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St. Clair ruling derails city plans (pg. 3)
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| Jayx1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
rejecting the proposal in favour of another one (like buses, as RobbyG suggested) is one thing...but to hear some people saying it screws up parking is just stupid.
we need to get off of the "cars first" mentality in dense areas and the DT core and focus on making affordable and efficient transit as the #1 option. |
people will get off the cars first mentality when there is a viable alternative. Until then we need to facilitate cars because we have obviously not yet chosen to get serious about transit.
Choking off cars and not providing enough transit which is what city hall tries to do now just makes the problem worse!
people will either still use their cars anyways or just not come downtown at all!
It should be noted that several businesses in southern york region surveyed who have relocated from Toronto cited traffic/lack of accesibilty as their #2 reason overall. |
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| StereoPrincess |
| quote: | Originally posted by Time2Burn
I never understood this huge expensive project. I fully support TTC improvement/expansion. I understand the need to improve certain routes for future passenger loads. But a dedicated route on St. Clair that would maybe save 5 minutes to the station for me is, has been, and always will be pointless. |
not only that but the three os whatever years it takes them to build it will be the BIGGEST pain in the ass for travel.
spend the money on something else! |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Well there are a lote more reasons. First of all, the more cars the more polution. Second of all, if you get more cars downtown, downtown won't be as attractive for pedestrians and people living there. I know that might sound weird to a north american, but really, a downtown is sooooo much nicer if you have fewer cars.
The expressways would make it easier for people to get downtown, not to get around downtown, we would still have the same problems on the none expressways downtown. |
First of all, traffic congestion causes a lot more pollution than "more" cars. Do the math - if 100 cars are out for 10 minutes vs. 200 cars for 1 hour, which is going to be worse for the environment?
As for attractiveness, did you look at the map? The expressways that were originally planned would have gone across the downtown. The ability to drive on those expressways WOULD reduce traffic in the downtown core, because nobody really WANTS to drive there - they HAVE to. The attractiveness argument does sound weird to most North Americans and it always will. Nice scenery is great but it cannot take precedence over practicality - ever.
| quote: | | Economics is not the only incentive for people to drive or not. Time is a huge factor too. In most cities with a working mass transit system it is a lot faster to go to work if you take the public transport (assuming you work downtown). |
Yes, you're right, time is a factor, but in the case of cars vs. mass transit in Toronto it counts as an argument against mass transit. Here, it is both more expensive AND slower to take the bus/subway/whatever.
| quote: | | So instead of putting lots of money on new expressways, you should put those money on making a subway system! |
The point is, the money needs to go to both places. A certain number of people are going to drive regardless of how great the mass transit system is. Wrecking the roads and giving "right of way" to TTC vehicles is not going to get anybody off the roads.
Don't you get it? Nobody is disagreeing with you that we'd be better off with fewer cars on the roads, but the fact of the matter is, it simply doesn't work to try and force people off the roads. They have to make that choice themselves.
| quote: | | Well yes, expressways are needed too, especially around cities (you have a a fair share of them tho). But given your low spending on both, I would say that the transit system needs a lot more funding. Comparing with other cities, your expressway system is good, but your mass transit (or at least yor subway system) is ing terrible. |
Our expressway system isn't good. It's not even close to good. In Miami and New York the freeways run to almost every part of the metropolitan area.
Our mass transit system isn't good either. They BOTH suck. That is why people keep saying that we need a BALANCED plan for the transportation infrastructure, without excessive emphasis on either area.
Again, what it all comes down to is that nowhere near enough money is being spent on transportation, whether it comes to roads or mass transit - and the money that is spent is spent horribly (i.e. the Sheppard subway).
I explained above that there are only two possible solutions: lobby for money from higher levels of government (which has been unsuccessful for decades), or allow private enterprise to start building roads and subways (which is a great idea but all the brainwashed masses here won't stand for the idea of privatization, no matter how inefficient the government is). |
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| MarkT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
people will get off the cars first mentality when there is a viable alternative. Until then we need to facilitate cars because we have obviously not yet chosen to get serious about transit. |
Fine, don't do this project and use buses, but for f**k's sake, saying it's about preserving PARKING SPACES is ridiculous, IMHO. Why not build a few parking lots and get the cars off the high traffic main streets like St. Clair, Queen, Spadina, King, Yonge, etc. It's inefficient use of space in parallel parking anyway, isn't it?
