Mass Transit: St. Louis vs. Toronto
Using mass transit in Toronto is vastly different than attempting to get around via transit in St. Louis. While Toronto has bus service, it is primarily limited to areas outside the older inner city.
Toronto has multiple layers to their mass transit strategy: streetcars, bus, heavy rail subway and light rail. It is this layering that gives visitors and residents numerous choices on how to get from A to B without a car. Before I get into the differences in the systems I want to give a bit of background. Toronto was one of the few cities in North America to retain their streetcar system when it was fashionable to rip them up in the middle of the 20th Century. However, the Toronto Transit Commission had intended to abandon the streetcars by 1980. Second, they built a subway in 1955 — a time when no other North American city was doing so. These two decisions 50 years ago are proving invaluable today. Conversely, St. Louis and nearly every American city chose the opposite — remove the streetcars and not implement any sort of high capacity rail system until the end of the 20th Century. We are lucky, some cities are still in the planning stages of their first line.
At right is the view from the downtown hotel where I stayed in Toronto as the #505 Streetcar heads east on Dundas. Headways, or frequency, on this line and others seemed to be in the 5-10 minute range. As you can see the streetcar is not the vintage sort you might see along San Francisco’s Embarcadero, New Orleans’ St. Charles Ave or downtown Memphis. No, these are “modern” streetcars with up to date suspensions, braking and excellent acceleration (service began in 1979, see history). I’ve ridden the vintage lines in the above cities and while they are charming they are indeed slow regardless of traffic. In fact, all three (SF, New Orleans and Memphis) operate largely in dedicated lanes and they are still slow. That is simply due to the vintage technology. But, the modern streetcars are fast, able to jolt passengers if the operator takes off too suddenly. A vintage streetcar can never make that claim.
Toronto operates many streetcar lines, primarily in the east-west direction. They have two subway lines, the original 1955 line coming north out of Union Station following Yonge St. (pronounced Young) and an east-west subway further out along Bloor-Danforth. It is in the east along the Danforth section of the subway where you reach the end and switch to a section of light rail, which I will discuss later.
If you look at Toronto’s downtown transit map you’ll see how the system is laid out. The yellow & green lines are subway systems, the 500-series are streetcars and other lines are bus routes with the yellow numbers with dashed lines representing express bus service. Toronto’s streetcars and bus lines form an efficient grid of north-south and east-west routes. Streetcars intersect with subway stops to make transfers easy.
If you compare Toronto’s much larger downtown area map with St. Louis’ map differences become apparent. The St. Louis map is a clusterf*ck of lines all trying to squeeze in to a tight area in the central business district. The theory being the bus has to get the rider to their office door or they won’t use the system. Still, I can’t help but wonder if a clear grid of north-south and east-west bus routes would not be more straightforward and easy for visitors and casual riders to understand?
Toronto’s streetcars are designed to hold 46 seated passengers and a maximum of 132 if pushed. They have some articulated streetcars that double that capacity. On most routes it appears they run the single vehicles and increase the frequency to handle the demand. Some have said here in the past that a streetcar is simply a glorified bus with more costly upfront capital costs. The real measure comes down to ridership and the Toronto streetcar system is not a nostalgic vintage line like we see in other cities to attract tourists. Regular Toronto citizens use the streetcar to get where they are going. We should be so lucky to have half their ridership on our bus routes.
Density plays a factor in transit, of course. Toronto is far more dense than St. Louis is currently although their lines run out to largely single family “streetcar” neighborhoods. Funding is the other big factor. Up until the late 1990s the Toronto region was divided among multiple municipalities but for efficiency sake (and probably other reasons) they amalgamated themselves into one large municipal government. Still, the Toronto Transit Commission remained a separate entity as it has for decades. I’m sure they’ve had funding issues before but it appears they’ve managed to create a very usable regional transportation system that serves suburban dwellers with bus and subway/light rail while offering those in town an efficient streetcar system. Neither view was compromised for the sake of the other.
