Scarborough is built around the car. That means all the city's money goes in to maintaining those roads. I live here and it's really tempting to feel angry and jealous of downtown. But... At the same time we're still being subsidized by downtown, because they make better use of their land. We need change, and part of that has to be less suburban sprawl and defence of car infrastructure. My ward elected an anti-bike lane, anti-bus lane coucillor in a recent byelection. We're doing this to ourselves. :(
I totally agreed with you although on the bright side I think of all boroughs in Toronto Scarborough is beginning to fight the nimbys, we are seeking a bit of development to urbanized some areas. Scarborough needs more density but the missing middle one not luxury condos and megamansions. I'm also glad bike share is slowly expanding in Scarborough but we need more stops and connections in bike trail and the streetcars and lrt should also be in this area
Do not be jealous of downtown. The ones of us who commutes daily for work to near by cities, also not happy due to lack of proper transit or constant traffic jams.
@@MrAlen6eScarborough does not need more density. They are building the tiniest buildings on the smallest plots of land. Scarborough’s density is probably as close to as good as it’s going to get right now
Yea this isn't the same Scarborough from the 60's a lot of people depend on public transit now to get to and from downtown or the other end of the city. Traveling within Scarborough alone is hard enough with everything still being made for cars. North York is car centric too and yet they get half the cities subways. Government is straight up neglecting it cant believe barely 3 subway stations in it and want us to wait another decade for 3 more.
I hate to say it but unfortunately unless Scarborough gets rid of it suburbanite nimbys little will change in regards to transportation. We get subsidized by the city because Scarborough is practically suburbia , we NEED more urbanization to ensure not only theres an equitable distribution of services and more riders but also there affordability for residents. Bike lanes are barely connected and the streetcar service ends at Victoria park. We need lrt, cycling ( happy the bike share is beginning to expand) , streetcars with their dedicated lanes and the subway expansion.
@@fahim5183 Streetcars and LRTs can both be run at significant speeds.. the problem is that we don't do them properly.. one obvious example being that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT won't have transit priority configuration at intersections.
@@MER1978 the lack of priority signaling was a huge miss. The LRT seems to be going slower than traffic on eglinton too (from what I can see in its training runs) so besides rush hour it’s hard to see when the LRT becomes more favourable than taking car… public transport is only effective when it’s a viable alternative… in this case, TTC and metrolinx are again providing an alternative that can barely be considered “viable”…
@@jacobsmith5543 I see it more as yet another conscious decision to pander to drivers.. Toronto is or at least should be famous for these "compromises" that guarantee we never have top quality transit.
@@MER1978 an unfortunate truth. It's on us. A large amount of people either still fall for car-dependency, or just don't care to vote for the right representatives to make change. Toronto is so close yet so far to making good change...
The federal, provincial, and municipal governments need to see this and fund more transit 🙏 Thank you Green Line for making sure everyone's voices are heard, keep it up!
Fun fact, the Scarborough RT was originally going to use streetcars and would have expand further into Scarborough as streetcars. It was shortened and it sister line Etobicoke RT was canceled after the province convince the TTC to use their brand new train.
@@MrAlen6e not sure, the video mentioned both the, Etobicoke RT and Scarborough RT used the same rolling stock as the streetcars but they weren’t connected to the existing system, in his addendum video he mentions plans to potentially expand the Scarborough RT into the surrounding areas at grade. So it possible.
