Torontoist asked me to do that thing I do regarding Hizzoner Rob Ford, who on his first day in the job decided he wanted to kill an $8 billion transit extension that was almost entirely funded by the province and federal government in favour of a single subway line that would cost the city more than three times as much.
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Someone told me the other day that, if Ford were to cancel the LRT, that the city would have to pay back both the provincial and federal government, putting the city further into debt. Is this true or had we not paid, yet?
Ugh, personally speaking, I didn’t vote for him. As a cyclist, it feels like Ford is trying to take steps BACK from the progress that Toronto had made in being greener.
It’s not a matter of “paying back” mostly, so much as it is paying previously agreed-upon penalties for reneging on contracts we’ve entered into. In the hundreds of millions of dollars.
What a brilliant mayor we have.
How the did you guys manage to elect Hoggish Greedley?
So what’s the difference between a LRT and a subway?
I found the comment about London quite amusing where it said you needed a “world class Subway” as the commenter seemed to have missed it is not an either-or choice. London 2012 will also be the 25th year of the Docklands Light Railway.
Actually the obvious answer to Packerchu based on London would be that a LRT is aboveground/elevated and a Subway is underground. But the DLR does have some underground stations and the Tube does have a lot of aboveground stations and track (doesn’t tunnel all the way out to Heathrow Airport for example). Looking at the Wikipaedia on the DLR did give a sense of deja vu though as when that was being built there was a lot of criticism that it was being done rather than extending the Underground. 😛
“So what’s the difference between a LRT and a subway?”
LRT is basically streetcars, so the majority of their runs would be above ground.
One of the biggest problems with debates on public transit is that most people—even regular transit users—know nothing about how any of it works.
I’m not claiming to be an expert, but I know this: “subways” can run underground in tunnels, on the surface or on an elevated right-of-way. The Toronto subway has examples of all three. “LRT” can run underground in tunnels, on the surface or on an elevated right-of-way. “Streetcars” can run underground in tunnels or (more commonly) on the surface. There are some very rare instances where something called a streetcar (or trolley, tram, whatever) runs on an elevated right-of-way.
Streetcars (as I know them) run in mixed traffic with their rails laid into the same road surface that is also used by cars, bikes, buses, etc. As such they are affected by the same traffic congestion as all the other road users.
Streetcars usually have very frequent stops, sometimes less than 250 metres apart. I’m aware of some stops in Toronto 150 metres apart. This slows down the speed of the service in trade for a shorter walk for passengers to and from the nearest stop. Nearly every major city in North America, Europe and many parts of Asia had streetcars at one time. Very few do today.
LRT runs in its own right-of-way, but it often crosses intersecting streets at grade, which means it has to have its own traffic signals and it’s not quite as fast as if it was on a completely grade-separated right-of-way.
Subways run in a completely grade-separated right-of-way and so neither cause nor are affected by traffic congestion from other modes. Transit users like them because they are fast and (generally) reliable. Car drivers like them because they are “out of the way of the cars.”
Any comparisons between subways, streetcars and LRT that focus on vehicle size or stop spacing are red herrings. Older subway systems (like Toronto’s original Yonge line) have stop spacings of as little as 400 metres—well below the stop spacing of a typical LRT line built today. Some subway systems have vehicles that are pretty small too (UK examples come to mind), and some LRT vehicles are pretty large, so those comparisons don’t work well either.
Grade separation is the real separator between LRT and subways. LRT runs on the surface wherever it can, which reduces construction costs. In particular, LRT stations on the surface don’t need elevators, escalators, stairs, heating, ventilation, air conditioning or even lighting. They generally need very little ongoing maintenance as a result.
Subways—whether underground, elevated, or at grade with intersecting streets passing over or under—need all the expensive station features that LRT usually doesn’t. Between the stations and the total grade separation, subways generally cost a lot more to build per kilometre than LRT.
Or as a more realistic City councillor said, “it’s not a choice between LRTs and subways. It’s a choice between LRTs and fairy dust.”
Every time Blob Ford says “war on cars” it makes me want to punch him in the neck. Then I realize I would have to find it first.
Seriously, he should try using public transit for a month, and then maybe he’d realize who actually has the short end of the stick in this “transit v. cars” struggle.