A new transit opportunity to dream about:Too screwball European!

[Are Be]

You guys are going to HATE this!
Printed from NOW Magazine Online Edition
http://www.nowtoronto.com
Back on the beaten track
A new transit opportunity to dream about

A new transit opportunity to dream about
•Take a look at the attached map and imagine how the way we live and work could be radically altered if electric light-rail vehicles ran on existing rail lines - the Stouffville line running through Scarborough, the Richmond Hill line conveniently tucked into the Don Valley, the Bradford line cutting through the heart of the city, the Georgetown line extending to the airport and the Lakeshore lines along the waterfront. Imagine, if you will, neighbourhoods connected by these arteries unencumbered by automobiles, without traffic lights, without gridlock.

Why it's a brilliant idea
• The city wouldn't have to spend millions on track infra structure - it's already there - or tear up established neighbourhoods to make room for the expansion.

• Our linear subway system would all of sudden reach out to those hard-to-get-to places in the inner suburbs, especially to west-enders and Scarberians notorious for bringing their cars downtown.

• The rail lines would connect all major work, transportation and tourism areas in the city - Harbourfront, the International Trade Centre, Pearson Airport, Union Station, etc.

• The plan would take a whack of cars off the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner.

A foundation for urban renewal
• Aside from attracting more riders to public transit, proponents say the plan would spur "smart growth" and intensification and create nodes in those under-utilized brownfields and industrial nooks and crannies development left behind. Read a larger tax base. It would also help rein in sprawl.

What detractors say
• Some routes lack the population densities to make the plan economically feasible.

• Tracks would have to be electrified to accommodate light-rail vehicles.

• The rail companies, which currently run freight trains on the lines, and the feds, who have safety concerns about freight and passenger trains running with greater frequency on the same line, would never go for it.

Why the idea isn't that far off track
• The city's Official Plan recommends protecting both the hydro and rail corridors for future possible transit uses. (Some lines have already been declared surplus by CN and CP.)

• Ridership is there. Ninety per cent of the population lives within 2 kilometres of railway rights of way.

• Freight traffic in these corridors is relatively insignificant and could be accommodated on existing lines further north, a bonus for rail companies since they would then be able to bypass speed and hazardous material restrictions imposed after the 1979 Mississauga train derailment.

• The concept was floated before in a 1995 Metro planning document and more recently by a consultant hired by the Toronto Board of Trade.

Will it fly? What the experts say

"While the land is more available, whether you'd get the kind of passenger volumes you need is the big question. Where there are real discussions happening on those lines is where there are linkages between GO Transit and the TTC. The key thing there is to make sure you're smart about where you put the stations. I know there are talks about St. Clair West, Caledonia and Dundas West."
Joe Mihevc Councillor and TTC commissioner

"Great idea. There should be light rail on those lines. No question people would use it. But the problem has always been getting priority on those lines. In Canada, freight has priority over people, and the federal government has been absolutely resistant to making any changes."
Howard Moscoe Councillor and TTC chair

"Way, way back when I knew what I was talking about, we recommended doing that with the Scarborough City Centre and an existing railway corridor with a high-speed streetcar. It would have been a pretty good service. But you're not going to get rid of railway freight, so if you want to buy up some of their corridors, you're going to have to give them back in kind, and that's big bucks."
Richard Soberman, professor emeritus, department of civil engineering, University of Toronto

"It has potential applications as a higher-speed connecting type of service that other TTC routes could intersect with. But one of the things we're always mindful of is that people connect with transit best when it's on the surface, on a street right where people walk, shop and go to restaurants."
Mitch Stambler, manager of service planning, TTC

"The problem we have here is that we have no regional body that can help coordinate and prioritize the issues and needs as they do in most other metropolitan areas like Montreal and Vancouver."
Michael Roschlau, president, Canadian Urban Transit Association


NOW Magazine Online Edition, VOL. 24 NO. 22
Jan 27 - Feb 3, 2005
Copyright © 2005 NOW Communications Inc.
story link: news_story3.php

[Are Be]

They've done somthing like this in Manchester, and in many European cities.

