Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

[Ansem]

Did you really need to quote the entire article?

old habit dies hard

 

[Second_in_pie]

Tessema would welcome any improvements to his commute.

Which would also include a subway. The only people that'd benefit more from LRT than subway are people out past Markham road, which I think we can all agree is a hilariously small demographic of Sheppard's ridership.

 

[nfitz]

Which would also include a subway.

I'm sure he would ... but given that he is looking at 15-km of his current route being replaced by LRT, then it would cost over $4.5-billion to build this as subway. I expect that the poor guy would have retired by the time the subway gets to Meadowvale!

Anyway, as there are no plans to build a subway, I don't see how that is relevant to this thread. Perhaps that should be in one of the fantasy threads ...

 

[Second_in_pie]

I'm sure he would ... but given that he is looking at 15-km of his current route being replaced by LRT, then it would cost over $4.5-billion to build this as subway. I expect that the poor guy would have retired by the time the subway gets to Meadowvale!

You know very well that I was talking about an extension to STC, which would have benefitted him a lot as well.

But I was mostly trying to point out that this one person is being said to appreciate any better service, which I'm sure is reasonable. You should be happy for a better service, but the real question is how good a service is needed? Why would you build the LRT if Subway is actually what's needed for the corridor?

Anyway, as there are no plans to build a subway, I don't see how that is relevant to this thread. Perhaps that should be in one of the fantasy threads ...

There were plans to build a subway up until 2007, which existed for over a decade.

This thread is about the Sheppard East LRT, and I think discussion about whether LRT is the proper choice for the corridor is quite valid.

I have to be honest, I'm starting to wonder if you're just trolling every single day on here.

 

[Fresh Start]

This is a joke right? So many things are wrong with this picture.

Bus riders looking forward to Sheppard LRTThe volume of commuters was also a surprise.

I was expecting a packed bus of my high school and university days where people were stuffed into the bus and spilled over the white line and practically onto the back steps, but that never materialized. Maybe that's what the ride is like earlier in the morning or maybe the TTC has addressed those conditions by adding more buses, either way the bus got full, but not stuffed.

Gary Carr appears to be very ignorant of transit if he thinks these are optimal conditions for higher-order. The very fact that only a handful of people boarded the bus from east of Morningside should have inferred to him, the project manager of all people, that there is no real basis for LRT. In fact there's no basis for even limited-stop bus service because the ridership per trip is far too low for that to be cost-effective. These aren't just off-peak conditions either, this is the typical rider turnout throughout the day.

It wasn't until McCowan Road before a significant number of people got on (17) or off (12).

These are significant numbers? How much more is to be expected of an LRT that'll run at reduced frequencies?

Reducing the number of lanes of vehicle traffic might slow down the non-TTC user's commute, which could help make the LRT a more attractive option and reduce the number of cars on the road (increasing ridership and decreasing the harm to our air).

Or redistribute motorists onto parallel arterials such as Milner or Nugget/McLevin, turning quiet suburbia into a pedestrian unfriendly maelstrom. Or add to traffic congestion and gridlock along the 401.

She's usually boarding an eastbound bus around 5 or 5:30 p.m. (it differs depending on whether she takes the subway to Don Mills station) during the height of rush hour and it takes her an hour to an hour and a half to get to Midland Avenue, compared with the 30 minutes it takes to do the reverse in the morning.

Of course the 85A would now be short-turned permanently at Don Mills so if she uses that method her commute time will now be even longer. There's also the dubious reasoning behind using a 85 bus which serves all stops en route over transferring onto the 190 Rocket express which also goes to Sheppard/Midland (the TTC can always add in this stop).

The LRT will be able to carry 3,000 people in a single direction at peak time - it's difficult to compare that to bus capacity because the TTC needs to make transit a more attractive option to attract more riders, said Carr, so it could add more buses to increase capacity, but that wouldn't guarantee anyone would be on them.

And now for the biggest codswallop of them all. BRT can accomodate up to 5000pphpd. Why does Toronto have to pay more for less capacity when Bus Rapid Transit is no less capable of signal priority, queue jumping, all-door boarding and reduced environmental impact? Am I supposed to be impressed by the shotty reasoning that the LRT's "attractiveness" will draw larger crowds ergo we must go forth with it, no matter how many other viable alternatives exist out there (subway to SCC via Agincourt, parallel express BRT along F.H.C.to the Zoo, Midtown GO corridor through Malvern Centre)? Believe you me, if there was no Sheppard Subway Line, there would be zero discussion of any form of rapid transit whatsoever along a corridor which only fetches a grand total of 28,000 rider per weekday. In a word: dismal.

 

[nfitz]

You know very well that I was talking about an extension to STC, which would have benefitted him a lot as well.

I have no idea which of your off-topic fantasies you were referring to ... either way it's $billions more than there's money for, so your not offering him a choice between A and B. Your offering him A or sweet-fudge all.

There were plans to build a subway up until 2007, which existed for over a decade.

