MisterSG1

Well, when one thinks of mass shootings in Canada, most can count on one hand ones that come to mind. Like the shooting at Polytechnique in Montreal back in 1989, or the Quebec Mosque shooting in 2017, or that one across Nova Scotia in 2020. Obviously this proves that gun control does in fact work. So let's look at the situation in New York State. Even if guns were somehow banned in that state, that would mean absolutely nothing, because criminals could get guns from other states where it's easy to get a gun. There isn't any checkpoint upon entering New York State where a gun check is performed. So in reality, New York banning guns is as good as sitting in the old Non-Smoking Sections of restaurants, the smoke still gets over there anyways. Therefore, there are two real ways to solve this, either allow everyone to carry guns in public, or somehow find a way nationwide to ban handguns, I know this would practically be impossible based on the SCOTUS understanding of the Second Amendment. Tell me this for the former, would any of you really be comfortable living basically in the Wild West in one of the most important cities in the world seeing everyday people without any kind of proper training having a handgun on them while you ride the subway? Adding a lot more guns to the equation allows for a much higher chance of deadly crime anywhere. So now, if handguns were banned nationwide, this would make it basically extremely hard to get a hold of a handgun as you wouldn't be able to get them easily in the neighboring countries either. As for what is happening in Toronto, I'm sure it's quite similar to the issues plaguing New York, but the difference here is the lack of deadly weapons easily allows for less dangerous crime. The dark side of capitalism is very much happening up here too.

No, I’ve never been in this situation because frankly, these things just don’t happen where I’m from. Even Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California had this to say about guns in cities, “There is absolutely no reason why out on the street today a civilian should be carrying a loaded weapon." Really, what purpose does a loaded gun serve in a city, especially a city like New York City that is actually active and people take public transit. Let me ask this, should everyone on that subway train have had a gun? Could you imagine how many potential casualties there would be of people caught in the crossfire? Even that quote there and situation doesn’t undermine the concept of Castle Doctrine, what happened on that train is very much a stand your ground situation in the end.

His life was threatened, but that was OVER when he got a hold of the gun. Firing the gun, heck even pointing the gun at him at that point is usually a crime. That is the key in this, firing the gun in a crowded subway train is reckless. How would this have ended if a bystander was hit by the bullet, as I said the subway is a crowded place.

So let me get this straight, someone fired a GUN on a crowded subway train and is not facing charges, this isn’t a rural area, this is the biggest city in the entire US. Once the gun was wrestled away, he should have stopped, but he shot anyways not giving a care in the world for any of the subway passengers who could have been hurt in this crossfire. I thought New York was better than this and wasn’t a stand your ground state.

But does that mean the opposite must be embraced. The hardcore opposite, such as expansions of the 14th Street project to other streets? Why can't a balanced approach be possible? 14th Street bus may be practical during rush hours, but what about after rush hours, when there could be more cars on the street than passengers in the buses? Want to knockdown FDR Drive next, because it's an eyesore in Lower Manhattan, well don't put it past them. Funny how road infrastructure is always seen as eyesores while rail infrastructure isn't. Urban planners want to make a city look nice no matter what, while traffic engineers want to keep the city running practically.

I’d say a majority of drivers in downtown Toronto or Manhattan don’t want to be there, they probably come from far outside the city. Closing lanes off for cars obviously means these same cars will have fewer space to work with on other streets. It’s not bloody rocket science. when I went downtown regularly, I never drove. But not everyone has that easier luxury of being close to a train/subway station when downtown.

So you want to speak about VIVA in York Region. Is there signal priority on the segments which have right-of-ways? With my experience there hasn’t, and I occasionally used to take the route, Brampton’s Züm Queen use the Highway 7 Rapidway to reach Vaughan Subway Station. I wrote about this extensively on another post I made in the Toronto section, but go on Google maps and look at the intersection of Highway 7/Keele Street, can you actually say that’s an improvement? The intersection is a wide monstrosity because they knew eliminating the dual left turn lanes at this intersection would be asking for trouble. The only use of transit priority I’ve seen is the VIVA bus sometimes moving out of order in the traffic light sequence (for example it gets a special phase during an all red signal for example). let’s not forget that Highway 7 forever has this monstrosity looming in the middle of the road which complicates all left turn movements in either direction. In some ways it creates a kind of Michigan left scenario where one has to make a U turn at an FPLT signal to reach a building on the other side of the road. The real question is if these routes with the right of way are significantly faster (even at all) than the original version of the VIVA routed which were express bus routes. It definitely wasn’t the case with the Toronto streetcar routes.

