[nfitz]

The world doesn't end in 2031. So your solution is for the line to get worse and have a horrible service an then and only then we can start planning for extending the DRL further north? That's poor planning right there

We're not trying to fix post-2031. We're trying to fix the Bloor-Yonge interchange. There's no point spending money now, to fix something that won't happen until 25 years from now. There's no reason that you can't build subway to Eglinton now, and then LRT to 16th Avenue - which would alleviate a lot of stuff now. (or by 2023). And then extend the subway line north as necessary.

Though I expect eventually you reach the point that building a complete subway on Don Mills still won't relieve the Yonge line. Sooner or later you have to start looking at other north-south lines adjacent to Yonge. Either an express line, some upgraded GO ... or lines closer ... Don Mills is 5 km from Yonge. Eglinton is closer to Bloor than that ... and we don't anticipate that the Eglinton West piece of that line is going to do much to reduce ridership on the Bloor line. I can't imagine it ever being more than a 10% impact north of Eglinton ... probably lower. And that's far less than the current latent demand.

 

[Solid Snake]

We're not trying to fix post-2031. We're trying to fix the Bloor-Yonge interchange. There's no point spending money now, to fix something that won't happen until 25 years from now. There's no reason that you can't build subway to Eglinton now, and then LRT to 16th Avenue - which would alleviate a lot of stuff now. (or by 2023). And then extend the subway line north as necessary.

Oh, that's a great idea. We'll build it later at double the cost... Besides, isn't the point of the revenue transit taxes? So politicians will stop saying there's no money for transit. It's all about priorities. I think pushing the DRL further north to accommodate Torontonians on the Yonge line who will be treated like cattle just so that Richmond Hill riders get a comfortable seat all the way to downtown is more important...especially when it's the cattle tax dollars that subsidize the TTC.

16th Avevue??? Why is LRT bad for York region but mandatory for anyone living outside of downtown within the city limits??? You never, ever explain that one to me. So York should get a subway wherever they want and screw LRT but it's not ok for suburban Toronto???

Though I expect eventually you reach the point that building a complete subway on Don Mills still won't relieve the Yonge line. Sooner or later you have to start looking at other north-south lines adjacent to Yonge. Either an express line, some upgraded GO ... or lines closer ... Don Mills is 5 km from Yonge. Eglinton is closer to Bloor than that ... and we don't anticipate that the Eglinton West piece of that line is going to do much to reduce ridership on the Bloor line. I can't imagine it ever being more than a 10% impact north of Eglinton ... probably lower. And that's far less than the current latent demand.

The point of that line is to intercept ever east-west bus routes so that riders that usually goes to the Yonge line will that the DRL instead... freeing space for Richmond hill and riders arriving from the east on Eglinton Crosstown. They will take it FOR SURE since their travel time will be cut drastically

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Not based on the traffic ridership forecast on that corridor in the Don Mills study.

And not based on the years I spent riding the 25 bus north from Danforth to York Mills. There's relatively much lower demand anddensity north of Wynford, and even less north of Lawrence. I might be tempted to push the subway to Lawrence, and then use LRT up to Highway 7. In 40-50 years perhaps there'd be a case for expanding the subway.

But this could peel off ridership from the Yonge Line. We have to think about the entire area, not just the street it's self.

The density around Don Mills appears to be a little lower than that of the Spadina Subway north of Eglinton. However the bus feeder routes for the Don Mills Subway, (where the bulk of subway ridership originates) has far greater usage than the feeder routes we see connecting to the Spadina Subway north of Eglinton. So I'm not at all convinced that the Don Mills Subway would be an unsuccessful route. I'd expect long term ridership on Don Mills to be somewhat comparable to what we see north of Eglinton on Spadina Subway. But we really do need to have traffic modelling done on this route to properly compare usage on a Don Mills Subway vs. Don Mills LRT.

Though I expect eventually you reach the point that building a complete subway on Don Mills still won't relieve the Yonge line. Sooner or later you have to start looking at other north-south lines adjacent to Yonge. Either an express line, some upgraded GO ... or lines closer ... Don Mills is 5 km from Yonge. Eglinton is closer to Bloor than that ...

