Raise the Hammer

As an emergency service worker who works in the core in Toronto and deals with the first pieces of transit city. Namely the St Clair and Roncesvalles Street Car "ugrades". I can tell you they SUCK. by raising the street car beds or conversely on Roncies the loading platforms they have effectively choked the streets and made them impassable for emergency vehicles. It is stupid, ill thought out and actually creates more congestion.

Critics ask where Mr Ford will get the money to build subways. One large component could be the money the TTC spends on maintaining street car routes. Save for a couple east west, north south routes kept for tourism and practical uses, the TTC could eliminate probably 90 % of the street car routes and replace them with buses. A standard street car carries not many more people than a standard bus. It can't turn, pull over, or get out of the way of an emergency vehicle. If there is an automobile accident in front of it. It can't go around it. If one breaks down it ties up traffic sometimes for over an hour until it can be removed. There are too many stops. In the case of a large emergency like a major fire and depending on the route, that entire route is lost for the duration of the event.

Subways, even if they are buried LRT based are the way to go. They move more people, relieve congestion and are better for the environment. Toronto has a subway system. Why they stopped digging and expanding I don't know. It would seem a more prudent use of finances to be continually improving the system you have rather than trying homologate a bunch of different platforms into one system. New York City is STILL adding subway tunnels. Their system is amazing and moves millions of people a day. They budget for x amount of tunnel every year. There is no reason the TTC can't do the same.

Here in Hamilton its a different story. Starting a subway system from scratch is clearly cost prohibitive. LRT makes sense if done correctly. We need to make sure the trains are big enough and move quickly enough between stations. Stations need to be thought out and be fed by other surface transport to effectively funnel people to the trains. But it can work here. I'm actually excited by it and hope I get to see it.

Comment edited by Shempatolla on 2011-01-10 14:56:57