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Transit City is a half-assed plan to start with. People have mistaken it to be anything close to rapid transit, not to mention subways. Miller wanted to make it part of his legend, but if implemented, Toronto will be stuck with a half-efficient system for years.
For a system to work like a real rapid transit, it has to have the following features, no matter what is called (subway, LRT, streetcar, at grade, below grade, I don't care).
1) Do NOT stop for traffic signals. (or at least seldom. Otherwise, it is not really "rapid" transit)
2) separated from cars
3) Do NOT have a stop every 300 meters. The minimum distance should be 800m-1km in a suburban area such as North York or Scarborough.
Transit City only satisfies #2, I think.
I am so sick taking the 510 and 501 which stops at every red light, plus every 200 meters for one or two persons to get off. Heck, there is a Victoria st stop on 501, which is like 100 meters from Yonge stop. I have never seen anywhere else where transit stops so fr**king frequently. It takes forever for someone to go from Yonge/Queen to Trinity Bellwood, easily 30 minutes, slower than walking sometimes.
Transit City was a glorified streetcar plan IMO. I don't care how much cheaper it was.
Transit City was a glorified streetcar plan IMO. I don't care how much cheaper it was.
Slightly better than streetcar but I agree.
I think south of Eglinton between DVP and Dufferin, we need nothing but full underground subways. In the suburbs, if they want it cheap, then do the Vancouver style skytrain thing, I don't care, as long as it is separate from cars and doesn't stop for traffic lights. Otherwises, it is just like the 512.
EL. As in elevated. Damn iPad is always changing my spelling.
I guess the people in scarborough think they deserve a full subway, just like downtowners, and politicians are just willing to give them anything for the votes, no matter it makes sense or not.
Here is an idea, if someone wants a subway, why not move to a denser area where the density warrants a subway's immense costs to tunnel?
I believe people in Scarborough don't deserve a subway. When one chooses to live in a sparsely populated suburb for the low cost of houses, he should be ready for the negative consequences of bad transit to start with. You can't expect to have a 1800 sf single family house for 3 people, a backyard to bbq, a two car garage and then a subway stop 5 minutes from your door stop.
People in downtown have good subway access, but they don't live in big houses with yards and they certainly don't drive on a daily basis.
^^^^they want the best of all worlds. And Ford will give it to them to get their votes 'cause he knows the residents of the inner suburbs are his main constituency.
I think south of Eglinton between DVP and Dufferin, we need nothing but full underground subways. In the suburbs, if they want it cheap, then do the Vancouver style skytrain thing, I don't care, as long as it is separate from cars and doesn't stop for traffic lights. Otherwises, it is just like the 512.
I don't buy this "signal priority" thing at all.
Agree with this. ltr might be cheaper and sound good on paper but i dont like how they can still get caught in heavy snow,traffic accident delays, and other things on street level. going underground was always better to me. only thing is subways take forever to build, dig, and the $$$.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TOkidd
I wonder why they don't consider building El's in Scarborough. The roads are certainly wide enough to accommodate them.
Agree with this this too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by botticelli
what is EI??
elevated.... like in chicago. But i think elevated, long lrt lines in toronto outer suburbs should do the trick, just like the vancouver example you mentioned.
Although EL's are the ideal solution for the inner suburbs, I must admit that the Spadina and St. Clair RoW's aren't the worst. If they had less frequent stops along the proposed routes, they would be better than nothing, and better than subways which are simply not feasible and would bankrupt the city before the network could even be half-way completed. However, that's not to say that these new LRT lines have to be built on the St. Clair model. Other cities in Europe have implemented LRT lines very well. If we could find a way to make them work well at street level, I could be convinced to support them. Because I just don't see Toronto citizens and politicians backing elevated trains, and clearly something needs to be built, and it can't be subways.
Although EL's are the ideal solution for the inner suburbs, I must admit that the Spadina and St. Clair RoW's aren't the worst. If they had less frequent stops along the proposed routes, they would be better than nothing, and better than subways which are simply not feasible and would bankrupt the city before the network could even be half-way completed. However, that's not to say that these new LRT lines have to be built on the St. Clair model. Other cities in Europe have implemented LRT lines very well. If we could find a way to make them work well at street level, I could be convinced to support them. Because I just don't see Toronto citizens and politicians backing elevated trains, and clearly something needs to be built, and it can't be subways.
How about a mixed between the two? LRT's that "act" as subways...Similar to the middle underground portion of the Eglinton Crosstown. That I like. Or even underground bus tunnels would work with the long buses.
Besides the digging and other construction costs, is there a major cost difference between LRT's that act as subways underground and bus tunnels, and an actual subways? Seattle something like this in their downtown.
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