While nearly all the Toronto streetcars operate in what is commonly called “mixed traffic”, with the streetcar sharing a lane with auto traffic, a few lines have dedicated lanes. At left is the #510 Spadina north-south line running through the heart of China town. It operates in the center with traffic being one-way in opposite directions on each side. Nothing except traffic prevents a pedestrian from crossing over the tracks anywhere along the line but cars are limited to only certain intersections to cross. It should be noted this is a really wide street — probably at least ninety feet from outside curb to outside curb. We have very few such streets in the City of St. Louis.
Again, most of the streetcars in Toronto run in mixed traffic situations and all must follow the traffic signals. They are not employing any sort of GPS technology to give the streetcars preference when it comes to traffic signals, something that is often done with new in-street systems be they bus rapid transit, streetcars (vintage or modern) or light rail. Still, their signals were always timed nearly perfect. Streets with mixed traffic streetcars may have four total lanes plus on-street parking or be quite narrow with barely room for on-street parking and two traffic lanes.
The streetcars always run in the middle of the street which has a number of pros and cons. On the plus side the streetcar is not switching from inside to outside lanes so drivers and cyclists know what to expect as they drive alongside. The streetcar also does not get stuck behind someone trying to parallel park except on those really narrow streets. The cons are getting to the streetcar. In most places you wait at the curb until the streetcar arrives and then you walk out to meet it. In cases where you are crossing a traffic lane the traffic is required to stop behind the line of the streetcar while the doors are open. And amazingly enough, they do (including cyclists). The big issue is accessibility, or more precisely the lack of it. If you are in a wheelchair you’ll need to call a different service to get you around town. Even those with mobility issues may have difficulty walking out to the street and then up multiple steps.
The tracks did not seem to present major issues to the thousands of cyclists I saw. Granted, few were riding the real narrow tire road bikes. Most opted for a mountain bike or hybrid with tires more suited for in-town traffic. With the lines all being in the center lanes that means cyclists really need to worry most about the track at intersections. I witnessed a man pushing a woman in a wheelchair at a crosswalk and the tracks were presenting challenges, I’m not sure how a wheelchair bound person would manage on their own. This happened to be a situation where two lines crossed and you had the lines plus all the curved tracks as well so I think just crossing regular tracks might not be too objectionable.
Two things I like about streetcars over buses are the tracks and the overhead wires. I’m not sure which is better though. The overhead wires create this beautiful tapestry of lines and voids. In Seattle and a few other cities they have electric trolley buses. These look pretty much like conventional buses that we have in St. Louis but operate from overhead electric lines (see wiki). I’ve seen the Seattle bus operator come from the suburbs where they run on diesel or CNG and as they approach the city they stop, get out, and connect to the overhead wires. This small thing, overhead power, sends a couple of messages to the public. First, we care about the environment so we are not going to spew fumes in an urban area. Second, we’ve made a capital investment in this route so we are not going anywhere soon. And last this is an advanced technology over a standard bus — something that can help attract transit choice riders. St. Louis needs to give serious consideration to switching to this type of system for bus routes in the city and older suburbs.
To many people the overhead wires are visual clutter. They want streets free of wires, lines, advertising and ultimately — people. The overhead lines in Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland and Memphis do not detract from those cities in the least. All are well integrated into poles for streetlamps and are a good fit. This is quite different than a mess of wires power lines, phone & cable running along a single side of many of our older ring suburban streets.
Toronto’s subway two subway lines are heavy rail rather than light rail. That is, they are trains. The platform lengths and trains are very long like you’d see in NYC, Boston or Philly. In hindsight we should have opted for longer platforms/vehicles for our MetroLink but at the time nobody knew if it would get used as well as it has been.
The platforms all include a “designated waiting area” or DWA. This area features additional lighting as well as an emergency call button. I never felt unsafe but there were times I was so tired from walking that I took advantage of the bench while waiting for a train to arrive. The sheer number of people they can move is impressive and they frequency is high.
