[innsertnamehere]

Single levels don't have 1/2 the capacity of bi levels, probably closer to 2/3. 5 minute frequencies with a capacity of, say, 1,200 people (100 per car in a 12 car consist) means a pphd of 24,000 at peak hours, more than enough to reach projections. Compare to 160 seats on the current trains.

 

[rbt]

Single levels don't have 1/2 the capacity of bi levels, probably closer to 2/3. 5 minute frequencies with a capacity of, say, 1,200 people (100 per car in a 12 car consist) means a pphd of 24,000 at peak hours, more than enough to reach projections. Compare to 160 seats on the current trains.

I'm not sure where the 24,000 projection comes from. Considering tomorrow morning GO will be running 16,000pph in peak direction on Lake Shore West, it seems awfully low for a 2030 projection given GO's current growth rates, particularly if they put any effort into making the parking problem go away (substantially improved local transit).

Is the assumption that other lines like improved Milton service will pick up the slack? That would not be unreasonable.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

But if you live in the city at Y and E for example, what reason do you have to go to YR anyway? It looks like according to the most recent reports the province is not that keen on extending yonge anyway, even that golden report had it stopping at steeles. I don't agree with that, they should leave it that way it is when GO service goes to 15 minutes system wide. Bring the DRL to Don Mills Finch, BD to McCowan Finch, and call it a day.

This is really absurd. You think people who live in midtown or downtown don't work in Markham and Vaughan? Besides which, this is about building a long-term network. If it was 1970 you'd be arguing Finch is all farmer's fields and "Who from Yorkville goes up to North York?"

The Golden Report did not shoot down Yonge. Toronto pointed out (understandably) that the DRL was needed first to resolve capacity issues, as we all know. And now that's become the hip, new line and so, understandably, they said it should be built first. I have several issues with how the Golden Report framed things, and that would be on the list, but it doesn't look like the premier took it as holy writ anyway.

Even if we're talking about building transit lines to empty fields and hoping developers build condos there and people move in, we already have a place for that: the Vaughan-York U Spadina extension. Plenty of space to build at Downsview Park and in Vaughan along the new subway there which is almost complete at this point. The bonus is that it's not a subway that's already at-capacity like Yonge is (or will be).

First of all, there are probably more existing riders between Finch and 7 (or Major Mac even) then on any planned extension of any kind in the Big Move, save the DRL. Secondly, you are missing the entire point of Places to Grow. There are 25 urban growth centres in the region and the one with the densest planning and best location, quite arguably in the entire Golden Horseshoe, is at Yonge and 7. To treat something like that as just some empty field is like....if you're not going to try to intensify THERE, you might as well scrap the whole plan and just let development and transit go wherever. But don't require municipalities to intensify and then go, "Oh, we're already building transit to empty fields, so nothing for you!" You should look at the population projections the province set out and then try to calculate how many of those people are going to Downsview or VMC.

And so we're clear, this is provincial policy. So that means some developer can announce something huge for there and if council votes it down, the OMB will approve it; because of the policy. And then you'll have highrises in a constrained suburban site, directly adjacent to transit, 2 km away. (Kind of like is already starting to happen, with the World on Yonge towers.)

With all due respect I do commute to Finch all the time, from north of steeles. I absolutely know what the area is like. To simply disregard me as not knowledgeable of the area despite making the trip down the entire route of the proposed extension at least once a week is disingenuous, and you should never make assumptions like that.

I was generalizing somewhat but mea culpa.

That said, the previous plans had both the GO and the subway going to RHC, yes. But they also had the GO line running once an hour, I.E. at a frequency that is not really useful. The new announcement that it will be every 15 minutes changes things, as suddenly bus connections are much easier. As Gweed mentioned, it wouldn't be that much lower off peak than the subway.

I don't recall if they had specific GO frequencies beyond "All-day, two-way" but even if that's so, it STILL doesn't make sense to have a multi-modal transit hub and to stop a subway 2km away. And unless I'm mistaken, most of that line is owned by CNR so electrification isn't happening any time soon. And, as I and others have already pointed out, that still only helps you get to Union. Really, I don't see how this is any different than if you decided, going the other way, to stop the subway at Queen Street since, hey, GO goes into Union any way and you can take streetcars and walk to the financial district. Seems to me rather basic (so basic it's in The Big Move) that if you want a seamless transit network, you put all your modes in one place where it makes sense to, no?

