City
The Eglinton LRT Needs a Re-Think
With the preliminary planning completed, final details about how the Eglinton Crosstown LRT will operate are being solidified. Right of way, street level noise, and construction are just some of the issues that are keeping the project from completion. I have a strong feeling that this proposed route will cause a lot of controversial debate and anger in Toronto over the next few years.
There's no doubt that the St. Clair LRT has caused many headaches over the last few years -- in terms of construction and implementation. So much so, that in 2005 construction was brought to a complete stand still. The issue was quickly resolved, but lasting effects among local businesses and residents still exists. Now that the St. Clair line is under control, the focus has shifted to Eglinton.
The solution? Instead of a vehicle making a left hand turn at a major intersection, motorists would make a right turn and temporarily head in the opposite direction. After having done so, there would be a section of road designed for them to make a U-turn to cross back through the same intersection in the proper direction. The TTC is designing these re-routes to accommodate vehicles up to the size of a delivery truck. Compared with the current U-turn implementation on St. Clair, this sounds like a marginal improvement to me.
Although this is only for the above ground sections, I can also imagine this will create more chaos than necessary. To accommodate the U-turns, traffic lights must be added north and south of the stops in question. Ten major intersections are to be affected on the outer east and west stops on the line. I used to, jokingly, think the TTC was making it difficult for motorists on purpose -- probably to get people out of their cars and onto the LRTs. But the more I think about it, the less absurd the notion seems.
Another problematic issue is the street noise and vibrations that will be created by the LRT. Many who live near current streetcar routes can attest to the sounds the trains make. This noise is usually attributed to streetcars grinding their tracks as they turn or stop. The TTC claims "the LRTs will run at about 68 dB, two decibels less than current busy street traffic sound levels." The Ministry of Environment and TTC are currently investigating residential areas in order to reduce the amount of noise pollution.
Over the past 50 years, Eglinton has always been proposed to provide faster transit. In the 1960s, a highway was to be built on the street but was scrapped over funding and usage problems. In the 1990s, construction began on a tunnel from Eglinton West station to extend the subway. This was immediately stopped when the new Premier of Ontario, Mike Harris took office. It seems that anytime a transit project arises on Eglinton, it gets shut down for one reason or another. Although I'm sure there will be some headaches, I hope by the end of 2021 the Eglinton LRT is fully functional.
Image courtesy of TTC.
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Toronto should not have to beg for money for such an important project - and it should be a full-blown subway.
This is a half-baked idea that the city will regret for the next 50 years.
Most of this line is planned to be underground anyways. Hence, any additional costs to upgrade LRT to subway will be minimised as the hole will be there already. Furthermore, as subways have almost triple the capacity of an LRT, the investment in a higher order transit system only serves as a smart investment in Toronto's future!
Why is is that left-turn movements can't be handled in the opposite way that they usually are? i.e. Allow lefts except for when an LRT vehicle is within 30 seconds of approaching the intersection, during which time the traffic signal indicates that the left is absolutely not permitted. Dedicated left turn phases could still be used to clear the queues of left-turning traffic, but this would help increase the amount of green time the LRT vehicles have.
This is the only LRT that needs to be switched to a subway pronto! I've tried driving down Eglinton back home to Brampton many a times and I can't imagine (even with a large portion underground) how the LRT will work effectively on the rest of that street.
Here's hoping someone in City Hall or Queen's Park wakes up to this reality and puts money towards the digging of a subway line out to Pearson.
Also, you don't build subways to follow urban growth. You build subways to *drive* urban growth! The density along Eglinton is already high enough that a subway won't increase the density, which is exactly why Sheppard was a far better place to put a subway a decade ago. The densification currently underway along Sheppard is exactly the kind of development that a subway is intended to drive, and it's not the kind of development that would follow an Eglinton subway.
As for the left turns, I can assure you that Toronto has some of the smartest traffic flow people working on those ideas, and they're fully ready to put the St. Clair U-Turns on to Eglinton if the new style of left turns doesn't work out. But, the numbers and the research all indicate that these new left turns will be *better* than what St. Clair has, so why not try them and change back if TTC/Toronto is wrong? This is a chance for Toronto to take a leadership role in traffic flow, so why not take it?
If we're going to discuss these left turn strategies, though, I think it's important to use proper names for them, just as there are proper names for highway interchange styles (google:"parclo" for how Ontario became a world leader in highway design)
Along St. Clair, where a left turn requires a U-turn across LRT tracks at a major signalled intersection, we should start calling those "Crazy Ivan" left turns.
The Eglinton proposal, where some intersections have the cars doing a U-turn between major intersections, or down a side street (thus, two different styles of left turns), we should call them "Angles and Dangles" left turns.