The point of that line is to intercept ever east-west bus routes so that riders that usually goes to the Yonge line will that the DRL instead... freeing space for Richmond hill and riders arriving from the east on Eglinton Crosstown. They will take it FOR SURE since their travel time will be cut drastically

5 km is quite far form Yonge. But Solid Snake is right, a huge amount of riders do make that 5 km westbound trip via bus to Yonge. But that does’t necessarily mean that a Don Mills Subway would have a huge impact on relieving the Yonge line. Before we can make that determination we need to know what percentage of AM Yonge riders that board between Eglinton and Finch had their trips originate from east of the Don Mills Road area and whether or not a Don Mills route would really be faster for them. Remember, we also have to factor in a transfer at King-Yonge Station. Not all downtown bound trips alight at King.

Edit #1: We also can't forget to take into account how extending the Relief Line to Finch would change ridership patterns among trips originating in York Region.

 

[salsa]

I'd expect long term ridership on Don Mills to be somewhat comparable to what we see north of Eglinton on Spadina Subway. But we really do need to have traffic modelling done on this route to properly compare usage on a Don Mills Subway vs. Don Mills LRT.

Exactly. It's time to put down the crayons and the fantasy maps.

 

[nfitz]

Oh, that's a great idea. We'll build it later at double the cost...

What? Your going to pay a quarter to half-century of maintenance to save a future cost? Your forgetting there are huge costs just to maintin infrastructure for period of decades.

Remember the net present value of a future expenditure a century away is effectively zero.

 

[diminutive]

Demand along Don Mills itself would come nowhere close to justifying rapid transit. Based purely on local demand, some kind of express or rapid bus seems most appropriate.

The question though is how would Don Mills interact with the surface routes it intersects. All of the Don Mills LRT studies were done assuming a fairly local style LRT which didn't attract much transfer ridership, not an alternative to the Yonge subway.

That said, the line doesn't even have to be on Don Mills per se. If ridership is mostly transfering, it lets the route be more flexible since we don't have to go out of our way to hit certain destinations.

There are dozens of permutations of these, but I'd see three major corridor options which could originate from Don Mills/Eglinton.

1.) Don Mills/DVP: The line could run above ground along the DVP, swerving a bit to hit things like the Sheppard terminus or Seneca College. The only other semi-significant trip generator along this corridor would be Lawrence-Don Mills.

2.) Agincourt rail corridor. Especially if the DRL approached Leaside from the West, it should be possible to build a low cost extension along the rail corridor to Lawrence/VicPark-> Ellesmere/Warden -> Agincourt-> STC or Malvern or so. Or it could turn up the Stouffvile corridor after Agincourt.

3.) Richmond Hill rail corridor. The line could be upgraded and straitened and stations added where major roads intersect.

All of those corridors would intersect the same basic feeder routes to some extent. It would take pretty detailed modelling to figure out how and at what cost. In terms of cost, they should all be fairly low and comparable. Stations would be relatively infrequent and routes would be nearly 100% above ground.

Ideally we'd actually see the DRL branch into two somewhere around here.

 

[rbt]

This line is supposed to relive yonge

Yes. Putting $3B into the Richmond Hill line will result in that line having nearly double the carrying capacity of the Yonge line with very attractive service. TTC integration means running buses to it and having good interchange connections at Leslie & Sheppard and Leslie & Eglinton.

The line you propose is up in the $15B range. It's a heck of a long way to Sheppard underground.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

That's assuming, like all the talk of the 905 using the GO lines, that everyone is heading downtown to Union. If you're heading to say...some mid-point, like Yonge and Eglinton, or Yonge and Sheppard or Wellesley, then GO is completely useless (and driving pretty much is too).

Why? Look at the ridership estimates, north of Eglinton. They were barely in the LRT range, let alone subway.

Obviously your not going to be building subway on Don Mills all the way to Steeles for a few decades!

I'm sure you've noticed how much emptier (and faster) the 25 bus is as soon as you cross north of Eglinton. (not to mention of how many other buses you have south of Eglinton).

Not based on the traffic ridership forecast on that corridor in the Don Mills study.

And not based on the years I spent riding the 25 bus north from Danforth to York Mills. There's relatively much lower demand anddensity north of Wynford, and even less north of Lawrence. I might be tempted to push the subway to Lawrence, and then use LRT up to Highway 7. In 40-50 years perhaps there'd be a case for expanding the subway.

Only if it goes all the way to Eglinton... Even then, the trains are usually full by Sheppard-Yonge at peak hours. Sometime looking beyond numbers is a form of intelligence as well and just a little bit of observation would show how valuable the DRL would be if it went all the way to Finch

A bit perhaps ... but I'd think it would have most if it's effect if it reaches Eglinton. An LRT might well be more effective north of Eglinton, as by then the subway stop spacing would be so wide, that a lot of people would still have to figure out how to get to the subway. The travel time from Sheppard to Eglinton on the LRT would be still very fast, and would likely result in trips downtown using the Don Mills LRT and DRL that are faster than using the Sheppard subway and Yonge subway.