And if you travel that area regularly you surely know that better bus connections are not the problem; the problem is too many bus connections. All you have to do is stand at Yonge/Steeles for 15 minutes and watch the buses - hundreds each hour - going south and north across the border to see the need for a subway north of there. I can't fathom why you'd stop a subway and TTC buses at Steeles instead of integrating that with the GO/YRT/VIVA/Transitway terminal just to the north.

Then you get to the point of the built form not changing north of Steeles. Sure, but it sure as hell changes north of Clark. North of Clark it changes to run through a valley and then through low density housing before reaching Langstaff. The subway would go 2.8km without a stop, only to reach a location (RHC / Langstaff) which is already well served by 15 Minute GO service. Thus I determined that as Clark would be a low use station and not worthy of extending simply to reach that location (it only really makes sense if the subway is going by it anyway)

And how is that different than the far more substantial valley at Hogg's Hollow which I guess they had to go through to get to the empty fields at Finch? Today there is plenty of stuff in between and while Clark isn't going to be Yonge and Sheppard it's an easy bet they will get more mid-rise at that corner (at minimum) and you will, without a doubt, get more World on Yonge-scale developments between Steeles and Clark. Stop the subway at Steeles, and you won't. By your own logic, Clark makes about as much sense as a natural terminal as Steeles, which goes to show how un-natural both really are.

Because Yonge is Yonge, it should be looked at as a singular, contiguous main street even if it's diving into valleys or crossing borders.

I understand the gist of your arguments but when you look at the larger network Places to Grow and the Big Move envision, it doesn't make sense. If I live in RH and want to go to Eglinton, you'd have me transfer three times and if I live at Eglinton and work in Markham, you'd have me transferring more too; and we haven't even gotten into the 407 Transitway that will be stopping 2 km north of your "sensible" subway terminus. Obviously it's not happening tomorrow but unlike the DRL and most of the other Big Move projects (except the Yonge extension!) the EA for it is already done.

It makes more sense to keep the subway at Finch than to only bring it up to Steeles, unless your goal is to throw up a wall at the 416/905 border and only help people to the south of it.

 

[innsertnamehere]

yes, but the subway goes north of Hoggs Hollow to NYCC to reach that destination, which has no other option of higher order transit such as 15 minute GO service. it makes that jump to specifically serve an area that is not served by anything else.

buses probably roughly double if not more at Steeles. There are a lot of buses north of there sure, but that would be reduced once 15 minute GO service came to RHC anyway. Easily more than half of the ridership feeding into Finch is TTC bus transfers, which come entirely south of Steeles. There is a distinct ridership drop north of Steeles, Municipal border or not. Its a fact of life you have to deal with. Besides, you are making it sound like all passengers would still need to go to Steeles, which is false. Many would make the transfer at RHC to the GO line.

You seem to be making the error of believing that bus networks would continue to not interact with GO transit at all, which I am doubtful. One of the great benefits of 15 minute GO service is that it makes bus connections easy. People need to get out of the mindset of the two transit networks that exists in this city today of GO transit and then the bus and subway network, as the lines between the two will all but blur and disappear in the coming years. Taking the bus to the GO train is almost a foreign concept today, but will likely become extremely common in the coming years.


As for the "not everyone is going downtown" comment, sure, not everyone is going downtown. But the question is, is it worth the $2 billion for the subway extension past Steeles to serve a couple thousand passengers? Maybe the better solution is something like LRT north of Steeles running to 19th, that would still be cheaper and would effectively serve the corridor. Long term that connection needs to be made, but the validity of spending $2 billion to extend a subway to a location that is already well served by transit seriously brings into question the prioritization of projects. That $2 billion could bring HSR to Kingston, Build 25km of LRT, Build 150km of BRT, or build 4km of subway to a location that is already served. Its insane to suggest that the value for that connection would ever be considered worth it considering its absurd cost. there may be a bit of a missing connection there, but its not worth $2 billion dollars to plug that connection. Period.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Finch won't be extended to steeles once the GO improvements come. Looks like nothing will happen then.


You can't build a station near castle frank somewhere on the line to combat the midtown problem?

 

[diminutive]

I'm not sure where the 24,000 projection comes from. Considering tomorrow morning GO will be running 16,000pph in peak direction on Lake Shore West, it seems awfully low for a 2030 projection given GO's current growth rates, particularly if they put any effort into making the parking problem go away (substantially improved local transit).

Is the assumption that other lines like improved Milton service will pick up the slack? That would not be unreasonable.

