[salsa]

It's not "walking 400 metres".

Correct. It's actually "walking 550 metres", but I guess Palma doesn't know how to use google maps. The distance is similar to the spacing on the BD line.

Can you imagine, walking 400 metres is a punishment.

Tell that to someone who lives at Oakwood & Vaughan, for example. You talk as if everyone lives on the sidewalk at Eglinton/Oakwood, who are supposedly too lazy to walk a few more metres. But it's nice to hear that these people should enjoy waking as much as you do, even in bad weather or bad health.

 

[ehlow]

I really don't buy this argument. The vast majority of EC users are getting off at Eglinton West, Yonge, Kennedy and (hopefully) Don Mills, or for local use. They in reality will only be using the EC for 4-5 stops at a time max.

Oakwood, Chaplin, Avenue won't effect their commutes.

It's a good point that a lot of trips will be less than 4-5 stops. If you look at current Eglinton East bus usage for example, a surprisingly high number of people are off the bus by Mt Pleasant, and that would just be the 1st stop east of Yonge on the LRT.

Of course the LRT will have more longer distance users because it will be much faster than the bus, but there will still be many local users as well.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Of course the LRT will have more longer distance users because it will be much faster than the bus, but there will still be many local users as well.

Which is another strong point. Even if there are some long distance users, they still greatly benefit from the LRT (even with the "extra" stops) as it will still be much much faster (and comfortable) than a bus.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Correct. It's actually "walking 550 metres", but I guess Palma doesn't know how to use google maps. The distance is similar to the spacing on the BD line.




Tell that to someone who lives at Oakwood & Vaughan, for example. You talk as if everyone lives on the sidewalk at Eglinton/Oakwood, who are supposedly too lazy to walk a few more metres. But it's nice to hear that these people should enjoy waking as much as you do, even in bad weather or bad health.

There is to be a 16-story tower with 7 townhouses to be built at Oakwood & Eglinton. See link. I'm sure that people would see that a station next to the building would be a selling point.

There there are the transit users (from transfers or walk-ins) who would want to go west and not east from Oakwood. When the extension to the YYZ airport is finished, there would be even more.

 

[diminutive]

Tell that to someone who lives at Oakwood & Vaughan, for example. You talk as if everyone lives on the sidewalk at Eglinton/Oakwood, who are supposedly too lazy to walk a few more metres. But it's nice to hear that these people should enjoy waking as much as you do, even in bad weather or bad health.

These decisions should be ridership based. It's great that people at Oakwood and Vaughan want a closer subway station but these decisions should have been made based on actual ridership and not arbitrary things like maintaining stop spacing on a map. And building one or two modest condo buildings will change nothing; at best that would add a few dozen riders.

If the costs of stations were minimal this wouldn't really be an issue, but these things cost hundreds of millions!

 

[diminutive]

Only a small percentage of the catchment area of any given station is on Eglinton.

The catchment area along Eglinton which is walking distance from, say, Oakwood, but not Dufferin or Eglinton West is 80-100 houses. It's not like by dropping Oakwood we'd be dropping coverage to Kowloon. These are 600m radiuses.

People here are vastly overstating the additional coverage stations like Oakwood provide.

Moreover, simple metrics like coverage are kind of meaningless since most riders reach rapid transit stations by connecting routes. Walk-ins simply don't account for much ridership, so improving walk-in coverage by covering a few extra houses makes hardly any contribution to ridership.

 

[howl]

Why can they not build them one at a time or why would the contractor not want to do so? Why not start now - they have gone by Keele so start that station. I think when people start seeing the actual station being build it makes it more immediate. Once they have gone pass Caledonia and are at Dufferin, they could start Caledonia and so on.

From what I've heard each station will take the better part of three years to complete, and the interchange stations will take at closer to four years. Even if they started right now (which they can't because the contract won't be awarded until the end of the year) and they could build them in two years it would take until 2028 to built the seven inline stations from Keele to Avenue one at a time (not including Eglinton West or Yonge). The only possible way to get everything done by 2020 is to go whole hog and do everything at once.

 

[nfitz]

Moreover, simple metrics like coverage are kind of meaningless since most riders reach rapid transit stations by connecting routes. Walk-ins simply don't generate account for much ridership, so improving walk-in coverage by covering a few extra houses makes hardly any contribution to ridership.

Excellent point.

I'd be interested to see your circles extended to the much wider spacing they are planning between Yonge and Don Mills.

 

[diminutive]

I'd be interested to see your circles extended to the much wider spacing they are planning between Yonge and Don Mills.

There's decent coverage... most of Leslie's "coverage" would be empty parkland though.

