Peter Kuitenbrouwer in the National Post has a series of articles talking about crowding on the TTC.
One more person, and this subway’s gonna explode
If you ignore the smell, the bus is still the better way
A seat on the Queen streetcar? Don’t make me laugh
The February 17 service improvements are a start, but it’s no secret that there’s a long way to go. A few changes are in the wind as described in a TTC report from their February 27 meeting.
We learn that more service will come with the March 30 and May 11 schedule periods to address the backlog of overcrowding, at least on the bus routes.
In the fall, further improvements will change the peak hour loading standard for bus routes. Across the board, the standard will be improved by 10% so that the acceptable average loads, now in the mid-50s depending on vehicle type, will be reduced by 5 or 6. This won’t mean 10% more service on every route because some lines are running below the new standard already and won’t be eligible for more service. (These tend to be short routes where cuts today would have a severe impact raising the average load above the line or making the headway unacceptably wide.)
Also planned for the fall is a return to full hours of service on most routes so that if the subway is open, the routes are operating at least a 30-minute service. 2009 may bring a 20-minute maximum, but that’s a budget issue for next year.
Meanwhile, we see little discussion of streetcar or rapid transit service because both suffer from constraints in fleet size. That may be the situation, though I am skeptical, but what is missing is a projection of what we would need if we made the same changes in loading standards for the rail modes.
Streetcars
From the report, we can see that the peak standards for CLRVs and ALRVs (the one section and two section streetcars) are 74 and 108 respectively. If these numbers were reduced by 10%, to 67 and 97, how much more service would we have on the street, if the cars were available?
The current AM peak service is 186 cars (148 CLRVs and 38 ALRVs). We can reasonably assume that most of the streetcar lines are operating at the target level (probably some are over it), and a 10% change in the loading standard would translate to about 15 CLRVs and 4 ALRVs. A further 15 CLRVs, roughly, will be needed once the St. Clair line goes back to full streetcar operation late in 2008. This means that just to implement the new standard and to operate the full network will require a peak service of 178 CLRVs and 42 ALRVs.
This is not practical given that the fleet is only 196 CLRVs and 52 ALRVs, and a 10% spare ratio for the CLRVs is probably unattainable. Some small-scale tweaks are possible, but nothing substantial. Crowding will be part of our future on the streetcar network.
The TTC is floating the scheme of using buses on some lines (notably Kingston Road and Bathurst) during the AM peak when the demand for cars it at its height. The PM peak requires only 171 cars and most of the difference is on the 504 King route. This leaves room for some increase in streetcar service in the PM. An obvious question: If the fleet is there, why isn’t the TTC using it today?
Between them, the 502, 503 and 511 would account for about 20 cars in the AM peak (once the 511 goes back to Exhibition Loop). Replacing them would require at least 28 AM peak buses, plus spares, although I suspect that mixed bus and streetcar operation would be a real mess on Queen and on King.
We won’t face this until the St. Clair line resumes full operation late this year, but when that happens, the TTC will be challenged to field every available car.
How many cars are actually available? We don’t know, and that’s a critical question that must be asked. How many are dead-stored due to critical problems? How many have been raided for spare parts? How many are “lemons” that go into service rarely because they are unreliable?
Meanwhile, Toronto is about to purchase new streetcars, provided that someone will pay for them. How many do we need? How much additional carhouse capacity is required to handle the co-existence of both the new fleet as it gradually takes over and the old fleet that will stay in operation to maintain service?
Only now are we hearing these questions, and not very loudly, because the long-range capital budgets don’t make provision for large-scale growth.
Subways
Overcrowding on the subway is a daily complaint as we have seen both from comments here and from media reports. Ridership is going up, but there is little the TTC can do to address this.
Among the not-quite-quick-fixes are:
- The new Toronto Rocket trains
- The new signal system and closer headways
- A seventh car for each train
The Rockets won’t be here for a few years, and even when they are, the current order is not big enough to completely operate the existing YUS line. That route uses 48 trains today, or 55 including spares. However, the December 2006 order is for only 39 trainsets. Considerably more are needed to convert the entire YUS fleet, let alone to expand it.
Yes, it would be possible with careful scheduling to ensure that the lower-capacity T1 trains didn’t hit the height of the peak period on the YUS, but the TTC has never been very good at careful scheduling of its trainsets to specific runs and times of day.