The Toronto Transit Commission is in the process of making their stations accessible to those in wheelchairs, something not considered when most were built. They are also replacing their trains with all new trains starting in 2009.
I took the Yonge subway out to nearly the end of the line, the North York station. At that station was a reasonably typical shopping mall with one big exception — a massive chain grocery store at the subway level (one below the sidewalk level). The Loblaws store was the centerpiece of the mall as you enter from the street. From the subway line you can walk virtually into the grocery store. As the North York area seemed most like a suburban office area (think Clayton but if located as far away as Chesterfield). Still, I can see people getting their groceries just before getting on the subway to return to their homes or after arriving back from where ever they had been. Very smart.
This brings us up to their light rail system. This is located in the far eastern area of the region at the end of the Danforth subway line. When you arrive at this subway station you leave the system and go up a level to the street where it serves as a bus terminal. Head up another level, and swiping your transit pass again, you get to the light rail platform. For those that live on the end of the light rail line they must do this switch everyday even though the lines are on the same trajectory. Why? Politics. In the 70s and 80s light rail was all the rage and the Ontario government was getting into the business of building transit vehicles. What better way to show off what you can do then to built a system in your own capital city? Extending the existing heavy rail trains at grade or even elevated would have made much more sense than creating a short section of light rail but we all know how short-sided political interests can outweigh wise planning.
Transit rides (streetcar, bus, subway, light rail) are all $2.75 CAN with transfers from one type to another. I opted for the weekly transit pass and I saw many on the streetcars with monthly passes. In short I think the grid-like routes offers Toronto citizens & tourists a great transit system with multiple choices. St. Louis’ system is not quickly understood and our long bus headways make most bus routes only for those who are transit dependent. Additional photos of Toronto’s system on Flickr.
We need to do a rethink because we can and should do better.
– Steve
One of the biggest problems with our bus system is that it stops every 10 feet. Spread out the stops to be more than every block (as it is in many cases) and you’d get a much faster, more efficient system.
So would doing something like enforcing boarding from the front door, exiting from the back door only, etc.
Traveling in Asia recently, all the stops also had route maps and schedules posted at every stop…
If you make people walk too far to a bus stop, they won’t use it. Buses and street cars are meant for more frequent stops. Light rail and subways should act as speed transit with fewer stops.
Why should the #11 Chippewa have stops at Lafayette, Park, Rutger and Chouteau, for example? Or many bus lines that stop at Tucker & Washington, then 4 or 5 more times before reaching 6th street while traveling East on Washington? Or, the Southampton which stops at both twice at the corner of 14th and Park (one is probably not its designated stop, but the bus still stops)
People will also not use the bus as a means of choice if it takes forever to get from point A to point B. One of the big constributing factors of the travel time is the ridiculous number of stops. If a bus takes 3 times longer than driving, not even counting wait time, it’s much harder to justify making that choice.
I agree on the # of stops with our system. Why does the damned bus have to stop at EVERY SINGLE BLOCK? When I rode the Grand line from the Metrostink stop to Wyoming it would take about 45 minutes in the evening!
Not only that, but any time some assclown yanks the cord the bus will stop where ever they are. I’ve also experienced the bus stopping anywhere they see someone flagging down the bus, like they’re hailing a cab or some crap.
KNOCK IT OFF eh!
Every other city i’ve been too with a useable transit system (most notably SanFran), if your butt ain’t right AT the stop, you’re gonna get left behind. Forget to get off at your stop? You’re riding to the next one, buddy. they may as well take the yank-cords out entirely.
And as hard-nosed as it sounds, this is the way it SHOULD be. It resulted in us getting places in about the same time it would have taken to drive there ourselves. maybe less, w/out the time taken to find a parking spot.
Another benefit to the overhead lines was that you can easily see if you’re on the right side of the street, corner, on the right street at all, etc for a bus line. I don’t like the way they look, but at least they allow you to figure out the routes easily!