Ha, ha, ha!:- here's the lowdown from one who was there in the 1970s when it was done. "Big Bill Davis", Premier of Ontario, liked to play with electric trains and became fascinated by the "magnetic levitation" technology being developed by Kraus-Maffei, a German company and so he committed the Province to funding a magnetic levitation line in Scarborough to replace the proposed streetcars. However it turned out to be more like "magic levitation" and finally it became painfully obvious that it could not be scaled up from the pilot demonstration project. However some bright soul discovered a German company which manufactured a linear-induction system which resembled magnetic levitation but managed to work although it was never tested in a snowy climate such as in Toronto but to save some embarrassment the Province switched over to linear-induction and everyone conveniently ignored the persistent breakdowns every winter until finally the wheels, quite literally, started falling off the linear-induction cars so they mercifully finally killed the thing. Btw, the WASP residents of Scarborough did not want streetcars because they associated trams with downtown and all those wretched immigrants living there whom they did not want invading their pristine WASP world of Scarborough. Much of Toronto's transit planning and other planning was driven by a strong desire by the WASP / Orangeman residents to exclude immigrants and encourage them to go elsewhere:- those WASP / Orangeman types eventually did move elsewhere to "Whiteby" etc and Scarborough became a very underserviced and unwanted dumping ground for immigrants:- basically a raggedy-ann hand-me-down suburb which is a bigger version of St Jamestown. Btw, they used to call it "Scarberia" (ie Scarborough-Siberia) for obvious reasons because it's such an unpleasant place and especially in winter when it can be quite brutal. Also, the traditional transit access in Scarborough was the Kingston Road and a better plan would be to extend the downtown tram line from Queen to Highland Creek along the Kingston Road and encourage developers to redevelop the frontage with more store fronts (with parking in back) so it resembles inner-city streets like Bloor, Queen, Dundas, Gerrard, College, Lakeshore Blvd West (in Etobicoke), etc:- very old-fashioned but has always worked well for residents. The now-dead Scarborough RT was routed partly to subsidize the developers of Scarborough Town Centre Mall even though this frustrated the traditional pattern of city development in Toronto to the eventual detriment of today's residents. Here's an idea:- connect with Dr Richard M Soberman, a former professor of transportation at U of T who could tell you a lot and make useful suggestions and proposals. As we used to say back then:- keep on truckin' !
@@eve-marie6751 thank for all that information. It was a very nice read and great insight on the event surrounding the Scarborough RT’s changes and why they happened. Also I am not a Toronto resident but I do have family in Scarborough (they came to Canada as refugees) and it sad to hear how prejudice people were to immigrants back then. By the way what does WASP refer to? In regards to extending the streetcar line from Queen to Highland Creek along Kingston road, there used to be a streetcar along Kingston road from Queen street to Bingham loop then all the way to West Hill. Also there is the East Eglington LRT which will run a median LRT from Kennedy, along Elglinton to Kingston road, then North at Morningside through the college campus, then past the 401 till Shepard. Finally west on shepherd till Mc Cowan to where Line 2 and 4 will eventually meet. Only thing I don’t get is why the EELRT is not connected with the ECLRT.
Great video. People often ignore the still real racial divide that exists for transit expansion, while we are still experiencing the effects of inequities in transit.
Having live in Scarborough for a couple of years Scarborough is perhaps one of the communities you really see this. The suburbia gates communities by the coastline look totally different to the other neighborhoods in the borough
It takes me 1:45 minutes on acreage to get to my Doctor at Shelbourne and Carleton. We usually have a 10-minute stop at coxwell for crew change and a 15-minute period or slow speed due to track maintenance issues. that's 25-minutes right there. factor in 10 minutes at Kennedy for crew change and delays waiting for the next train to arrive as well as cleaning of the train. coming from downtown I usually have to wait from 15 - 22 minutes for my bus. The express busses are typically only 4 minutes faster than the non-express buses due to heavy traffic and road work.
I am hopeful that this may changes. The Shepherd line may be expanded into Scarborough and then their is Eglington East LRT will expand coverage in Scarborough. If they do get built.
Politics ruins everything. In a perfect world, Scarborough has, at bare minimum, a subway going from Kennedy to the Toronto Zoo; an LRT along Eglinton East; an LRT along Sheppard East (or a line 4 subway extension); and an LRT along Steeles East. It would be way better than whatever Scarborough has now - which isn't much.
Yeah but how many people live within walking distance of all of those stations or potential stations. There are plenty of areas in this city which don't have the appropriate density for the most expensive form of transit.
