Friday, May 11, 2007

"Transit City" plan just streetcars - top official

hmm - some uncharacteristically candid remarks from a top city official on the 'Transit City' plan being shopped around by the city: Rod McPhail (I think he's a city official rather than a TTC wonk) is quoted in a local newspaper: “Really, we’ll just be looking at buses and streetcars,” he said. “The only real difference between LRT and streetcar services is that the stations are a little further apart.” This is much as I'm reading into the plan. Other than tunnelled sections such as would run under Eglinton, the proposals don't seem to offer much beyond streetcar type service. I'm estimated service speed at just above 20 km / hour - or practically the same as suburban bus services. The operations would generally not qualify under the emergent definition of rapid transit. Don't forget, the TTC sold the St. Clair mess as LRT. Let's not forget the propaganda documents such as 'The Streetcar Renaissance' that were floated about during the process. It's funny, I picked this up from reading Steve Munro's blog today. Mr. Munro defends streetcars at length. Writes Munro: I will be charitable and assume that Rob McPhail has been quoted out of context, but there’s a clear problem with his statement. LRT is most definitely not just streetcars with the stops further apart. hmm - it seems to me that Munro himself uses the terms interchangeably. For example, in this post, the St. Clair West project is called "LRT".n

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