Great review and explanation of a complex and efficient system.
Five points – One, I’m in the camp that too many wires overhead IS visual clutter. There are ways to minimize this, but your photo, while potentially artistic, does nothing to show (what I consider to be) better alternatives that minimize the number of wires. (I support electric propulsion, I just don’t wax poetic about the necessary catenary wires and poles.)
Two, the ADA is a fact of life in the USA these days, so all new transit vehicles need to be accessible. This pretty much requires curb-side stops and/or dedicated passenger medians.
Three, doing a grid system here ain’t as easy at it might seem. Until Metro decides not to charge for transfers, there will always be pressure to have direct routes. The city, on a macro level, is not laid out on grid, either. Many older neighborhoods are, but most of the major roads (that would form a grid) radiate out of downtown. (That’s probably one argument in favor of the new cross-county light rail line). Finally, while trip demand is more diffused than it was fifty years ago (with a lot more suburb-to-suburb trips), most trips are still focused on places of employment, education or entertainment. Demand increases when one has to pay for parking (going to work downtown or to see the Cards), is increasing among twenty-somethings when they want to party and not have to worry about getting a DUI, and doesn’t really exist for most shopping trips (unless you’re truly transit-dependent, you’re not going grocery shopping or picking up your dry cleaning on a bus, not even you, Steve). That continues to argue for a hub-and-spoke system, albeit one with more hubs, focused on employment, entertainment and education nodes.
Four, too many stops IS a problem, one, like route changes, that always impacts someone who voices a need to keep one, and the cycle continues. LA, Phoenix and KC are all implementing various distinctive express routes (http://www.mta.net/projects_programs/rapid/rapid.htm, http://phoenix.gov/PUBLICTRANSIT/rap10w.html, http://www.kcata.org/media/MAXFacts.htm) that attempt to bridge the gap between the local bus and light-rail-quality service along major corridors. I’m thinking that this is something that Metro needs to consider seriously here, given that any new rail projects are likely many years down the track (to use a bad pun).
Five, the other major hurdle for a grid system is a critical need for increased frequencies, and lacking that, timed transfers. Being stuck at a bus stop for 15-30+ minutes because you “just missed” your connection is a sure way to discourage usage among the non-transit-dependent riders!
Yes – frequency is a big deal as well. It was great to walk outside of our hotel in Japan, and know that there were probably 3 bus lines that we could take – and those ran every 6-8 minutes. You miss one, and another is not far behind. This changed a bit at night, where it became far less convenient, but most lines still ran every 15-20 minutes, far better than the 30 minutes @ peak times of many of our lines in STL.
In Japan, you entered via the back door, and paid at the front door as you exited. No exceptions. It was often very crowded, but it worked. Everyone, from school kids to office workers to tourists used the bus and/or subway, depending on where you were going.
The comments on additional frequency are very good. With additional frequency you could overlay more express routes. Additional frequency would eliminate many of our problems with route connectivity.
There are too many bus stops in some areas. Metro will at some point focus on spreading bus stops, but you also need improved, accessible bus stops where you locate bus stops. Today, about 80 %, if not 90 %, of the bus stops are not ADA accessible. Capital funding to support improved stops and stop infrastructure is not available.
But the bottom line is that St.Louis does not provide sufficient funding to support additional frequency of the bus system. There is absolutely no funding for constructing a city street car system. Until we, as a community, decide that we want an enhanced transit system and figure out a way that we can fundn it, we will face less and less transit. In fact, in FY08 we face a meltdown of the system we have today.
While acknowledging Jim’s points above, I like the idea of a more grid-based system. In the absence of overhead wires or tracks to let people know where the vehicles are running, it would be much easier to figure the system out if you knew a particular bus ran on a particular north-south (or east-west) street the entire way, instead of the “clusterf*ck” we have as Steve calls it.
