[kEiThZ]

1) Tunnel is built to subway standards to accommodate future conversion.
2) Tunnel is signaled, standard operating speeds are implemented.
3) Fares are automated, no paying the driver.
4) Stations are at least 150 feet long with an extra 150 feet roughed in.
5) Stations are located 1000 metres apart.

They have promised that the tunnel will be built to specs that allow easier conversion to HRT down the road.

Station spacing is supposed to be 850m inside the tunnel and 450m outside.

Given that the trainsets will be nearly 60m long, the station platform length could well exceed your conditions there.

I don't really have any information on signals, SOPs and fare automation. However, with all the information we do have, LRT is not all that bad. It really is going to be approximating subway service along the a good portion of where the Eglinton West subway was planned, while providing rail service where there was nothing previously planned. Transit City has elevated Eglinton from a small intra-suburb subway to a crosstown route which also offers good local service.

What I can see is a system that is compatible with up to 4-6 light rail cars per train.

Not likely. With 30m long cars, a 4 car set would be 33% longer than the Sheppard subway train sets....a highly unlikely scenario for the planned at-grade operation.

 

[LowerBay]

I can't believe that people here actually think that they would close the Eglinton LRT down for years to convert it to a subway, even if the existing line reached capacity. It will never happen.

 

[kEiThZ]

I can't believe that people here actually think that they would close the Eglinton LRT down for years to convert it to a subway, even if the existing line reached capacity. It will never happen.

If it's all roughed in and built to accomodate HRT in advance, then the conversion would not be overly onerous.

 

[Dan416]

I do support building the Eglinton Crosstown LRT tunnel section to subway standards, but at the same time, it just strikes me as odd to do so when you could just build it as subway from the get go. What would be the additional cost of going from LRT to HRT for the tunneled portion? I don't understand why no one looks at that. It is a willfully ignored option. Just run subways for the underground portion; buses along the rest (like pretty much the rest of the TTC, really). I really don't see how the whole underground + on street portions will be compatible anyway.

 

[urbanfan89]

Thinking about it, wouldn't the SRT conversion not be so onerous? The new platform at Kennedy can be built without disrupting traffic. The Right of Way is already there. The trains can be designed to fit into the platforms. The overhead wires can be strung up while the SRT still runs. The tunnel under Ellesmere could be expanded at night over several weeks.

All that's needed is to regauge the tracks and rip up the conducting strip. It could be done over a 4-day weekend, or maybe a week. The disruption to regular commuters will be quite tolerable.

Shutting the line down over years will drive people away from the TTC entirely and it's not guaranteed they will return once the project is complete.

 

[nfitz]

If it's all roughed in and built to accomodate HRT in advance, then the conversion would not be overly onerous.

What, like the Canada Line in Vancouver?

London Underground doesn't build tube lines built to accomodate HRT in advance; why should we on a strictly suburban route? Relief can be provided in a century or two with diagonal lines into downtown.

 

[LowerBay]

It should just be built as a subway, with wye connections to the Spadina and Yonge subways for some downtown-inbound/outbound rush-hour services -- that would be best. Unfortunately, the TTC is what I call an "LRT fashionista". Due to a steady dose of nagging from a certain transit advocate (who shall remain nameless), the TTC went from being anti-LRT to pro- almost overnight.

While I like streetcars myself, from an impartial point-of-view, I really feel they have held us back. Toronto certainly isn't a European city and we're definitely not the size of some small LRT-only American town that has never seen a subway. Our downtown network would have included at least one more subway line if the legacy system had been abandoned in the 70s.

 

[GTS]

LRT is a great mode of public transit, but, it a city the size of Toronto I think that LRT would work best as a feeder route, like the buses are to the subway system. It seems like the TTC has blinders on at the present time and it is all LRT and nothing else, even when a subway route might be justified. I hope that the TTC diversifies all this funding they are getting and pump some of it into new subway construction as well as some of these LRT routes.

 

[Automation Gallery]

I have also noticed that many world citys have the LRT as a secondary means of transportation, Judging from this website many subways being built nowadays in many places are only 50-60% underground with the rest being at ground level and above ground, that may be the way that they are cutting construction costs.

http://www.urbanrail.net/index.html

 

[hkric88]

Toronto certainly isn't a European city ...

And we never, ever, will be.

I wish these dinosaurs with this 'europa fantasia' would give it up. Besides, their 'Europe' is the Europe that tourists see.

