I wish this talk of a rail corridor/Union alignment would end. Sure it's cheaper but it would be a false economy.
As do I wish all this talk of a Queen alignment would end.
Really, Queen isn't as great a route that it was 100 years ago when the subway was first brought up. Even since 30 years ago, Queen has declined a lot as a good corridor for a subway. Basically the whole corridor has been filled up with well established areas, and there's really no room for new development or ridership expansion. A lot of parts of the route will be requiring local service, so the subway will either have to have abysmally small stop spacing (pretty much totally destroying the point of a
relief line,) or it will require the 501 to continue running along it.
Toronto is a grid city, like Manhattan, and the subways should be aligned with the streets providing both transport and an impetus for density. Look at how the Spadina subway languished for years in the middle of the Allen, doing nothing for the streetscapes there. It blows my mind that St. Clair West Station is not at the corner of Bathurst and St. Clair. Even the Bloor-Danforth subway feels disconnected from the street and maybe that's why Danforth west of Pape is so underdeveloped.
Is it possible that that's because
it was built along the Allen? Building transit lines along expressways is known to require a lot of planning and careful considerations into a number of factors, and when they built the Spadina line, they just said "Screw it!"
As you said, even places like St. Clair Station were placed very poorly, and quite frankly, that's from the TTC's own incompetence rather than anything wrong with building along preestablished corridors (which I'm assuming is one of your arguments even though half the Spadina line was actually tunneled rather than going along an expressway.)
And you cite the B-D being "separated" from the street east of Pape. I don't actually see much of a problem at all with the B-D, but it actually follows a street all the way to Main St. If you
do have a problem with it, again, it's the TTC's own incompetence that made them so problemed as you claim.
Furthermore, waterfront neighbourhoods, many of which have not been built, will be well served by Transit City, while King, Queen, Dundas and College residents (I am one) will wait another fifty years for a streetcar that never comes.
Hey did I ever say King, Queen, Dundas and College don't need anything? I've noted several times that all those routes need improvement. A full blown Queen LRT, with an underground portion from Spadina to Parliment, separate lanes for the King car (if not a King transit mall,) HOV lanes on College, and TC-style LRT on Dundas are all things that I think should happen.
But the waterfront neighborhoods won't be "well served" by TC. If by TC, you mean the LRT lines that Waterfront Toronto's building, it'll be providing local service to Queens Quay and Cherry St. In Cherry Street's case, the "LRT" will be going back into mixed traffic on King to ferry people to the CBD.
Also, the area around the rail corridor is seeing the most intense development in the entire city right now. Really, the amount of people that'll be living in the area between Bathurst and the Don in the next 20 years will probably be equal to those living in all the Neighborhoods on Queen from Roncy to Coxwell or Woodbine. If you want to propose putting up 10 story (minimum!) condos in Leslieville or Queen West or Parkdale, then sure, Queen may have more development opportunity and may make more sense as a route that way, but really, I don't think anyone in their right mind would recommend that. Unless the tunneling would include the construction of 10 story underground condos?
Are people coming from the east or west ends going to Union? I seriously doubt it. Union is a hub, not a destination.
Union links to the YUS just as well as Osgoode/Queen would. In terms of CBD/destination worthy-ness, I actually think that Union is closer to the CBD than Queen is. Union is also a rather large railway station (in case you haven't noticed) that could link people with basically anywhere in the GTA.
So maybe it's not a destination per se, but it's actually rather important!
Personally I favour the Queen alignment.
Oh really? I hadn't noticed
Queen Street runs right across downtown in a straight line (imagine!), passes right through the heart of the civic centre, is a ten minute walk from the Dundas and King cars, and already has the density ready to support ridership. To those who point out the decline in 501 ridership, I'd say that many middle class people who live in these neighbourhoods (the very ones who need to be coaxed out of their cars to make this work) and have given up trying to get around town in a timely manner on the TTC would come roaring back.
ooh a straight line. The Railway alignment feels very embarrassed.
You see, the funny this is that you can't talk about the Railway's ridership because there's no real route operating on it right now.
Perhaps "the middle class people who live in these neighrborhoods" are just trying to find an excuse to showcase their pretty new convertibles?
Again, all the streetcar routes need to be made better. Queen experiences a huge amount of congestion during rushour, and streetcars only do to immerse that wound in a bucket of salt.
A subway might make things better, but as I said, it'd have to be a really local subway for it to work. Make the subway local, and suddenly the DRL doesn't work so well. This is the kind of logic that makes me think people just want a RT route on Queen instead of using Queen as a method of providing downtown relief. If you want a RT route on Queen, that's fine! But LRT would really be a much better way to solve that problem, when you factor in the relatively short travel distances and lack of real expansion for the area.
The King alignment means going under Eastern in the east end. Have you been there lately? There's not much of a there there. Neither Richmond, nor Adelaide nor Wellington makes it to Roncesvalles, nor are these destination streets.
Does it specifically need to follow one street the entire route? Oh right, Queen goes in a straight line so it automatically wins the alignment debate.
Oh and BTW, King/Front/Railway has Liberty Village and West/East Don Lands, which are emerging and planned neighborhoods respectively which definitely rival those of Queen. They might not be quite the talk of the metro right now, but in 10 years (when this thing's actually gonna get built,) they'll definitely be big.
While I'm ranting, why Pape for the eastern terminus? Pape is a tiny little street south of Bloor. Coxwell makes more sense to me.
Umm what? Coxwell is bigger than Pape? Pape is springing up with activity as of recent, and it'll be getting bigger.
Also, going up Pape means that you intercept the B-D when it'll have more passengers, which improves it's downtown relief capability.
And I don't wanna offend anybody, but Pape-Coxwell doesn't really have anything, whether you're going on the railway or on Queen. Going up Pape also means you get that rather large and dense neighrborhood (who's name has escaped me right now.) It also gives a much easier route to Thorncliffe Park, which I think is a very important area to hit.
So to sum up, my favoured alignment is Coxwell/Queen/Roncesvalles. Subways should go where people are and where people want to go. Why is that so difficult for our politicians and planners to understand?
I agree. That's why Front/Railway is a much better alignment than Queen.
Oh, and it'll be a lot cheaper.