People don’t take only one street from point A to B, when they’re driving. So if motorists take various streets to reach their destination, then why shouldn’t buses? Granted, if there were greater frequency of service on all routes, then it wouldn’t be so bad to transfer at the intersection of two arterials. But just as traffic volumes vary by street, as well as segment of street, it doesn’t make sense to have equally frequent headways across the full street grid.
If looking at our grid, the official north-south spine of our street grid starts downtown as Market, then becomes Laclede, Forsyth, and finally Ladue. And that’s just one example of how streets change names, width and character, out of many St. Louis cases. But given how the density and activities change as you move west along this central corridor, it would be silly to run the same frequency of service its entire length. Ladue Road out in West County certainly doesn’t need as many buses as Market Street in downtown.
Plus, the introduction of MetroLink service for long-distance commuters makes parellel bus service more localized. For example, between Downtown and Clayton, Cross County trains will provide the long-distance commuter an efficient service with which the present Lindell bus cannot compete and would wastefully duplicate service if retained. Thus instead, Metro will create new, feeder routes, like between Downtown and CWE (part of revised #93) or between CWE and WashU (section of new #01).
For those who complain that transfers mean longer trip times, it’s often more their perception than reality. Standing at a stop, perceived time is longer than when you’re moving on a bus, even if it’s winding all around town for your single-ride trip. At peak times, MetroLink east of Forest Park will soon have 5-minute headways. Combined routing of buses connecting to CWE, Grand and Civic Center stations will also be arriving nearly every 5 minutes or better. Even individual routes like Grand, Gravois and Kingshighway will have peak headways of 10 minutes or less, which translates into better or equal headways to even MetroLink branches west of Forest Park or east of Emerson Park. Collectively, you have not only good service on MetroLink, but also good MetroBus service to/from MetroLink.
But obviously, just like people falsely perceive the time they’re waiting as longer than when they’re moving, many transit-choice commuters unfortunately have a stigma against buses. Ironically, when Cross County opens, a St. Louis Hills resident would have slightly better travel time to City Hall on the Shrewsbury Limited bus than taking the train from the Shrewsbury station, but you can guess which one many will ironically pick, given those choices.
From the perspective of cost-benefits, Metro could do so much more with expanded funding for bus operations than expanding MetroLink. But unfortunately, Metro is held captive to City and especially County voters, who will never ride a bus, if even a train on a regular basis. Thus, Metro faces the dilemma of how to appeal to an independently mobile voting population that’s full of ideas or even demands, but in many ways will never switch to transit.
Fortunately, MetroLink saved Metro from otherwise experiencing dramatic losses in ridership, and has even boosted bus ridership (in years not seeing service cuts). And ultimately, MetroLink has built an expanded constituency for Metro. But it remains a challenge to have buses appeal to a broader public than the dwindling transit-dependent population. And it’s a Catch-22 because it takes money to improve buses, yet the tax-approving public largely doesn’t see the benefit in buses, blaming the current state of bus service, for which Metro has little money to improve. But at the end of the day, whether MetroLink saw a built-out regional system or Cross County were the last expansion, buses would still be the necessary glue to make it all work (most Missouri riders reaching MetroLink by bus). Yet how do you get the larger bus-adverse, independently mobile public to realize the importance of such a multi-modal system?
[REPLY – Brian you’ve gone completely to an extreme to make your point that the grid concept is “silly.” Of course we don’t need 5 minute headways on Ladue Road and I-270. No duh.
What we do need is good localized service — namely within the city and perhaps the first ring of suburbs to the west (not north & south is the city is bigger in this direction).
And the grid was mainly meant as a way to clean up the downtown CF. Lets get to the point where someone can say, “the #40 is on Broadway, the #? is on 6th, etc…” Maps could be more clear by placing different routes on different streets. – SLP]
^
Brian, do you use the bus for your daily commute?
Sounds like you don’t! While I may perceive “wait time” differently from “moving time,” my watch doesn’t — and it shows some very long wait times these days. Sheesh.