With the exception of Lakeshore East then, most of these demand levels could pretty easily be served with single level EMUs.

I'd also bet that over half of this peak demand comes from a few major park-n-ride lots filling up. GO could keep some of it's Bilevels, maybe add electric locomotives, and run peak hour express services like Clarkson, Oakville, Pickering and Ajax to Union.

For all-day RER style service though I'd imagine single-level EMUs are totally fine.

 

[rbt]

.

I'm really struggling with that Lakeshore West GO demand number of 13,800. It would seem like ridership is at or beyond this level (50,000 passengers per day with most being peak-only riders, many standees during peak hour which has an actual capacity in the 16,000 range).

1 page before this chart is DRTES they say existing capacity is 9600 for Lake Shore West in peak hour. The schedule clearly shows more than that from the West. 9600 / (12 * 160) = 5 trains; more than 5 trains, many over seated capacity, are scheduled for Lake Shore West today. Perhaps they ignored express trains and those passengers?


So, to me it looks like their 2031 demand prediction for LakeShore West actually reduces or has very similar ridership to today.

They assume nearly all new transportation demand from the West will use the Milton line (5,000 new passengers in peak hour); not an unreasonable assumption as many drive to Lake Shore today.

I still think this chart severely underestimates latent demand to get downtown just based on condo sales in the downtown area. Demand for 500 sqft condos within walking distance of downtown is partially largely by horrible commute times and is in the 10,000 unit per year range (200,000 units over 20 years). If GO became a solid alternative to congested highways, they should start to eat into people willing to spend $250k for a bachelor pad downtown.


That said, you're right that GO EMUs + DRL at 5 minute frequencies should be able to comfortably deal with everything predicted by the TTC over the next 20 years.

 

[diminutive]

I'm really struggling with that Lakeshore West GO demand number of 13,800. It would seem like ridership is at or beyond this level (50,000 passengers per day with most being peak-only riders, many standees during peak hour which has an actual capacity in the 16,000 range).

1 page before this chart is DRTES they say existing capacity is 9600 for Lake Shore West in peak hour. The schedule clearly shows more than that from the West. Are they ignoring express trains or using old schedules or something?


Any kind of expansion (Hamilton), improvement in running time (electrification), or other changes like fare integration with TTC would increase ridership significantly.

The only thing that would decrease demand is if alternatives appeared; the Milton line is the only real alternative from that direction but it already carries in the 8,000 passenger range in peak hour and is listed 2031 demand is 11,000 passengers for peak hour demand.


I think this chart severely underestimates GO demand, particularly if substantial improvements and improved fare integration with TTC creates new demand.

Apparently observed peak ridership is 13,000/hr. I think you're mistaken that current demand on LW is 50k/day. According to table 8, curent demand is approximately 28k/day, rising to 50k/day in 2031

It's not that surprising. Lakeshore West is the most developed line and the areas it passes through are mostly built out. You're not going to see substantial infill population growth in Southern Mississauga and Oakville. As capacity and frequency are added to other lines going through Peel, demand will shift away from Lakeshore. Lakeshore East, otoh, has no obvious relief lines, hence higher demand there.

There are also limits to how much you can feed GO trains. You can't just endlessly expand park-n-ride lots since you'll just create traffic jams around peak hour, somewhat defeating the point of taking GO to avoid traffic. Yet, with the existing built form of the catchment area, surface transit to the stations isn't necessarily desirable.

EDIT: Not that I'm opposed to bilevel EMUs or anything... I think moving to any kind of EMU would be a big step fwd for GO. Didn't the electrification study say they were more or less considering electric locomotives? I was kinda underwhelmed...

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

yes, but the subway goes north of Hoggs Hollow to NYCC to reach that destination, which has no other option of higher order transit such as 15 minute GO service. it makes that jump to specifically serve an area that is not served by anything else.

buses probably roughly double if not more at Steeles. There are a lot of buses north of there sure, but that would be reduced once 15 minute GO service came to RHC anyway.

I confess I don't follow. Obviously of those buses are going to Finch and obviously a lot of those people go downtown but I still don't see how increased regional train service substantially changes that. I could see that on the Lakeshore line, where the stops are "somewhere" but these GO trains go down into the valley, which is nowhere. I understand what you are saying at a general level but I look at a map and how people get around then the logic falls apart. It's a natural thing to extend the subway to 7; it's already been prioritized by the province in its transit plan and its growth plan and the EA is done. You're suggesting interesting mitigating factors, but nothing that obviates undoing all that, IMHO.