[KGB]

First of all...what's really screwball is the idea that are be reads Now. LOL!!




"Ridership is there. Ninety per cent of the population lives within 2 kilometres of railway rights of way."

A pretty meaningless stat in inner city mass transit speak...might as well be 200kms....the station proximity advantage falls off to practically nothing after 450 metres.

What we are proposing is some kind of quasi-commuter transit in the inner-city. Wasting huge sums of money to try and convert existing old freight train tracks to mass transit is stupid and will never be financially viable....much better to design mass transit specifically for that purpose.

I shouldn't say stupid...just very low priority when we can design real mass transit instead. This kind of scheme is highly compromising...why not do it right and be better off in the future?






KGB

[Homer J. Simpson]

Yeah, I too would not call it stupid but as KGB put it, it is a low priority.

[TRZ]

Originally Posted by Are Be

Why it's a brilliant idea
• The city wouldn't have to spend millions on track infra structure - it's already there - or tear up established neighbourhoods to make room for the expansion.

You are a total fool if you believe that for a second. Most of these corridors need money for more track as it is, especially if GO plans to expand its train service. The only one likely to get government money is the Georgetown GO corridor upto around E.North/Malton to link Pearson to Union. GO is ploughing money into laying more track on (the overcapacity) Lakeshore and new stations on the other one-track lines. Yes, one-track lines. Excluding the CP-owned tracks (they're smart and double-tracked), the non-Lakeshore rail corridors have large portions (often a majority) that have a single track servicing it. No need for track infrastructure? BS! The current infrastructure is arguably inadequate even for GO service. GO tries to run all day trains to Bramalea but the best they can do is run one train back and forth along the line because of the single (CN) track available from Toronto Junction to Etobicoke North. This is sad, because it would be really good for more trains since that corridor's 3 inner-city stations are not bus-serviceable (Union-bound, E.North gets North York-bound bus service) with E.North having a good amount of parking right smack at a highway junction.

Originally Posted by Are Be

• The rail lines would connect all major work, transportation and tourism areas in the city - Harbourfront, the International Trade Centre, Pearson Airport, Union Station, etc.

Hmm, I'm starting to think this is a government insider (or brown-noser) article as it is pimping the Georgetown corridor upto Malton... not mentioning any other corridors. Gee, why not just ignore York U. as there is no use in running train service between there and Union, god no!

Originally Posted by Are Be

• The plan would take a whack of cars off the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner.

No, it wouldn't, because you can't hit enough people at there point of origin. Park'n'ride is only attractive if its for a dynamic system (which means lots of destinations and very high frequency). GO stations are far apart because there isn't much to really stop at. There's a station at 404/DVP/401, as well as a subway station, and people still don't use it. People won't use it when running ELR along a valley railway that is alongside nothing but greenery (this is almost entirely one-track as well, btw) - it's actually a gem of Toronto IMO. It's almost worth a ride on the GO stretch between Oriole and Union for the scenery, as it doesn't look like city core even though that's where you are.

Originally Posted by Are Be

A foundation for urban renewal
• Aside from attracting more riders to public transit, proponents say the plan would spur "smart growth" and intensification and create nodes in those under-utilized brownfields and industrial nooks and crannies development left behind. Read a larger tax base. It would also help rein in sprawl.

Those lands are really hard to develop realistically, due to shape, access, and environment/surroundings. As such, the potential for the intensification these boys are thinking of is likely far from reality.

Originally Posted by Are Be

What detractors say
• Some routes lack the population densities to make the plan economically feasible.

I suggest riding any non-Lakeshore GO train except the Milton line. That'll be plenty to back up that statement.

Originally Posted by Are Be

• Tracks would have to be electrified to accommodate light-rail vehicles.

Here's an engineering nightmare. Those overhead wires are not going to like the exhaust from idling train engines that both GO and freight trains emit. BTW, where are these LRVs being parked and maintained? Existing yards are kinda full.

