[muller877]

If they are coming from Kennedy, it would make more sense for them to transfer to line 1 and get off at Dundas to get to Ryerson/Eaton centre anyway...

There may be many destinations in the north of downtown, but you have to trade-off against the significant number of destinations in the south of downtown. SouthCore, the Financial District, St. Lawrence Market, Distillery, etc., mean that there are more destinations south downtown than north downtown, which is why ridership projections showed greater ridership for a King DRL (173 000) than for a Queen DRL (123 000).

If the DRL is too far north from those destinations, then that means that riders will either need to walk further from the stations (reducing ridership) or will choose to stay on line 2 and transfer to line 1, reducing the "Relief" aspect.

If there is a long-term plan for the RH line to go via the Leaside spur to Union (RER frequency) than I agree that the DRL should go via Queen. If the DRL is too close to the RH line (i.e. never RER on RH) than it should be via King..

I could foresee a RER "U" from Dundas West via Union and then up the RH line acting as Relief for those going to Union area (south of King, Southcore, etc)
Then the DRL is a second U going via Queen (and not to Dundas West...maybe Dufferin?)

I always use to agree with your thought about King until I thought about the possibilities of 2 relief lines.

 

[micheal_can]

If there is a long-term plan for the RH line to go via the Leaside spur to Union (RER frequency) than I agree that the DRL should go via Queen. If the DRL is too close to the RH line (i.e. never RER on RH) than it should be via King..

I could foresee a RER "U" from Dundas West via Union and then up the RH line acting as Relief for those going to Union area (south of King, Southcore, etc)
Then the DRL is a second U going via Queen (and not to Dundas West...maybe Dufferin?)

I always use to agree with your thought about King until I thought about the possibilities of 2 relief lines.

I have always thought of one that would follow the lake shore both ways.

 

[BurlOak]

Couple of comments.

1. This is actually significantly longer than I expected, the tail tracks run to John Street and north of Mortimer. It means it's actually around 7.5km of tunneling, even if only around 6.5km of it is in service. Makes the high price tag a bit more understandable. Just a bit.

• If they are going that far north, would it not make sense to cross Don Valley. I imagined a yard next to the wastewater plant. Save the money on the wye, and spend it to go farther. https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.6990141,-79.3492317,1046m/data=!3m1!1e3
• Either don't even connect to B-D, or could consider tunneling from Gerrard to the Greenwood yard and avoid much of the construction mess, expropriation, etc.
• On Sheppard, I wonder if they would have built a simple interchange at Yonge-Sheppard, could the line have got to Bathurst? Faywood?, Dufferin?

 

[Hopkins123]

Ugh, will we never have a Danforth line station with an entrance on Danforth? So many missed chances (Broadview second exit, Coxwell ... even a connection from Main to Danforth GO could have a Danforth entrance.

But I'd have though a new station at Pape and Danforth would be a no-brainer!

It's beyond dumb that they wouldn't model the Danforth Stn more after Bloor Stn with its station box extending to the south side of the Bloor-Yonge intersection. The spacing gap between Gerrard and Danforth is very wide as is, so a practically positioned DRL stop would make the whole Pape-Danforth neighbourhood far more accessible and walkable for all.

I'm intrigued by the tail tracks extending up to Mortimer though. With a centralized Danforth stop fixated on where the cross streets intersect rather than the subway interchange, this would make having a station at Mortimer all the more viable as the spacing would be far enough apart from the Danforth to justify it.

 

[44 North]

They also did it to spread out rapid transit access, rather than concentrating it in the King/Union area. Long term (and I mean several decades from now) I think this is the best option

I agree. Not that I discount what @Forgotten is writing, and am glad he's banging that drum. Certainly does seem silly to skirt past the financial district, even if only a few hundred metres. But I think on the whole Queen is good. Provides a buffer between Line 2, waterfront LRT, and USRC. And I tend to agree with Planning that City Hall is the general heart of the city.

