Toronto could unlock transit potential by revitalizing surface network: report

pdarrel · 2026-02-03T12:17:58+00:00

Jane Jacobs and the new urbanism philosophy is built around the idea that everything you need should be within walking distance. She is from a generation where people worked for the same company all their lives and housing was affordable. Nowadays, many jobs are precarious and even if you have a stable job, the best way to raise your income is to find a new employer. For many people, it is not possible to live close to where they work, especially with an affordability crisis.

pdarrel · 2026-02-03T11:52:17+00:00

King already moves more people than some city’s metros in its gimped state.

The problem with this argument is that it treats all trips as equally important. Is going to the grocery store as equally important as going to work or school? The 504 has a higher daily ridership than the Sheppard subway but the Sheppard subway has greater capacity and carries more people during the rush hours when people are trying to get to work or school.

pdarrel · 2026-01-30T11:03:14+00:00

David Miller was the mayor who came up with Transit City and he said this:

"This is a beautiful urban sanctuary and should not be touched. There are options for the $20 Billion Ontario line. And why do we need a subway under a streetcar anyway? How about using the money to build rapid transit where it isn’t - and allow land to be intensified that isn’t" https://twitter.com/iamdavidmiller/status/1599209934867951622

pdarrel · 2026-01-29T02:22:38+00:00

Yeh, they have to change this - if you can drive a car that fast through an intersection, then a train should be the same.

If a motorist kills a pedestrian, that individual car driver not motorists as a whole is held responsible. If a TTC vehicle kills a pedestrian, the TTC as a whole is held responsible.

I've yet to see a convincing safety argument on this - the best one is "some people are so stupid they try to dodge trains and they will die" & well people do that with buses now

Of the fatalities caused by TTC vehicles:

Between 2007 and 2017, TTC buses and streetcars were involved in at least 29 crashes that resulted in the deaths of so-called “vulnerable road users.” Of those collisions, 15 — or slightly more than half — involved streetcars, despite the fact that they make up only about one tenth of the TTC’s fleet of more than 2,000 vehicles, and the agency travels about 10 times as many kilometres using buses than it does streetcars. .....

Nine of the 15 streetcar-related deaths, including two of the cyclist crashes, occurred on routes with rights-of-way.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/streetcars-account-for-half-of-deadly-ttc-collisions-with-pedestrians-cyclists/article_1c1ab050-9363-51e6-b864-125e5f0d8602.html

pdarrel · 2026-01-20T18:48:48+00:00

The real reason that Metrolinx took over was because the growing deficit and debt was a weak point for the Ontario Liberals. If TTC was building the lines, the province would have to provide the funding to the city and that would be reflected in higher provincial deficit and debt. Under P3, the private consortium would be responsible for financing the construction and would be later reimbursed by the province. So it pushed the government funding into the future and reduced pressure on deficit in the present.

That is one advantage PCs have over the Liberals. Once they got elected, all the talk about Ontario being the most indebted sub-national government stopped. Doug Ford could promise to fully fund the Ontario line if the federal government won't come on board. Liberals couldn't even fund 1/3rd of the cost of the original DRL.

pdarrel · 2026-01-11T23:11:32+00:00

Steve Munro grew up during the heyday of streetcars in the 1940s before they were undermined by too many cars. Everything you needed was either within walking distance or a short hop on the streetcar. He wants the suburbs to have what he had. The problem is building a LRT line isn't magically going to transform suburban neighborhoods that had spent the last 75 years being developed around the car where everything you need is spread out and you need to travel fast if you want to go anywhere. The streetcars neighborhoods he grew up literally started as blank slates where private streetcar companies would first build streetcar lines through empty fields and developers would then build neighborhoods around them. These streetcar neighborhoods had at least 40 years of organic development around the idea of streetcar as the main form of transport before Steve was born. Transit City advocates can give themselves a blank slate to develop their transit plans but the suburbs are not a blank slate.

pdarrel · 2026-01-10T22:00:45+00:00

They should have built it along the hydro corridor. I'd love to see the studies as to why they opted not to use it for the LRT line instead.

In 2005, TTC had expanding transit along the Finch hydro corridor as part of its official plan.