For closer than 2 decades ... it sat there, with phase 2 ready to build with funding, and not 1-cent of funding was offered by anyone. Then it was changed to LRT, and suddenly it was 100% funded by senior governments.

Turning around and looking for funding for the very same project that no one was willing to fund for 2 decades has got to be the just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen a group of people do since Jonestown!

As no one is really that stupid, the only conclusion I can draw that anyone suggesting that subway be reinstated is merely a Nimby who is more concerned about losing a lane for their cars.

 

[Second_in_pie]

I have no idea which of your off-topic fantasies you were referring to ... either way it's $billions more than there's money for, so your not offering him a choice between A and B. Your offering him A or sweet-fudge all.

Seriously, did your true love get hit by a subway or something? Why is it suddenly so unreasonable for the city to actually be building Rapid Transit instead of glorified streetcars that'll be costing a billion dollars, yet will be showing but half of the benefits of LRT?

For closer than 2 decades ... it sat there, with phase 2 ready to build with funding, and not 1-cent of funding was offered by anyone. Then it was changed to LRT, and suddenly it was 100% funded by senior governments.

Heard of something called Move Ontario 2020? It's true that nobody was willing to fund it. In fact, nobody was willing to fund anything that started with a t- and ended in -ransit. This is an excellent time for the City and Region to pick up on continuing to expand the RT network, but we're squandering this opportunity so we can get streetcars chugging along pretty little European avenues. If the city asked for the DRL, Sheppard, Eglinton, the B-D extension, etc, we most certainly would have gotten it. There's still a bunch of money that can come out of Metrolinx and further future provincial and federal funding (probably federal.)

As no one is really that stupid, the only conclusion I can draw that anyone suggesting that subway be reinstated is merely a Nimby who is more concerned about losing a lane for their cars.

Ok, well then you're wrong. I don't own a car, don't ever plan to. I only pass Sheppard once or twice a month on the bus on McCowan down to STC, and otherwise the only time that I go on it is to transfer to the Sheppard Subway or shop at Fairview Mall! Yet there's a pretty long list of things that I'd do to convince the city that we should be building subways instead of Streetcars.

 

[nfitz]

Seriously, did your true love get hit by a subway or something?

Why are you asking this? I use the subway every day.

Why is it suddenly so unreasonable for the city to actually be building Rapid Transit instead of glorified streetcars that'll be costing a billion dollars, yet will be showing but half of the benefits of LRT?.

Have you not read this thread? It has been explained in detail why it's not feasible.

Heard of something called Move Ontario 2020?

No, I haven't heard of it; perhaps you could explain it to me.

Ok, well then you're wrong. I don't own a car, don't ever plan to.

And yet you are trying so hard to sabotage transit in this city. Did your true love jump in front of a CLRV?

 

[Second_in_pie]

Have you not read this thread? It has been explained in detail why it's not feasible.

Interesting, because I recall pages and pages of discussion as to how it is very feasible. In fact, the only major anti-subway proponent in this thread is you. Everyone else has noted how subway could easily be built for $250 million with straight tunnel boring, making Sheppard's full cost no more than $2 billion in total. This number could very well be lower, so it's less than a billion dollars more expensive than the current LRT. The subway to Agincourt, if you're mimicking the route of the SELRT perfectly, would probably be close to, if not cost-neutral with the LRT.
However, if you look at the number of people it would have a great benefit to versus the LRT, you might see that subway benefits many, many times more people than the LRT will. Not to mention that we're one of the richest cities in one of the richest countries in the world, it's hardly true that we don't have room to "indulge" in lavish European subway (and I hardly consider Sheppard, Eglinton and the DRL "indluging.")

No, I haven't heard of it; perhaps you could explain it to me.

Well, one upon a time, there was a great man named Dalton McGunity who became Premier of a fine Province called Ontario. Looking back on the years of his predecessor, which were strewn with budget cuts and project cancellations, he decided that it would be important to jumpstart infrastructure in the Province, especially transit, which hadn't seen any notable expansion anywhere in almost 30 years. So he decided to generously give billions of dollars of government money to fund dozens upon dozens of projects throughout the GGH, the front of the province's growth. He also created a board to help revolutionize transit in the region by managing and helping fund all the projects that would happen to get the GGH back on track.
As all the cities jumped on this plan, the Toronto mayor, David Miller, decided that instead of getting the much-needed rapid transit infrastructure the city needed, he would instead campaign to run streetcars along arterials that neatly intersected every ward of the city, which one might assume would give him all the votes in the city for years to come! So instead of getting funding for projects we were cut short of in the past, such as the B-D extensions, Eglinton subway, DRL, and Sheppard extensions, we got pretty little "European-style LRTs," which were sold as being several times less expensive than LRT but able to provide the same level of service.
Now I'd like to tell you that LRT is most definitely not a replacement for subway. The traditional use for the LRT that is being built now for transit city is as a supplement to existing RT routes. They're essentially souped-up bus services, but Transit City was put on the same level as subways and RTs, still being sold as costing significantly less than a subway.

I'm sure you've heard that story before, haven't you?

