11th
Senior Member
Hume: Transit could help Eglinton turn the corner
Is it a tramway, LRT, rapid transit, or what else??
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andrewpmk
Senior Member
This is not a very good idea, Hume. Running a streetcar (presumably in mixed traffic) above ground in the central section of Eglinton is a crazy idea. It would be extremely slow and low capacity. Eglinton will be the main transit alternative to Highway 401, connecting the airport, Yonge & Eglinton and Don Mills & Eglinton. It needs to be high capacity and reasonably fast.
JayBeeGooner
Active Member
Where do you get the idea Eglinton will be transit alternative to the 401? The majority of 401 drivers come from outside the city. Eglinton will never be an alternative to the 401.
It's pretty easy for a guy from Paris to say that above-ground in-median LRT is a good thing when you have massive metro and RER networks to back it up. Toronto doesn't have that.
I think at-grade LRT along the central part of Eglinton would be disastrous for both the transit service and the traffic along that corridor.
sixrings
Senior Member
I went to his Future Eglinton Seminar the other Wednesday. I have never been so bored and been so frustrated at a public event in my life. First of all it was basically the french guy giving his speech. Which went way over time after they started late. It went so long that someone had to attempt to cut him off. When confronted he said "last slide" acknowledging he had gone a little long. I have been to many of these events and planning sessions but this was brutal. There was a question and answer period at the end to get some public feedback. Too bad more than half the room had left by then. I would have left to if I wasnt directly in the middle and it would have been super awkward. I just felt that if this is how you are going to do meetings then the general public will lose interest and not participate. Thankfully this has not been my experience. But it was one experience too many.
OK so I was not shocked to see read this article today. Hume has suggested this months maybe years ago in other articles so I am not surprised he found someone to endorse his theory. A lot of the french guys presentation was powerpoint slides showing what they have done in france. What this article fails to mention is that on alot of the underground lines in france they put a surface LRT or Streetcar on top. That way you can have express service or local service. The slides did look surprisingly good. In the past I have thought about a Streetcar loop that would be on top of the downtown subway lines. So for instance a street car that would start at yonge and bloor go south to front turn west to university and again north to avenue and bloor and then east to yonge and bloor again. Anyways this article is not mentioning the fact that often where there is underground in france there is a lrt or streetcar at ground level.
The idea is great but there are so many other places I would rather a lrt or streetcar go instead of doubling up a single line. Lawrence, yorkmills, wilson, keele, dufferin, kipling, jane, donmills. Im just happy this thing is getting built and im going to cross my fingers for the future.
MetroMan
Senior Member
I'm just jumping into this thread and perhaps this has been discussed but now that almost the entire route will be underground, wouldn't it be better to use the cheaper subway technology instead of an LRT which was designed for above surface operation?
Subway from Black Creek to Don Mills. Then LRT into Scarborough. Won't this save money and allow better operation as a subway network with interchangeable trains and shorturning/diversions if required?
Subway from Black Creek to Don Mills. Then LRT into Scarborough. Won't this save money and allow better operation as a subway network with interchangeable trains and shorturning/diversions if required?
sixrings
Senior Member
what happens when you want to extend to the airport? We already spent more money digging to fit in the wires for LRT. My opinion is it at least makes us more flexible so why quit on it now.
MetroMan
Senior Member
This isn't an area of my expertise so bare with me here. From what I've gathered over the whole LRT vs subway debate, LRTs are cheaper to build rail infrastructure for as long as they're above ground. Subways are only more expensive because they require tunneling and/or elevated track and underground stations. LRT vehicles themselves are more expensive because they're built to be run in traffic (potential for collisions at intersections).
Since we're building almost the whole thing underground anyway, what's the point of running LRT vehicles that will only be used as intended for a 5km run? It's like buying a Ferrari to drive in sewers. Wouldn't it make so much more sense and really be more cost effective to run existing Rocket trains across the city and then connect to LRTs at Scarborough in the East and then in the West the Finch LRT would be expanded to the airport and connected to the Crosstown at Jane?
Further, wouldn't it be cheaper to build subway specified tunnels which have a smaller radius? Why are we spending so much extra money to work around original plans that haven't panned out? I'm all in favor of LRTs where they meet the demand, but this is no longer an LRT route given all the modifications made. All the money wasted in this technology contortionism could probably pay for the 500M it was quoted to cost to replace the Scarborough SRT with a subway extension but instead, extend the BD line to only as far as Eglinton and bury the remaining part of Eglinton to Don Mills to loop it into the Crosstown as a subway the whole way.