Both the "Crazy Ivan" and "Angles and Dangles" names come from strategic submarine navigation techniques intended to ensure that there's no dangerous traffic in your blind spot. I think both those names fit these two new left-turn systems quite well, and that giving them proper names will help keep confusion out of public debate.
If you go to the website it says that LRT was decided upon because the projected amount of riders was less than what was needed for a subway, the only problem was that they projected this to 2031, 20 so years from now.
Yes, we do need high-speed transit along another east-west corridor; that could be accomplished better with a GO crosstown line anchored at Summerhill and Yonge. Make that gigantic LCBO a train station again! With that line and the Georgetown line extended to the airport, you'd have excellent downtown and midtown routes to the airport much faster than any subway.
Surely you're joking. Come on down to Queens Quay / Bathurst / Fleet / Lakeshore and see just how much priority the TTC gets. And do I even need to bring up far-side stops so motorists can have their left turn lane? The disastrously torpedoed signal priority?
"Many who live near current streetcar routes can attest to the sounds the trains make."
Really? I live six metres from a 24-hour route and it hasn't bothered me _at_ _all_. I am more disturbed when a diesel truck rolls by.
There is noise where the cars make 90 degree turns. That will never happen on Eglinton.
As for subway -- are you willing to pay for it? Just look at how much drama there was about paying for the streetcars. That $400M extra the city had to throw in would buy you about 1.5 km of subway line at Vaughan extension prices... so multiply that by 20 for Eglinton subway.
The argument that Eglinton is so dense and has so much traffic that it doesn't need a subway to drive its growth, is quite odd. Between those who argue that no subways should be built without first paying for and then ripping out an LRT in order to run packed subway cars, and those who argue that no subways should be built once gridlock is already in place, there is a sure recipe for massive continued reliance on private automobiles -- that never go anywhere.
We need to plan now for where we will be in 20 years, especially given the likely time all this will take. The irony is that the Eglinton corridor doesn't need to wait 20 years to justify a subway. It needs one now.
The route word of the word jokingly is joke so I think he was joking. Secondly I live near islington and lakeshore, I hear the street car every night, I'm 20 meters away, unfortuently we don't have fairly sound absorbing walls like you might.
Nie prezsadaj sobie.
How can politicians have killed this so many times if most of the politically active population is overwhelmingly in favour of more subway lines (Eglinton, Sheppard, etc)? "Transit City" got approved, so the funding's definitely there.
If you follow Rob's logic, the Yonge line would never have been built! The point is to build subways where the density currently is and where it will be in the future - before land values cost into the billions to expropriate. Eglinton certainly fits that criteria. Even if the subway ended at Leslie and Jane, it would be a start for the future.
And the city has gone 'begging' for the funds; otherwise, why the 3 lost decades since the last wave of anything being done around here?
the streets are plenty wide enough and not nearly so busy for this to become an issue out in these parts.
as much as some traffic delays and noise are a small price to pay for decent public transit in this end of the city i am not fond of having a u-turn next to my house.
The LRT and other forms of public transit will be used more and more as the price of gasoline and oil goes up. Don't you remember back in 2008? That was only a warning, prices are already going back up. With those increases, we will need alternatives to driving and one them is the LRT.
So forget about looking out for what is good for the car. You will not be using it.
now i see that most torontonians aren't fortunate enough to travel to Europe in masses, but i guess the big silver wig and his italian buddy should have enough dough to spend their holiday in europe and go figure howie do it in switzerland, germany, the netherlands, denmark, sweden and you-name-it where.
I don't get why you have to make it a question of religion whether that thing is called LRT or Streetcar or Subway. Dig a hole, put (new) streetcar in, there you go, instant subway.Look at St clair or spadina or union -T.O., you can do it.
NO amount of social engineering or wishful thinking is going to change that.
The city finally got it right with the Transit City plan. It's politically realistic to build, fiscally responsible and, most importantly, very useful. It's not perfect but it's VIABLE, which is the key.
I just hope it's not derailed by some "but I want a SUBWAY" loudmouths who haven't taken the time to read and learn about the myriad challenges of building transit infrastructure in the modern era. Steve Munro's blog is a good place to start - google it.
The "used to" implies he doesn't think it's a joke anymore.
"Secondly I live near islington and lakeshore, I hear the street car every night, I'm 20 meters away, unfortuently we don't have fairly sound absorbing walls like you might."
That's strange. I honestly can barely hear it braking to a stop, then accelerating away. That's all - no rattle, no whine, no issue. A truck is louder. A bus is definitely louder. This is on Gerrard west of the river BTW, not exactly the most prestigious area. I don't know what the state of the track is where you live, perhaps that's where the problem lies.
"Nie prezsadaj sobie."
Przepraszam?
In fact, that's exactly what will happen at the central part of the Eglinton route.
http://media.thestar.topscms.com/images/61/9f/739d794346a0b2df8cab1ce74599.jpeg