And yet you are trying so hard to sabotage transit in this city. Did your true love jump in front of a CLRV?

I'm just being a responsible citizen. I know how important subways are for the city, and I know that we need to make sure the city gets the infrastructure it needs. Especially since having a proper network inside Toronto will mean better and more efficient transit throughout the GTA, I figure it's important for me to do this.

And no, my true love did in fact not jump in front of a CLRV. You might have wanted to pick a new metaphor/line, but I've said it before, I have absolutely nothing against streetcars/LRT. In fact, I'd love to see LRT along Finch, Jane, and all the current streetcar routes upgraded further, essentially up to LRT standards.
You, however, seem to be against subway in every way, shape or form. I'd originally call you defeatist by the way you continue to say "funding's there, there's no way you can stop it so why try," but the way you directly oppose the Yonge and Spadina extensions, I have to say you really have something in for subways, or at least hold atrociously high standards for how and where we should build them.

 

[kEiThZ]

No need to enter debates with nfitz. We have our plan let's beaver away.

 

[urbanboom]

OK, the reality is, The Sheppard LRT is what's being built, and I'd like to know some relevant information on it. Perhaps one day, we can all aspire to a future where I can check this thread and no one has entered a philosophical debate on the death of loved ones by the means of transit vehicles. Is it too much ask for the Sheppard LRT thread to be about the planning and construction of the Sheppard LRT? It might be, judging by my pretentiousness radar.

Honestly, I can sum up all infrastucture threads for the past month like this:
Ansem, Pie, Keithz, Starwars: ME NO LIKE LRT. ME LIVE IN SCARBOROUGH AND ME LIKE SUBWAY TO GET TO WORK. I A VICTIM!
nfitz, kettal: YOU ALL FOOLS. YOU WATCH TOO MUCH TRANSIT PORN.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

The quality of this forum has really gone downhill because of it. Repeating the same arguments, (why thank you, Ansem, for telling me the speed of Transit City. It's only been like the 245924875982745th time you've said this today!) get boring.

The transport thread is now worse than the CNN's Crossfire used to be. And it's pretty hard to be worse then that. (Ps. do any of you wear bowties as you type this? In my head you do, just like Tucker Carlson). It's where the trolls come out the play and pretend to be "victimized".

I'll be back when the talking heads stop and something meaningful starts. Subways are just going to start fall from the sky, and TC won't be the second coming. Can we breath and stop pretending that Toronto will turn into Mogadishu because of the current transit policy? I invite you to re-read the posts you've make in the past few weeks ands ask yourselves, "What the hell am I really saying?" once you figure that out could you report back to me and tell me, cause I sure as hell can't tell. "Save our Subways"? Yeah, like David Miller himself will one day show up in a hockey mask and chain- saw and will one by one destroy TTC stations with the strip-mall activists in them! (That'd make a good movie plot, though). The mellow-drama and self-importance by certain individuals here is ridiculous. You're an internet anon writing things that haven't already been thought before; the city won't end if your way isn't selected.

I might be the first to say it, but I doubt I'm the first to think it and I doubt that reaction to this will we great... but then again, I'm a shit-disturber. Now, I'm going to bed.

I look forward to hearing about SHEPPARD, as opposed to Transit Mein Kampf regurgitated each post. Thank you.

 

[nfitz]

Everyone else has noted how subway could easily be built for $250 million with straight tunnel boring, making Sheppard's full cost no more than $2 billion in total.]

That sentance doesn't even make any sense. With over 1000 posts in this thread, your position is that everyone poster has said that it could be built for $250-million a kilometre? I'm calling bullshit! These masturbatory fantasies have to stop! There's no way that you can build 8-km of subway for $2-billion. And even if you could the budget is only about $1-billion.

We have our plan let's beaver away.

Kinky ... get a room.

Nothing will come of this SOS silliness ... and when you all grow up and move out of the basement you'll understand that. And I'll happily bet $100 that the Sheppard LRT will not be cancelled and replaced, or partially replaced by subway to Agincourt, before 2015.

Urbanboom's comments are quite valid. Take you little games to an appropriate fantasy thread.

 

[kEiThZ]

nfitz,

I think you missed the point of urbanboom's post.

---

urbanboom,

You will notice I was not party to this argument and have urged other SOS members to avoid taking the bait from nfitz.

We have our threads. We have our ambitions and we have our plans. We'll stick to those.

 

[nfitz]

I think you missed the point of urbanboom's post.

No I didn't ... I share the same frustration; which is why I keep encouraging those advocating the cancelling of the project which is the subject of this thread to take it somewhere else.

 

[rbt]

The other point alluded to in that article is the need for segregated lanes. That's the real benefit of LRT. But do we need to spend hundred of millions of dollars to get that?

I understand the VIVA BRT is going to cost on the order of $1.2B in addition to what they have already spent on queue-jump lanes/minor widenings. So it seems yes, we do need hundreds of millions to do that for BRT or LRT.

Might as well go LRT if the capital cost is in the same ballpark as you at least get operational/capacity efficiencies from much larger vehicles.