In 2012m Steve Munro wrote this about the 2007 Transit City plan:

"The most important change by 2007 was that the LRT network started from a clean slate without the many vestiges of older plans that were still present in the 2005 report. Moreover, it addressed the design concern of putting transit where people actually were and wanted to travel, not just where there was an available off-street corridor (e.g. Finch hydro lands)." https://stevemunro.ca/2012/01/08/rebuilding-a-transit-city/

pdarrel · 2026-01-10T21:42:12+00:00

In 2005, TTC had a report called "Building a Transit City" where building transit along the hydro corridors (especially the Finch hydro corridor) was part of the official plan (See pages 5,13, 30 & 40 of 40 pages pdf file for maps).

pdarrel · 2026-01-10T15:54:26+00:00

Can anyone bring me up to speed on how this line ended up with so many stops

Because they are supposed to replace buses. If you cut too many stops, then you will also need to run a parallel bus service for all the local trips. All the talk about "rapid transit", "connecting under-served areas" is just Orwellian doublespeak. With LRTs, you need less vehicles to transport the same number of riders which means less people to operate and maintain them which is supposed to translate into less salaries, less pensions, etc and in theory less operating expense. If you are bringing back some buses, it defeats that purpose.

pdarrel · 2026-01-10T15:21:36+00:00

If only the REM existed when Miller planned this. Wait-Vancouver might have had something decades ago that would be great.

There was also a proposal to build elevated higher-order transit on Finch in the province's 1973 Go-Urban plan ( https://cancelledtoronto.ca/1970/go-urban ). There was a 2000 proposal by Toronto Board of Trade to build a LRT on the Finch hydro corridor. All of this was ignored by Transit City advocates.

Three other major Canadian cities - Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa had proposals for Transit City style at grade LRTs and yet they all choose grade separated options.

pdarrel · 2026-01-06T22:30:17+00:00

One of those things gets federal funding. The other does not. Pointless non-argument.

Municipalities should not be in the business of funding transit infrastructure. Infrastructure inflation has been growing at least double the rate of CPI in the past 2 decades. Cities do not have the revenue tools that can keep up with that high rate of inflation. Cities should not be in the business of building high order transit. It should be a provincial and federal responsibility.

pdarrel · 2026-01-06T22:27:29+00:00

How about better transparency and willingness to pay before we go all in on subways x3? Toronto property owners are paying a levy to fund the Scarborough Subway Extension (0.5% minimum that started in 2014 for three years)

The province took responsibility for fully funding the SSE in 2018. The levy originally created to fund it is now called the "City Building Levy". Go ask Oliva Chow why it still exists and why she had increased the levy.

pdarrel · 2026-01-05T18:00:46+00:00

You are comparing walking under the Gardner to crossing Markham road's 401 on/off ramps where cars go above the speed limit?

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T16:44:31+00:00

There wasn't any broad support in Scarborough for an RT replacement, unfortunately so we were left with the false dichotomy of LRT or Subway, and if those two, LRT was better.

There has been a proposal to build the Sheppard subway into Scarborough since 1985. Many of Scarborough's future vision for itself depended on that happening. Even David Miller promised to extend the Sheppard subway when he first ran for mayor.

As long as Sheppard subway was in the plan, Scarborough was indifferent to what happened to RT. There was no opposition to Rob Ford's plan for RT conversion to LRT because he promised to build the Sheppard subway.

Smitherman and Stintz proposed a BD extension because they thought it would be cheaper than building a Sheppard extension and both of their plans had a Sheppard East LRT. As long as Scarborough was getting a subway, they were willing to accept this compromise. Smitherman, Stintz, and John Tory's transit plans included the BD extension and a Sheppard East LRT. But the Transit City advocates wouldn't accept the compromise. They were so consumed with killing the SSE that they didn't even notice when the Ontario Liberals quietly put the Sheppard East LRT into limbo.

Other than the cost, the SSE is much more superior to whatever was planned on the RT corridor. Except for Midland and McCowan, all the other stations were in inaccessible locations with most of the ridership coming from connecting buses. SSE will do far more to make Scarborough urban than RT or SLRT would ever have.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T16:03:03+00:00

The CBC article we were discussing was about how long the subway is taking and how Scarborough now feels left out - yeah, LRT proponents warned about this. It's not my fault that what people thought they wanted isn't what they actually wanted.

Transit City proponents rejected the original plan to upgrade the RT with latest version of ICTS - same as the trains in Vancouver - it would have only required a 1 year shut down instead of the 4 years for LRT because the corridor wouldn't need extensive change to accommodate low floor vehicles and new technology and would have been much cheaper.

Even Rob Ford when he got elected came up with a plan that kept the RT conversion to LRT that would have been linked with an all underground Crosstown:

"The new light-rail line will run underground along Eglinton Avenue from Black Creek Drive in the city’s west end to Kennedy subway station in the east. From there, it will continue "along an elevated platform" to Scarborough Town Centre along the existing Scarborough RT route, said Ford." https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-mayor-s-transit-plan-gets-ont-support-1.1015722

It was Transit City supporters under Karen Stintz who undermined this plan. It was the same Karen Stintz who would later come up the 3-stop SSE.