@@MER1978 subways help build a place up through better connection that's the whole point. Look how dense Yonge street is compared to bathurst. That's the difference a subway line creates and Scarborough has been starving. They could have done this extension years ago but chose to focus on North York and Vaughan.
@@eliascolatoosman Subways help to continue growth that is already well established with existing density built by extremely busy streetcar and bus routes.. we have drifted from that with some more recent additions but that is not the case with older parts of the system.
@@MER1978 Yea so they should build more towards STC half the people already live in high rise apartment buildings on busy streets like lawerence why is there subway connection in the middle of nowhere highway 407 but not here.
Folks, you need to understand that in Toronto there has always been a caste system:- the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Insiders were the WASPs and the Orangemen and they have run things since forever and Toronto was always the New Belfast and even nastier than old Belfast in northern Ireland. The Outsiders were everyone else who were barely tolerated by the Insiders and always pushed into the least desirable areas of Toronto. For more guidance and advice on what to do perhaps you might read "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs and "Reveille for a Radical" by Saul Alinsky. Notable outsiders such as Richard Soberman and Tony O'Donohue saw these problems of today from 50 years ago:- nothing new here. Put together a plan and a proposal for investing in better Scarborough transit and then push for it:- perhaps you need to organize your own political party to make it happen and get behind it because crying about it won't help at all:- the politicians won't care until you start "kicking some butt".
Trying to blame lack of subway infrastructure on racism is idiotic to say the least. Compare the population / population density of Downtown with Scarborough and you might find your answer.
We actually looked into that. Here's an excerpt from our article: thegreenline.to/stories/scarborough-transit-access-equity/ "Population density, while an important factor, does not on its own explain Toronto’s subway stop access inequities. Scarborough and Etobicoke York have almost the same density - technically Scarborough is slightly denser - at 33.1 people per hectare versus 33 people per hectare, respectively. Toronto East York (the city’s inner core) has 80.1 people per hectare. To put these numbers in perspective, Scarborough is 41 per cent as dense as Toronto East York, yet has 12 per cent as many subway stops. Scarborough is 100 per cent as dense as Etobicoke York but has 40 per cent as many subway stops."
@@thegreenlineto Except nobody builds subway stations based on the overall density of an area.. it's density in the right places to connect with existing lines etc.
@@thegreenlineto I don't think anyone would argue that jam packed stations during rush hour between Union + Bloor don't require subway.. you honestly think they would be equally useful literally everywhere else in the old city of Toronto land area?
@@MER1978 Like half the busses in Scarborough join at STC and its been like that for a while why isn't there a station there yet? Fairview does not have as much route connections/denisty and yet they get a whole subway line to connect to yonge. Its straight up neglect downtown is busy but has streetcars, subways and buses all working at the same time.
So first it was building highways was an effort to segregate and marginalize communities. Now it’s subways that are built to marginalize communities. Which is it? Now you don’t want subways?
I don't see a contradiction here. There is clear and documented evidence that NA highways were intentionally built along certain routes to segregate and displace certain communities. It's also fairly obvious that shutting down a sound transit project similar to projects executed elsewhere in the same city that greatly improved transit in order to implement a boondoggle project that was obviously designed to fail while keeping those segregating highways intact was at least in part about maintaining the status quo in the segregating of those communities. It's a pretty straightforward conclusion.
Scarborough is built around the car. That means all the city's money goes in to maintaining those roads.
I live here and it's really tempting to feel angry and jealous of downtown. But... At the same time we're still being subsidized by downtown, because they make better use of their land. We need change, and part of that has to be less suburban sprawl and defence of car infrastructure.
My ward elected an anti-bike lane, anti-bus lane coucillor in a recent byelection. We're doing this to ourselves. :(
I totally agreed with you although on the bright side I think of all boroughs in Toronto Scarborough is beginning to fight the nimbys, we are seeking a bit of development to urbanized some areas. Scarborough needs more density but the missing middle one not luxury condos and megamansions. I'm also glad bike share is slowly expanding in Scarborough but we need more stops and connections in bike trail and the streetcars and lrt should also be in this area
Do not be jealous of downtown. The ones of us who commutes daily for work to near by cities, also not happy due to lack of proper transit or constant traffic jams.
