[Rainforest]

I have to wonder what assumptions are underlying all of this. As so often is the case, there seems to be an overwhelming focus on getting more people from distant suburbs into a tiny part of downtown, instead of providing useful and understandable service for getting from one part of the city to another. To that end, transforming GO's corridors (and new ones) into RER-style rapid transit is really the way to go -- and this would improve the connectivity of Toronto to itself, not just Toronto to Oakville.

The majority of those GO trains will run to Union or through Union. In order to signficantly improve the frequency in those GO corridors, you need to address the Union station capacity.

Why should the number of commutes into Union Station be growing, anyway? Isn't most of what is being built right now residential?

Downtown remains the #1 employment hub, and many high-tech companies are moving in to attract those young, single, highly educated condo dwellers. We can debate the merits of supporting satellite employment hubs outside downtown, but can't afford to ignore the reality of very high and growing transit demand into the downtown core.

 

[Memph]

I have to wonder what assumptions are underlying all of this. As so often is the case, there seems to be an overwhelming focus on getting more people from distant suburbs into a tiny part of downtown, instead of providing useful and understandable service for getting from one part of the city to another. To that end, transforming GO's corridors (and new ones) into RER-style rapid transit is really the way to go -- and this would improve the connectivity of Toronto to itself, not just Toronto to Oakville.

Why should the number of commutes into Union Station be growing, anyway? Isn't most of what is being built right now residential?

There's supposed to be a fair bit of growth around GO Stations. Just looking at urban growth centres next to GO stations, we have:
-Midtown Oakville
-Milton
-Hamilton
-Brampton
-ECC
-Markham Centre
-Langstaff/Richmond Hill
-Newmarket
-Pickering

As well as extensions to GO service (Barrie, Bolton, Bowmanville, Stoney Creek). Then there's improved connections to GO service (Dundas and Hurontario LRT, Zum, Viva, and further off: Durham Rapid Transit, Trafalgar Rapid Transit. Not to mention growth near GO stations that are not urban growth centres such as Downsview Park, Danforth Station, Cooksville... So I think all this would lead to a shift from getting downtown by car to GO train. And while there is more residential than employment growth, there is still employment growth, and the residential growth is expected to lead to more substantial outbound trips (compared to virtually none today).

 

[Paleo]

Good Point. Also if the Barrie Line is expanded to the degree of the Georgetown/Lakeshore then you could push current Richmond Hill commuters to travel to Downtown via Maple/Rutherford/King City stations. Unfortunately the Milton line doesn't have a similar alternate

Another point in all this reading is...Is there no way to push employment to North York Centre? I personally would love to see Mississauga City Centre explode but we know with zero rapid transit links it won't happen for a while. But NYCC is ready for employment! Why isn't the city pushing employment there?

Would a development freeze on Downtown be bad for the economy? Would it not be cheaper to push more jobs to NYCC than pay for these multi billion dollar GO Train tunnels?

Also, wouldn't a GO Crosstown line along the Finch Hydro-Corridor be of help in making NYCC a great big employment Hub? Essentially Finch would become like Union Station North. You could have a line from Square One use the existing transitway and then follow the hydro corridor diagonally up to Finch Station. That would create an express line between NYCC and MCC. Can you imagine a quick 15-20 minute ride from MCC to NYCC? That would really attract employers in my opinion. An interchange station @ Etobicoke North would be great!

View attachment 8081

They've been trying to push employment out of downtown to NYCC and STC for probably longer than you've been alive. Certainly longer than I've been alive. It hasn't really worked out exactly as planned.

The other thing you're talking about is the GO-ALRT plan from decades ago which would have been 100x more useful as a 401 reliever than the useless Sheppard subway.

 

[Rainforest]

Another point in all this reading is...Is there no way to push employment to North York Centre? I personally would love to see Mississauga City Centre explode but we know with zero rapid transit links it won't happen for a while. But NYCC is ready for employment! Why isn't the city pushing employment there?

NYCC has potential as an employment hub, and deserves support. But it will be long time before it can rival downtown.

Would a development freeze on Downtown be bad for the economy? Would it not be cheaper to push more jobs to NYCC than pay for these multi billion dollar GO Train tunnels?

Generally speaking, the economy dislikes the government meddling and tends to react in a way that defeats the purpose of such meddling. I suspect that an artificial freeze on the downtown employment growth will push a great deal of new jobs outside Toronto / GTA / Ontario / Canada. Some of jobs will remain in GTA but will be pushed into office parks with terrible transit service and nearly 100% of employees driving to work. Only some will be relocated to new transit-frendly employment hubs such as NYCC.