Look at Queen St. between Yonge and Bathurst. I'd wager that the vast bulk of their business is "walk-up" or from people parking in a lot somewhere. Don't tell me that if we banned parking on Queen Street that businesses are going to close...that's complete bull. I don't know that stretch of St. Clair all that well...but couldn't a couple of parking lots alleviate the "need" to park on the street? FFS, how lazy are people that they need to park RIGHT in front of whatever store or restaurant they are visiting???
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Choking off cars and not providing enough transit which is what city hall tries to do now just makes the problem worse!
people will either still use their cars anyways or just not come downtown at all! |
Then it's people not supporting the businesses because they're too lazy. It takes me 25-30 min. to get from my parents in the very east end of scarborough to my door DT. It takes about an hour to do it by transit and that's a short walk to the subway at College, a transfer at Yonge, subway all the way to Kennedy, RT to Scar. T.C. and a bus to their place. That's not "unreasonable" and shouldn't prevent anyone from going downtown. One or two people parking downtown alone costs the fare for TTC both ways, btw.
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
It should be noted that several businesses in southern york region surveyed who have relocated from Toronto cited traffic/lack of accesibilty as their #2 reason overall. |
isn't that playing BOTH sides of the coin? i.e. congestion AND lack of accessibility? So they are admitting that a change DOES need to come.
Subway extensions are great...but take 10 years to build...and cost a fortune. There needs to be some sort of low cost, interim solution AND plans to expand the subway system, IMHO. I fully support the private sector getting involved with subway plans too.
People also need to WANT to support transit...I think the mentality of "needing" a car still exists to a far greater extent than is warranted. |
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| Jayx1 |
there already is high volume transit on st clair. they just want to make it 2 minutes quicker at a ridiculous cost.
As for building parking lots. Where?
And yes people ARE lazy. Queen st works because there is a higher density of people in a smaller area. St clair wouldnt work as well. More people drive in that area.
Danforth would also die if they took away parking. Luckily the subway allotment allowed for parking in the back which is partly why the area does so well. Not to mention the subway itself. |
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| swilly |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
there already is high volume transit on st clair. they just want to make it 2 minutes quicker at a ridiculous cost.
As for building parking lots. Where?
And yes people ARE lazy. Queen st works because there is a higher density of people in a smaller area. St clair wouldnt work as well. More people drive in that area.
Danforth would also die if they took away parking. Luckily the subway allotment allowed for parking in the back which is partly why the area does so well. Not to mention the subway itself. |
I want to know where you are getting this stat of a 2 minute increase in efficiency. I find that hard to believe!
Swillyo Sano |
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| swilly |
Honestly, this was a brilliant idea and its been held back by unfounded beliefs on the detrimental on bussiness. Here are some of the major problems with thier theories.
1)Local bussiness groups claim that they will lose alot of bussiness by losing parking in front of thier stores. Most stores along st clair have a small street frontage. At most there is access to 2-3 parking spots directly infront of thier store. The elimination of street parking then is only eliminating 2-3 parking spots per store. Are the local bussiness operating at such a small margin that the loss of two parking spots will make or break thier operations? What do people do at present when the road side parking is full(as it so often is)? Usually they will park up on one of the sidestreets. Thus what is the difference?
Moreover,how much bussiness in the area is pedestrian based? With improved transit along this corridor how many more people will walking along those streets? Planning studies have shown that people are more likely to stop at a unusual store while walking by than driving by. The hassle of parking is a major disincentive for people to stop. However, pedestrian based traffic does not have that problem.
2) While it is true that there would of been a problem for making deliveries those deliveries could be made at night. In the pedestrian shopping markets in europe many of the stores are bustling with activity as many of the delieveries are made at night while pedestrian traffic is low. Why couldnt a similar plan be used along the st clair area.
3) People complained that it would make it difficult to cross from one side of the street to the other. I wonder if those same people tried to cross spadina not at a intersection before the transit way was built. Crossing over 6 lanes of traffic is difficult. However, with the transit way there it creates a break for pedestrians to stop at. Also the presence of the transit way has allowed the planting of trees along the spadina route which has increased the beauty of the area. By creating a barrier to auto traffic via a transit way it would infact make it easier for pedestrian traffic to cross thus increasing pedestrian based bussiness and adding to the city atmosphere.