Again while the projects on 14th Street and King Street are similar. The streets themselves and the purpose they serve are different. Has the 14th Street Busway resulted in the closure of many restaurants, when was it implemented, I know it was closer to when COVID began so it's not entirely fair to compare. I'm mentioning this because these bloggers have no background in the field of traffic engineering, not even in urban planning. Yet, they can speak like armchair experts on how projects will work or not. What's happened on both King Street and 14th Street are merely hollow victories, we can't afford real new transportation so let's just close streets off to cars (which are in the city for a reason, they probably don't want to be there) and only let buses and bikes use the street. Now give me an example of a busway that uses a right of way and outside of a downtown area, and tell me if it's significantly faster than the route that used to exist. The Spadina Streetcar in downtown Toronto which I mentioned many of times has its own right of way, but spends most of its time stopped at lights then moving, allowing priority means that the streetcar would have to perfectly reach the intersection at the right time for it to work.

It appears the 14th Street Busway was inspired by the nonsensical King Street Pilot Project I was mentioning. Do we know if signal priority works on 14th Street, it should be mentioned that 14th Street, like practically all of Manhattan are "contained streets" so to speak. King Street on the other hand is a lengthy thoroughfare. So what happens now with cars that have to turn right on 14th street, do they get their own protected right turn (which would become moot because pedestrians won't follow their signals anyways) I find it interesting that all these bloggers don't use any professional traffic engineering terms, yet we should look to them for advice on all matters. It's the difference between the traffic engineer and the urban planner, the traffic engineer wants to make things work while the urban planner wants to make things look nice to hell with how it will actually function. Do these use any traffic priority, because as I stated earlier, traffic turning right from 14th Street would ideally get a protected right turn would it not? Have you considered that people are driving and not many are using transit right now because of 1. COVID-19 fear, and 2. The shift to working at home. As I stated on here before, I haven't been downtown since the pandemic started, I don't know how many places are closed downtown, but you bet when I do get to go downtown again, it will be back on the subway or GO Train for me.

But the same endgame happened. When Jane Jacobs came up here, her lobbying stopped the Spadina Expressway from reaching downtown Toronto. This led to a domino effect that got every other freeway cancelled in (then) Metro Toronto. The worst being the cancellation of the Scarborough Expressway which wasn't supposed to run through many neighborhoods at all. They agreed that they would focus on public transit and 50 years later have basically built nothing practical since. Back then, they were against the sort of "Manhattanization" of downtown Toronto by focusing on higher density developments outside the city. Eventually this didn't work and downtown Toronto in the last 30 years or so has had intense construction of skyscrapers. This same Jane Jacobs was also against the concept of the Toronto PATH, an underground network of concourses that connect the various skyscrapers together. She said it would kill street life or something to that matter. Nevertheless, what would become the Toronto PATH happened sort of spontaneously and it serves a great purpose for moving pedestrians around who come in by train into Union Station and the subway stations......also one could say the Toronto PATH is kind of like a freeway for pedestrians, there are no interruptions by traffic signals or anything, just pure continuous flow underneath the streets while the weather outside may be extremely cold or rainy. Nevertheless, Toronto took an all or nothing approach with public transit (and has done nothing since 1971 really), and it appears most cities take that approach these days. The road diet is the go to plan for so many so called "urban planners" these days. In traffic engineering, your goal is to move more traffic, not purposely impede it further.

I'm just trying to understand, forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that already how it works? The only non tolled way out of Long Island involves driving into Manhattan and over the GW through the Lincoln? I mean can one reach points north like the Taconic for instance without paying tolls from Long Island?