• If they are going that far north, would it not make sense to cross Don Valley. I imagined a yard next to the wastewater plant. Save the money on the wye, and spend it to go farther. https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.6990141,-79.3492317,1046m/data=!3m1!1e3
• Either don't even connect to B-D, or could consider tunneling from Gerrard to the Greenwood yard and avoid much of the construction mess, expropriation, etc.
• On Sheppard, I wonder if they would have built a simple interchange at Yonge-Sheppard, could the line have got to Bathurst? Faywood?, Dufferin?

If a new inline yard I think next to the water treatment plant isn't very good due to it being in the flood plain. 1985 DRL one of the sites for a new yard actually was Brickworks. But for similar reasons it was ruled out. Got to look at elevations. It's like a +100ft from valley bottom to top. Though agree would be interested in whether there's benefit to a new yard, perhaps less conventional rolling stock, and if any savings could be used to extend the line. West, and north.

**
Not sure if I'm sold on the separate threads for RL. For the time being I think one is sufficient, but maybe that's me.

 

[Streety McCarface]

I have always thought of one that would follow the lake shore both ways.

That makes little sense; lakeshore is too close to the waterfront and too far from the main roads in the city (King, Queen, Dundas), where all the activities are. It also means much of the walking range for the line is over water (if that makes any sense), and it's too close to GO RER.

 

[MisterF]

To play devil's advocate on the transfer stations, I think it's important to remember that most subway transfer stations aren't in the dire situation that Bloor-Yonge is. It's among the busiest transfers between two lines in the world; for example the Yonge platforms are busier than any equivalent in New York City. Because Line 2 doesn't go to the downtown core and the key third line in the 1960s subway plan (what we now call the Relief Line) was never built, much of the daily ridership is forced to transfer at a single bottleneck. When the RL and RER are up and running, ridership will be much more spread out than it is today. Instead of one transfer station, we'll have Bloor-Yonge, Pape-Danforth, Gerrard-Pape, Broadview/East Harbour, Queen-Yonge, and Queen-University. That's a massive change in how people get around, and none of those stations should be as overcrowded as Bloor-Yonge is today. So it could be that the designs being proposed will be adequate.

With respect to the two transfers with Line 1, it looks like those stations are being designed to prioritize walking to major downtown destinations rather than easy transfers to Line 1. Most people using these stations will be walking to and from their workplaces, not transferring to another train.

The point of the Queen Alignment was that it would hit more than just the financial district - there is significant demand from the northern portions of downtown such as Ryerson University and the Eaton Centre which would be within walking distance of Queen street, but not King. For someone coming from say, Kennedy, and travelling to Ryerson, they can take the DRL and walk 3 minutes up Yonge to avoid bloor yonge.

This is a good point. With RER serving Union Station directly, there's no need for the RL to try to serve Southcore, the waterfront or even the south end of the financial district. Building it on Queen means that the entire financial district and the larger area from the waterfront to Dundas will be within an easy walk to one of these new lines. While a King alignment would be superior in some ways, it would also compete with RER more than complement it and would mean that less of downtown has access to east-west rapid transit.

 

[innsertnamehere]

If they are coming from Kennedy, it would make more sense for them to transfer to line 1 and get off at Dundas to get to Ryerson/Eaton centre anyway...

There may be many destinations in the north of downtown, but you have to trade-off against the significant number of destinations in the south of downtown. SouthCore, the Financial District, St. Lawrence Market, Distillery, etc., mean that there are more destinations south downtown than north downtown, which is why ridership projections showed greater ridership for a King DRL (173 000) than for a Queen DRL (128 000).

View attachment 141273

If the DRL is too far north from those destinations, then that means that riders will either need to walk further from the stations (reducing ridership) or will choose to stay on line 2 and transfer to line 1, reducing the "Relief" aspect.

Distillery is still easily accessible. It's a 3 minute walk from one of the proposed station entrances.

St Lawrence isn't really close to any stations, even if the line was on King instead.

Southcore and the Financial District are huge rush hour drivers, but after 6pm and on weekends they provide very, very little ridership. The vast majority of the financial district is a short walk from the DRL as well. Moving the line to Queen improves access to the courts, malls, hospitals, etc. that are north of Queen Street and are also huge transit ridership drivers, while maintaining easy access to the vast majority of financial district office space.

