The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[gunnar777]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Co-operation among the agencies is an obvious problem in Toronto however, studies become obsolete quickly in a rapidly changing city like Toronto. They need to be fairly current to get the most bang for your buck.

Good point, but obviously, the vast majority of other similar-sized cities have found a way to overcome this obsolescence problem and forged ahead. How do you propose Toronto do the same?

[niwell]

Originally Posted by gunnar777

^^I'm glad you asked. What I have seen outside of Toronto is that when one system goes down, others are modified to help pick up the slack. As GO owns enough corridor to run unimpeded weekend trains from Union/Exhibition to all interchanges, except for Kipling, on the Bloor-Danforth, Sheppard and SRT lines, why not consider that option? It will not replace the Yonge line downtown, but it will be much better than transferring to buses on clogged streets. I can already imagine that the same small minds would waste time poring over the cost of diesel or how it would be impossible to have Metrolinx pick up the slack for the TTC. But I would ask them why, then, does everywhere else seem to just suck it up?

I think you are taking a "grass is greener" approach. Yes things could be much better in Toronto, but it's not like in every other city things run smooth, or get done on time. Without looking at Europe or Asia (as we tend to do) the experiences of the CTA and MTA facing repairs, slow-zones and inability to get almost anything new built are telling.

The proposal you are describing sounds very much like GO RER and Tory's Smarttrack, at least in the long run. RER was featured prominently in the Ontario 2015 Budget and planning is well underway. Of course it's not as simple as just throwing more trains on the tracks.

As to using GO to replace subway service on weekends that does sound a bit more unfeasible. As you are aware, it's only portions of the Yonge line that are getting shut down for repairs on weekends, not the rest of the subway. There are no GO corridors that could effectively serve this with any reliability. There is however another subway a short bus ride to the west that has more than enough capacity to pick up the slack. Unless you are talking about using GO to replace the entire system on the once in a decade instance it goes down for less than 90 minutes due to a freak accident.

Originally Posted by gunnar777

And I respect your response - I realize that the city is playing catch-up, but honestly "studies" for expansion? They've been done, many, many, many times over. And it's not an excuse at this point, when there continue to be many city councillors, urban planners, nimbys, and a recent ex-mayor, who to this day put the brakes on progress. There are enough of them to fairly represent the general population after all.

Originally Posted by gunnar777

Good point, but obviously, the vast majority of other similar-sized cities have found a way to overcome this obsolescence problem and forged ahead. How do you propose Toronto do the same?

Again, grass is greener. We see the final product, but we rarely see all that these cities have gone through to get there. How long has the 2nd ave subway in NYC been on the drawing board? I don't really have that answer but from what I recall it has been decades.

For things like the DRL we do need new studies as what was done previously wasn't extensive and doesn't match with the current realities of transit operation. FWIW this continues to be a priority of the TTC and City Planning - they just released an analysis of potential stop locations this week. The next step is to identify the preferred corridor.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by niwell

I think you are taking a "grass is greener" approach. Yes things could be much better in Toronto, but it's not like in every other city things run smooth, or get done on time. Without looking at Europe or Asia (as we tend to do) the experiences of the CTA and MTA facing repairs, slow-zones and inability to get almost anything new built are telling.

Limiting ourselves to looking at North America just leads to complacency. North America is a pretty low bar for the most part. We should be looking to Europe and Asia (or even Australia) to get a better idea of how things can be done. And that's just what Metrolinx is doing with RER.

[WhipperSnapper]

I'm quite familiar with a couple systems in Europe. They are extensive with future expansion plans. Impressive but, far from the idyllic reality presented on the forum. Passenger safety is the obvious concern from accessibility to crime prevention.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Doady

The feds and province download too much onto Toronto, this is the result. Shutdown of subway service.

Liberals canceled the Ontario Transit Vehicle Program when they came into power, meaning TTC lost like $20 million a year to replace buses (1/3 subsidy for each bus). Before that the PCs cancelled 75% subsidy for capital costs and 50% subsidy for operating costs, the TTC lost hundreds of millions in funding per year.