@@MrAlen6eScarborough does not need more density. They are building the tiniest buildings on the smallest plots of land. Scarborough’s density is probably as close to as good as it’s going to get right now
Yea this isn't the same Scarborough from the 60's a lot of people depend on public transit now to get to and from downtown or the other end of the city. Traveling within Scarborough alone is hard enough with everything still being made for cars. North York is car centric too and yet they get half the cities subways. Government is straight up neglecting it cant believe barely 3 subway stations in it and want us to wait another decade for 3 more.
Scarborough gets shafted continually. They should have built the subways years ago, so it should have been up and running before for the RT shut down.
The hardship creates our finest artists and writers. It’s an investment
I hate to say it but unfortunately unless Scarborough gets rid of it suburbanite nimbys little will change in regards to transportation. We get subsidized by the city because Scarborough is practically suburbia , we NEED more urbanization to ensure not only theres an equitable distribution of services and more riders but also there affordability for residents. Bike lanes are barely connected and the streetcar service ends at Victoria park. We need lrt, cycling ( happy the bike share is beginning to expand) , streetcars with their dedicated lanes and the subway expansion.
@@fahim5183 Streetcars and LRTs can both be run at significant speeds.. the problem is that we don't do them properly.. one obvious example being that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT won't have transit priority configuration at intersections.
@@MER1978 the lack of priority signaling was a huge miss. The LRT seems to be going slower than traffic on eglinton too (from what I can see in its training runs) so besides rush hour it’s hard to see when the LRT becomes more favourable than taking car… public transport is only effective when it’s a viable alternative… in this case, TTC and metrolinx are again providing an alternative that can barely be considered “viable”…
@@jacobsmith5543 I see it more as yet another conscious decision to pander to drivers.. Toronto is or at least should be famous for these "compromises" that guarantee we never have top quality transit.
@@MER1978 an unfortunate truth. It's on us. A large amount of people either still fall for car-dependency, or just don't care to vote for the right representatives to make change. Toronto is so close yet so far to making good change...
@@jacobsmith5543 I think it also doesn't help that politicians rarely seem to feel any of the heat when people are upset about TTC service.
The federal, provincial, and municipal governments need to see this and fund more transit 🙏 Thank you Green Line for making sure everyone's voices are heard, keep it up!
Thanks so much for you support. As a small indie outlet, we'd appreciate it if you shared this video on social and to your networks!
Fun fact, the Scarborough RT was originally going to use streetcars and would have expand further into Scarborough as streetcars. It was shortened and it sister line Etobicoke RT was canceled after the province convince the TTC to use their brand new train.
Interesting! Can you share your source?
@Kishanth.J was it supposed to be independent from the other network? Or were they thinking on unifying the ones that end af victoria Park?
@@MrAlen6e not sure, the video mentioned both the, Etobicoke RT and Scarborough RT used the same rolling stock as the streetcars but they weren’t connected to the existing system, in his addendum video he mentions plans to potentially expand the Scarborough RT into the surrounding areas at grade. So it possible.
