[TheTigerMaster]

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

This discussion is ridiculous. If you can't manage at least a 700m walk you should be on Wheel Trans.

 

[Hipster Duck]

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).

That's a whole different kettle of fish.

Mount Pleasant to Yonge is 600 meters, Mount Pleasant to Bayview is even further, and not only does the Mount Pleasant and Eglinton area have a high density of population, jobs, and high school students, but it also intersects with a north-south bus line.

 

[ehlow]

That's a whole different kettle of fish.

Mount Pleasant to Yonge is 600 meters, Mount Pleasant to Bayview is even further, and not only does the Mount Pleasant and Eglinton area have a high density of population, jobs, and high school students, but it also intersects with a north-south bus line.

Good points. I would actually prefer the Mt Pleasant bus to simply run up & down Mt Pleasant instead of having two routes that go into Eglinton station & St Clair station, and also go downtown to Jarvis like the premium express bus, and be more frequent. I think it would get higher ridership in that case.

 

[Palma]

This discussion is ridiculous. If you can't manage at least a 700m walk you should be on Wheel Trans.

could not stop laughing at this. But oh so true. I am surprised I did not think it

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Good points. I would actually prefer the Mt Pleasant bus to simply run up & down Mt Pleasant instead of having two routes that go into Eglinton station & St Clair station, and also go downtown to Jarvis like the premium express bus, and be more frequent. I think it would get higher ridership in that case.

Yup. I only recall getting on the Mt. Pleasant bus like 5 times in my whole life because it is always faster to walk from Eglinton to Davisville than it is waiting for a bus. It is that infrequent.

The Davisville bus is also pretty infrequent, despite the rather large number of people I see at the bus stations along that route. Never understood why, it is a short route. Surely you can get a bus driver to do a constant circle of the route. I've heard that the bus drivers on that route take a 30 minute break at Davisville Station after every run.

 

[ehlow]

Yup. I only recall getting on the Mt. Pleasant bus like 5 times in my whole life because it is always faster to walk from Eglinton to Davisville than it is waiting for a bus. It is that infrequent.

The Davisville bus is also pretty infrequent, despite the rather large number of people I see at the bus stations along that route. Never understood why, it is a short route. Surely you can get a bus driver to do a constant circle of the route. I've heard that the bus drivers on that route take a 30 minute break at Davisville Station after every run.

That's true, there are so many apartment buildings along that Davisville stretch that you'd expect a decent bus service.

Maybe the Mt Pleasant bus could happen after the LRT opens, since those taking the bus can transfer to the LRT to get to the subway. Currently the buses are infrequent feeders into the subway, I guess they're mainly for those who can't walk to the subway.

The other thing I'd like to see being looked at once the LRT finishes is doing a pedestrian scramble at Yonge-Eg like the one at Yonge-Dundas. It seems like the pedestrian volume is there to justify it, but it would impede bus flow currently.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Yup. I only recall getting on the Mt. Pleasant bus like 5 times in my whole life because it is always faster to walk from Eglinton to Davisville than it is waiting for a bus. It is that infrequent.

The Davisville bus is also pretty infrequent, despite the rather large number of people I see at the bus stations along that route. Never understood why, it is a short route. Surely you can get a bus driver to do a constant circle of the route. I've heard that the bus drivers on that route take a 30 minute break at Davisville Station after every run.

The buses in that part of Toronto remind me of service in a midwestern city in the US: non-grid, non-frequent services that seem to chase away ridership with their bad design.

For example, you can't use a bus north-south through the entirety of Leaside in Bayview without transferring from the infrequent 11 to the even less frequent 28A at Davisville. Then there's the infrequent 74 along Mount Pleasant, despite the fact that Mount Pleasant is quite a vibrant strip.

It seems that the job of most of those routes is just to funnel people to the [overcrowded] Yonge subway line. I wonder if having one frequent service north-south route along either Mount Pleasant or Bayview would help local travel patterns and relieve the Yonge line (albeit very minimally).

 

[ehlow]

The buses in that part of Toronto remind me of service in a midwestern city in the US: non-grid, non-frequent services that seem to chase away ridership with their bad design.

For example, you can't use a bus north-south through the entirety of Leaside in Bayview without transferring from the infrequent 11 to the even less frequent 28A at Davisville. Then there's the infrequent 74 along Mount Pleasant, despite the fact that Mount Pleasant is quite a vibrant strip.