Next comes the new signal system, although that will not be in operation over the full YUS until well into the next decade. Closer headways will also strain terminal turnback capacity as I have discussed in other posts. In theory, this will be fixed by extending both ends of the subway into York Region and operating short-turns so that no turnback point must accommodate the shortened line headway. Shorter headways also mean more trainsets and more carhouse space. Alas, little of this, beyond the signal system itself, is actually in the budget.
Finally we come to the 7-car trainset scheme with an added 50-foot car in each trainset bringing it to the same length (500 feet) as the standard subway platforms. Again, this is a project for the next decade, not next week.
Meanwhile, what of the Bloor line? There are no plans to increase capacity on that route, and current operations at terminals would make significant change very difficult. If the current headway of 140 seconds were reduced to 130, the TTC would need to manage its terminal operations efficiently and ruthlessly to ensure that trains departed as quickly as possible. A number of other scheduling tricks can squeeze some capacity, but I won’t get into a detailed discussion here. The main issue is that the closer the headway comes to the operational minimum, the more sensitive the whole line will be to disruptions as there will be no “give” to absorb minor delays.
Moreover, as the capacity of the YUS line grows, so will the arrival rate of transfer passengers at St. George and Bloor-Yonge stations. How will the BD line cope with these passengers?
Strangely, this entire issue is absent from our regional transit plans because, for decades, talking about transit capacity into the core has been political suicide. We are all supposed to focus on the 905. Yes, there are capacity problems out there too, but downtown won’t go away.
GO Transit has a role to play, and regular readers here will know my opinion that GO is not addressing the serious problem with regional travel that overloads the local rapid transit network. That said, there is a serious capacity problem on the subway system and it will only grow worse as demand grows.
To the TTC, the City, Metrolinx and Queen’s Park, I say this: Your current plans only scratch the surface of requirements for infrastructure, vehicles and service. Much more is needed, and needed today.
I will return to this theme in a review of the Metrolinx Green Papers to follow over the next weeks.
Steve Munro 
Steve
Does the TTC really have spare buses/driver? Isn’t it fairer to say that ridership standards on some routes could be better if the TTC didn’t have to sacrifice the necessary buses to patch the hole in the streetcar fleet?
LikeLike
Excellent post.
For streetcars, off hand I’d say they need to bump the order up to 300 from 204.
As for subways, the TTC should pass out diet pills with Metropasses so they can squeeze more people into the trains. That’s about as nutty as their scheme to shorten headways.
A downtown relief subway line may not help if it requires that the majority of passengers make three transfers instead of two. For example, if a DRL was built that connected eastern BD with Union, a passenger wishing to go to Queen would be faced with three transfers instead of two. That passenger may opt to take the more congested route and save a transfer.
Probably the best scheme would be to disconnect the Spadina subway from YUS and extend it down Spadina Avenue south of Bloor with a connection at Osgoode and with a terminal station at Queen/Yonge. Spadina passengers would be faced with one transfer while the University line would be freed up completely to serve BD. YU trains could then terminate at St. George like they did before Spadina was built.
LikeLike
I only have one soultion for this which should be able to help a lot!
Build the Don Mills LRT first! Sheppard to the Pape/Donlands split then dip underground to Bloor and continue to Queen. At Queen, the line will turn (with a gentle curve) AND the existing Queen Streetcar will also join in a portal with the Don Mills line up to at least University Avenue (Osgoode) and then the Queen line can come back to surface somewhere after that.
This would
a) give a huge relief to the Yonge Line for all people in the East
b) Provide reliable service to Don Mills
c) make square with Yonge, Sheppard, Queen, and Don Mills (but it is not continuous so no real advantage)
d) With a subway along Pape, can’t we just abandon the Broadview segment of the streetcar and make Dundas and King end at Pape?
That would leave more LRV’s for the Pape line because once that opens why would running a Broadview service be viable anymore?
Forget Jane for now, sure its a busy corridor but the Spadina leg has plenty more room for many years (taking it every day that is what i see).
Eglinton is important but it will just kill the Yonge line even more!
So in summary, Don Mills first then everything else. Yonge needs relief and an eastern bypass of the crazy Yonge-Bloor junction is necessary too.
