Karen Stintz calls for a special council meeting to kibosh Rob Ford’s transit plan
With the support of 23 fellow councillors, Karen Stintz boldly called for a special council meeting to confirm the city’s memorandum of agreement for light-rail transit on Eglinton, Sheppard and Finch. We’d say this sounds a lot like the resurrection of Transit City—but that name died with the David Miller administration, so we’d better not. Instead, we’ll just say this: Stintz’s petition will likely serve as the nail in the coffin for Rob Ford’s grand plan to bury the Eglinton Crosstown. And really, the mayor has nobody to blame but himself on this one. First, Stintz offered him a compromise, but he declined. Then, Gordon Chong, the man Ford asked to make his subway dreams come true, suggested the city fund the Sheppard extension by instituting road tolls, among other revenue-generating measures, but Doug Ford called those a “tax grab.” Yes, the mayor says he has a mandate to build subways, so building subways is what he’s going to do. But it appears council believes it has a mandate to build light rail, so building light rail is what it—and, more importantly, the city—is going to do. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
(Images: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost; Karen Stintz, Mike Beltzner)
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I want subways. I also want 25°C weather in February. I also want a pony. I also want… You get the picture.
Yes, I want subways… where needed. We need one for a Downtown Relief Line, where the density would be cost effective. A subway along Sheppard is not cost effective, nor is one along Eglinton East where the roadway and density would allow for surface rapid transit.
We NEED Transit City that would serve more people ALL across the city and not just a small section.
Be transit illiterate, know the difference between streetcars and light rail, use public transit, walk (AKA exercise) to bus stops, and actually read the facts and figure given.
Transit City should be built, but with modifications like more grade separations. For example, Weston should be an underground station, and Leslie should be an overpass station. Other grade separations should also be considered.
Silly Socialist Stintz is going off the rails!
One thing for sure… McGuinty is loving this. This is the excuse he needs to withdraw the funding for this project. I mean he’s just looking for excuses to cut the budget and this coucil is serving it up on a silver platter. And who can blame him? Imagine building more street cars in Toronto. Are they people truly insane? We have an oppoyunity to buid a fully funded subway under Eglinton and they’re f***ing it up. Stintz is soo naive… this is definately amature hour.
The “best” that traitor Stintz and the lefty loonies can do here is throw this entire question into the courts for a ruling as to the extent of power that the mayor has regarding matters of this kind. The fact that the Moron-in-Chief Joe Mihevc paid two nobody lawyers to tell him what he wanted to hear is virtually meaningless; I’ll see your two lawyers and raise you four lawyers who will offer a contrary opinion. In other words, this means protracted litigation while nothing actually gets accomplished. Oh yes, this may well all be moot if the severely cash-strapped McGuinty regime cuts the funding it had agreed to provide.
You said it Gary. We need an underground LRT because that’s what drivers want. Just because it’s the most expensive, least efficient option doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea – if it turns into a boondoggle we can just blame the TTC for not being more “like a business” lol.
It is not a subway under Eglinton, it is an LRT. Most of it is underground anyways, the parts we’re arguing about are moving it above ground where there is tonnes of room. It will save us 2 billion dollars to do so.
And we’re not building more streetcars, we’re building LRTs.
Why is it always a LRT vs. BRT deatbe? I was wondering the same thing. When Transit City was announced, the subway advocates were saying the plan is useless because it’s not using subway technology. They proceeded to then erroneously conflate light rail and streetcar as the same technology. Now that Transit City has been cancelled and a BRT is planned for Finch instead of LRT, the discussion has suddenly shifted to a LRT/BRT deatbe. Others have commented that articulated buses can have capacities of 5,000 ppdph at 2 minute headways because the buses can carry 200 people. I cannot find figures that support that claim. All the figures I have found indicate that articulated buses carry between 70 to 105 passengers. Taking the high-end of that range, 105 passengers, with buses running at 2 minute headways means a BRT can achieve 3150 ppdph. Bi-articulated buses (which are rarely in use around the world, and differ from articulated buses because they have two articulations instead of one and are much longer) can probably hold closer to 200 passengers. At two-minute headways that translates into 6000 ppdph. However, can bi-articulated buses operate in Toronto and navigate the hilly environment and tight curves on some of Toronto’s bus routes? LRT trains typically hold 350 people and that’s on the low-end of the scale. At two minute headways, LRT trains can move 10,500 pphpd. BRT cannot match the capacity offered by LRT. By building an LRT network (Transit City) now, the City is not just providing service for current demand, but it will provide the capacity needed to handle future growth along these routes.However, Transit City as was originally planned, was to operate at 5 minute headways. That reduces the capacity of the LRT lines to 4200 ppdph. Now that the Eglinton-Scarborough line will be entirely underground the headways can be similar to the subway at 2.5 minutes. That puts the capacity of this particular line at 8400 pphpd. BRT’s operating with articulated buses cannot match the capacity provided by LRT’s. BRT’s operating with bi-articulated buses (buses longer than 60 feet) can match the capacity of surface LRT operating at 5 minute headways but once the LRT headways are reduced to the same level of service as BRT (2-3 minute headways) BRT cannot match LRT’s capacity. Rail-based transit is also faster than bus service even when both are separated from traffic. Current TTC figures show that a BRT on Finch would operate with an average speed of 20 to 22 km/h while an LRT on Finch would operate with an average speed of 22 to 25 km/h. There are other routes in the city that can benefit from BRT but I think Finch needs an LRT line.