Ha, ha, ha!:- here's the lowdown from one who was there in the 1970s when it was done. "Big Bill Davis", Premier of Ontario, liked to play with electric trains and became fascinated by the "magnetic levitation" technology being developed by Kraus-Maffei, a German company and so he committed the Province to funding a magnetic levitation line in Scarborough to replace the proposed streetcars. However it turned out to be more like "magic levitation" and finally it became painfully obvious that it could not be scaled up from the pilot demonstration project. However some bright soul discovered a German company which manufactured a linear-induction system which resembled magnetic levitation but managed to work although it was never tested in a snowy climate such as in Toronto but to save some embarrassment the Province switched over to linear-induction and everyone conveniently ignored the persistent breakdowns every winter until finally the wheels, quite literally, started falling off the linear-induction cars so they mercifully finally killed the thing. Btw, the WASP residents of Scarborough did not want streetcars because they associated trams with downtown and all those wretched immigrants living there whom they did not want invading their pristine WASP world of Scarborough. Much of Toronto's transit planning and other planning was driven by a strong desire by the WASP / Orangeman residents to exclude immigrants and encourage them to go elsewhere:- those WASP / Orangeman types eventually did move elsewhere to "Whiteby" etc and Scarborough became a very underserviced and unwanted dumping ground for immigrants:- basically a raggedy-ann hand-me-down suburb which is a bigger version of St Jamestown. Btw, they used to call it "Scarberia" (ie Scarborough-Siberia) for obvious reasons because it's such an unpleasant place and especially in winter when it can be quite brutal. Also, the traditional transit access in Scarborough was the Kingston Road and a better plan would be to extend the downtown tram line from Queen to Highland Creek along the Kingston Road and encourage developers to redevelop the frontage with more store fronts (with parking in back) so it resembles inner-city streets like Bloor, Queen, Dundas, Gerrard, College, Lakeshore Blvd West (in Etobicoke), etc:- very old-fashioned but has always worked well for residents. The now-dead Scarborough RT was routed partly to subsidize the developers of Scarborough Town Centre Mall even though this frustrated the traditional pattern of city development in Toronto to the eventual detriment of today's residents. Here's an idea:- connect with Dr Richard M Soberman, a former professor of transportation at U of T who could tell you a lot and make useful suggestions and proposals. As we used to say back then:- keep on truckin' !
@@eve-marie6751 thank for all that information. It was a very nice read and great insight on the event surrounding the Scarborough RT’s changes and why they happened. Also I am not a Toronto resident but I do have family in Scarborough (they came to Canada as refugees) and it sad to hear how prejudice people were to immigrants back then. By the way what does WASP refer to? In regards to extending the streetcar line from Queen to Highland Creek along Kingston road, there used to be a streetcar along Kingston road from Queen street to Bingham loop then all the way to West Hill. Also there is the East Eglington LRT which will run a median LRT from Kennedy, along Elglinton to Kingston road, then North at Morningside through the college campus, then past the 401 till Shepard. Finally west on shepherd till Mc Cowan to where Line 2 and 4 will eventually meet. Only thing I don’t get is why the EELRT is not connected with the ECLRT.
Great video. People often ignore the still real racial divide that exists for transit expansion, while we are still experiencing the effects of inequities in transit.
Appreciate it, thanks for watching! 🙏
Having live in Scarborough for a couple of years Scarborough is perhaps one of the communities you really see this. The suburbia gates communities by the coastline look totally different to the other neighborhoods in the borough
The Fords set this city back *decades* and it's infuriating.
Absolutely…
It takes me 1:45 minutes on acreage to get to my Doctor at Shelbourne and Carleton. We usually have a 10-minute stop at coxwell for crew change and a 15-minute period or slow speed due to track maintenance issues. that's 25-minutes right there. factor in 10 minutes at Kennedy for crew change and delays waiting for the next train to arrive as well as cleaning of the train. coming from downtown I usually have to wait from 15 - 22 minutes for my bus. The express busses are typically only 4 minutes faster than the non-express buses due to heavy traffic and road work.
This was so well done. Informative. Thank you.
I am hopeful that this may changes. The Shepherd line may be expanded into Scarborough and then their is Eglington East LRT will expand coverage in Scarborough. If they do get built.
Politics ruins everything. In a perfect world, Scarborough has, at bare minimum, a subway going from Kennedy to the Toronto Zoo; an LRT along Eglinton East; an LRT along Sheppard East (or a line 4 subway extension); and an LRT along Steeles East. It would be way better than whatever Scarborough has now - which isn't much.
Thank goodness you guys speak our mind, way to go the green line!
Thank you so much! 💚
Don't worry Scarborough, Spadina no longer has a street car
Appreciate the work you guys are doing
Thanks so much for your kind words! As an indie community news outlets, it'd help a lot of you shared this video and spread the word about our work. 🙏
Yeah but how many people live within walking distance of all of those stations or potential stations.