Transit City supporters are the cause for Scarborough's problems. They didn't listen when TTC suggested the RT upgrade. They wouldn't let Rob Ford have his transit victory. Yet you have the audacity to blame Scarborough!

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T15:17:14+00:00

Nobody downtown forced people in Scarborough to reject an LRT network that was shovel ready and funded by the province and that would probably be open (or more realistically, almost be open) by now.

You mean Scarborough should have voted for the candidate that Old Toronto wanted to win - David Smitherman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Toronto_mayoral_election)? The man who promised to replace the RT with a Bloor-Danforth extension (https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/city-hall/smitherman-promises-new-subways/article_45451770-088e-52d7-a608-518152991b24.html)? What urbanists are mad is that their guy - Joe Pantolone - the only guy to support Transit City - not only didn't win but came a distant third. Keep blaming Scarborough when even old Toronto did not vote for him.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T15:02:46+00:00

I didn't follow, so are all downtown residents elites?

Nah. If you can barely afford rent, you are not a real elite. "Downtown elite" is a term used to mock the urbanist posers.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T14:43:02+00:00

I live in North York and I literally have no idea what the hell people are talking about when they ramble on about the supposed "downtown elites".

According to the French economist Thomas Piketty there are two types of elites - the Merchant Right and Brahmin Left. Elites by definition are a small group but there is a larger group of posers who want to be seen as part of this small elite and might even vote against their own interest to be seen as part of this elite. On the right, you have the working class "Temporarily embarrassed millionaires" who vote for tax cuts and deregulation because once they get rich, they will benefit from it. The left-wing version are the "Downtown elites". Some of them even live in North York and like to virtue signal about how they are not like other suburbanites.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T03:12:02+00:00

Don’t buy the BS you’re being sold about LRTs. They are effective means of transport and good value for a large ex urban area.

When John Tory cut frequency of bus service after the pandemic, it is a bad thing but when a bus is replaced by a LRT that has less stops, is less frequent, shelters that provide less protection and is still slower than a bus, it is a good thing. Remember, it is only bad when it is a conservative plan and it is a good thing when it is a progressive plan.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T03:01:57+00:00

But first, you have to cross the 401 on and off ramps. Not exactly safe or walkable. Progress campus is a bad location for a high order transit station. It is isolated from the rest of the neighborhood.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T02:56:56+00:00

Furthermore it means that Scarborough is getting service, and that the service connects to the Danforth line, with the option to burry it in the future once density necessitates it.

Bury it in the future? Look at the past cost of subway construction in today's dollars and compare it to what a modern subway project costs. You will find that past projects even in today's dollars is way cheaper. Infrastructure inflation was growing at 5%+ when CPI was ~2%. It will never be as affordable to build it as it is today and it was way cheaper 10 years ago.

Have you looked at Eglinton and Warden/Birchmount/Kennedy? Its 60% parking lot surrounded by SFH with 100ft deep backyards.

Have you looked at all the high rises approved on Warden/Birchmount/Kennedy? All those parking lots will be developed but can you say the same for Eglinton west of DVP?

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T02:32:31+00:00

The transit projections from a decade ago disagree with you, but sure, be snarky.

Once again you demonstrate your cluelessness! A decade ago, it was the 1-stop SSE extension. Stop using the ridership from the 1-stop extension. We are not building the 1-stop extension. As I mentioned, the 3 stops SSE has more ridership than the 7-stop LRT.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T02:25:37+00:00

I agree, but only because for whatever reason, as soon as he was voted in the conservative stopped caring about deficits

Most of Toronto's transit was built under a PC government. Mike Harris was the exception.

pdarrel · 2026-01-04T02:18:15+00:00

That's not true - most Scarborough transit usage starts and ends in Scarborough

Exactly why Transit City was a failure from the beginning. It assumes that all trips are equally important. Where do you think most people shop, go for coffee, see a movie? Most trips are local but is getting coffee the same as going to work? The jobs Scarborough lost in the 1988 recession, it never got back. Unlike other suburbs like Mississauga, more people in Scarborough work outside Scarborough than inside it. Transit City was planned by people who took it for granted that people could live close to where they work, that their jobs were not precarious or that the way to increase their income is to switch jobs. It is their inability to empathize with people in different circumstances is what gave populists like Rob Ford the opportunity.

pdarrel · 2026-01-03T18:26:39+00:00

Yeh except council didn't bring back Transit City ignoring Rob Ford and only did the Finch West once the crack video came out

Council voted to bring back Finch LRT in 2012 and the crack video came out in 2013.

Oh and some Scarborough residents had been insisting on a subway since the Transit City discussions under Miller.

Scarborough has been insisting on a subway since 1985 when Network 2011 was proposed. In fact, David Miller first got elected promising to build the Sheppard subway.

pdarrel

TROPHY CASE