malvern or north of Finch so readily make the transfer on when several more transfers await down the pipe (transfer at Don Mills, transfer at Yonge)? You and Kettal talk of how limited the funds are and how signed contracts have to be honored. Everything short of the laying of tracks on the road surface could still be honored; same tunnel bore under the 404, same utilities moved around, same Agincourt Stn modifications. We’d simply only be adding to the mix subway construction which is more money for builders anyway so why would they complain? And shuffle the TC priority pot around and we’ve got endless capital for a mere 8.6kms of subway.
Where have I been? I’m here now, which is all that matters; and in this short time I feel that I’ve done more than many here to advance what at least I think should be this forum’s united common resolve- to hypothesize real rapid transit solutions for the City of Toronto/GTA that will have long-scope sustainability. Solutions that won’t require half-a-dozen modifications, parallel overlapping services to compensate for capacity/speed inadequacies. Better to be passionate than to be anyone too apathetic to take a stand and just decides to flow with consensus that a bad idea that’s funded is better than striving for better. I refuse to give up, not until opening day.
Oh and yes, I’m a dude.
Dan416
Senior Member
Hear hear.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
The Bloor streetcar moved 9,000 people peak hour peak direction. Not only is that comparable to the much shorter Sheppard subway with 46,000 riders per day (and rising), it reveals that, by your logic, the Bloor subway should never have been built.
That's of course a total oversimplification. Is the Kensington Market failing? Is Yorkville? Anyway, it's a completely different model of development from the one that predominates in Toronto, and I think it might be more successful in some areas than the Avenues approach that the city is promoting.
Oh, and I'm surprised to say it, but I agree with Dentrobate on this one.
DavidH
Senior Member
Actually, they did. Metrolinx spent most of year trying to get public consultation, including an online forum. What if 10,000 people had all logged onto that Metrolinx consultation site and said that Transit City didn't meet their needs? I'd wager that the RTP would have looked quite a bit different.
What *did* happen is that a few hundred people provided feedback when they there asked to give their say. The rest slept through it.
I say this as someone who is unhappy with the RTP that we got. LRT has its role to play but we've missed the opportunity to provide improved medium distance rapid transit in the City. But the public had a chance to provide feedback on the proposals (which in some early forms included the possibility of subway on Eglinton and Sheppard) and, overwhelmingly, simply didn't care enough to do so.
In retrospect, what should have happened is that the online transit community should have organized a drive to get public feedback using any and all means available. I was pushing for feedback to Metrolinx via my blog. Others were doing similar things. Still, there was no concerted high level campaign, and so the opportunity was missed.
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nfitz
Superstar
That's because they did! Far more than they have now.
You are late to the party, the bus has departed ... the train has left the station ... the ship has sailed ... Where you are now is not relevant. No politician is going to take this seriously. You are wasting your time.
You say that ... but you are talking about building subway lines that aren't required. How can you be taken seriously when you suggest such ideas at such wrong times?
Alrighty then.
Alrighty then.
kEiThZ
Superstar
David,
Everyone knows that public consultations are like voting. Few show up to vote in municipal elections and fewer still come to the polls as informed voters. A consultation by a barely known public agency (I am willing to wager that 90%+ of the public does not know who Metrolinx is today) over something as complicated (to the common man) as the RTP is hardly likely to draw a public reaction. Unfortunately, governments take that to mean public agreement. It's not. Just wait till this thing is built and the average joes start bitching about transfers, slow LRTs, etc. Transit enthusiasts are like any other special interest group. They get so wrapped up in their cause, they forget how the average joe thinks. I see TC as a recipe for more driving in the suburbs. The average joe ain't going to take a bus from Finch or Steeles to take a LRT. And that's the tragedy here. I feel that any sort of serious public consultation would have captured this viewpoint. If the government really wanted answers they would undertake polling on each line. Poll the public on whether they want a subway or LRT (you'd have to explain what LRT is to most of them first) on Sheppard East, Eglinton, etc.
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DavidH
Senior Member
I don't disagree with you at all. To a large extent, this was a box-checking exercise for Metrolinx - "consultation done <check>" with decisions being made for other reasons.
However, even a pro-forma exercise offers some opportunities. It's possible that the larger "we" could have exploited this and gotten enough people to participate that the results would have been hard to ignore. No guarantees, but a possibility.
The opportunity is past, though.
nfitz
Superstar
Such pro-forma consultation often leads to change. During the Kingston Road EA, one of the options on the table is that they would run streetcars down Victoria Park from Danforth to Kingston Road; such was the extent of the local opposition, that before they finished their study, they came forward to make it clear that option had been taken off the table.
The Kingston Road EA and Sheppard East EA was in the same timeframe; if there was significant community opposition to LRT on Sheppard East, it would have come out.