Currently Sheppard/Don Mills to King station on the subway is 36 minutes (well, it's a lot worse than that, with the current overcrowding, and the slow order through Davisville, etc. - but let's pretend that they fix it all).

The DRL report estimates 20.5 minutes from Eglinton/Don Mills to King station (using the velocities on Table 2-4, and the distances associates with Exhibit 2-4). Let's assume 2.5 minutes to change from the Don Mills LRT to subway at Don Mills/Eglinton station. To match the travel time of 36 minutes on the subway, you'd have to get from Sheppard/Don Mills to Eglinton/Don Mills in 13 minutes.

The distance from Sheppard/Don Mills to Eglinton/Don Mills is 6.2 km. To travel 6.2 km in 13 minutes, you'd have to do 28.6 km/hour. Which is about what you'd expect from LRT up there.

So pretty much a tie for those right at Don Mills station. But that's a deep station, and it's a good walk for anyone to get to. I bet someone living right on the corner of Don Mills and Sheppard would be onto a surface LRT faster than getting into the subway. And those living at Don Mills/Parkway Forest on near the Peanut would be far better off on the LRT.

Sure, the subway would help some more ... but at what cost.

Still, best not to eliminate these things out-of-hand. There's no reason the demand shouldn't be modelled, to see what would likely happen.

Thanks for the link, I didn't see that one.

I like how Metrolinx makes it obvious on page 13 that the DRL does nothing for suburbans.

Metrolinx seems determined to end the Line at Exhibition GO. It's a good idea to build another major train station with a subway link but the subway should still go up to Danforth. Or maybe the Province will expect the city to pay for that part on it's own

The world doesn't end in 2031. So your solution is for the line to get worse and have a horrible service an then and only then we can start planning for extending the DRL further north? That's poor planning right there

We're not trying to fix post-2031. We're trying to fix the Bloor-Yonge interchange. There's no point spending money now, to fix something that won't happen until 25 years from now. There's no reason that you can't build subway to Eglinton now, and then LRT to 16th Avenue - which would alleviate a lot of stuff now. (or by 2023). And then extend the subway line north as necessary.

Though I expect eventually you reach the point that building a complete subway on Don Mills still won't relieve the Yonge line. Sooner or later you have to start looking at other north-south lines adjacent to Yonge. Either an express line, some upgraded GO ... or lines closer ... Don Mills is 5 km from Yonge. Eglinton is closer to Bloor than that ... and we don't anticipate that the Eglinton West piece of that line is going to do much to reduce ridership on the Bloor line. I can't imagine it ever being more than a 10% impact north of Eglinton ... probably lower. And that's far less than the current latent demand.

Oh, that's a great idea. We'll build it later at double the cost... Besides, isn't the point of the revenue transit taxes? So politicians will stop saying there's no money for transit. It's all about priorities. I think pushing the DRL further north to accommodate Torontonians on the Yonge line who will be treated like cattle just so that Richmond Hill riders get a comfortable seat all the way to downtown is more important...especially when it's the cattle tax dollars that subsidize the TTC.

16th Avevue??? Why is LRT bad for York region but mandatory for anyone living outside of downtown within the city limits??? You never, ever explain that one to me. So York should get a subway wherever they want and screw LRT but it's not ok for suburban Toronto???



The point of that line is to intercept ever east-west bus routes so that riders that usually goes to the Yonge line will that the DRL instead... freeing space for Richmond hill and riders arriving from the east on Eglinton Crosstown. They will take it FOR SURE since their travel time will be cut drastically

The density around Don Mills appears to be a little lower than that of the Spadina Subway north of Eglinton. However the bus feeder routes for the Don Mills Subway, (where the bulk of subway ridership originates) has far greater usage than the feeder routes we see connecting to the Spadina Subway north of Eglinton. So I'm not at all convinced that the Don Mills Subway would be an unsuccessful route. I'd expect long term ridership on Don Mills to be somewhat comparable to what we see north of Eglinton on Spadina Subway. But we really do need to have traffic modelling done on this route to properly compare usage on a Don Mills Subway vs. Don Mills LRT.