People need to get out of the mindset of the two transit networks that exists in this city today of GO transit and then the bus and subway network, as the lines between the two will all but blur and disappear in the coming years. Taking the bus to the GO train is almost a foreign concept today, but will likely become extremely common in the coming years.

This I totally agree with. Everyone freaks out when someone suggests merging Metrolinx and TTC and even if I wouldn't go quite that far, I think something major needs to be done to end everyone's territorial fiefdoms. Still, Yonge is Yonge, development is contiguous up to 7 (but for a valley I could walk across in 3 minutes) and there is an anchor mobility hub - designated by Metrolinx - and an urban growth centre - designated by the growth plan - both of which are explicityly contingent upon GO and the subway and the frequency to Union Station doesn't change that in my view. As someone who has lived almost his whole life on either side of Steeles, I would look at that GO service as a convenient, express-style service to Union but otherwise useless, even with the bus connections. I'd probably take it go see the Leafs. If I had to go to Bathurst and Bloor, it wouldn't help me at all, and a subway would. The whole point is to have options.

Part of the whole thing with the ongoing Metrolinx study is that we've built no redundancy into our system so when the subway goes down there is no alternative and of course there's no practical means to double track it with an express-style service running in parallel. 15-minute GO service could most definitely pick up a lot of the slack there, but it still doesn't change the need for local service on Yonge or that many people now hoofing it down to Finch (by bus, car or whatever) are coming from north of Steeles; there's value in bringing the transit those few km up to them, even if the other stuff I said wasn't in effect

As for the "not everyone is going downtown" comment, sure, not everyone is going downtown. But the question is, is it worth the $2 billion for the subway extension past Steeles to serve a couple thousand passengers?

It's at least as worth it as the Scarborough subway or even the Vaughan extension which is largely running through nowhere to a growth centre/mobility hub that is less substantial than RHC/Langstaff. There's also huge value (environmentally, if nothing else) to getting all those buses off Yonge. "A couple of thousand" seems low-ball, though you put no timeframe on it (per day? per week? per hour?) but my answer would still be yes because the whole point of the two plans I keep coming back to are to establish other centres in the region so we don't have the whole region heading south in the morning and north at night. Developing patently obvious centres like RHC/Langstaff is obviously a key to that and digging a subway from Finch to Steeles looks to me like nothing but spite for the 905. I'm not saying that of you, specifically, but of the idea generally. If you want to build differently, you have to fill in the gaps in the network and that one is as obvious as they come. GO is great and it's under-utilized and not as integrated with local service as it should be - agree on all counts - but it's not a panacea.

You're all focused on the $2 billion, $2 billion, $2 billion and what you think it's value is. I can't calculate the value to the physical roadwork or environment of removing hundreds of buses an hour from Yonge, nor how much better traffic will be with them gone. But there are certainly developers who saw value in the subway - upon which the capacity projections were made - when they decided to hire a world class transit-oriented development planner to develop the mobility hub. Really, if you look at a blank map, I don't see how you can argue anything other than that it's the most natural undeveloped growth centre in the entire region. There's no logic in your denying them high order transit because they already have so much; I'll just reiterate my previous example of stopping the subway short of Union station because they already have so many buses and trains going there. If you want to create a multi-modal hub (and I think we do?) you put it all together, don't you?? You think extending a subway on YONGE STREET is a bad investment? Is there a safer bet in the whole Big Move?

The LRT idea is better except you're creating a transfer for no reason (to save a few hundred million, I guess?), hindering development on Yonge (to a degree) and, again, Metrolinx's own numbers show it would be at capacity shortly after opening. Yonge is Yonge. You can see what's happened north of Sheppard and you know that will continue all the way up as a natural progression so don't try to stunt it; let Yonge be itself.

 

[rbt]

I think you're mistaken that current demand on LW is 50k/day. According to table 8, curent demand is approximately 28k/day, rising to 50k/day in 2031

Trips is around 50k/day today (15 Million per year for LW / 52 / 6). That is around 25k passengers/day (round-trip is assumed); Table 8 deals with people not trips. This value is corroborated by Table 6 which clearly says 28,600 inboard boardings in 2009. So, for weekdays it's actually 56k trips per day and not 50k; my estimate was low due to weak weekend ridership.

Apparently observed peak ridership is 13,000/hr.

