[Bojaxs]

Well, no, we don't know that, because we have no idea what percentage of the ridership yesterday were people who were only riding the line to check it out. The coming weeks are what will demonstrate whether there are latent capacity issues present or not.

And like I said before, criticize all you want, but there is a MAJOR difference between doing so, and outright declaring that, because the line's design is not to your liking, that we shouldn't have bothered to build it in the first place and that buses would have been fine until we could afford to bury it along its entire length. In most if not all circumstances, the line is going to be a significant improvement over what came before, whatever shortcomings it has. These criticisms are letting perfect be the enemy of good and if this line or thinking were applied to literally any other area of life, no one, anywhere, would do anything, for any reason, since perfection is unattainable.

We could afford to build a subway. Money was never an issue. The issue was that politicians simply didn't want to build a subway because they didn't want to be seen supporting Rob Ford.

Had the city council voted in favour of a subway along Eglinton, the province and Feds would have helped with funding. Just like they did with this LRT project.

 

[nightstreak]

Is Eglinton Station on the Yonge/University Line 1 going to be able to handle the extra volume that will be dumped on it from people transferring over from Line 5? Isn't it already pretty crowded? Or was that all from bus routes, that will now simply be LRT passengers so no real change?

I suspect we’ll see a new type of passenger. Have you ever taken Line 1 north, only to realize you’re on the wrong side of the fork? Yeah, that’s been me more times than I can count. I would never take the bus, I’d just go back down on Line 1 and use Line 2 to switch sides before proceeding on my route. Being able to transfer at Eglinton (or Cedarvale) to switch sides will come in handy more times than I care to admit.

Then there are deliberate commute patterns like someone who lives at Lawrence (on the Yonge fork) wanting to go to Yorkdale. In the past they might go up Line 1 then take a bus across, now they’ll almost certainly go south a stop to Eglinton, transfer there to the University/Spadina fork and go up to Yorkdale.

I can think of many of these in addition to new bus routes feeding Line 5 beyond the traffic that came in on the bus. The new east/west connection will certainly change travel patterns and make Eglinton and Cedarvale stations busier.

 

[crs1026]

We could afford to build a subway. Money was never an issue. The issue was that politicians simply didn't want to build a subway because they didn't want to be seen supporting Rob Ford.
.

You are misstating the history. There was a subway, until Harris cancelled it. And one for Sheppard, until Lastman cancelled most of it (he only cared about the North York segment, and nobody cared about Scarborough....which gave rise to Ford's eventual platform). The cancellations were publicly known, but there was no blowback and little advocacy to challenge those decisions.
The political mood of the day was very much about not spending money on subways because they were considered too expensive. Love him or hate him, Ford fought for an underground line on Eglinton. But in general, LRT was all the voters would accept.

- Paul

 

[81-717]

I suspect we’ll see a new type of passenger. Have you ever taken Line 1 north, only to realize you’re on the wrong side of the fork? Yeah, that’s been me more times than I can count. I would never take the bus, I’d just go back down on Line 1 and use Line 2 to switch sides before proceeding on my route. Being able to transfer at Eglinton (or Cedarvale) to switch sides will come in handy more times than I care to admit.

In this instance, taking a bus across Eglinton, Sheppard, Finch, etc beats going all the way down to Bloor and back (let alone all the way down to Union). The fact that line 6 doesn't allow this strips away probably well over 50% of its usefulness. And obviously extending line 4 to allow this (no LRTs plz) should be obligatory.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

In this instance, taking a bus across Eglinton, Sheppard, Finch, etc beats going all the way down to Bloor and back (let alone all the way down to Union). The fact that line 6 doesn't allow this strips away probably well over 50% of its usefulness. And obviously extending line 4 to allow this (no LRTs plz) should be obligatory.

Speaking from experience, it is easiest to transfer on St Clair than to go down to Line 2. Under no circumstances ever should you be using the 32 Eglinton bus to switch sides of Line 1 (guess that is no longer a concern, hah).

But agreed overall with the message, it was one of my biggest takeaways yesterday. The network effects of Eglinton are simply game changing. So many new routes, destinations, and travel patterns unlocked in this city by just this line alone. The speed of movement through a central chunk of the city that was simply inaccessible without significant time and effort is incredible. I visited places and food spots on Eglinton West that I never thought of going to as easily as one would visit a place in Koreatown or Ossington/Bloor.

 

[JSF-1]

And one for Sheppard, until Lastman cancelled most of it (he only cared about the North York segment, and nobody cared about Scarborough....which gave rise to Ford's eventual platform).

I'll have to step in to defend Lastman here but he really had no choice. Not only did Harris cancel the Eglinton West Subway but he also wanted to cancel the Sheppard Subway as well. This sent Metro into a crisis to the point that they legitimately proposed simply digging the tunnels along Sheppard but not constructing any stations or laying an track just to get Harris to agree and hope that a more sympathetic government would come along in the future to finish the line. The Eglinton West subway was always in an untenable position since it was always the lowest priority route dating back to its inception as part of Network 2011. Once it got truncated to Mount Dennis (York Centre) that halved the potential of a route that already had little need at the time. Sheppard on the other hand was always the highest priority as the Sheppard Corridor was already at capacity and that was expected to grow as STC and NYC continued to develop. Unfortunately Harris wanted to cancel both projects so Metro needed to come up with a way to preserve at least one line and Sheppard was the higher priority. The extension to Downsview was also built at this time, likely because it was cheap due to it largely being at grade.