4) A subway would be ideal but...the intial costs are very high and they require a large amount of transit demand before they are viable. Transit ways and busways are good stepping stones for eventual subways. Building a subway requires a large amount of demand. The advantage of a transit way or busway is that they are cheap and can increase transit ridership and change the local populations transport mode choice for a small cost. Once the local population has switched over to transit sufficiently than a subway can be built. Building a subways and than hoping transit ridership will increase is problamatic because they can intially appear as "white elephants" when the ridership is not nearly as high as predicited.
In ottawa they used busways in a similar manner. Once the local populace had switched over to the busway system and demand was present than the construction of LRTs began. Already there is the O-train in ottawa and there are several other lines in the city which are scheduled to be converted to LRTs in the coming years because demand has been created.
5) I want to know where this stat of a 2 min increase in efficincy was taken from? I used to live up at st clair and dufferin and found that what would normally take about 15 mins to my stop could be up to 25 mins when we got stuck behind traffic. The only way people will switch over to transit is if they know that they can get to stop within a set amount of time. This can only be achieved with a transit way. When transit is impeded by traffic people will turn away from transit and drive because they will find the transit system unreliable. If there is closed access than those street cars can make it to those stops running at a tight schedule. Something not possible when they are blocked up by traffic.
On a final note i wonder how many of the people on this board who are critisizing the transit way actually use public transit in toronto?
As i had mentioned i used to live up at st clair and dufferin and the presence of a transit way would of greatly reduced my commute over to younge street. I wonder how many persons here on this board are talking about the transit system while they drive to work everyday from thier house in the suburbs?
Swilly Sano |
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| Jayx1 |
i read in the paper that it would be a 2-4 minute difference on average.
Its not a brilliant idea. How many tens of millions are being wasted on an EXISTING LINE? Why not use that cash to start new service? St Clair is already adequately served. The only thing that could make a significant change there would be a subway.
Isnt the TTC always crying poor? If they are so poor then why are they wasting money on something of insignificance? Why not use that money to maintain the current fleet since all i hear about is how dire the situation is when it comes to funding. I guess they arent so bad off after all?
Lastly ive attempted many times to take transit. After living in argentina and taking the train and subway to work every day i wanted to do the same here. Its MUCH MUCH more relaxing when you dont have to drive and instead you can sit and watch the world go by while listening to a good mix set. But in Toronto the service is not very frequent, the costs are high and in many cases its actually impossible to get where you are going. The very fact that i am pretty well forced to drive to the train station in the GTA prevents me from bothering in the first place. If i need a car to drive to the GO station, i might as well just keep going. Not to mention they have no started charging for parking in some GO lots and TTC lots. So now i have the cost of parking, the cost of owning a car, the GO fare, and the TTC fare plus added hours of inconvenience.
No thanks |
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| RobbyG. |
| quote: | Originally posted by swilly
I want to know where you are getting this stat of a 2 minute increase in efficiency. I find that hard to believe!
Swillyo Sano |
Actually he's not far off...I heard its like 10 minutes or so but I think the TTC was more concerned with timetables so that a streetcar will arrive at a certain stop at a certain time which the deticated line would do...I just think it makes more sense to spend $750.000 for a wheel chair accessible bus then spend over $1 million for a wheel chair accessible streetcar...
...besides...these new Orion VII buses would keep me busy too because they are pieces of :D |
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| MarkT |
| ^^^ dude, that is called JOB SECURITY...you should embrace this idea, then :D :D :D |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by swilly
2) While it is true that there would of been a problem for making deliveries those deliveries could be made at night. In the pedestrian shopping markets in europe many of the stores are bustling with activity as many of the delieveries are made at night while pedestrian traffic is low. Why couldnt a similar plan be used along the st clair area. |
LOL, so every business should double their operating costs in order to take (or make) deliveries at night, after millions of dollars of THEIR tax money has been spent on killing the transportation around their area? That's not just stupid, it's downright TWISTED!
| quote: | | 4) A subway would be ideal but...the intial costs are very high and they require a large amount of transit demand before they are viable. Transit ways and busways are good stepping stones for eventual subways. Building a subway requires a large amount of demand. The advantage of a transit way or busway is that they are cheap and can increase transit ridership and change the local populations transport mode choice for a small cost. Once the local population has switched over to transit sufficiently than a subway can be built. Building a subways and than hoping transit ridership will increase is problamatic because they can intially appear as "white elephants" when the ridership is not nearly as high as predicited. |
Where on earth do you get the idea that it's going to increase ridership? It's not, that's the whole problem!