 

[howl]

The catchment area along Eglinton which is walking distance from, say, Oakwood, but not Dufferin or Eglinton West is 80-100 houses. It's not like by dropping Oakwood we'd be dropping coverage to Kowloon. These are 600m radiuses.

People here are vastly overstating the additional coverage stations like Oakwood provide.

Moreover, simple metrics like coverage are kind of meaningless since most riders reach rapid transit stations by connecting routes. Walk-ins simply don't account for much ridership, so improving walk-in coverage by covering a few extra houses makes hardly any contribution to ridership.

Also keep in mind that the 400m-500m-600m circles are a very simplistic way to visualize the area influenced by a station. It shouldn't be used to actually do any sort of detailed analysis. The distance should be based on actual walking routes (sidewalks and public pathways) not straight-line distances. There may be places that are only 200m in a straight line from the station entrance that require a 700m walk to actually get there. Also if you look at the walking distance as a two dimensional graph with distance on the X-axis and percentage of people who will use the station on the Y-axis - the resulting curve will look like a bell-curve, not a sharp cliff. Within 100m a high percentage of people will use the station. As you move further away the percentage will drop until at some point - probably 1km away or so - virtually no one will walk to the station. Therefore the value of high density near the station is a lot greater than high density 500m from the station. Lastly the type of community that is surrounding the station makes a difference - there are all sorts of social and economic reasons why some communities will embrace transit and others won't. You may have a 200 unit apartment building right next to a station, but because it is a high-end seniors-oriented building very few people from that building will use the LRT/subway. Therefore you can't say, just based on the circles, that Oakwood will definitely have fewer riders than, say, Bathurst, only that your gut feeling is it will generate fewer riders. When you look at the details you might be right or wrong.

 

[rbt]

Also keep in mind that the 400m-500m-600m circles are a very simplistic way to visualize the area influenced by a station.

That area has a decent streetgrid. A circle is going to be pretty close to actuality.

 

[smallspy]

The catchment area along Eglinton which is walking distance from, say, Oakwood, but not Dufferin or Eglinton West is 80-100 houses. It's not like by dropping Oakwood we'd be dropping coverage to Kowloon. These are 600m radiuses.

People here are vastly overstating the additional coverage stations like Oakwood provide.

Moreover, simple metrics like coverage are kind of meaningless since most riders reach rapid transit stations by connecting routes. Walk-ins simply don't account for much ridership, so improving walk-in coverage by covering a few extra houses makes hardly any contribution to ridership.

Last I checked, it is difficult at best to walk through people's backyards in an attempt to make your walk more direct.

Those circles are nice, but also fairly pointless. A more accurate map would have an actual 600 metre path along every single walking path. You will see that the catchment area is quite a bit smaller than you think.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[ehlow]

Some really good points made here. My opinion is that it would have probably been OK to not have Oakwood station, but having it there isn't the end of the world that some people make it out to be.

Mt Pleasant & Yonge station's overlap is justified in my opinion due to the very high density of that block (it's all apartment buildings and condos, with more condos to come).

 

[Palma]

It's not "walking 400 metres".

It's walking an additional 400 metres once you've finally reached Eglinton. Or worse yet, running a parallel bus service (and having to pay for it).

Only a small percentage of the catchment area of any given station is on Eglinton.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

Wow, a whole 550 metres. Boy oh boy. What can I say. I'd rather not.

 

[diminutive]

Last I checked, it is difficult at best to walk through people's backyards in an attempt to make your walk more direct.

Har-har.

Those circles are nice, but also fairly pointless. A more accurate map would have an actual 600 metre path along every single walking path. You will see that the catchment area is quite a bit smaller than you think.

Like rbt said, with a fairly decent grid, the circle will closely approximate actual distances. That's why I used fairly conservative distances (600m, vs. the more standard 800m), to try to account for minor reductions.

What destinations/origins exactly do you see an Oakwood stations serving that nearby stations couldn't serve? Can you realistically see more than 100-200 houses that would be left out? Why are you assuming walk-in ridership is even very important to net ridership?

Therefore you can't say, just based on the circles, that Oakwood will definitely have fewer riders than, say, Bathurst, only that your gut feeling is it will generate fewer riders. When you look at the details you might be right or wrong.

Yes, you're right.

If you look through the Eglinton demand forecasts, the projected ridership at stations like Chaplin or Avenue road is extremely small. Oakwood wasn't included in that report because it was seen to be too low volume, so presumably it would be in the same ballpark. These would be some of the least used stations in the entire system.

I didn't want to overemphasize radial coverage circles. Particularly for rapid transit, where "coverage" is more a function of connecting surface routes than any kind of local demand. I was trying to respond to the arguments that stations like Oakwood are justified on the basis of coverage (rather than, you know, actual ridership). This is a silly argument since we can see that the reduction in coverage from removing these stations is quite minor.