Also, Southcore isn't really accessible from either a King or Queen alignment.

As for transfers, yes, the only major one is Pape. the downtown transfer volumes will be low.

 

[muller877]

I suspect that the health of the East Harbour real estate project is more tied to Amazon than is commonly realized. If Amazon does not select Toronto, the urgency to build the "next downtown core" may diminish considerably (recognizing that it is a phased project, regardless). And, if that happens, all bets may be off for DRL South in its current configuration.

If I was Amazon I'd be looking hard at the Downsview lands, not Unilever. They could buy the whole thing and make a Master Planned mixed use community. Close enough to downtown for young professionals but also close to the tech heavy suburbs up north with all the grey hair from Celistica, etc

The BBD sale may change the urgent need for the Unilever lands regardless of who is chosen to develop them

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

That's not where the action is.

AoD

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I suspect that the health of the East Harbour real estate project is more tied to Amazon than is commonly realized. If Amazon does not select Toronto, the urgency to build the "next downtown core" may diminish considerably (recognizing that it is a phased project, regardless). And, if that happens, all bets may be off for DRL South in its current configuration.

Funny enough, connecting downtown to Lever / East Harbour wasn't at all part of the original mandate! (Because there was no "East Harbour.")

Why? The East Harbour proposal long predates Amazon. It is not, and never was dependant on Amazon's participation, And have you seen Toronto's commercial real estate market recently? We'll have no problem selling office space in East Harbour.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It's beyond dumb that they wouldn't model the Danforth Stn more after Bloor Stn with its station box extending to the south side of the Bloor-Yonge intersection

Can we stop with this language please? The "natural" configuration for the Relief Line platform would be to have it centred under the Line 2 platform, so clearly there is some kind of constraint that forced it to the north. I'd like to hear the justifications for the decision, before calling the engineers dumb.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I agree. Not that I discount what @Forgotten is writing, and am glad he's banging that drum. Certainly does seem silly to skirt past the financial district, even if only a few hundred metres. But I think on the whole Queen is good. Provides a buffer between Line 2, waterfront LRT, and USRC. And I tend to agree with Planning that City Hall is the general heart of the city.

Over the next several decades the CBD will shift north to accommodate the subway, so ultimately much of this debate will be moot.

 

[rbt]

Why? The East Harbour proposal long predates Amazon. It is not, and never was dependant on Amazon's participation, And have you seen Toronto's commercial real estate market recently? We'll have no problem selling office space in East Harbour.

Indeed. South Core filled up in less than 10 years; every bit of good land that doesn't have a tower is pretty far along in planning.

By the time 2030 rolls around we're desperately going to need some new ground with good TTC + GO access. It takes 10+ years to build out where "there" will be.


Amazon has a much tighter timeline than East Harbour. To do something with them we needed to get started 10 years ago (Downsview might actually work for them; where we did get started 10 years ago). They have a 20 year plan; they're not going to wait until DRL construction finishes before starting.

 

[aquateam]

Distillery is still easily accessible. It's a 3 minute walk from one of the proposed station entrances.

St Lawrence isn't really close to any stations, even if the line was on King instead.

The vast majority of the financial district is a short walk from the DRL as well. Moving the line to Queen improves access to the courts, malls, hospitals, etc. that are north of Queen Street and are also huge transit ridership drivers, while maintaining easy access to the vast majority of financial district office space.

We can go back and forth and anecdotally name sites of interest north of Queen and south of Queen but
the idea that there are more ridership generators for a northern alignment is belied by the fact that existing transit ridership (as represented by the King and Queen streetcar lines) and projected ridership (from various studies) is much higher for King than for Queen.

Queen may have historic, institutional presences, but King has much more existing and planned density.

Southcore and the Financial District are huge rush hour drivers, but after 6pm and on weekends they provide very, very little ridership.

Neither do the courts or hospitals but luckily King has the entertainment district to drive night time and weekend ridership.