^I do ride the bus everyday to and from work, rarely ever riding the train, but also rarely needing a transfer currently. Those times I do transfer, I make sure I do so with the train or major bus routes like Grand, Gravois or Kingshighway, because these options have frequent service. Otherwise, I’m very aware of schedules, and that’s obviously an extra step many dislike about bus routes with half-hour headways. But while a half-hour is too long to wait if you just miss a bus, it is easier to remember a schedule that always falls the same time on a clock throughout the day.
What is unique to my personal experience is that I live and work both near where multiple routes converge (affording me more options), I’m a transit-geek (knowing many routes and schedules), and I work a M-F/8-5 job (enjoying the luxury of peak service frequency). When Cross County trains start running downtown in a little over a month from now, I will switch from taking one bus for my commute as I do now all the way Downtown from Southwest City to taking the bus to the CWE MetroLink. But with the new CWE transfer center and increased trains, I will save 5 to 10 minutes (depends if you just missed a train) over my current 40-minute single-ride downtown. Nearly all areas of South City, including neighborhoods east of Kingshighway will realize travel time savings after bus routes are soon restructured to correspond with new Cross County service. However, many existing riders would prefer keeping their single-ride and doubt that the changes will actually save them time over today’s conditions.
^And yes, Steve, I picked an extreme example. But that was my lesser point. I’ll end on my more important point again at the end of this post. But first, in response to your defense of a grid-system, I’ll offer some less extreme examples.
Gravois is a radial arterial that starts from Tucker then heads all the way out to Fenton, without any name changes (though technically nameless MO 30 west of I-270, but built north of “Old Gravois”). One bus does actually cover the whole length from Downtown out to Gravois Bluffs. But while all “Gravois” buses do run from Downtown to Hampton, far fewer make the whole trek to lower density Fenton. Fine, you may say, since that’s still sticking on the same street. But this bus still violates the “grid” notion in that it diverges from the actual street to reach activity centers, like Lutheran South HS and Gravois Bluffs. And it’s not only out in the County where Gravois breaks the grid rule, because ultimately it swings off of Tucker to connect with Civic Center and heads east of Tucker to access Downtown employment.
In addition, east of Hampton, other routes use Gravois for part of their route, picking up more and more routes as you move northeast of Chippewa to S. 12th before even entering Downtown. Now, while it’s confusing for riders that other buses than Gravois travel Gravois (and anyone ever riding shared-route sections has surely seen someone get on the wrong bus), it makes perfect sense to funnel more routes onto a common street, where transit needs increase.
Even Grand, which many would claim as the easiest bus to ride without a schedule, doesn’t always stay on Grand. South of Meramec, there are two legs of Grand, one continuing on Grand, but the other taking Meramec east to Broadway and even slightly back north to Chippewa. Such routing would seem silly that the last bit on a southbound leg actually travels north on Broadway and folks must wonder why a bus traveling Meramec is called “Grand,” but given that this bus line remains the lowest subsidized route in the whole metro (and even NYC’s transit is subsidized), it must be working to violate the “grid rule.”
Simply put, you route buses where people want to travel, not just so it looks pretty on a map, like an easy-to-understand grid. Even Chicago meanders its routes on multiple streets. Heck, streetcars used to meander, with the Cherokee not just taking Cherokee Street, and the Southampton taking numerous streets. Any urban transit provider trying to actually have riders, rather than simplistic maps, will have routes with turns on multiple streets.
But could Metro make it easier for folks to know how to utilize transit? DEFINITELY! But even small improvements such as better signage take money at a time when Metro faces a deficit that the State of Missouri will likely continue to ignore. My major point two posts ago was that it is a challenge to appeal to policymakers and area voters (especially County) and convince a legislative or electorate majority of how important transit is to our everyday lives. So again, I repeat my previous question of how can the larger public, who have never riden a bus or even care to, realize the importance of a multi-modal system?
