gricer1326

Waterloo Region is actually closer to 500,000 people at present. They're building a single rapid transit corridor that will act as the spine of their transit system. You're suggesting a pair of local streetcar lines for Ajax that connect residential north with industrial south and feed the GO station, not that enable fast and reliable travel across Durham. A Highway 2 LRT would be much more analogous, and that's something I'm be way quicker to support

Fair enough. Admittedly I'm not that familiar with travel patterns in Ajax so I'll take your word for it that each of those corridors is busy. That being said, are they busy enough to warrant a rail service? Both corridors at once, even when they're only about 1.25 km apart in most places? The TTC LRT lines are at least 4 km apart and they have way higher ridership than anything in Durham. Also I took the median average of the distance between all the stations you have planned and it's only 378.5 m. Light rail really shouldn't be stopping any more than 450 m, especially not in low-density suburbs, otherwise you might as well put it in mixed traffic and call it a streetcar. Would that be more convenient than improving the bus service that already exists and through-routing it to the industrial areas you intend to serve? Unless buses aren't able to handle passenger loads (an unlikely scenario given that none of them run at a frequency in excess of 15 minutes), I'd say probably not. Getting approval for such a cost-ineffective project would be nearly impossible, as it should be.

Actually it would be a very expensive catalyst. Building stations, upgrading track, buying vehicles and running those vehicles near-empty for years wouldn't exactly be a cheap way to spur redevelopment. Besides a lot of that industrial land looks like it's seeing industrial use and I can't find any official plans to redevelop the area online. Perhaps you guys know more about it than I do, so if that's the case I'd like to get my hands on that info. Now it could be the case that part of 409 Thornton's fantasy plan is to have that area redeveloped by the time trains start running but I didn't see them mention it.

Just cause it's a fantasy map thread doesn't mean we should be dreaming up proposals that are unreasonable enough to get laughed out of a planning department. Sure we all want a service that runs to our front door (so to speak), but how does that fit into the big picture? What's the point of making the suggestion if the resources to do it aren't available or can't be allocated without negatively impacting existing service? Transit planning is about more than just drawing lines on a map.

At that point I can't help thinking that making it a rail service is a little overkill.

30 minute frequencies seem really low for such a short route. Considering how much existing track it uses would I be correct in assuming it runs with DLRVs?

For that purpose yes, however given the extreme amounts of cynicism and suspicion most of the population has when it comes to transit spending in this city, and just as much the lack of political will to do anything about it, that would be one hell of an undertaking. Especially building on-street loops for short turns, can you imagine the NIMBYism that would result from such a project? Obviously it would be a hell of a lot easier if the 29 was split in half south of Bloor but unfortunately it's not and there are way more through-riders on Dufferin than Bathurst which reduces the attractiveness of the split. In fact when the TTC was studying possibilities for new streetcar routes in the 90s I believe they kiboshed Dufferin south of Bloor for that (among other) reason(s). All in all I think a more useful solution for Dufferin, and a more achievable, less intrusive one would be to use articulated trolleybuses that can accelerate faster and climb the route's many hills easier. At least for now. Eventually I would for sure hope to see track along the street's entire length, but for now I can't see such a thing being realistic.

As long as we're talking about streetcar maps, I figure I might as well post one of mine. Reading it should be pretty intuitive, but in case it's not here's a legend: Red for streetcar routes, Blue for trolley bus routes, light blue and pink lines are non-revenue mileage for their respective systems. This map does not take into account the DRL (although it does take into account the FWLRT/Line 6, how about that eh?). I will probably be making one that does in the future. https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1ixZON9hAByDUlffD8HQv-_xqEXk

Why Gunns? Earlscourt would be a hell of a lot closer. Dufferin Station would still be the better option though. I can see Bay being a streetcar route. Again, lot of construction required for it, especially connecting it to Union. Not sure about the others. The TTC has long proposed building a streetcar line along Fort York/Bremner Boulevard, which I think would be a tad more useful than a Front route. I wouldn't worry about the safety of downtown -- Toronto is already the safest city in North America, and downtown even more so. If you want to improve safety/decrease crime, I'd focus on the suburbs, cause that's where a lot of quality of life issues arise.

New streetcar alignments are tricky. I wouldn't do Church. It's quite close to Yonge (which has both a rapid transit route AND a surface route) and there's no logical northern terminal I can think of where you could run it to. I could go for Dufferin as it's got the highest ridership of the three corridors you mentioned but you'd have to build a lot of track and probably an off-street surface terminal at Bloor. Now that Kent P.S. is surplus and up for sale there's definitely available land, but it would be a really expensive corner to build on for sure (unless you sell the air rights like at 45 Bay but whatever). A lot of passengers on Dufferin also tend to be travelling long-distance to destinations on or near Dufferin itself so splitting the route at Bloor (or anywhere else) may not serve that need too well at all. TL;DR cost/benefit doesn't look great due to the amount of construction needed and the nature of ridership may not support such a project. Parliament could be done as well but it only became a full-service route relatively recently and still has a lot of room to grow. With the redevelopment of Regent Park and the east end of Downtown/the Distillery/Portlands, this could happen quite quickly. Most of the track is already in place, of course, which is a major plus. Again, though, Parliament has the same problem as Church - where do you put the northern terminal? I can't see track being laid around the Castle Frank bus loop too easily. Nor can I see it going anwhere near Sherbourne station. The bridge that carries Bloor over the Rosedale Ravine should have a lower deck on it for transit just like the Prince Edward Viaduct, so you could hypothetically have cars dip underground and run across that deck into a terminal at subway platform level. That would be hella cool, but finding a place for the entrance ramp will probably be near-impossible and the whole thing probably way too expensive anyway. But in 20-30 years who knows? I realize I've probably overthought this and been way too cynical about expanding surface rail, but that's what I do. Obviously I'm just as amateur as everyone else here so take my rambling with a grain of salt.