Again, you are being naive into thinking that the city or whoever implements the congestion tax, (or shall we say revenue tool, gotta love that term to avoid saying "tax") will actually use that for transit purposes only. When has a distinct tax actually went directly to funding its intended purpose? Like all taxes it will be part of a general "slush fund". First, you would have to provide true alternatives before one can reasonably speak of introducing a congestion tax, at least that would appear to be more fair. You say it's not sustainable for people to use cars in New York City, are you solely speaking of Manhattan or all five boroughs? How many cars that are on the streets of Manhattan on any given day are actually from the city itself? How do you propose for that to work, do you want to do what we did in Toronto and effectively ban cars from certain streets? As in the King Street Pilot Project, cars weren't "banned" from using King Street but cars once on King Street have to turn right at the next traffic signal they face, while only streetcars and buses can proceed through intersections. In some cases in Toronto, they installed protected right turn phases to get cars off King Street onto other streets, there by delaying pedestrians from crossing the street. (and even worse, pedestrians crossing during a phase where they aren't allowed to) I'll tell you what did happen to King Street though, particularly the section around the theaters in the Entertainment District (and this was before COVID), what did happen was a lot of "FOR LEASE" signs popping up at once were hopping restaurants. Explain to me how does Transit Signal Priority work, I want a solid explanation because it sounds like it does nothing for the most part. For seniors, not all are equal in terms of mobility, many make use of accessible parking permits which brings me back to my point I stated in my previous post that I won't repeat. I wasn't solely also speaking about seniors within NYC itself but those coming from outside the city for specialist appointments for example. Ok then, this is an interesting situation you are mentioning, you wish to alleviate crush loads but yet want to add more riders to the system. How do you plan to do that exactly? Having a system of automatic train control which would require most likely a complete retool of the signalling system which would take years. Making platforms longer to accommodate longer trains.....good luck doing that to every station, and with many of the very old stations sitting right underneath the street, there would most likely be serious disruption to the streets at ground level. The real solution isn't pretty, it requires serious expansion to rapid transit, which is enormously expensive and no one can give a straight reason why.

Very, very good quote, I've said that often too with regards to nefarious actions. Those who don't know, my views are of the balanced transportation approach, having an extreme thought process like Robert Moses or the opposite end of the spectrum, Jane Jacobs doesn't create a healthy transportation system in the end. In other words, the former is roads only, while the latter is no more roads and transit/bikes only. Yet it seems like the approach in any city these days is to think like the latter, I know it's happened in both NYC and Toronto. That being said, I take the belief that cars do have some purpose of being in a high density area like practically all of Manhattan or here, what we refer to as Toronto's "downtown core". We have an older population now, one that wouldn't be as mobile to take the subway. Face it, could you imagine your elderly parents that may use walking sticks, enter the subway, (since we are speaking of NYC, possibly make multiple transfers in a system where there aren't many escalators let alone elevators) upon reaching the destination, possibly have to walk further. Or would you prefer to give them a drive straight to the door. I was once laughed at during a presentation at my university that featured city councilors because I used my elderly argument (especially with the baby boomers getting "up there" in age) as a deterrent as to why a street shouldn't be turned into a pedestrian mall. Factor in that downtown Toronto has 6 major hospitals, 5 of these relatively close to subway stations, one requires transfer onto a streetcar from the subway. So yeah, imagine an elderly loved who has a mobility issue needs to go to a specialist appointment and you live in the suburbs or beyond, how will you get there, like it or lump it, the car is the most convenient option in that scenario. There are plenty of other examples where a car would be more convenient, what about the commuter who lives somewhere in Nassau County and works in Westchester County, correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't that require having to first take a LIRR train into Manhattan and then a Metro North train northbound. And let's not forget about potential first/last mile situations involving getting from home to LIRR station, and from getting to destination from Metro North station. Again, obviously the car would be the best bet for any type of cross regional commuting. You know as well as i do that large transit routes designed to bring people from Westchester into Nassau aren't practical. Now comes the other bad part about congestion pricing which is why I decided to chime in. Obviously, like the obsession of switching to all electronic tolling everywhere (we've had such an electronic toll road here in the GTA since 1997 and you can find all sorts of billing horror stories online) is the unfairness regarding extra charges. If one doesn't have presumably the E-Z Pass then they will be hit with extra "administrative" charges. It's just how these things always go. You may say, whatever. But imagine yourself coming from another part of the country, or anywhere in the world really, renting a car, facing unfair congestion charges, and then because you don't have the transponder in the rental, getting hit by a nasty charge from the rental company. In Toronto, this was always the case involving rental companies and Hwy 407, they purposely tell you to avoid it or you will face huge additional charges, in NYC you have unavoidable electronic tolling situations which would be further compounded by congestion charge zones. Good luck in seeing anything else come to fruition. You guys like us will probably start building light rail lines on some of the avenues in Manhattan, with the outrageous resources it's taking to complete the SAS. Many years, how about many decades.....I am not pessimistic but rather a realist on these matters.