The document describes this as peak period not peak hour but it seems closer than the DRTES (http://www.ttc.ca/PDF/About_the_TTC/DRTES_Final_Report_-_September_2012.pdf) peak capacity of 9,600/hour. I expect this is a hard hour (8:00am to 9:00am), which doesn't reflect the actual peak hour of 7:45am to 8:45am. I do capacity management at data centers; what customers actually do doesn't necessarily reflect a pretty timeslot.

At this time 8 trains arrive at Union between 7:45am and 8:35am which is 15,360 seats over a 50 minute period. This works out to get a seated capacity of 19,200pph at peak point in peak direction during that brief period. GO service is very bursty.

While some trains obviously have empty seats, I've been lead to believe there are very few empty seats much of the time and there are frequently a number of standing passengers; growth has been between 2.2% and 4.4% depending on the year, so any future estimate which comes in under 16,000 for the peak 50 minute period (20k/hour) is highly suspect.

It's even more suspect if you believe Hamilton will get additional service (tendered), buses will be redirected/replaced with train service (also in progress), and fare integration with TTC may make GO more useful (increase demand, also being considered in some form).


The only other nearby corridor with potential new capacity is Milton, however 2031 DRTES estimates for Milton are not radically higher than today's ridership either.


I'm sure GO will do what is necessary when (fingers crossed) they get funding. I will be personally be surprised if it is a single-deck solution for Lake Shore East/West.

 

[muller877]

Your right. I did mess up. 50k trips/day is only 25k riders/day (round-trip assummed).

Trips for LW is around 15 Million per year.

The TTC documents are missing a bunch of GO Transit riders. Total GO Transit coming to Union Station (bus and train) every weekday is 224,320. Excluding bus service (assume off-peak) its 179,520. That's 90,000 each way.

http://www.gotransit.com/public/en/docs/publications/quickfacts/Quick_Facts_Info_to_GO_EN.pdf

Per TTC DRL study, there are only 53,000 riders on GO.

http://www.ttc.ca/PDF/About_the_TTC/DRTES/DRTES_Commission_Presentation.pdf

This is a HUGE discrepancy. If current riders are not accurate, how can they predict future ridership?

I think most of this discrepancy is coming from the west. Along with the skewed growth projects which over-inflate easterly growth the DRL study's will ignore the real demand from the west and only build the east.

 

[muller877]

The TTC documents are missing a bunch of GO Transit riders. Total GO Transit coming to Union Station (bus and train) every weekday is 224,320. Excluding bus service (assume off-peak) its 179,520. That's 90,000 each way.

http://www.ttc.ca/PDF/About_the_TTC/DRTES/DRTES_Commission_Presentation.pdf

If the GO Train ridership is accurate, the TTC report states that there are only 87,000 subway riders going into downtown. Virtually the same volume of users (and GO users pay a lot more and are subsidized less)

What does this mean for funding of future growth and what/how we should fund transit? It tells me that as part of any funding of transit, the province should force the TTC and GO to play nice. If TTC says no, then no funding...that simple.

It also tells me that we need to be pumping more resources into the TTC (in and out of the City of Toronto) than we currently do including encouraging transfers (Main and Dundas West reconfiguring of stations are they prime examples but there is also a lack of bus connections)

 

[TOareaFan]

Single level EMUs would be really cool, I hope that happens!

I doubt it. I really don't see GO hiring 400 train engineers over the next decade and Lake Shore would need to hit 60 second rush-hour frequencies for necessary capacity (5 minute frequencies at Union Station now, double the ridership, and halve the size of the train for roughly 1 minute frequencies).



I will be very surprised if they aren't dual-level EMUs similar to RER-A or Sydney cars. They work fine in underground portions of routes too. The trick for passenger flow seems to be making them high-floor with large entrances on the mid-deck with separate wide up/down stairways from there.

The super-thin stairways on GO cars for a full flight really slows things up.

I was at a breakfast this morning where Minister Murray was one of the speakers. Amongst other things he confirmed/announced/stated that "gone will be the big hulking 10 and 12 car trains you see today.....they will be replaced with lighter, faster, more effiecient EMUs of 3 - 6 cars".

 

[innsertnamehere]

GO is subsidized much more on a per passenger basis.

 

[rbt]

I was at a breakfast this morning where Minister Murray was one of the speakers. Amongst other things he confirmed/announced/stated that "gone will be the big hulking 10 and 12 car trains you see today.....they will be replaced with lighter, faster, more effiecient EMUs of 3 - 6 cars".

I'd be very interested to see their hiring/training plans, unless they can somehow get FRA requirements simplified or removed.