 

[turini2]

A positive article from Jarrett Walker on the opening of the line - the key point being

The internet is full of reviews and recriminations about how long Eglinton took and the pros and cons of its design, but I want to make a different point: Eglinton shows a city slowly awakening to its true nature as a grid.

A great point worth making - Toronto has a crosstown rapid transit line at last! An alternative rapid way to get east west if Line 2 is down...

 

[T3G]

We could afford to build a subway. Money was never an issue. The issue was that politicians simply didn't want to build a subway because they didn't want to be seen supporting Rob Ford.

Had the city council voted in favour of a subway along Eglinton, the province and Feds would have helped with funding. Just like they did with this LRT project.

Money is always an issue. 7 km of the line is overland tram line. Converting this to a subway would add a few billion extra to the project, and every penny spent on one project is a penny not spent on another project.

We can discuss whether that money would have been well spent (as a user of GO transit, I vehemently disagree), but it's not as though conversion to full subway could be done for the same pricetag we have here, or with the same repercussions.

 

[Westey]

We could afford to build a subway. Money was never an issue. The issue was that politicians simply didn't want to build a subway because they didn't want to be seen supporting Rob Ford.

Had the city council voted in favour of a subway along Eglinton, the province and Feds would have helped with funding. Just like they did with this LRT project.

This is exactly right.
Rob Ford came on board wanting the B-D extended to STC. There was a lot of support for that. A year later, Ford agreed to the connected Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown. Obviously that wasn't his idea, so it show he was willing to compromise, as long as transit didn't interfere with cars. They already had the money for this plan, using a Billion from Finch and a Billion from Sheppard LRT.
But then council killed it, along with the Provincial Liberals killing their own plan just to defeat Ford.
A classic case of defeating Rob Ford regardless of the cost. (and that cost now is a $10B B-D extension.

 

[evandyk]

A positive article from Jarrett Walker on the opening of the line - the key point being

A great point worth making - Toronto has a crosstown rapid transit line at last! An alternative rapid way to get east west if Line 2 is down...

Exactly. This is a major upgrade. My wife works on Eglinton and we live on Bloor. Line 2 shutting down is a disaster for her commute. Now... she could just take Eglinton across and the bus down.

 

[marcus_a_j]

A positive article from Jarrett Walker on the opening of the line - the key point being

A great point worth making - Toronto has a crosstown rapid transit line at last! An alternative rapid way to get east west if Line 2 is down...

That's why I have always believed Sheppard west extension is crucial!

 

[Westey]

You are misstating the history. There was a subway, until Harris cancelled it. And one for Sheppard, until Lastman cancelled most of it (he only cared about the North York segment, and nobody cared about Scarborough....which gave rise to Ford's eventual platform). The cancellations were publicly known, but there was no blowback and little advocacy to challenge those decisions.
The political mood of the day was very much about not spending money on subways because they were considered too expensive. Love him or hate him, Ford fought for an underground line on Eglinton. But in general, LRT was all the voters would accept.

- Paul

Harris was 15 years before Ford. That was a completely different time.
As soon as Ford came up with the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown, there was widespread support and most were content.
I guess some were scheming in the background and they blew up the entire thing.
Almost instantly, they realized the errors of their ways and that LRT was not acceptable to service Scarborough. All sorts of B-D extensions started to be discussed. Federal gov't started promising more money as the 2015 election neared. The Liberals who killed Rob Fords Crosstown, became the "subway champions". Doug Ford got elected on this as well. Ironically, everything proposed was more expensive than if they stuck with the Crosstown plan.
So, we spend $10B on a B-D extension to avoid paying the extra $2B on the Ford Crosstown.

 

[cplchanb]

That's why I have always believed Sheppard west extension is crucial!

everyone except for the bean counter politicians believe it to be crucial. they must have gotten their education from the beancounters at McDonell Douglas back in their formative years.

 

[81-717]

Line 2 shutting down is a disaster for her commute.

It's happening more & more often now, looks like we'll have to get used to it until they convert it to ATC.

An alternative rapid way to get east west if Line 2 is down

Another argument why it should be a subway not a tram. Imagine redirecting all (or even a significant chunk of) L2 users to L5 in this scenario, that's when capacity issues will really show.

 

[Bojaxs]

It's great that so many people riding the line have their phones out and have opened their speedometers apps so as to gauge the speed of the line. People are also timing the line and seeing how long it takes to go between stations.

The speed of the underground portion of Line 5, while Line 6 continues to plod along at street level, will just reinforce the notion to the general public that all rail based transit must be grade separated.

I feel as though when a lot of these LRT's were proposed back in the late 2000's/ early 2010's, the general public weren't as informed on transit and just figured, "it's on rails, so it must be faster". After Line 6's opening, people are more conscientious that this isn't always the case, and politicians, city councilors will be under more pressure from their constituents to make sure that their transit proposals are actually what's best.

- People in Mississauga need to ask serious questions about the City Centre loop.
- People in Hamilton need to ask serious questions about scrapping the 403 bridge
- People in Durham need to ask serious questions about the Bowmanville GO extension, in particular the tracks running parallel with the GM plant spur.
- People in Ottawa just need to start raising hell and getting mad!!!