While very few systems in the world use 4 track routes, I know of another in SEPTA (where are some other examples, I'm generally curious on this matter), the GTA's main east-west freeway which started out as the Toronto Bypass basically uses that concept with a freeway. As such, Toronto has the longest such express/local system in the world, there are two distinct sections with the main section running for around 25 miles or so. Highway 401 looking west from Don Mills road.....incidentally the buildings see in the distance exist mainly because of the existence of the Sheppard Subway. Don Mills is the current eastern terminus of the Sheppard line, those buildings you see with spires on top are located close to Bayview Station. The Sheppard Subway indeed spurred huge high density development in the immediate area surrounding the line. (Highway 401 was inspired by the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago which has the same setup, but Toronto's setup goes on for much longer) I believe the reason for Finch being a high traveled corridor is because it passes through the high density development from long ago known as "Jane and Finch", also factor in that this is a really long route and it kind of makes sense. The length of the 504 King Streetcar for example (I don't know the details) but is a much shorter route than Finch West, Of course this can't be the complete answer, as 501 Queen is an incredibly long route as well, it reaches as far east as Victoria Park Avenue and straddles the city line on the west side at Long Branch. Mind you, a majority of 501 streetcars don't go the distance. I could concur that this corridor could do with being served by Light Rail, but there needs to be a fairer approach to it all. As I've described before, what they are building and what will run appears to be no different than the right of way routes downtown and on St Clair. Let us take a trip down memory lane, if you can believe it, this song about the old "Spadina Bus" actually charted in Canada...... Spadina Bus The old Spadina Bus was replaced by the Spadina Streetcar in 1997 (which now encompasses a part of the Harbourfront route to reach Union Station). The TTC does not use signal priority on this route despite supposedly a system existing, even Steve Munro, the biggest LRT advocate in Toronto wonders this. https://stevemunro.ca/2007/07/05/a-strange-view-of-transit-priority/ An old article but he has many questioning transit priority, which still doesn't exist, if it doesn't exist then, and it supposedly won't exist on Eglinton east of Don Mills, then who's the say it will exist at all on Finch West either. I notice that Steve Munro is not using the actual technical terms but rather describing, there are no "detectors", those devices are actually called "loops" for example. But back to the old Spadina Bus, supposedly, I read somewhere once that the old 77 Spadina Bus of years ago actually completed the run faster than the 510 Spadina Streetcar, more amusingly, the Spadina Bus actually made a comeback in 2012. Spadina Bus 2012 So yeah, the Spadina Bus came back because just after only 15 years of service, you need to repair the entire trackage of the route? I don't care what you say but that's unacceptable, who's to say the TTC won't close St Clair for around a year or two and repair its tracks. So another reason why I never trusted Transit City, this one usually surprises people, but when the Harbourfront line's first section opened, it was called the "Harbourfront LRT" and the maps reflect this, the TTC denies any claim that it's an LRT route today despite having it's one lane through the entire run. Sure, stops on Finch and Eglinton may be further apart but it's the same thing at heart: This map shows the initial section of what would become 509 Harbourfront as the "Harbourfront LRT". Also, it shows it as being "equal" to the subway lines/Scarborough RT in terms of service. This line opened with fanfare as it was "Light Rail Transit", it was something new, yet they deny it is today. It was numbered Route 604, unlike the other 500 series Streetcar routes, because it was supposedly better service. Internally, at the time, route 601 was Yonge-University-Spadina Subway, 602 was Bloor-Danforth subway, and 603 was Scarborough RT. When the Spadina extension opened, the TTC decided to make to classify this new route as a 500 series streetcar route like all the others. Transit Toronto claims the true reason why it's still not called the Harbourfront LRT was that residents weren't comfortable with LRT being applied to their neighborhood. But it does beg the question, other than stops being further apart, what makes the Finch West LRT any different than an express bus on rails with its own lane? And with street running in the middle, how exactly do you accomplish that? No solution is perfect, even with transit priority like promised on Spadina, I'd like to see how it actually worked. Does it abruptly end cross traffic signals just so the LRV can move? I'm not sure if that's a better option, it again seems like I suggested as a "hollow victory". The reason why I post here on NYC and not on Urban Toronto, I'm kind of afraid to, everyone gets extreme angry and starts using groupthink when you try to ask these rational questions regarding LRT in Toronto.