It seems that the job of most of those routes is just to funnel people to the [overcrowded] Yonge subway line. I wonder if having one frequent service north-south route along either Mount Pleasant or Bayview would help local travel patterns and relieve the Yonge line (albeit very minimally).

Totally agree, we need frequent routes that simply go along a straight road like Mt Pleasant-Jarvis and Bayview. I just took a look at Bayview and it could keep going south on Bayview to provide an alternative to the subway. It would make it so much easier to use the system as well, and actually understand where you're going by taking a given bus route.

Both those routes would go fairly fast when there isn't traffic as well, since those roads are pretty fast was to drive downtown.

Hopefully these routes will be re-adjusted when the LRT opens.

 

[Rainforest]

There should be a balance between the needs of local service and longer-range trips.

However, this balance is already achieved in the Eglinton LRT design. There will be 25 stops (24 distances between) for the 19.5 km long line from Kennedy to Mt Dennis; that translates to average stop spacing of 810 m.

That spacing is similar to (actually, a bit wider than) the spacing on the central section of BD subway. There is no need to remove stop from Eglinton.

 

[smallspy]

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.

Except that it's not that minor. The distances from where the consecutive circles meet to any given station is 800 to 850 metres - 33% or more than your "baseline" 600m difference. Push the circles out to 800m, and all of a sudden we're talking about a distance of over a kilometer from the outer edges of it.

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?

Who said that we're talking about just houses? There are loads of businesses along that stretch.

And why would you not take into account walk-in traffic? That's the whole reason why there are stops so frequently. There is tons of walk-in traffic along the central stretch of the Bloor-Danforth, or the Yonge Line between Eglinton and Bloor.

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 don't know how you can figure that. Walk-in traffic accounts for a majority of ridership from some of the eastern Danforth stations.

Methinks that you are taking the term "rapid" far too literally. We're not talking about a line down the middle of the Allen.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[diminutive]

Except that it's not that minor. The distances from where the consecutive circles meet to any given station is 800 to 850 metres - 33% or more than your "baseline" 600m difference. Push the circles out to 800m, and all of a sudden we're talking about a distance of over a kilometer from the outer edges of it.

Huh? What consecutive circles? Where are they meeting?

Who said that we're talking about just houses? There are loads of businesses along that stretch.

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

You were the one arguing about how important it is to have these coverage stations because of demand originating from the houses off of Eglinton. Yet a station at Oakwood really wouldn't benefit more than a small number of houses. The businesses along Eglinton, which you earlier said were only a "small percentage of the catchment area," would be well covered regardless of an Oakwood station existing.

And why would you not take into account walk-in traffic? That's the whole reason why there are stops so frequently. There is tons of walk-in traffic along the central stretch of the Bloor-Danforth, or the Yonge Line between Eglinton and Bloor.

Because it's minor. Even Yonge and Eglinton, which is several times denser than Oakwood, would only see 1,900 walk-in/walk-offs during peak hour. Extrapolating through the day you'd still end up with middling ridership. Eglinton West is only expected to see 1,100 peak hour walk-ins. Oakwood would surely be only a few hundred.

Oakwood and Eglinton isn't exactly comparable to Yonge or Bloor through downtown. It's a fairly modest retail strip surrounded by not-very-dense single family homes.

 

[diminutive]

That spacing is similar to (actually, a bit wider than) the spacing on the central section of BD subway. There is no need to remove stop from Eglinton

Why is B-D being reified as the template for subways? Yonge north of Eglinton has much wider spacing, why not emulate it?

Just like every part of route design, the main concern should be ridership and cost. Not matching arbitrary stop spacing goals.

B-D's stations were much cheaper to build (closer to surface, far less complex) than the ECLRT's. Stations which may have been rational to build then aren't necessarily rational now. There's nothing wrong with how designers back then built the line, necessarily, but it shouldn't justify anything nowadays.

 

[ehlow]

Oakwood and Eglinton isn't exactly comparable to Yonge or Bloor through downtown. It's a fairly modest retail strip surrounded by not-very-dense single family homes.

Much of Bloor-Danforth is also a modest retail strip surrounded by single family homes.. all of the Danforth and most of Bloor west of Spadina fits that description. Just saying..

Why is B-D being reified as the template for subways? Yonge north of Eglinton has much wider spacing, why not emulate it?