Also, wouldn't a GO Crosstown line along the Finch Hydro-Corridor be of help in making NYCC a great big employment Hub? Essentially Finch would become like Union Station North. You could have a line from Square One use the existing transitway and then follow the hydro corridor diagonally up to Finch Station. That would create an express line between NYCC and MCC. Can you imagine a quick 15-20 minute ride from MCC to NYCC? That would really attract employers in my opinion. An interchange station @ Etobicoke North would be great!

That's an interesting idea, but I suspect that the residents will give the City Council or even the Queen's Park a very hard time if Metrolinx attempts to build heavy rail service in that corridor. Hydro One might not be particularly impressed, either.

 

[Paleo]

NYCC has potential as an employment hub, and deserves support. But it will be long time before it can rival downtown.

Even in NYCC most of the new construction has been residential condos and not office buildings.

 

[Rainforest]

What I envision for the Wellington tunnel is, at least until about Spadina, you can cut and cover Wellington. In the grand scheme of things, it's a pretty minor street. No streetcars, not even any bus routes as far as I know (and if there are, none that can't be diverted). Dig the street up, do a double stacked tunnel with the DRL on the top and GO on the bottom.

East of Spadina, it will be a pretty big engineering challenge, no doubt about that. The station at Bay and Wellington may need to be double stacked. However, these are very similar problems that would be encountered with Metrolinx' proposal of the "Second Union" south of the current one.

In order to ensure adequate capacity, I would make both stations 3 platform stations (wait on the outside, exit on the inside).

Not saying it won't be difficult, but any of the options going into downtown will be.

Agreed; at least the quad-tracked tunnel option has to be studied. Otherwise, we run a risk of spending a fortune on 2 tracks in the next 20 years, only to find out that 2 more are needed before 2050.

 

[sixrings]

i dont know how NYCC could ever be a serious business hub. Without businesses in NYCC the yonge exit is almost always gridlock. Downtown has multiple places to exit both the dvp or the gardner. With only one real exit yonge and sheppard is limited from true growth potential. Even square one or MCC has two exits to access it from the 403. I would love NYCC business expansion but i believe it will take a little more planning then a extended sheppard subway and a possible go line near finch.

 

[Rainforest]

Even in NYCC most of the new construction has been residential condos and not office buildings.

That's true, but I suspect that there exists a threshold effect for the office clusters: the concentration of office jobs needs to reach a certain level first, then suddenly everybody wants to move into the same place. NYCC might be ready for a takeoff as an employment centre.

Anyway, this is a downtown thread and a downtown study; and we certainly cannot ignore downtown and its massive transit needs, even if we hope that some growth will occur in the satellite employment hubs.

 

[mpd618]

The majority of those GO trains will run to Union or through Union. In order to signficantly improve the frequency in those GO corridors, you need to address the Union station capacity.

Setting aside employment growth downtown (which you and Memph discuss), Union Station should not be an issue if GO Trains were operated RER-style, with all lines running through and none terminating there. It would just a station, and if you have level platforms and an electrification there is no need for a train to spend very long at all at Union.

If downtown employment is going to double or triple, it's another story. Then again, this is all a little bit silly. The downtown employment has partially been made possible by GO in the first place, and the land-use planning for office use. Now downtown continues to be attractive because it has good transit access. If you build good transit access to other parts of Toronto and the GTA and zone appropriately, the same thing will happen there -- and this would help build a transportation network that is healthier for the entire city and metro area.

 

[Rainforest]

Setting aside employment growth downtown (which you and Memph discuss), Union Station should not be an issue if GO Trains were operated RER-style, with all lines running through and none terminating there. It would just a station, and if you have level platforms and an electrification there is no need for a train to spend very long at all at Union.

If downtown employment is going to double or triple, it's another story. Then again, this is all a little bit silly. The downtown employment has partially been made possible by GO in the first place, and the land-use planning for office use. Now downtown continues to be attractive because it has good transit access.

Whatever the historical reasons are, Union won't be "just a station". Its usage will continue to beat any other station on the system by a large margin. Running all the trains through Union rather than turning back from there can improve the operational efficiency, but won't eliminate the commuter crowds that alight / board there.

If you build good transit access to other parts of Toronto and the GTA and zone appropriately, the same thing will happen there -- and this would help build a transportation network that is healthier for the entire city and metro area.