All that money has to come from somewhere. We are merely seeing an example of where that money came from.

I don't think any similar percentage programs really exist anywhere, except maybe Montreal from their provincial government, anymore. The epitome of bad program design.

[hipster duck]

It's "water under the bridge" at this point, but one of the cardinal flaws in Toronto's subway system design was the decision in the 1950s to extend the Yonge line around University. This essentially forced all of downtown south of Bloor street to be served by by a single subway line with no alternatives. In 1958 this probably didn't seem like a bad idea, but in 2015 it's a real bottleneck.

The Montreal approach, where the green and orange lines roughly parallel each other like the Yonge and University branches of Line 1, allows one to pick up the slack of the other in the event of a shutdown.

Also, I think there's a higher probability that had Toronto built two, separate north south lines with an interchange at Union, we'd have a DRL by now. It would have been much easier to extend two existing lines east and west from union then to build an entirely new line. Imagine the University-Spadina line heading east from Union toward St. Lawrence market and beyond, and the Yonge line heading west from Union toward Spadina, etc.

[WhipperSnapper]

Definitely. Always wondered if instead of a DRL separating the line with a multi-level connection at Union and extending the lines east and west along the DRL route would be a better solution.

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[Beedok]

Gondolas aren't really that good of a mass transit though are they?

[SteelTown]

A gondola would be perfect from Olympic Park to McMaster University. There's no direct transit route or anything from the Mountain to McMaster.

[eemy]

They seem to be appropriate in certain highly specific situations. A few cities in S. America use them to great affect. Hamilton is one city where it could actually make sense.

[matt602]

I think as a tourist thing it could be a good idea but as an actual commuting solution it's pretty pointless.

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[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Gondolas aren't really that good of a mass transit though are they?

Think the Roosevelt Island Gondola qualifies. Yep, I like gondolas. Build, build,build

[White Pine]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

They seem to be appropriate in certain highly specific situations. A few cities in S. America use them to great affect. Hamilton is one city where it could actually make sense.

It actually has potential, but I hope they have a plan in case the system stops. Being stuck on lifts is no fun.

[ssiguy]

Portland has a transit gondola and Vancouver is still considering it to connect SFU with SkyTrain as SFU is up on Burnaby Mountain.

Hamilton is actually one of the few places where it work in Canada.

[Beedok]

Alright, well if it has a chance then let's build it. It would be a fun quirk, and definitely avoids the Mountain vs. Downtown split issues.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Portland has a transit gondola and Vancouver is still considering it to connect SFU with SkyTrain as SFU is up on Burnaby Mountain.

Hamilton is actually one of the few places where it work in Canada.

Portland's up to the med centre is quite awesome.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It's "water under the bridge" at this point, but one of the cardinal flaws in Toronto's subway system design was the decision in the 1950s to extend the Yonge line around University. This essentially forced all of downtown south of Bloor street to be served by by a single subway line with no alternatives. In 1958 this probably didn't seem like a bad idea, but in 2015 it's a real bottleneck.

The Montreal approach, where the green and orange lines roughly parallel each other like the Yonge and University branches of Line 1, allows one to pick up the slack of the other in the event of a shutdown.

Also, I think there's a higher probability that had Toronto built two, separate north south lines with an interchange at Union, we'd have a DRL by now. It would have been much easier to extend two existing lines east and west from union then to build an entirely new line. Imagine the University-Spadina line heading east from Union toward St. Lawrence market and beyond, and the Yonge line heading west from Union toward Spadina, etc.

I believe the TTC had a plan for that. The University line was supposed to be its own line, it is still coded separate internally at the TTC to this day. I believe the plan was that the scrapped "Bloor express" was supposed to loop down to eventually be the University line and that the University line and Yonge line would be "separate" with same level transfer at Union if needed. They always wanted to spread demand to get he U-Line but things never materialized.

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