LikeLike
Toronto is getting insufficient funding from the province and virtually no funding from the federal government for transit. The only federal funding for GTA transit is for the Spadina subway extension, which is a colossal waste of money because the capacity of a subway is simply not needed north of Steeles. (York Region Transit can hardly even fill Viva Orange buses going to Jane & Highway 7, so why do we need a subway there?) Aside from that, the federal government is blowing $150 million (plus equipment) on an unneeded rail link to Peterborough. Of course, we should realize that it (and the 407 extension to Peterborough) are really being built to service the infamous Pickering Airport which we do not need. If we stopped wasting money on such useless politically-motivated projects, we would have lots of money to spend on useful projects like new streetcars and traffic signal priority which would help FAR more passengers per dollar.
LikeLike
Suddenly the promise has devolved from all surface routes will operate when the subway does to “substantially” all of them.
So what does that mean? Maybe they noticed the 400-series community buses and the express buses. Fine. Minor detail. But what about running Jones seven days a week, for example? Or Dupont more often than once an hour late at night?
Today’s inaccessibility-creating captcha word: “gourd.”
LikeLike
Regarding B-D capacity and the DRL, ideally the DRL should not require a transfer to access from the far east end (or west end for that matter), it would partially defeat the purpose since then going via Yonge remains more attractive to the rider (and we get left with the same problem after spending a fortune). Yes, this does mean a return to interlining the subway, but with fundamental network differences that contrast dramatically against the 1966 failure, and is far friendlier to operations as well as riders.
Fortunately, the necessary Wye is already in place in the existing network for the DRL to run through from the east (albeit at low speed), but the B-D needs more yard space first, because its current yard would get eaten up as the new base for DRL stock. Since yards ideally should be located near the end of the line away from the core, new yards should be incorporated into single-stop extensions on each side (Cloverdale Station and Eglinton GO Station). The Eglinton yard could also be shared with the Eglinton Line when it materializes, and for that reason should probably include maintenance facilities, while the Cloverdale one can be for train parking only.
Then run the DRL, not to Union, but through the King/Queen corridor (use Richmond/Adelaide), since stations like King and Dundas are under some of the most stress (so is Union, but it’s already getting more space), as are the streetcars in this corridor between Bay and Dufferin, and re-unite it into the Bloor Line at Keele (renovated to a 3-track layout) by cutting through a renovated Vincent Yards area (and on the east side, the first station south of the yard would also be a 3-track layout).
This would probably have significant impacts in alleviating Yonge, and even other routes. This would also be useful, if not essential, to absorb the new ridership Transit City is going to generate. Since the intended result here is to run a train direct from Kennedy (or one stop further east) to Queen/King, this DRL can’t be LRT (and GO Transit isn’t the answer either, even though the route alignments are similar).
Steve: I don’t want to rain on your parade, but there are several serious problems with your proposal, especially in the west end. You talk of cutting in via Vincent Yard (which really is a misnomer because Vincent street (what is left of it) is east of Dundas Wset and the yard is over closer to Keele Station. You seem to imply that the DRL-west line would get back up to Bloor via the Weston rail corridor (on or under). However, the connection at Bloor is a big problem because there are large buildings on the northest and southeast corners of Bloor and Dundas, right where you would be trying to build the start of your connection. Then you have to get under the about-to-be-build condo on the northwest corner. Very messy.
Further in, the Richmond/Adelaide corridor runs out of steam at Bathurst Street. Richmond continues west to Niagara, but certainly not all the way to Dufferin, and there are new buildings already approved directly in line with a “Richmond” connection to the Weston corridor.
To the east, I assume that you are coming in through Greenwood Wye and then south via the Kingston subdivision (or Queen Street itself) to downtown. Yes, additional yard space is needed (and not just for BD), but two extremely expensive extensions of the subway line are not the way to get more storage.
Your proposal, by the way, leaves the central part of the BD line (Dundas West to Donlands) with less than full service.
When I speak of GO capacity, I am actually talking about the north-south traffic now funnelling into the YUS that should be diverted to the existing Barrie and Richmond Hill services. Yes, more capacity on these lines will cost money, but not as much as huge increases in subway capacity to serve traffic that could be on a regional system instead.
LikeLike
Crazy notion: With all the bad economic news that’s floating around and doomsday scenarios, maybe one of the backpocket plans for easing congestion is to hope that another recession comes along and knocks ridership down again for a few years. THAT would certainly help with the overcrowding, and could allow for even further deferral of necessary capital investment in capacity and vehicles, as funds would be unavailable and we’d have to wait “for things to get better.” Let’s hope that mad idea isn’t in someone’s plans, as things have been getting better in the last few years and investment has only now started to trickle.