I'm so glad to hear someone else point out this fact from time to time, I get tired of seemingly harping on it alone..

 

[GTS]

Europe isn't perfect but they are, in most large urban areas, funding transit projects a lot more then we are here in North America. here in Toronto we just got a large lump sum of money for some transit projects such as some of the Transit City LRT lines.

This funding announcement from the feds is great and I am grateful for it but it is a one shot deal; what large urban areas in Canada need is long-term sustained funding for public transit for all urban areas in Canada, even urban centers of 100,000 people might use a new indoor bus station to improve their own smaller public transit systems. Toronto needs these LRT routes but we also need more subways and maybe a Vancouver type Skytrain system for less built up areas.

I know a litre of fuel costs a lot more in all places in Europe then here in North America and I wonder if that is where they are getting the funding for all their own transit projects. If Canada would add a half a cent of fuel tax on every litre of fuel sold it would add to billions of dollars in tax revenue for possible transit improvements all over Canada every year. Maybe even enough money to revive the Eglinton subway without bleeding funding from other transit projects here in the GTAH.

 

[Brandon716]

What I think could help the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is building a Subway DRL and placing other Transit City LRT lines in the back of the line for now. Extend the DRL subway out from Union Station up north and connect it with Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

None of us know how many cars per train there will be at this point, but we know its not being built to subway grade. That's why its LRT, not a subway. Those who are still bitter about Eglinton Crosstown not being subway need to realize the battle is lost. The forces who wanted Eglinton Crosstown LRT have got what they wanted, and its being built. Its also not a bad idea since the whole thing is being built at once from Pearson to Kennedy.

For now I think the Downtown Relief Line subway project needs to get to the front of the line while the current TC projects are underway.

 

[prosperegal]

What I think could help the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is building a Subway DRL and placing other Transit City LRT lines in the back of the line for now. Extend the DRL subway out from Union Station up north and connect it with Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

None of us know how many cars per train there will be at this point, but we know its not being built to subway grade. That's why its LRT, not a subway. Those who are still bitter about Eglinton Crosstown not being subway need to realize the battle is lost. The forces who wanted Eglinton Crosstown LRT have got what they wanted, and its being built. Its also not a bad idea since the whole thing is being built at once from Pearson to Kennedy.

For now I think the Downtown Relief Line subway project needs to get to the front of the line while the current TC projects are underway.

But will the people who count listen?

We really need to bring this to the limelight for the next municipal election, if not, before.

 

[LowerBay]

I would build the Downtown DRL up to Eglinton at both ends and connect them along Eglinton itself, forming a continuous square-shaped route, replacing the underground Eglinton LRT section with a subway. The DRL would run down to Queen and across Queen. Union really isn't the best place for it.

Another idea for Yonge-Bloor relief which I suggested to Metrolinx was to disconnect the Spadina line from the University section and pull it down Spadina Av. into the core, replacing the 510. That opens up two possibilities -- terminate Yonge-University trains at St. George giving BD passengers empty trains to board to get downtown, or, reactivate the Y system that ran in the 1960s. With the planned automation, the Y operation would become feasible. Once a direct ride is in place, a huge chunk of the travel pattern that relies heavily on Bloor-Yonge would gradually shift away.

The problem with the existing DRL proposal is that it imposes two transfers instead of one for the majority of passengers heading downtown.

 

[Dan416]

The reason the TTC's transit strategy falls apart entirely is due to projects like the Sheppard Subway, the Spadina-York extension, and now the Yonge extension. None of those projects needed to be subway. The extension to York U maybe, and Yonge maybe up to Steeles. But by and large the subways that the TTC wants are actually not where they are needed, so when we see LRT proposed for routes that should be subway, it gets very frustrating.

That said, we've already got Sheppard now, and ridership is up. The only way to ensure that it's not a continual drain on the system is to make it a true Crosstown route and to extend it west to Downsview and east to STC.

A lot of people are still sore that Sheppard got built instead of Eglinton. I really wish we had gotten both as they were both originally envisioned. Then we would just need to make extensions to both, and could build an all-new DRL and then we'd be good for a while.

Lower Bay, I like your idea for running the DRL up to an Eglinton subway at both ends, but I think your idea for splitting Spadina from University isn't exactly a great use of scarce funds. We already have a University line. We don't need a downtown Spadina line right beside it when the University line isn't at capacity anyway.