An Anti-LRT Group is Meeting at Scarborough City Centre on Monday

On Monday March 19th there will be another so called "Town Hall Meeting" on the Future of Toronto Transit. This one is hosted by a "Citizens group"called SAFE (Subways Are For Everyone) at 7:00 p.m. at the Scarborough Civic Centre (150 Borough Drive).

This group is promoting misinformation on the choice Councillors will be making at the March 21st Special City Council Meeting. We encourage TTCriders in Scarborough (and surrounding areas) to attend this meeting and respectfully offer another point of view.You can download our most recent information flyer here. Please consider taking these flyers with you and having respectful conversations with attendees and any media present about the real choices before Council next week: LRT in 4 Years or nothing for Decades!
TTCriders ally #CodeRedTO has published a great rebuttal to SAFE's misleading flyer. (PDF)
#CodeRedTO's corrections of  the flyer are included here (after the break) as well:
.
A rebuttal to the misleading flyer put out by SAFE.Here is the link to their misleading flyer: http://www.mikedelgrande.ca/documents/event20120319.pdf1) Misleading statement: “Chicago has 357 km of subways”. 122/144 of its stations are above or at grade, not underground. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chicago_'L'_stations)

2) Misleading statement: "Boston has 123 subway stations" Some parts of Boston's "subway" are underground and above ground LRT. Of the 123 stations listed on the flyer, 75 are LRT stations. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Bay_Transportation_Authority)

3) Only New York's subway system is directly comparable to Toronto's subway system.  New York also has a density that is 10500 ppl/km^2, whereas Toronto's is 4200 pp/km^2. Indeed, the areas of the cities are not even close, nor should their public transit systems be. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City)

4) Misleading statement: "Subways travel at twice the speed of streetcars and surface transit vehicles".  This is partly true: Streetcars travel approximately 15 km/h in the downtown core, and buses don't fair much better in the suburbs. But this flyer is comparing LRT to subway. LRTs have faster speeds (http://www.stintz2010.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/LRT-fact-sheet.pdf under Best Practice LRT speed). In the next line, the speed of transit is stated as 22 km/h for LRT and 32 km/h for subway. The flyer takes the lower limit of speeds for LRT and the higher limit of speeds for subway.  Even with the numbers as they are, 32 is NOT double 22.

5) Misleading statement: "Plan your commute and arrive on time": Subways have delays as well, if not more often, than surface transit and when they happen cause a lot more disruption. See shuttle buses on Yonge.

6) Misleading statement: "Subways move 30,000 people per hour"  Yes: when there is ridership.  The Sheppard subway moves 4500 people per peak hour (http://www3.ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Subway%20ridership%202009-2010.pdf).

7) Lie: The population of Toronto will certainly not double in 10 years. The population has been growing at about 130000 every 10 years. (See latest census or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto). This is a completely false and made up statistic.

8 ) Lie: "No added traffic congestion during construction [for subways]". Check at Keele and Finch right now. Check at Yonge and Sheppard while the Sheppard subway was being built (http://fordfortoronto.mattelliott.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/subway_construction_2_copy.jpg).  Cut and cover is required for subway stations and leads to significant driving delays at the surface intersections. LRT construction on Sheppard will take 3-4 years, whereas a subway could take up to 10 years if going at the rate of the Spadina extension.

9) Misleading statement: "Subways have lower long term costs". Please show me a source for this, I could not find one.  Subways need stations, station managers, transit police, cleaning, and maintenance whereas above-ground LRT stations do NOT. The important part there is the labour costs: station managers, transit police, cleaners and maintenance workers. They are not needed for LRT. In 50 years, the LRT tracks may need maintenance but this is also true of the subway system. See track maintenance happening almost weekly on the YUS Subway. This statement is just not based in fact.

10) The estimates for the Sheppard subway do not include a storage yard for subways. The LRT cost estimates do.

11) Misleading statement: "A world class city should have a world class transit system" World class cities have a wide variety of modes of transportation because that helps the resiliency of the system if things break down. Actually, Zurich, ranked in the top 10 on the Economist’s Competitive Cities list has all above ground transit. It has one of the best public transportation systems in the world(http://www.planetizen.com/node/53044).

12) Misleading statement: "One that connects people with jobs, homes,families and recreation". Actually, according to the Subway vs. LRT report that the TTC filed and that was hidden by your administration, the vast majority of transit trips are within Scarborough.  A subway is not appropriate for local travel; in fact, buses would be needed above ground along the same route to take people from subway station to subway station(http://www.karenstintz.com/?p=1755).

13) Misleading statement: "Mayor Rob Ford wants to build a world class transit system for everyone,regardless of where they live in our city.In fact, he campaigned on building subways, and won." Mayor Ford campaigned on "stopping the gravy train" and you know it.  His transit plan was a last minute addition because all other candidates had one.  It was widely panned in the media and made ZERO mention of anything on Eglinton (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xfsIj6gYAw) . He did not actively campaign on building subways. Even still, 53% of voters voted against him. Can you say that that is a mandate?

14) Misleading statement: "Let’s plan transit for 50-100 years not 20". Where are you getting your information re: 20 years for LRT.  The recent re-laying of track for the legacy streetcar system in Toronto was due to new standards and prepping for the new streetcars coming next year.  The life of typical LRT track is 30-40 years.. The typical life of a LRV vehicle is about 30-35 years, which is the same as subway vehicles.

15) Lie: "Everyone deserves fast and reliable transit.Not just those who live downtown" The majority of subway stations in this city are NOT DOWNTOWN. In fact, only 17/52 stations are south of Bloor, east of Bathurst and east of Sherbourne, but of course this depends on the ever-changing definition of "downtown".

16) Lie: "In the past,building new LRT routes has caused major traffic congestion and taken years to complete- St Clair ave". The TTC has never built a new LRT route.  St Clair is a streetcar on a dedicated ROW.  Any construction project causes major traffic congestion. See Avenue Road watermain replacement. See Spadina Subway Extension. See Sheppard Subway construction.  Of course the LRT will take years to built, about 3 for Sheppard and Finch, each.  A subway would take more than double that time and double the construction hassles at major intersections where cut and cover is required for stations.

17) Misleading statement: "MOVE LESS PEOPLE: LRT capacity is 8,000 passengers per hour." This is the lower range of LRT capacity. In fact, with three cars together and low headways, the capacity is upwards of 17000 per hour.  Nonetheless, the Sheppard subway carries about 4500 passengers per hour. Why would you build a subway there when you need 30000 people for a subway to be viable?

18) The biggest lie of all? NO mention of a plan to pay for subways, no mention of the taxes needed to pay for the construction of subways and then the operation of empty subways for 100 years while the city densifies (if...).

 

Latest posts

Take action

Tell your City Councillor: Freeze TTC Fares
Bus lanes now
Rally to Open the Crosstown
Protect Door-to-Door Wheel-Trans Service!
Tell Your MP: Sign the Transit Pledge
Add your name for Fare Capping!
Keep and Expand Free TTC Wi-Fi!

Connect with us