Steve: The worst thing that could happen would be for governments to play the “not now” card yet again. We have a backlog of transit infrastructure thanks to the several times that trick was pulled over past decades, never mind the backlog we would have in another 15 years if nothing happens. Politicians, especially Finance Ministers, are extremely short-sighted and always look for big ticket projects to defer while spending pennies on high-profile stuff we don’t really need.
LikeLike
I would like to make one positive comment about the surface service improvements. The one route that is always problematic for me is the #100 Flemingdon Park. Since moving to T.O. I have used this bus fairly often and almost always had problems with crowding and wait times. On Wednesday around 4:00 p.m. I arrived at Broadview Station and there were Two 100’s waiting to load up there and everyone got a seat on the full bus I was on. So if this bus is any indicator of how the new buses are helping the crowded routes then the #100 Flemingdon Park passed with flying colors.
On another note the work is all done at Broadview Station making it more comfortable to wait for a bus at this station. Hope the Station Modernization program gets the station I mostly use, Vic. Park, as comfortable as Broadview Station.
LikeLike
Further to Mimmo’s comment about disconnecting Spadina from YU, I suspect that most westbound riders on BD would be just as unwilling to transfer at St George, go around the loop and up Yonge to their final destination. Perhaps the only exception would be riders whose final destination is Union or King, and these riders may in fact already be going down University today. If the routes were interlined (with Spadina disconnected), there would be a better chance that westbound BD riders would choose not to transfer at Yonge, but I doubt the TTC will ever try that again.
From my vantage point, the only way to relieve Yonge is with an eastern relief line. Let’s not forget that any new subways we build will have widely spaced stops, so despite the fact that some riders would have to transfer a third time at Union, it would still be much faster than staying on Danforth/Bloor and then heading down Yonge. At most, a subway down Pape would have five stops (Danforth, Gerrard, Queen, St Lawrence Market, Union), which would be a huge incentive for BD riders to transfer at Pape instead of Yonge.
LikeLike
Another thing I forgot to mention is the fact that once the Spadina line is extended north, numerous 905 bus routes that currently terminate at Finch station will instead terminate at Steeles W or VCC. This should reduce the load on the Yonge line, although I’m not sure to what degree.
LikeLike
“Politicians, especially Finance Ministers, are extremely short-sighted and always look for big ticket projects to defer while spending pennies on high-profile stuff we don’t really need.”
With Flaherty’s recent endorsement of a rail line to service, of all places, Peterborough, I have to wonder if this statement generally applies more to right-wing politicians than others. And this is coming from a right wing politician myself.
My observation is that planning for future transit improvements in the Toronto area have generally been from the left, no matter how expensive it may be. Sure the Sheppard Stubway was built, but even with its expensive price tag, it makes more sense than the Flaherty Rail Line. Heck, even the Sorbara Subway is seen in a better light than this. In essense, the Transit City Plans are the best laid plans the city has seen in a long time but I can see the uphill battle that it has to go through. Never mind that it has seen wide support across the left, and very little on the right.
It is those reasons why I have been disenchanted with the political process as of late. I didn’t vote Tory in the last Federal election and I’m glad that I didn’t. Both the Right Wing Sun and the Left Wing Star have been dishing a lot of dirt on Flaherty’s Nowhere Rail Line. $150 million to serve 900 commuters a day? Not to mention that it runs past several key Tory ridings.
LikeLike
Anyone ever think about a fare increase as a way to cut down on ridership increases (and overcrowding) and increase the farebox recovery rate (and lower the amount of operating subsidies required)? If transit is a business, then it should increase prices when demand is up.
Seniors, students, and the disabled should continue to receive reduced fares, but why should the TTC pay for it instead of the school system and provincial social services departments?
Steve: The problem with this formula is that it looks narrowly at the TTC as a cost-recovery agent rather than as a way to limit expenses in other portfolios and for the general public good. We have transit service to reduce congestion and pollution, avoid the need to build more roads and to reduce the need for multi-car (or any-car) families. The money we “make or lose” on transit needs to be seen in this broader context, not simply from the question of constraining demand.
LikeLike
Leo, usage of St. George (instead of B-Y) by easterners was much higher before the Spadina subway meant that trains arrived from the north with standing room only.
Most Y riders from the east (66-34 all-day split) would only go as far as King. From the west, it was Queen (89-11 all-day split).
When the lines were split however, University ridership decreased by almost 30%, and that decrease held well until the 1970s. Yonge south of Bloor absorbed that.