The Kingston Road EA and Sheppard East EA was in the same timeframe; if there was significant community opposition to LRT on Sheppard East, it would have come out.
nfitz
Superstar
As I suspect that those that oppose the LRT project are a (vocal) minority, I've put my money where my mouth is, and created a poll - http://www.urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?t=10341
kEiThZ
Superstar
^ Nice try with the wordplay there: let's build vs. let's study. But there's a valid EA that could be used till Vic Park at least. All we'd have to do is award the contracts while we work on the EA for the rest.
nfitz
Superstar
I attempted to be as neutral as possible with the word play. The EA is in place; but there isn't the money available; so it's not like the contracts could be awarded. Assuming there is $1.1-billion available for Sheppard East, then that would get you ... oh let's be generous, 4 km of subway, just enough to get to Birchmount (new stations at Consumer's Drive, Victoria Park, Warden, and Birchmount though I'd say 3-km is more likely, terminating at Warden). That would leave you about $1.5 billion short ... and surely there would have to be study done on how to build a line for that money, or where to get the money.
Also the federal and provincial money is for a project along 15-km of Sheppard; changing it to a 4-km piece would require renegotiation with the other governments. It's not all we'd have to do is award contracts" at all. There's no guarantee that the existing funding would be in place, let alone the extra funding required.
I'm open to wording changes though. It doesn't seem to be creating any confusion in the poll though.
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Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Anyone who thinks that a few more people complaining at a public meeting or via email would have resulted in anything other than the Sheppard LRT getting built as is is delusional, or maybe just naive. 10,000 people could have marched up and down Yonge for weeks and nothing would have changed...Miller wanted streetcar ROWs and Toronto's transit and official plans are being rewritten as necessary. No other options, technologies, alignments, phasings, etc., were on the table for Sheppard and no other outcomes were possible during the EA/planning process. If there had been any sort of wider debate on what should be done to improve transit along Sheppard, there would have been an opportunity for public opinion to shape the outcome, but everything was decided beforehand.
The public was told at said public meetings that the only opinions being gathered and considered were those pertaining to trivialities like the inclusion or exclusion of a couple of midblock stops. And only a tiny, tiny fraction of people in the city had even heard of these meetings or knew of where else to voice their opinion. Most people still have absolutely no idea what's getting built, what's not getting built, and how much it'll cost. You know, Tridel is still advertising "future subway station" as a feature of Metrogate.
People need to continue berating the plan because it's an enormous waste of money that won't improve transit and we need to prevent similar disasters from occurring in the future. Getting Sheppard halted would be a worthy goal if the TTC actually cared about improving transit for riders and was willing to expand on wildly successful routes like the 190 (which, if the recent bus plan is any indication, it is not).
The public was told at said public meetings that the only opinions being gathered and considered were those pertaining to trivialities like the inclusion or exclusion of a couple of midblock stops. And only a tiny, tiny fraction of people in the city had even heard of these meetings or knew of where else to voice their opinion. Most people still have absolutely no idea what's getting built, what's not getting built, and how much it'll cost. You know, Tridel is still advertising "future subway station" as a feature of Metrogate.
People need to continue berating the plan because it's an enormous waste of money that won't improve transit and we need to prevent similar disasters from occurring in the future. Getting Sheppard halted would be a worthy goal if the TTC actually cared about improving transit for riders and was willing to expand on wildly successful routes like the 190 (which, if the recent bus plan is any indication, it is not).
Fresh Start
Banned
So public apathy's to blame? What about lack of a conscientious plan? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that something is being done. However the situation would be much better had the LRT idea incorporated some aspects such as partial grade-separation/ or side-of-roadway ROW or running it directly through a major hub en route- which feasibly a short diversion north or south would allow (MTC, SCC) where it can at least pick-up/drop-off a higher yield of people. Forcing a transfer from Markham/Sheppard to either node is a waste of commuter's time.
It's these minor but nonetheless critical flaws in the SELRT plan that make it inadequate.
Well you brought up my gender, so just clarifying. I don't however feel as though the subway is unwarranted. And if it is, how then can you explain away TYSSE, which will take decades before it meets capacity? If I was suggesting a Eglinton Line stretching from Erin Mills to Pickering, then yes you'd have a point, but the section from PIA to the DVP has a calculative high level of ridership, and would interconnect major points halfway across the city. Sheppard's no dfferent. Anyone suffering through long bus commutes down to Vic Park, Warden or Kennedy Stns today would appreciate transferring off from Sheppard. And as the years go by, more and more people would gradually convert to using the Sheppard subway. Can we expect the same results from the LRT? Money's not an issue. It's there already, just tied up in the inadequate projects.
In sum, I agree that it's not really worth my time to argue on this point any further with you; but you won't ever catch me using the SELRT for cross-city travel and methinks thousands will feel the same way once its a proven failure.