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-- Toronto Transit makes me sad
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Originally posted by Vanos Even though i drive, I def support Rob Ford on subways. Plan to build streetcars in Toronto was a shame and a big fail in the first place for a city of such size, concentration and economic clout. One of the usual TTC's band-aid solutions not abit concerned with future of this city. Streetcars is a short term fix that will create more problems in the long run. Capacity wise, street congestion wise, future development of economic activity etc. Subway is a more forward looking solution, that will create higher growth potential in the areas it is built and promote long term development.

The difference between subways and streetcars/LRT is one of capacity (passengers/hour) and cost. Subways are expensive to build and operate. Their capacity in terms of passengers is also much higher. But to make them even break even requires a huge number of people using it. LRT requires fewer passengers to pay for itself. Most areas of the city that don't have subway service now are nowhere near the density of population to support more subway lines. The Sheppard line is an example of that. There needs to be the population there already (or well on its way to being there) to support subway expansion.

I personally don't give a flying fuck whether they expand with streetcars, subways, build a mono rail for all I care. The important thing is to pick a strategy and stick with it through multiple political parties. It takes so long to plan, propose a solution, get funding approved, and then finally break ground and do the work. If you have every mayor coming into office switching things up there won't be any expansion whatsoever, who cares what form it comes in.

As for a car I see both sides to it. It's great having one and avoiding a lot of the BS with taking the TTC. But at the same time if you live downtown, work downtown, eat downtown, play downtown etc etc... In my building for example parking is $150 a month to rent, ($35k + annual taxes/condo fees to own), insurance at $100 a month, add in any gas used and maintenance + payments if you leased or financed. You'll be looking anywhere from $300-$700 per month just to have your standard car. It's insane to pay that when you use it maybe once a week here and there. Hard argument to make telling someone who pays house prices for a large hotel room of a condo unit just to be downtown that they should also pay that kind of cash to avoid the TTC. Half the time traffic and dumbass drivers piss me off just as much as the issues on public transpo would anyways.

quote:

Originally posted by GGM I personally don't give a flying fuck whether they expand with streetcars, subways, build a mono rail for all I care. The important thing is to pick a strategy and stick with it through multiple political parties. It takes so long to plan, propose a solution, get funding approved, and then finally break ground and do the work. If you have every mayor coming into office switching things up there won't be any expansion whatsoever, who cares what form it comes in. As for a car I see both sides to it. It's great having one and avoiding a lot of the BS with taking the TTC. But at the same time if you live downtown, work downtown, eat downtown, play downtown etc etc... In my building for example parking is $150 a month to rent, ($35k + annual taxes/condo fees to own), insurance at $100 a month, add in any gas used and maintenance + payments if you leased or financed. You'll be looking anywhere from $300-$700 per month just to have your standard car. It's insane to pay that when you use it maybe once a week here and there. Hard argument to make telling someone who pays house prices for a large hotel room of a condo unit just to be downtown that they should also pay that kind of cash to avoid the TTC. Half the time traffic and dumbass drivers piss me off just as much as the issues on public transpo would anyways.

It's cheaper to just use a car sharing service or rent a car whenever you need one. I'm TTC dependent but I've rented a car a handful of times when I've absolutely needed one and it's obviously way cheaper.

just curious, does toronto's mass transit run 24/7?

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Originally posted by AY STAR just curious, does toronto's mass transit run 24/7?

What's it to you, Terrorist?

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Originally posted by Aureliou What's it to you, Terrorist?

good guess but iam far from it...
i actually work for transit down in nyc and iam just curious on toronto's mass transit operation in comparison to nyc

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Originally posted by AY STAR good guess but iam far from it... i actually work for transit down in nyc and iam just curious on toronto's mass transit operation in comparison to nyc

imo, there is little to compare. the system are too different from each other.

quote:

Originally posted by GGM I personally don't give a flying fuck whether they expand with streetcars, subways, build a mono rail for all I care. The important thing is to pick a strategy and stick with it through multiple political parties. It takes so long to plan, propose a solution, get funding approved, and then finally break ground and do the work. If you have every mayor coming into office switching things up there won't be any expansion whatsoever, who cares what form it comes in.

This.

To me, the solution was to live close to where I worked. As a single person with no dependents, this was easy, but if you're raising a family you probably aren't going to want to do it in the financial district.

Personally I think they need either dedicated streetcar lanes (like Spadina - that route is the best in the city IMO) or they need to scrap the streetcar routes altogether and replace with buses.

Also, I don't know what comes first, but a congestion tax to free up traffic in the downtown core to make public transit more reliable could be a solution. It seems to work in London - the bus service is *amazing*.

quote:

Originally posted by AY STAR just curious, does toronto's mass transit run 24/7?

Some bus routes do, but subways don't, so it sucks. They should keep everything open on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We really are behind on our transit system.

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Originally posted by Nobbie Q Some bus routes do, but subways don't, so it sucks. They should keep everything open on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We really are behind on our transit system.

No they shouldn't. There's no reason for subways to be running past 2:30AM - 3AM. Unfortunately they close at 1:30AM, which is beyond retarded considering last call is at 2AM.

quote:

Originally posted by Nobbie Q Some bus routes do, but subways don't, so it sucks. They should keep everything open on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We really are behind on our transit system.

Wishful thinking. Only 3 subway networks in North America are 24 hours and NYC's post midnight train frequency is just as bad, if not worse than our busses and streetcars. At least you can wait in a warm station in the winter vs. the curb.