If they could reduce Yonge ridership south of Bloor by 30% with a DRL, the remaining transfer passengers would be tap dancing on the stairs while changing at B-Y. The problem is an alignment under King to St. Andrew would be expensive if not impossible (due to PATH) — and that would be the best place for it — not Union.
LikeLike
Joseph C – you say Yonge is congested and you are right.
I invite you to come to Pape Station in the AM peak, check out how full the WB trains are, imagine those trains with LRTs feeding them rather than buses, and then let us all know how many people you think will leave Yonge for Danforth, especially since they will be trying to squeeze onto Yonge at Bloor and not Eglinton. Steve’s idea of turning back trains at the Kennedy queue will help but it won’t solve the issue especially with the gradual intensification of the east Danforth.
Downtown relief has to precede Don Mills to Danforth – or at least be exactly coinciding with it, therefore “building Don Mills first” is not on.
Finally, your comment about Broadview is pretty brave on this blog given where the admin lives. 🙂
Steve: Actually, it was George S. who was so complimentary about the “new” Broadview Station. The birds are not singing in the trees yet, and I’m looking forward to more than grass, but things seem to be better. Mind you there are the leaks between the original station structure and the new parts. Didn’t anyone bother to check the groundwater and find that there is an old underground stream here? Broadview has leaked badly at the east end, right where the construction is, from the day it opened, although it’s been several years since the last stalactites formed.
I am seeing quite heavy use of the new east end stairways that give people a direct path from the buses down to the trains. A bit less so for the reverse as people prefer to ride up the escalators.
Then there is the little matter of the rusting shelter supports, and the perennially open automatic doorway cleverly designed so that it picks up everyone passing through the station and stays open, wintry winds and all, most of the time.
LikeLike
Okay, on behalf of a Ryerson university student, please suggest that when the TTC decides that University students should get a proper discount or a combined pass because currently no University in Toronto does because the TTC simply will not budge (yet!), then we’ll talk.
To me, I treat the Don Mills line as a long line from Steeles all the way to Downtown but yes technically they are two lines. Build the Relief line first or build the relief line and the Don Mills line together. What is key however is that the line is built as an LRT so that it can be one long continuous ride. Also, make the line go east at Queen and reach Queen station NOT Union! There is already 1 LRT line, and 2 planned for Union. With the line turning at Queen, the streetcar can just simply join in a portal with the Relief line and interline…
Is that not the best way to use 1 route? Make the most out of one thing!
Finally, your comment about Broadview is pretty brave on this blog given where the admin lives. 🙂
Steve: I’ve already thrown in my two cents on that in a previous reply.
LikeLike
I’ll apologize in advance if this is an inappropriate place for this topic, but I’d like to respond.
Steve: I don’t want to rain on your parade, but there are several serious problems with your proposal, especially in the west end. (snipped, see above for full text)
I prefer the term “challenges”, as these are not the death sentences “serious problems” makes them sound like, but indeed valid points, and points that I have not overlooked.
Bloor/Dundas
The southeast building isn’t in the way, although the grass space beside it is indeed needed and usable as the alignment swerves off the Weston sub. The northeast building would be a problem if one were to propose going under the higher portions, however, the alignment for a subway here can get away with cutting through only a 3-storey area. While part of 2 basement levels may be consumed, it is otherwise workable to cut out some new openings through the foundation walls – this is similar to what will happen to Union Station when they add the new subway platform, although a subway will require additional protection (not only to itself, but to the existing building as well). By the time the subway emerges on the other side of the building, immediately across Dundas is TTC property, so the new condo going up on the northwest corner is not in the way either. Bing!, we’re in Vincent Yards.
Richmond/Adelaide
Richmond only works upto Niagara as you pointed out. Westbound runs along Richmond while Eastbound runs along Adelaide, but west of Niagara, Adelaide takes both directions (probably stacked one atop the other instead of side by side since some parts of the alignment are a little tight on lateral space at certain points). As Adelaide also terminates, the alignment cuts across the mental hospital and then onto the Weston sub via Sudbury St.. When cutting off of Richmond, some non-residential buildings would unfortunately have to go.