There are three major problems I can see with any kind of transit service along Dundas east of Broadview (or Eastern Ave. for that matter). 1. Narrow street width (one traffic lane + bike lane + occasional turn lanes). 2. Lack of major trip generators. Both Dundas and Eastern run through pretty quiet residential areas that are already well-served by nearby streetcar routes. Furthermore, there's nothing much along either street that would require increased transit service -- Dundas even has residential garages facing it at one point. 3. Proximity to other major routes. The 501 and 506 are each 400m from Dundas, both running at a higher capacity and frequency than would be available on Dundas. An interesting proposal for sure, but probably not a great idea at present. There's not enough demand to warrant any more than limited service along Dundas or Eastern, and at wider headways it could frequently end up being faster to walk to Gerrard or Queen and get on a more-frequent 501 or 506 streetcar instead.

HELL YEAH! Ari for Mayor! Sure, but remember that York, Durham and Peel aren't part of Toronto. Regional connectivity is definitely a good thing and it should be improved, but it isn't Toronto's responsibility to plan and fund parts of transit systems for other municipalities. The TTC's bus routes that run into York Region are funded by YRT and require YRT fares. They are essentially YRT routes that use TTC vehicles. I don't at all mean to sound selfish and isolationist but we have many more pressing problems to address within the City of Toronto itself before running more transit through the 905 is even a possibility, and we shouldn't be thinking about doing so unless the 905 writes up their own proposal and comes up with the cash.

The Smart Track proposal basically involves running what are basically subway trains on mainline railroad tracks. I believe the germans pioneered the concept - they call it S-Bahn.

Vaughan paid for their share of it. The TTC portion of the line was a wise investment in that it intercepts the 36 and 60 before they get to Yonge and removes any trace of the 196 from existence, easing traffic congestion and improving commute times for tens of thousands of people. Nobody in this city gets anything more than they are willing to pay for. I get the impression that the great majority of Scarborough wants a subway for free, or rather at the expense of every other part of the city. A Sheppard extension means less high-quality transit for the rest of the city, for example likely no Finch LRT - are the residents of Finch West now so far down the fabricated class ladder that they deserve nothing?. Like you said, it all comes down to density. Vaughan is attempting to significantly boost its density by creating a satellite downtown at its end of the subway that will in turn boost ridership. Sheppard isn't even close to being that dense, or aiming to be, and therefore LRT is what it gets because that is the appropriate solution for the corridor. It's got nothing to do with downtown elites conspiring to deprive suburban residents of good transit and more to do with educated planners trying to prevent our various suburbs from depriving each other of good transit. The Sheppard line should just have been LRT from day 1, if it had been the whole thing would have been finished a decade ago. A sheppard extension to what is currently Downsview station would do next to nothing for Yonge relief because it sends Sheppard commuters far out of their way when trying to get downtown (14 stations to downtown directly down Yonge as opposed to 17 via Sheppard and Spadina and a significantly greater distance). There needs to be some kind of relief east of Yonge, at least as far north as Eglinton that diverts passengers and gets them to the core faster. Sure one-seat rides are nice and they get you from point to point more easily but they don't improve service to such a great degree that the interlining is actually worth doing. People whinge and whine about transfers but when trains arrive every 3 minutes you really don't have a hell of a lot to worry about in the first place. Basically recreating the interlined service of 1966 would be a lot of hassle for not a whole lot of benefit and thus it isn't done.

Obviously electrified suburban rail is a good idea, but the plan itself to me seems like a crayon drawing.

Oh goddamn. I suppose my post-debate headache affected my judgement and capacity to actually read the forum to make sure I wasn't double-posting.

Hey CPTDB, Curious as to what board members think of the transit plans of the main contenders for mayor in Toronto. I have a good guess as to what the perspectives will be, but I'm interested to hear different perspectives and possibly be informed of things I may have missed or misjudged. Happy mudslinging!

I thought about reviving the Bloor-Danforth interlining in place of a DRL a few times but there are two major problems I've identified with this, both of which I suspect contributed to the demise of the original interlining; 1. Any delays on the Bloor-Danforth or Yonge-University lines will snarl the entire system. Even with ATO. 2. Train frequencies on Bloor-Danforth west of Bloor/Yonge and on the Spadina line would need to be reduced to accommodate technological limitations with train control/signalling systems and overall to keep service on the interlined portions reliable. A few other things; As I'm sure you know, the Scarborough RT uses dimensionally and technologically different rolling stock from the rest of the subway and thus can't be used for any extensions east. Additionally, Kennedy faces due east at a right angle to the SRT line to Ellesmere and beyond. BOTH Ellesmere and Midland do not need stations. McCowan station is not needed. Milner by itself will do just fine. A station at Senlac doesn't make much sense because there's nothing to serve in the area, really. Faywood and Sheppard is more densely built up and makes a much better station location. Also you left out North York Centre station