Chicago's weekend subway schedule is waaaaay slower, and even during the week none of that "next train in 3 mins" business

quote:

Originally posted by Nobbie Q Some bus routes do, but subways don't, so it sucks. They should keep everything open on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We really are behind on our transit system.

No city has the ridership demand for overnight subway service with train frequencies of under 30 minutes.

The difference in cities that do run trains all night like New York, is that the train routes can't be replicated on the surface - they run through underwater tunnels, under parks, diagonally across streets, etc. In Toronto, all the subway lines are roughly analogous to major streets, and therefore can be replaced with bus service when ridership levels dip - which is preferable because you'll be waiting 10 minutes for a bus vs. 30 minutes for a train.

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Originally posted by kotsy Wishful thinking. Only 3 subway networks in North America are 24 hours and NYC's post midnight train frequency is just as bad, if not worse than our busses and streetcars. At least you can wait in a warm station in the winter vs. the curb.

dam man sorry you had to wait around, trains after the pm rush hour and during late night usually come every 20-25 min, on weekends tho it could be longer due to track work...nyc transit does alot of manitinece and repair over nights and weekends, but yet at 1-2am the trains are still pretty full so the ridership is lower than rush hour but alot of people are still in the system at that time (especially the weirdo's )

dam i hope for toronto something good comes out for mass transit, i only witnessed driving on the qew and i think it was the 401 or 405 at 7am, you guys got some f*cked up rush hour traffic ha ha ha

i seen somewhere that they are redeveloping the waterfront with parks and trying to build new houseing and condo's, so hopefully the demand for mass transit will grow with the new neigborhoods

quote:

Originally posted by AY STAR dam man sorry you had to wait around, trains after the pm rush hour and during late night usually come every 20-25 min, on weekends tho it could be longer due to track work...nyc transit does alot of manitinece and repair over nights and weekends, but yet at 1-2am the trains are still pretty full so the ridership is lower than rush hour but alot of people are still in the system at that time (especially the weirdo's ) dam i hope for toronto something good comes out for mass transit, i only witnessed driving on the qew and i think it was the 401 or 405 at 7am, you guys got some f*cked up rush hour traffic ha ha ha i seen somewhere that they are redeveloping the waterfront with parks and trying to build new houseing and condo's, so hopefully the demand for mass transit will grow with the new neigborhoods

two seasons here, winter and construction lol

If surrounding cities had some balls to develop themselves as a real metropolis (maybe excluding mississauga), then our gridlock or traffic issues wouldn't be AS bad.

Everyone within a 100km comes into Toronto to work.


Just wait in 3 years... 3 years, we'll have traffic problems going BOTH WAYS.

Hmm yeah I guess it doesn't make sense to have the subways open 24/7 on weekends but I dunno, I love how they're so fast.

I wish the GO trains at least had a few trains running in the middle of the night (the drunk express ahahah), as well as the surrounding cities having a few buses running in the middle of the night on weekends also. A lot of people come from the surrounding cities to party in T dot.

The answer to unsatisfactory public transit shouldn't be to get a car, it should be to FIX public transit. I really don't care how they choose to do it, whether it's subways or light rail (which I personally favor), as long as they actually start doing something worthwhile.

quote:

Originally posted by AY STAR i seen somewhere that they are redeveloping the waterfront with parks and trying to build new houseing and condo's, so hopefully the demand for mass transit will grow with the new neigborhoods

sad part is, the development is supposed to be transit oriented. however, there is no mention of transit there in the new plans.

so whats probably going to happen is that bus routes get extended and become even more overcrowded.

I moved out of downtown and live back up north. My commute is from my bed to my den. When I need something, parking is plentiful and free. Couldnt be happier.

I avoid Toronto like the plague unless I am going out at night once in awhile (when there isnt much traffic)

Bring us more subways and trains (a real network) and maybe i will consider coming back downtown during waking hours sometime in the next decade

quote:

Originally posted by smuncky however, there is no mention of transit there in the new plans.

Wrong.

....

my apologies, i wasn't clear enough in my orignal statement.

your image from 5 years ago proves my point that there is no thought about east bayfront in the new plans. if anything, it is no better than a fantasy map. last i heard about anything happening down on the shore east of yonge, was a year ago.

considering how fast this area is going to be built up in the next few years, it is crutial to get proper transit infrastructure in before the complete build out rather than later. especially since the focal point for our pan am games is going to be happening there. how are people supposed to get there?

if we were serious about it, funding would be in place to pay for it at the same time as queens quay west is being rebuilt (which is happening now) along with union station.

and if we were REALLY serious about transit in that part of the city and the transit system as a whole, we'd make the DRL our top priority.

So things have taken an interesting turn:

quote:

TTC chair Karen Stintz submits petition that could resurrect light rail plan TTC chair Karen Stintz has submitted a petition bearing the signatures of 24 city councillors to the city clerk, triggering a special council meeting on Wednesday that could potentially spell the end of the mayor�s transit plans. At his weekly weigh-in Monday, Ford refused to respond to reporters� questions about how he will confront the latest threat to his agenda at city council. .... http://www.thestar.com/news/article...-rail-plan?bn=1

Funny thing is, I agree with Ford that the entire rail should be underground. It is faster, it does not interfere with traffic. And no matter what is developed above ground, the line would function untouched underground.

But, when the money just doesn't exist what do you do?

In theory, subways everywhere...but that just has not worked as a theory in Toronto. We need more rail, and we need it now.

The province needs step in and sort out this mess. Nobody is agreeing, and each side is saying that council has not voted on 'the plan'.

To boot, the metrolinx "contact us" page is down.

FFS guys.

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