Denver’s bus system went through a complete route system change in the early ’80’s to a grid system that worked well providing local service (with free transfers). Overlaid over the grid system is an express system designed to move commuters at rush hour, primarily into the downtown core. With the recent development and expansion of light rail, both local and express bus routes are being modified / truncated where appropriate to connect with light rail.
Parts A (local bus routes) and C (light rail) seem to work (how well is a separate discussion) in St. Louis, but I’m not aware of much interest in or use of express bus routes (Part B).
Given the fiscal constraints, I think Metro’s done a good job of adjusting local bus routes to interface with the cross-county light rail line. we’ll just have to wait and see how things work out (hopefully well) once the line opens in a month or two . . .
The changes made by Bi-State/Metro in 2001 or so, although they cut out service entirely on a number of residential streets like California Ave., North Market St., or Morganford Rd., did at least rationalize some of the routing a bit.
Now, the #30 Soulard runs the entire length of Arsenal (Broadway to McCausland), and the entire length of Saint Louis Avenue (13th to Goodfellow, plus the separate section in Hillsdale).
It used to be that Arsenal was split into four different routes: #03 Morganford-Arsenal from Broadway to Oak Hill/Gustine; #21 Tower Grove from Compton to 59th; #99 Shaw-Russell from Macklind to Jamieson; and (if it really even matters) #98 McCausland-Delor from Jamieson to McCausland.
On Saint Louis Avenue, the #19 Saint Louis Avenue bus used to operate on the segment from N. Broadway to Glasgow. Then, the #30 Cass took over from Glasgow out to Goodfellow. And until recently, the segment in Hillsdale from Kienlen to Lucas Hunt was covered by the #33 Dorsett-Lackland.
The great thing about the #30 Soulard and #40 Broadway is those are crosstown routes that go straight through downtown. No other routes do that.
But I do wish the #16 City Limits made a little more sense. Why Hamilton, not Skinker Parkway? Why Bellevue, not McCausland? I know it has a lot to do with historic streetcar route patterns and access to activity centers, but that lengthy crosstown route is a bit confusing.
Joe, City Limits will only become more circuitous once Cross County opens, but added routing on the revised #16 will then connect Maplewood Commons, a shopping and employment destination. As for why Bellevue instead of McCausland, Bellevue has more multi-family, but Bellevue also provides direct access to St. Mary’s, an employer and service provider.
In an ideal situation, land use would follow our street grid, having destinations clustered where multiple arterials meet and greater densities along our arterials, restricting lower densities to only side streets without transit service. But in the real world, destinations (employment, services) are scattered and the density of origins (residential density) vary block to block. When the policy connection between land use and transportation has long been ignored, it becomes challenging to plan effective transit routes.
Toronto is a fabulous city in many ways – thanks for bringing back good memories. I love being in a city where streetcars are part of the transit system, not a localized toursit attraction, as our own Joe Edwards and Vince Schoemehl will do if they have their way.
It seems to me our bi-state Metro is doing the best it can with the resources it has and the factions who are supporting (or not supporting) it. You can please all of the people only some of the time, etc. Have you (all) been attending the public information and planning sessions to give your input? or at least dropping a line to customer service? Whining among ourselves doesn’t accomplish anything.
I don’t agree that the system is a “clusterf*ck” – the object is to connect bus lines to MetroLink, not only to downtown. Many bus lines to downtown have been shortened or eliminated; look for MORE SCHEDULE CHANGES when the Cross-County is running in a few weeks.
I use Metro from CWE, bus & ‘Link, for everything except occasional visits to the far County. You can’t beat the price – plan ahead and take something to read! As a tour guide I take many visitors on Metro who are delighted to not have to deal with a car.
Yes, we could do with fewer bus stops, but then surely some people will complain about having to w-a-l-k ( a nasty 4-letter word here – but not in Toronto!).
Yeah I think we should all agree that Canada is BETTER than usa!!!