Subways DO cost more to build, but isn't it a basic principle of economics that one must resist the temptation to throw away money on frivolous ventures and instead save money for bigger, more important investments? Of course I suppose this is the government, where nobody is ever accountable for the money they spend... if they overrun the budget, they can always just tax us for more! :rolleyes:
| quote: | | 5) I want to know where this stat of a 2 min increase in efficincy was taken from? |
From several people who work for the TTC?
| quote: | | On a final note i wonder how many of the people on this board who are critisizing the transit way actually use public transit in toronto? |
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, used the T-shirt as toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet. It took me an hour and a half each way to take the bus to work, sometimes two hours; that's between three and four hours of my time spent on transit. It also cost me over $50 a week, which is more than some people spend on cars/insurance/parking.
Transit in Toronto (aside from the downtown core) is virtually unusable. The only people who take it are the people who can't afford to drive; and if you, like David Miller and his airheaded kin, think that making it more difficult and expensive to drive is going to increase TTC ridership, you'd better think again, because 50 years of that policy being in effect has still not changed the proportions even a little. |
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| swilly |
| quote: | | LOL, so every business should double their operating costs in order to take (or make) deliveries at night, after millions of dollars of THEIR tax money has been spent on killing the transportation around their area? That's not just stupid, it's downright TWISTED! |
Right so the rest of the population should suffer high levels of traffic congestion so some small furniture shops can take thier deliveries during the day whatever. In many other cities in the world deliveries are made during the night because there is high levels of traffic congestion. That trucks are able to double park on a major aterial road makes no sense. It holds up traffic and causes major problems for the network. In the pedestrian areas and high traffic regions of london manchestor leeds and other major cities deleveries are all made at night because there is heavy traffic both pedestrian and vehicular. Also i find it laffable that it would double thier operating costs. Way to exagerate!!!
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Where on earth do you get the idea that it's going to increase ridership? It's not, that's the whole problem!
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Transit ridership along the spadina line experienced an significant increase in the first year of operations. Same as the queens Quay line. If people know that transit will be able to get them to a specific stop in a specified amount of time they will make the switch. However, if transit is held up by traffic than there is no incentive to switch over. A transit system is desigined to operate in a unimpeded manner when a street car is held by traffic there are no advantages to taking the transit system. The only way people will get of thier car is if transit can get them to thier destination in faster manner than driving can or at least comparable amount of time. This does not occur however if the street cars are held by people in thier automobiles.
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From several people who work for the TTC? |
I looked it up on the TTC report and its actually closer to 6-10 minutes. However, that figure is based on a ideal situation where traffic is moving freely and the street car is not held up by traffic. Thus the stat is based on a comparison between a transit way operating free of traffic and a street car operating on the road where traffic is flowing at a good pace. However, the reality is quite different and more often than not particulary during rush hour those street cars are held up quite a bit due to traffic. Thus real time savings would be higher.
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Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, used the T-shirt as toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet. It took me an hour and a half each way to take the bus to work, sometimes two hours; that's between three and four hours of my time spent on transit. It also cost me over $50 a week, which is more than some people spend on cars/insurance/parking.
Transit in Toronto (aside from the downtown core) is virtually unusable. The only people who take it are the people who can't afford to drive; and if you, like David Miller and his airheaded kin, think that making it more difficult and expensive to drive is going to increase TTC ridership, you'd better think again, because 50 years of that policy being in effect has still not changed the proportions even a little. |
Hahahah i thought so. I used to live up at st clair and dufferin and saw the problems the street car had. I would take your opinion seriously if actually used the TTC.
Also one should also note that st clair historically had a transit way.It was torn down though during the 1930s depression as part of a make work project in toronto. St clair was actually laid out with a transit way from its start. Moreover, much of the dense residential development in that region is due to the presence of the transit streetcars. Additionally, one of the major reasons why the TTC wanted to create the transit way now is because the rails along st clair are due to be replaced and thier refurbishment and the creation of the transitway could of been done at the same time. The arguement that creating the transit way would slow up traffic was at least partially flase if only because there was going to be construction replacing the existing rails anyways.
Now thanks to the court order there will be a greater disruption as the rails will have to be replaced and then a year later they will have to come in and work on the transit way.
At the end of the day this ruling means nothing. All the city has to do is change thier official plan and designate the area as a rapid transit corridor. The transit way is not stopped but rather delayed. The only problem now is that there will be a greater amount of disruption to the transport system.
PS I studied Urban geography and Urban planning at Uni. You guys should do more research on the impacts of transit ways before making baseless statements.
Swilly San |
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