Just like every part of route design, the main concern should be ridership and cost. Not matching arbitrary stop spacing goals.

B-D's stations were much cheaper to build (closer to surface, far less complex) than the ECLRT's. Stations which may have been rational to build then aren't necessarily rational now. There's nothing wrong with how designers back then built the line, necessarily, but it shouldn't justify anything nowadays.

In my opinion, stop spacing should both reflect the character of the neighbourhood and the connecting routes.

With regards to Yonge north of Eglinton, a stop between Eglinton and Lawrence is probably justified in my opinion, but obviously it's not on anyone's radar.

North of Lawrence, there's the huge ravine. Sheppard to Finch used to be a 2km spacing, but they added North York Centre station because of the amount of condos in the area... so clearly the original stop spacing was considered too wide for that stretch. 1km stop spacing does match Keele to Caledonia and to Dufferin on the Eglinton line.

If you're saying the central Eglinton section should be 1km apart instead of 700m.. OK. Although, I personally think central Eglinton is closer to Bloor in character than to Yonge in North York. I don't have data to back this up, but my feeling is that Yonge in North York is mainly a commuter line to downtown, and they don't do many shorter or local trips, whereas Eglinton as a street and the current bus service acts more as a local route and feeder route, so it's possible they serve slightly different but overlapping purposes.

 

[diminutive]

Much of Bloor-Danforth is also a modest retail strip surrounded by single family homes.. all of the Danforth and most of Bloor west of Spadina fits that description. Just saying..

I was responding to Bloor "through downtown," which I interpreted as stations like Bay, Yonge and St.George. Given destinations like Yorkville, the ROM, UofT, and various highrise officebuildings around these stations, I don't think they're really comparable to Eglinton and Oakwood.

Yonge and Bloor will be surrounded by 80 storey buildings for the love of god!

Now, stations like Chester or Christie are probably a pretty close comparable, but they just reinforce the point that ridership doesn't justify construction costs.

If you're saying the central Eglinton section should be 1km apart instead of 700m.. OK. Although, I personally think central Eglinton is closer to Bloor in character than to Yonge in North York. I don't have data to back this up, but my feeling is that Yonge in North York is mainly a commuter line to downtown, and they don't do many shorter or local trips, whereas Eglinton as a street and the current bus service acts more as a local route and feeder route, so it's possible they serve slightly different but overlapping purposes.

I don't think there should be a standard spacing. Stations should be built based on their potential to justify their (very substantial) construction costs.

The design approach to the whole Eglinton LRT thing is bizarre. There are hundreds of internet pages describing the Sheppard subway as boondoggle-ish for low ridership, yet the ECLRT subway's peak ridership is even lower!

 

[ehlow]

I was responding to Bloor "through downtown," which I interpreted as stations like Bay, Yonge and St.George. Given destinations like Yorkville, the ROM, UofT, and various highrise officebuildings around these stations, I don't think they're really comparable to Eglinton and Oakwood.

Yonge and Bloor will be surrounded by 80 storey buildings for the love of god!

Now, stations like Chester or Christie are probably a pretty close comparable, but they just reinforce the point that ridership doesn't justify construction costs.

Yeah.. but St George to Yonge on Bloor would correspond to the Yonge & Eglinton area right? Which has tons of apartment towers many very tall condo proposals.

I don't think there should be a standard spacing. Stations should be built based on their potential to justify their (very substantial) construction costs.

The design approach to the whole Eglinton LRT thing is bizarre. There are hundreds of internet pages describing the Sheppard subway as boondoggle-ish for low ridership, yet the ECLRT subway's peak ridership is even lower!

Well Eglinton will be 4x longer than the Sheppard subway, so it should be more useful. It will also run smaller trains since it's not a subway.

Eglinton should get a much higher daily ridership than Sheppard because Sheppard is 50,000 a day. If you add up the bus routes on Eglinton you 78,000 from Eg East & West alone, not counting Lawrence East which runs for a while Eglinton and the various routes which run on Eglinton. So.. I'm guessing Eglinton will be much more successful than Sheppard has been.


On another note, check out this forest of apartment buildings at Eglinton and Scarlett, just west of where the LRT will end:
http://goo.gl/maps/yZEqG

Those are likely low-income people so they likely have a high transit ridership share. There are further apartment complexes along the road towards the airport. Eglinton west will serve all those people as well as the airport.