Yards
If your point is that yard space alone is not a good reason to extend the subway, then I agree, and it is not the sole reason. The TTC itself has an interest in extending the subway west to Cloverdale, although too expensive for them at the moment. There is a huge volume of bus congestion along this stretch of Dundas. In the east, Kennedy is one of the top 3 busiest stations, and even without the buses, Kennedy sees high transfer volumes as three train lines converge there. The Danforth GO connection to Main Street is not really a transfer proper, it makes a great deal of sense from a network perspective to have a proper connection to GO’s Lakeshore line in the east, not just a proper Stouffville connection, and the McCowan/Eglinton area has density to support an argument for a subway extension when including some bus diversions. These reasons combined with a need for yard space make sense.
Central BD
Actually, full service is provided in the central BD. That was why I indicated 3-track stations at both ends of the DRL, for that very purpose of keeping full service across the line. It needs to service both the DRL and the 1966 BD at the same level as the 1968 BD extensions, instead of the latter recieving twice the service as the former. The middle track is used for arrivals, trains unload and then proceed to tail tracks (or the yard in the east end eastbound case), after which they will slip briefly into the opposite direction’s queue before branching off to their respective line. This shouldn’t cause delays since trains slipping into line will be empty, but it will be a busier track than usual (impossible without the new signal system). Eastbound trains from Donlands being cut off by a DRL eastbound train at Greenwood would actually go via the yard and into the 3-track station on the other side and turn back there. Trains alternate between original BD and DRL and alternate short-turns and service should be like today’s, or better with improved terminal geometry with the extensions from Kipling and Kennedy.
Steve: I am letting this comment through only to serve as an example. There are times where heroic planning and engineering take precedence over looking at alternatives. What is proposed here is nothing short of a massive restructuring of the Bloor-Danforth line including two extensions that, frankly, I don’t think would be built (leaving aside the physical problems) in anywhere near the time of expected ridership growth. We need to find ways to divert riding from existing lines onto other parts of the network, current or proposed.
Please consider this the end of this thread as I will not post any additional comments on the proposed split of the BD line.
LikeLike
Stephen Cheung re: Peterborough
I’m not sure this is entirely for commuters benefit as a direct vote buying/land value pumping exercise like the Sorbara Line. It’s part of it, sure, but I think the ready agreement of CP compared to their historical obstinacy to expanding GO means that the Peterborough money will give them increased freight capacity and rehabilitate their own decayed trackage. In other words – corporate welfare.
However, I am willing to accept corporate welfare that gets 18-wheelers off the 401 or Highway 7. I bet the Pickering airport planners at GTAA are smiling too.
LikeLike
Mark: If this was a proposal to restore tracks that would benefit CP service as well as the few commuters the service would attract then they should announce it as such. I would expect that there would be less political haymaking around this subject than what people are seeing it as right now: a white elephant of a line which probably will have even lesser ridership numbers than the Bellamy Bus during Sundays.
I will admit to one thing, even though I am a right wing supporter (not a politician, as I accidently typed, if anyone picked that up) that the prospect of Corporate Welfare that gets trucks off the 401 is quite appealing indeed. Calling this “a major investment in rail infrastructure” would be seen as a loose term, from corporate transport to commuter rail, and would benefit a larger constituency.
LikeLike
I first thought the proposed Peterborough line was a waste of money but then I looked at the line and found that it will be a very good investment up to at least Locust Hill. Why? That area is basically beside the new Donald Cousens Parkway and Highway 7 which is nearby the booming Cornell neighbourhood and the area is quite high in transit ridership.
Did the YRT ever think about that as a station by any chance? It’s so close to the Cornell terminal under construction yet it will be 2 seperate stations!
Also, they say a proposed “Agincourt” station which probably means the existing one is moving south near Sufference Dr and it will be a GO TERMINAL with 2 different lines meeting at one stop. Add that with the current condos that are being built there and this has the potential to be a heavy traffic station AND a direct non-stop trip to downtown.
So if that is the case, would it make sense for the Sheppard line to go south at the current Agincourt station, meet with the new Agincourt station and continue its way south and end at the Scarborough town center? LRT of course…
After Locust Hill however, the Peterborough line is still a huge waste! I’d rather see a Bolton line come so that it can help out the GO starved Woodbridge area….(where, yes, i reside)
Steve: Strange as it may seem, STC is not the centre of the known universe, and we shouldn’t gerrymander every transit line to go there. Travel in Scarborough should not be dictated by the needs of commuters on whatever GO services exist, but on the overall needs of the city.
On a more practical note, I don’t think that there is room on the Uxbridge sub for an LRT plus the rail tracks. Why should the CP Agincourt Station be south of Sheppard? Why not at the point where the line crosses Sheppard?
LikeLike