Eventually, yes; other nodes can grow larger and become more important. But downtown will remain #1 for at least several decades.

 

[dunkalunk]

Setting aside employment growth downtown (which you and Memph discuss), Union Station should not be an issue if GO Trains were operated RER-style, with all lines running through and none terminating there. It would just a station, and if you have level platforms and an electrification there is no need for a train to spend very long at all at Union.

If downtown employment is going to double or triple, it's another story. Then again, this is all a little bit silly. The downtown employment has partially been made possible by GO in the first place, and the land-use planning for office use. Now downtown continues to be attractive because it has good transit access. If you build good transit access to other parts of Toronto and the GTA and zone appropriately, the same thing will happen there -- and this would help build a transportation network that is healthier for the entire city and metro area.

I see a tunnel and Union expansion as an important part of a full high speed rail service, a catalyst for GO electrification, and also as a way to help facilitate the elimination of the Gardiner once it becomes too expensive to maintain or when Toronto's expressways begin getting tolled. And like it has been said before, the additional capacity will also be needed for reverse-peak trips which are not served today by GO.

 

[Rainforest]

Metrolinx has a report for their next board meeting about the Union Station/DRL studies.

The conclusion from the Union Station demand study seems to be that the only way to meet 2031 demand levels is a second main station. Option 4B (slide 11) would end the Georgetown and Barrie lines at Bathurst and have a DRL from Pape through Bathurst to Exhibition. If it gets more support for DRL this is great - although I don't think the Queen St routing they show is ideal.

It's great that downtown transit is back on the radar.

Regarding the two options they selected for more detailed studies: both are not perfect. Option 6B (tunnel and a new station for Lakeshore trains only) addresses the out-of-Toronto demand only. The Lakeshore line is located too far south for most of Toronto wards, and can't help the Yonge subway or the Yonge / Bloor station.

Option 4B (DRL East, plus a new terminus for Georgetown and Barrie trains) is much better for Toronto because it includes DRL. However, it constrains the Georgetown and Barrie GO lines to an ineffiient operation with all trains turning back rather than running through.

Ideally I'd rather see DRL East from 4B combined with the Lakeshore tunnel from 6B.

 

[andrewpmk]

Option 6B seems the best option to me, this would allow a massive expansion of Lakeshore capacity to about 30 trains an hour per direction making it more or less like a subway service. Stouffville would presumably use this section as well since it is basically a branch of Lakeshore.

The remaining station ought to have adequate capacity for any foreseeable expanded service on Milton, Georgetown, Barrie and Richmond Hill as well as possible high speed rail and long distance trains to Niagara. Assuming that the existing station has a maximum capacity of 52 trains per hour with improvements, this ought to be adequate, and if there are any capacity issues then alternating Milton/Georgetown trains could be sent to Summerhill and then possibly on to Agincourt/Malvern.

With a downtown GO tunnel a downtown relief line seems redundant, the high cost of building two projects is prohibitive. Nevertheless if such a project is pursued the obvious route is 4A from Dundas West to Pape and then possibly up Don Mills to Finch.

 

[Chuck]

I definitely would chose a tunnel running through downtown rather than the Lakeshore. City residents should get faster service than they get by streetcar today, not to mention the added development that you would see.

What I like about both plans is that they will change the notion of being a one-terminus city. In European cities, it's completely normal to enter the city at one of several rail hubs, then take the subway right to your destination. Transit in Toronto will be miles ahead if we begin to think that way too.

 

[gweed123]

It wasn't really clear from the slides, but is the main constriction lack of tracks or an excess of people? Based on the fact that they're building an entirely new concourse level, I would venture to say that the station has space for the people in needs to accommodate.

Does their forecasts have the lines operating independently, or as through lines (ex: Georgetown and Richmond Hill lines as a continuous through line)?

The slides mention 90 trains per hour by 2031. If the lines are combined into 5 different lines (Lakeshore, Milton-Stouffville, Georgetown-Richmond Hill, and Barrie), that's 10 tracks. That's an average of 9 trains per hour per track, although the distribution of the 90 would probably be more like 30, 25, 25, 10. That means that the Lakeshore line would be averaging about 4 minute headways, which is completely doable if it's a through line, although it would require separate on and off platforms for more efficient passenger flow.

If it's feasible in terms of train headways, then the issue could be the inability of the station to accommodate that many people. That could somewhat be solved by adding better street access walkways at either end of the station, so that everyone isn't funnelled into the middle of the station.