5 km is quite far form Yonge. But Solid Snake is right, a huge amount of riders do make that 5 km westbound trip via bus to Yonge. But that does’t necessarily mean that a Don Mills Subway would have a huge impact on relieving the Yonge line. Before we can make that determination we need to know what percentage of AM Yonge riders that board between Eglinton and Finch had their trips originate from east of the Don Mills Road area and whether or not a Don Mills route would really be faster for them. Remember, we also have to factor in a transfer at King-Yonge Station. Not all downtown bound trips alight at King.

Edit #1: We also can't forget to take into account how extending the Relief Line to Finch would change ridership patterns among trips originating in York Region.

Should we not be trying to play for the future? The line should go to seneca. Let not wait until York Mills, Sheppard and Eglinton are at crush levels first.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Yes. Putting $3B into the Richmond Hill line will result in that line having nearly double the carrying capacity of the Yonge line with very attractive service. TTC integration means running buses to it and having good interchange connections at Leslie & Sheppard and Leslie & Eglinton.

The line you propose is up in the $15B range. It's a heck of a long way to Sheppard underground.

Fine. I would support GO service if the province actually stopped dragging its feet.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Hasn't Metrolinx said that upgrading the Richmond Hill GO line isn't an option for relieving Yonge?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Demand along Don Mills itself would come nowhere close to justifying rapid transit. Based purely on local demand, some kind of express or rapid bus seems most appropriate.

The question though is how would Don Mills interact with the surface routes it intersects. All of the Don Mills LRT studies were done assuming a fairly local style LRT which didn't attract much transfer ridership, not an alternative to the Yonge subway.

Exactly. Using density along a particular corridor (Don Mills) is a moot argument. If we were to use only density to predict the success of a subway, the Spadina Subway would have been a total failure. That line runs through a low density area of the city, in the middle of a freeway that is lined by low density residential, a private airport, a rail yard, large empty fields and a shopping complex. It's the feeder busses that makes Spadina successful. The same could likely be said for Don Mills. And just judging by the ridership on the feeder busses for Don Mills, that line could very well have higher ridership than Spadina.

 

[Solid Snake]

Hasn't Metrolinx said that upgrading the Richmond Hill GO line isn't an option for relieving Yonge?

True. It could have work if they had the Lakeshore service Level and a shorter travel time (faster electric trains like Paris RER and NSR in london). At the minute they were told they would get the subway, that option just died.

I still believe GO could have done the job for Richmond hill by fixing and merge Oriole with Leslie Station, adding an Eglinton stop, a Bloor stop somehow.

They could have had state of the art LRT lines all terminating to Richmond Hill GO station and going in the main corners of York regions. Too late now. After getting the Vaughan "Metropolis mega super corporate" Centre, they won't ask...they will demand the Scarborough subway to go to Markham.

Hell they might get Sheppard Subway extended by demanding that the line ends at the future GTA centre... who knows...

Such a waste...

 

[smallspy]

Why is the ridership at Don Mills and Eglinton so low in that model? Does it pretend that the Eglinton LRT does not exist? Does it completely ignore feeder buses or something? I would think that the Eglinton LRT, and buses 25, 54 and 100 alone would produce far more ridership than that model suggests, never mind walk in traffic.

No, I suspect that this is someone's school project. The TTC has never indicated station locations in the modern versions of the DRL process, and there has never, ever been an "official" version that projected a route and stations to and up Roncesvalles.

Hasn't Metrolinx said that upgrading the Richmond Hill GO line isn't an option for relieving Yonge?

Multiple times.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[rbt]

Hasn't Metrolinx said that upgrading the Richmond Hill GO line isn't an option for relieving Yonge?

Kinda but not really. They made minimal investments (few additional trains, no track fixes, etc.), did not consider fare integration, and did not consider anything south of Steeles.

What they found is that Richmond Hill GO cannot service Richmond Hill center for free ($300M or something) as well as a Yonge line extension can for $3B.


There have been no studies about a fixed up Richmond Hill line (straightened track, 5 minute frequencies) with improved integration at Sheppard and Eglinton, fare integration (free transfer from TTC), and buses re-routed to bus terminals on the Richmond Hill line.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Kinda but not really. They made minimal investments (few additional trains, no track fixes, etc.), did not consider fare integration, and did not consider anything south of Steeles.

What they found is that Richmond Hill GO cannot service Richmond Hill center for free ($300M or something) as well as a Yonge line extension can for $3B.


There have been no studies about a fixed up Richmond Hill line (straightened track, 5 minute frequencies) with improved integration at Sheppard and Eglinton, fare integration (free transfer from TTC), and buses re-routed to bus terminals on the Richmond Hill line.

Go Stops at Langstaff. That's ridiculous if true.