Originally Posted by Are Be

• The rail companies, which currently run freight trains on the lines, and the feds, who have safety concerns about freight and passenger trains running with greater frequency on the same line, would never go for it.

Certianly not CP, they'd totally have an over-my-dead-body stance. Again, much more track is needed to run frequent service on these corridors.

Originally Posted by Are Be

Why the idea isn't that far off track
• The city's Official Plan recommends protecting both the hydro and rail corridors for future possible transit uses. (Some lines have already been declared surplus by CN and CP.)

They just happen to sit in the middle of nowhere (like the center of the Don Valley) except for the Milton line and Lakeshore, both of which are still used well by the freight companies (Milton in particular) as well as GO (Lakeshore in particular).

Originally Posted by Are Be

• Ridership is there. Ninety per cent of the population lives within 2 kilometres of railway rights of way.

See KGB's post, I also question that stat, how far from the downtown core is this supposed to apply to? I'm VERY skeptical of the truth on that one closer to the city borders (not that it really matters since you're screwed by the half-km mark anyway).

Originally Posted by Are Be

• Freight traffic in these corridors is relatively insignificant and could be accommodated on existing lines further north, a bonus for rail companies since they would then be able to bypass speed and hazardous material restrictions imposed after the 1979 Mississauga train derailment.

Define insignificant. The midtown (Milton) corridor is not insignificant freight traffic. It is true that some of the lines are hardly used (northbound GO corridors mainly), but the good ones are used, gee who knew?

Originally Posted by Are Be

"Great idea. There should be light rail on those lines. No question people would use it. But the problem has always been getting priority on those lines. In Canada, freight has priority over people, and the federal government has been absolutely resistant to making any changes."
Howard Moscoe Councillor and TTC chair

I agree that this is a really bad attitude on the federal government's part. People lose money in traffic which means lost productivity for the economy and its related factors. Goods don't have productivity to lose (as they are inanimate, mostly (livestock or complex machines would be valid exceptions, but are a rather small portion of freight goods AFAIK), so they should wait and let the people go first. Not to say that timely transport of goods is not important, it is, but the greater metro areas need the passenger priority more than freight goods, especially since there are northern by-passes for CN (around Steeles).

This is not a viable suggestion.
One of the councilors and TTC commissioners has the right idea about prioritising connections between existing services - although wrong about the idea that people would use this, that potential is too limited to be realistic. Improvements need to be made at a number of currently existing stations though, quite badly in some cases, and these should be addressed before applying more extreme uses to the corridors.

[Roch5220]

Good find are be.

[Are Be]

At least it is realistic:
1, can be built in meaningful phases between elections
2, goes to 905
3, by following existing railway lines (which tend to be riding boundaries) the chance of any given line going through more than one big - time cabinet minister's riding are very good.
4, It is certain that an LRT based on existing rights of ways would hit a number of senior and junior cabinet ministers and secretaries of state (gee, wonder why that would help... :lol lol )
5, Costs a TINY fraction of subways.
6, Connects with various subway lines.
7, gives 416 a real deal, transit system worthy of Europe
8, not a camera crew from Monster Machines or Frontiers of Construction to be found!
9, the basis of the technology - the streetcar - well over 100 years old, overhead wires, well lover 150 years old, electric trains - around 120 years old.
10 Connects high density areas that are currently terribly under serviced with downtown and the rest of the city.
PROBLEM: TOO SCREWBALL EUROPEAN !!! NO! WE CANNOT HAVE THIS! I KNOW - TOO FREAKING SENSIBLE!

[TRZ]

Originally Posted by Are Be

At least it is realistic:

There's nothing realistic about a system people that isn't going to get ridership from running service on infrastructure that isn't in the IMMEDIATE vicinity of high-use areas. These tracks run through industrial areas and backyards, they don't cut along major thoroughfares and shopping districts, they can't, [the trains are] too big! The only time this really changes is south of Bloor, and in Mississauga around Dundas East (<- as I've said before, this route would actually probably work, it has unusually good qualities for a freight railway, but you'll NEVER wrestle this away from CP, it'd destroy them to lose it since they have no alternate route (unlike CN)).