There are plenty of areas in this city which don't have the appropriate density for the most expensive form of transit.
Not many people, in fact. There are quite a few transit deserts in Scarborough.
@@thegreenlineto Yeah but that's an argument for good bus service not subway.
@@MER1978 subways help build a place up through better connection that's the whole point. Look how dense Yonge street is compared to bathurst. That's the difference a subway line creates and Scarborough has been starving. They could have done this extension years ago but chose to focus on North York and Vaughan.
@@eliascolatoosman Subways help to continue growth that is already well established with existing density built by extremely busy streetcar and bus routes.. we have drifted from that with some more recent additions but that is not the case with older parts of the system.
@@MER1978 Yea so they should build more towards STC half the people already live in high rise apartment buildings on busy streets like lawerence why is there subway connection in the middle of nowhere highway 407 but not here.
I really hope the proposal for the EELRT goes through
I don't. According to the TTC its going to be slower than the existing bus lanes on Eglinton/Morningside, not exactly a wise use of money.
Folks, you need to understand that in Toronto there has always been a caste system:- the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Insiders were the WASPs and the Orangemen and they have run things since forever and Toronto was always the New Belfast and even nastier than old Belfast in northern Ireland. The Outsiders were everyone else who were barely tolerated by the Insiders and always pushed into the least desirable areas of Toronto. For more guidance and advice on what to do perhaps you might read "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs and "Reveille for a Radical" by Saul Alinsky. Notable outsiders such as Richard Soberman and Tony O'Donohue saw these problems of today from 50 years ago:- nothing new here. Put together a plan and a proposal for investing in better Scarborough transit and then push for it:- perhaps you need to organize your own political party to make it happen and get behind it because crying about it won't help at all:- the politicians won't care until you start "kicking some butt".
Trying to blame lack of subway infrastructure on racism is idiotic to say the least. Compare the population / population density of Downtown with Scarborough and you might find your answer.
We actually looked into that. Here's an excerpt from our article: thegreenline.to/stories/scarborough-transit-access-equity/
"Population density, while an important factor, does not on its own explain Toronto’s subway stop access inequities. Scarborough and Etobicoke York have almost the same density - technically Scarborough is slightly denser - at 33.1 people per hectare versus 33 people per hectare, respectively. Toronto East York (the city’s inner core) has 80.1 people per hectare.
To put these numbers in perspective, Scarborough is 41 per cent as dense as Toronto East York, yet has 12 per cent as many subway stops. Scarborough is 100 per cent as dense as Etobicoke York but has 40 per cent as many subway stops."
@@thegreenlineto
Except nobody builds subway stations based on the overall density of an area.. it's density in the right places to connect with existing lines etc.
@@thegreenlineto
I don't think anyone would argue that jam packed stations during rush hour between Union + Bloor don't require subway.. you honestly think they would be equally useful literally everywhere else in the old city of Toronto land area?
It’s classism, wealthy areas have more resources and convenience
@@MER1978 Like half the busses in Scarborough join at STC and its been like that for a while why isn't there a station there yet? Fairview does not have as much route connections/denisty and yet they get a whole subway line to connect to yonge. Its straight up neglect downtown is busy but has streetcars, subways and buses all working at the same time.
So first it was building highways was an effort to segregate and marginalize communities. Now it’s subways that are built to marginalize communities. Which is it? Now you don’t want subways?
I don't see a contradiction here. There is clear and documented evidence that NA highways were intentionally built along certain routes to segregate and displace certain communities. It's also fairly obvious that shutting down a sound transit project similar to projects executed elsewhere in the same city that greatly improved transit in order to implement a boondoggle project that was obviously designed to fail while keeping those segregating highways intact was at least in part about maintaining the status quo in the segregating of those communities. It's a pretty straightforward conclusion.
Any infrastructure can be used to marginalise communities
Two things can be true at the same time, not everything is simple....