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sixrings
Senior Member
The benefits of LRT is that it is cheaper to build at grade level and that it can be flexible and go underground where there is not enough road space at grade. Essentially this allows you to build a long line that can do two things rather then build one western above ground section, a second central underground section, and a third eastern above ground section. It eliminates transfers and makes the user experience easier. The digging tunnels are already purchased and digging the larger tunnels. There is no going back or getting our money back.., We can run Subway trains in the tunnel but it will still be at lrt costs since the trains are ordered as well. This is one of those maybe we would have done things differently but the decision is done type things. Personally even after knowing the negatives the flexability is still a preference and overall the line will still be cheaper. Others may disagree but thats my opinion.
11th
Senior Member
They can probably work something out with Bombardier for the purchase. The question is, does Metrolinx (or whoever's responsible) want to. Still not sure what's the obsession with low platforms for "Transit City" lines. It will cost more to build high platforms (as in C-trains, LA metro light rails), but at least it might be a better sell to the general public - less complain of it being "streetcar" lines; and the vehicles wont have those awkwardly facing seats which many people seems to dislike.
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MetroMan
Senior Member
I see. But I'm not proposing the LRTs in the west and east as little stumps. They would be their own long LRT lines. The LRT connecting to the Crosstown subway in the East would be part of the Sheppard LRT network into Scarborough and the Airport LRT connecting to the Crosstown in the West would be the Finch LRT. Eventually these will connect to the Crosstown LRT this way, we're just changing the location of the connecting points.
Eglinton was originally planned and started construction as a subway. What changed? The available budget has but density along Eglinton has not. It would be served fine with an LRT but at this point we're so close to a subway, we're only limiting ourselves with this artificial roadblock of bureaucratic ink. The Crosstown **is** a subway now. We're just running an extra nice train in it.
Speaking of the train, isn't Bombardier making both the Crosstown trains and Toronto Rockets? The order may be cheaper but with guarantees for long term expansion plans (streetcars, more LRT, new Rockets), that contract can be offset.
Eglinton was originally planned and started construction as a subway. What changed? The available budget has but density along Eglinton has not. It would be served fine with an LRT but at this point we're so close to a subway, we're only limiting ourselves with this artificial roadblock of bureaucratic ink. The Crosstown **is** a subway now. We're just running an extra nice train in it.
Speaking of the train, isn't Bombardier making both the Crosstown trains and Toronto Rockets? The order may be cheaper but with guarantees for long term expansion plans (streetcars, more LRT, new Rockets), that contract can be offset.
sixrings
Senior Member
what changed is that they realized that the ridership they expected originally was unrealistic and that most of the demand was going downtown..
nfitz
Superstar
I don't think the Eglinton West demand ever supported subway. The original plan was BRT, but on Metro Council, York and Etobicoke were voting as a block and blocking any of the other subway expansion until Eglinton West was built as a subway instead of a BRT. It was more a political move than based on capacities. I'd be interested to see the long term estimated Eglinton West subway ridership though, I don't think these documents are on-line.
andrewpmk
Senior Member
The airport, and the huge business park south of it (Airport Corporate Centre) will generate a lot of ridership if the LRT is extended there. It will provide an alternative to the 401 for those people. That area has grown an enormous amount since the early 1990s. Right now the 401 is severely congested in both directions, but there is not much of an alternative. Because the 401 is so severely congested, the Eglinton LRT will I believe act, to some extent, as a substitute, particularly for traffic to the airport area and to Yonge/Eglinton and Don Mills/Eglinton.
Also we should always assume that the demand on Eglinton will grow over time, due to development along the line. Look at the traffic volumes on the 401 when it was first built vs. now, or the ridership on the Yonge and Bloor subways. Building a line with too little capacity means that it will become overcrowded within a decade or two of opening. It always does. It is difficult to find an example of a major highway or subway line (short unfinished lines like Sheppard do not count) in any big city in the world that has not exceeded its capacity soon after opening.
nfitz
Superstar
Short unfinished lines like Sheppard do count. It hasn't met the estimates for what was built, and revised estimates for 2031 for a completed line prepared recently for TTC are much, much lower than the original ones. I expect it wouldn't take long to find other examples.
However, I don't see what this has to do with Eglinton. The forecasts have never supported subway, and barely support LRT, even the 2031 service to the Airport Corporate Centre, which was factored into the studies. There's no point building subway on Eglinton when LRT more than meets the capacity. Even LRT could meet the entire load from the 401 in rush hour, if you diverted 100% of the traffic.