Originally Posted by Are BE

1, can be built in meaningful phases between elections
2, goes to 905

1: I don't know why you have such a hard time understanding this: THE TRACK SPACE IS NOT THERE!!! YOU NEED TONS OF INFRASTRUCTURE! YOU CANNOT RUN THIS KIND OF SERVICE WITH ONLY ONE TRACK AVAILABLE! Ride the blasted GO Trains and look for yourself (or take the SRT and take a look at the Stouffville tracks from there). Check both sides' windows! See another set of tracks on either side of you?! If you're not riding Lakeshore or Milton, then the answer is NO!!! usually.
2: Not with your 2km to a set of tracks rule. Now you are just being inconsistent.

Originally Posted by Are Be

5, Costs a TINY fraction of subways.
6, Connects with various subway lines.
7, gives 416 a real deal, transit system worthy of Europe

5: With the amount of infrastructure you'd have to lay to accomodate: Freight, GO, and the new service, you'd need a bloody fortune. Might as well spend it on a subway, it'll last longer and probably be cheaper to maintain since it won't suffer under the weather (biggest cost to rail operators in Britain: removing leaves from tracks in autumn) - let's not even talk about snow.
6: GO already connects to all subway lines, as the SRT connection will be opening soon at Kennedy. Nothing new, wake up.
7: That's a joke, both the idea itself and the fact that you take it seriously. Besides, we shouldn't be looking at European systems: most of them are non-profitable. Asia is where the profitable transit systems are. I know you don't dig asians, that's OK, I can understand that everybody has different tastes, but know a good model when you see one .


3,4, 8, and 9 make no sense.

as for 10, the much better answer to that is to provide more GO Train serivce outside the Lakeshore, particularly between Bramalea and Union (personal recommendation: add a very small (0.5 km?) underground extention off of a freight tail's dead-end track to service Bramalea CC by GO Train).


Are Be, why don't you actually defend your arguments and try to crush ours? You just ignore them and try to post something new, although it is really just regurgitation. Why not defend what you say, unless you give up so easy?

[KGB]

" Costs a TINY fraction of subways."


Considering the amount of infastructure, the CAPITAL costs alone would be enormous. The operational and maitenance costs would be ridiculous too.

And based on a cost per rider, it would be much higher than subways.






" goes to 905"

Could go to the moon...who cares "where" it goes...it's about putting money to good use for public transit ridership...just "going" to somewhere doesn't mean anything.






"Connects with various subway lines."

Really??? Where??? These stations are going to be sharing stations ala Bloor/Yonge, Sheppard/Yonge, Spadina, St George???






"Connects high density areas that are currently terribly under serviced with downtown and the rest of the city."

They would actually have the worse ridership proximity figures of any transit mode....because it is located on train lines specifically put there to be away from high density.

Subway and LRT stations/stops require significant "walk-in" business. It also requires significant "feeder" business as well. The proposed "pretend people are freight" lines will have little of either. Where's it's customers coming from...Kiss'n Ride parking lots?



What is it that compells people to latch on to these "easy" solutions for public transit, when it is so clearly not the case? Why do people think there is a short-cut...and why do people think these shortcuts are the best way to go about installing public transit?






KGB

[M II A II R II K]

If it's too much trouble then perhaps they could work on bus only lanes within already existing highways and perhaps make the highways wider if need be.

Maybe even double up the gardiner and have a 2nd level above it that can be express or something. Which would also allow more bus only lanes.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

If it's too much trouble then perhaps they could work on bus only lanes within already existing highways and perhaps make the highways wider if need be.

Maybe even double up the gardiner and have a 2nd level above it that can be express or something. Which would also allow more bus only lanes.

!!!!!!!

Might as well double the height of the Gardiner because we're never going to get rid of it!