Yeah, we can continue this here. Even though Toronto has a much newer system than seen in NYC, it appears that Toronto's system took some inspiration from NYC's system, some say it's a clone of the IRT, but I thought it more fits the IND feel with car length. Nevertheless, Toronto's original line on Yonge, from Union to Eglinton was a utilitarian design common with American systems of the day. It even uses the same signalling system for the most part, (minus the flashing reds in Grade Timing sections) and of course, both Yonge line, the University line, and Bloor-Danforth, all used "tiles" on the station walls. Not the same seen in an IRT stop, but still the minimalist approach of tiles on the walls. Lastly, the similarities exist with the abundance of I-beams as columns in most stations. The engineers for the TTC, designed the subway interior in cut and cover stations such that I-beams were only required between where the two tracks were on side platforms, the idea of this was to maximize space on the platforms and not have obstructions with I beams on the platform. It's also strange, but interesting nevertheless, that when Line 4 Sheppard was introduced in 2002, they introduced a new signage scheme that seemed to resemble the Helvetica signage within NYC. And then of course, in 2014, they decided to reintroduce the classic font signs to station entrances, but the lines now had the bullets as seen by the MTA. Most signage in stations today gives the bullet priority over the line name. Lastly, both cities for example, have had politics involved with Jane Jacobs. As well two former TTC Chairs, Adam Giambrone and Andy Byford went to work with the MTA. I've decided to post here, because since Transit City first was introduced years ago by Adam Giambrone and Mayor David Miller, I wasn't on board with the project for one basic idea. How the LRT lines would function, while Eglinton-Crosstown has a significant section underground, the rest of the lines proposed were practically the same concept as what was introduced to St. Clair Avenue with its right of way for the streetcar. Which can be described honestly by a simple term, "a hollow victory". I could get into more of the specifics, but Transit City like all things since 1971 in Toronto regarding transit became incredibly political. It was a somewhat major issue in the 2010 Election in which Rob Ford won the election as mayor. Rob Ford of course favored subway expansion, but sadly he couldn't put together a coherent argument as to why the subway was the superior choice. (or at the very least, a completely grade separated version of the Eglinton-Crosstown) Eventually, most of Transit City fell apart, and there have been many alternates suggested since, unlike earlier posters here, I think the city may have dodged a bullet. Before, I spoke of a "hollow victory", to describe what I mean. Does the radical alterations to the street, and to the overall traffic flow and movements of the street. For instance, once you have a LRT/BRT running down the middle of the street, every single intersection will have to use a FPLT instead of a PPLT or even just a permissive left turn movement. Because a PPLT or permissive turn could create potential conflict with the LRV. If you want me to describe these technical terms such as FPLT or PPLT, I can. Unless you have a significant chunk of right of way available on the available street, these lines are not being downtown, but rather in areas that pass through multiple types of zoning (Eglinton Crosstown being the only one that has a significant "downtown" like portion to it) potential road capacity may have to be reduced in order to allow the LRV right-of-way to exist. Factor in pedestrians having to cross into the median to board the LRV, and some making foolish errors of judgment by darting out into the median because they see the LRV coming, and well you have a situation for potential serious problems. The VIVA Rapidway in Vaughan has managed to keep the existing traffic lanes (and often keep dual left turn lanes) intact, this is especially Paramount in the section of Highway 7 east of Jane because of the industrial zoning in the area. Take a look at the Keele/Highway 7 intersection in Vaughan, do you honestly think that's an improvement that urban planners want? That intersection now is a monstrosity that they created, it honestly looks quite intimidating to cross as a pedestrian then what was there before. Metrolinx more importantly have said that NO signalling priority will be used in the on street section of Eglinton-Crosstown, which in essence makes this no different from the Harbourfront, Spadina, or St Clair lines other than the stops being further apart. Younger me in 2008 was right all along and all people did was laugh at me like I was some sort of idiot. (As an aside, it's been said that 510 Spadina has a signalling priority available but have chose to never use it) Does anyone know how signal priority would work in these situations anyways, if anything, all I can see where the LRV can enter the intersection sooner is if the LRV gets its phase before the Leading FPLT movement in the direction the LRV is traveling. Theoretically, if the cross street has an FPLT movement, you could supposedly allow for an LRV phase after the FPLT ends, but this could only work if the FPLT movements end simultaneously on the cross street. (As an aside, the FPLT on the main street in which the LRV is travelling on, the FPLT will NEED to end simultaneously before the LRV can begin traveling, assuming the LRV doesn't get to move before the Leading FPLT)