[M II A II R II K]

Yes, more use out of the already existing infrastructure. But if they won'r get rid of the Gardiner, then maybe just add some underground sections downtown that branch off of it.

[Are Be]

There is a right of way just waiting for a streetcar LRT underneath the Gardiner -- now, that would be NUTS!

Screwy enough to suggest taking an LRT up to Rexdale, Woodbine Centre, Woodbine Racetrack and to Brampton and have it go to Union Station with a stop at Dundas West, but to further make use of already existing rights of way, such as hydro rights of way and the one under the Gardiner is -- quite frankly -- far too European for us.

As KGB said, why would anybody at all in Rexdale or Brampton want to go downtown? Clearly, these people who cannot afford to live along Bloor Street don't deserve good transit. Frak 'em if they aren't wealthy enough to raise a family in the Annex or the Beach -- never mind Bloor West Village or Lawrence Park.

[KGB]

"As KGB said, why would anybody at all in Rexdale or Brampton want to go downtown? "


Please...please confine your lieing bullshit to yourself...do not put words in my mouth.

And stop this Euro-worship nonsense. Euro cities have so much commuter train travel because they have sprawl worse than we do, and car ownership is far more restrictive there than here. The reason they have worse sprawl than we do, is because their dense and lovely historic city centres/downtowns are not anywhere near as affordable as Toronto's.





KGB

[Buster]

Originally Posted by Are Be

Clearly, these people who cannot afford to live along Bloor Street don't deserve good transit.

Ha! Ha!

Bloor between Shaw and Dundas West is pretty damn cheap.

If you's ain't into urban living, move out to the ex-urbs my boy. If you can handle the unpredictability of urban living, with all our crackwhores and good public transit, then join us!

[Are Be]

Toronto-- such a great city! Fantastic, even. A city full of people who were not born in this country, never mind city! A great city indeed! With SOARING real estate prices. With a population that cannot afford to live downtown. Even if, by international standards, downtown Toronto is dirt cheap, Canadians get paid in Canadian pesos, not US dollars or British pounds. Further, real deal Canadian incomes have been stagnating in the face of inflation (and tax increases), and especially in the face of soaring real estate costs. As a result, never mind the international factors (well, at least Trump will get bought up-- but KGB said 100% correct re wacky prices of real estate in European downtown's) the fact is that more and more Canadian cannot afford to raise families downtown.

Downtown is for singles, couples, gays, empty nesters and the uber wealthy -- not for average Joe and Jane and their two kids. Too expensive! (Same, by the way, is Europe of London, Paris, etc. Little aside: there are many 'pied a tere (sp?) in London and Paris-- people from out f town who have their 'cottage'' in the city-- this is starting to happen in Toronto.

POINT: Downtown Toronto, like many inner cities in Europe, is prohibitively expensive. We need better transit -- there's just no 'not dealing', only 'dealing'. The arguments KGB raises are equally applicable to Toronto - an we need grand scale transit improvement. Too bad we have to settle for what is politically (eletoraly) and fiscally possible. No doubt we can all see that we need more than one major subway every 25 years. We better figure out why it takes so freaking long to build transit infrastructure, and do something about it! [/quote]

[salvius]

^ no, even in Canadian $ considering that it is a major NA city, the prices are still cheap. Don't you get tired of this!!!!!????

PS: downtown isn't the only part of Toronto. There are other places that are urban, connected to good PT, and have fairly affordable real estate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Are Be]

Originally Posted by salvius

^ no, even in Canadian $ considering that it is a major NA city, the prices are still cheap. Don't you get tired of this!!!!!????

PS: downtown isn't the only part of Toronto. There are other places that are urban, connected to good PT, and have fairly affordable real estate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, you put up the 500K to compensate between prices between Brampton and 416!

[Roch5220]

Are Be. You should be careful cause someone who doesn't know you may take you seriously.

[Are Be]

That would be wacked-- trying to promote European transit in Toronto -- CRAZY!