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If they had put TWO terminal stations at UNION, we would have had two parallel subway lines. The two legs of Line 1 are relatively close together. In North York, they are two concession roads (arterial roads) apart along Sheppard, and three concession roads (arterial roads) apart along Finch. Concession roads in North York are 2 kilometres apart.

Finch is the first concession road north of Sheppard.

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From link.
I'm quite well aware of that which is why I use the example of Line 2 and the 512, which are also 2km apart.
I would like to see the number of people who are travelling from finch west to sheppard east before I start merging two lines. My ideal plan would be lrt on finch to Yonge and then sheppard can be a subway from sheppard west to Victoria park. Agajn the real question is how many people are travelling from sheppard east to finch west that a merger makes sense.
I think that's absolutely reasonable which is why the idea is mostly a long term idea (40 maybe 50 years). The reason why I bring up the Sheppard West extension to the airport is simply because I think connecting the 2nd biggest city centre in Toronto to the airport via rapid transit makes a lot of sense, and having it run along the 401 corridor would be a fairly cheap way to do so, however this is something that should happen way into the future. I just searched up the travel time from North York Centre Station to the airport, and travelling through Union (so Line 1 + UP Express) its exactly 1h (give or take several minutes since trains run every 15 mins outside of COVID). The expected travel time from Humber College to Finch West is 35-40 mins, and if we extend it east to Yonge and west to Pearson (for this I'm assuming that the LRT will run in parallel with the UP Express after Woodbine GO), that will easily creep up to 1h end to end as well. Having the direct route with the same travel time as a meandering route through Downtown is honestly quite sad.
 
Really uninformed question: in the eastbound case, is there any advantage to having the LRT duck south to connect to Sheppard instead of Finch? This is purely me crayoning.

In my humble opinion, all variations that connect the Finch and Sheppard routes are tricky, and might create more problems than they solve.

Sending the Finch LRT across Yonge to Don Mills, and going down to Sheppard? That kind of bastardizes the transit service on Finch east of Don Mills; the route serving that section would have to either terminate at Don Mills and force a linear transfer for those who travel towards Yonge, or run to Yonge overlapping with the Finch - Don Mills LRT.

Shifting the Finch LRT to Sheppard West before it hits Yonge, for example using the Finch - Dufferin - Sheppard route? That's better in not affecting Finch East, but inconveniences the riders travelling from Finch West and heading to Yonge & Finch, or Yonge north of Finch. Those riders would have to either accept a detour, south on Dufferin then back north on Yonge, or take a linear transfer to a bus in order to keep going along Finch.

A relatively passable option, that I've seen in this thread many pages ago, is to keep the LRT on Finch until it reachess Beecroft, and then go down Beecroft to Sheppard. Then the Finch - Sheppard connection will be created, and at the same time, the riders will be able to transfer to subway at Finch although the tunnel will be longish (200 m).

But the simplest and most straightforward solution is to keep the Finch and Sheppard routes separate. Finch LRT could be extended east, first to Yonge and then deep into Scarborough, only turning south once it reaches McCowan and connecting to the SSE terminus. And later, the Sheppard line can be extended both ways, possibly after converting it to light metro / OL type technology.
 
In my humble opinion, all variations that connect the Finch and Sheppard routes are tricky, and might create more problems than they solve.

Sending the Finch LRT across Yonge to Don Mills, and going down to Sheppard? That kind of bastardizes the transit service on Finch east of Don Mills; the route serving that section would have to either terminate at Don Mills and force a linear transfer for those who travel towards Yonge, or run to Yonge overlapping with the Finch - Don Mills LRT.

Shifting the Finch LRT to Sheppard West before it hits Yonge, for example using the Finch - Dufferin - Sheppard route? That's better in not affecting Finch East, but inconveniences the riders travelling from Finch West and heading to Yonge & Finch, or Yonge north of Finch. Those riders would have to either accept a detour, south on Dufferin then back north on Yonge, or take a linear transfer to a bus in order to keep going along Finch.

A relatively passable option, that I've seen in this thread many pages ago, is to keep the LRT on Finch until it reachess Beecroft, and then go down Beecroft to Sheppard. Then the Finch - Sheppard connection will be created, and at the same time, the riders will be able to transfer to subway at Finch although the tunnel will be longish (200 m).

But the simplest and most straightforward solution is to keep the Finch and Sheppard routes separate. Finch LRT could be extended east, first to Yonge and then deep into Scarborough, only turning south once it reaches McCowan and connecting to the SSE terminus. And later, the Sheppard line can be extended both ways, possibly after converting it to light metro / OL type technology.
I think if we're going into goofy fantasy land, ultimately it might make sense to just keep chugging all the way until Neilson, then head south to meet Eglinton East at Malvern.
 
The Toronto Zoo is almost right in the middle between Finch and Sheppard. The Zoo would definitely get a big boost if any rapid transit comes to it.

View attachment 318508From link.
I think a connection to the zoo would work best as a branch of the EELRT going along Sheppard as there's no easy way to it from Finch. Though inf the finch lrt ever makes it to Malvern it could through run to the zoo which would be cool and depending on how far out that is you could end up having the flexity freedoms and citadis spirits running on the same track for normal operation
 
It’s going to be interesting seeing the Finch West LRT open around the same time as the Eglinton Crosstown, but on time from how the progress is looking like on Finch.
yes, maybe Finch will be the better example of "look, building a new LRT line is fast and relatively easy" for the politicians to grasp! They do all like to open projects that they approve...
 
yes, maybe Finch will be the better example of "look, building a new LRT line is fast and relatively easy" for the politicians to grasp! They do all like to open projects that they approve...
Prioritization of surface only LRT where appropriate would help. Maybe Steeles? Lawrence West/East? North/South lines ending at Eglinton? I think any of those would be able to open within years of announcement like Finch LRT.
 
Prioritization of surface only LRT where appropriate would help. Maybe Steeles? Lawrence West/East? North/South lines ending at Eglinton? I think any of those would be able to open within years of announcement like Finch LRT.
maybe omitting jane and Dufferin, I think going down the list of rapid TO priorities gives you a pretty good idea for how these might pan out if there was to be another push for surface lrts. The current implementation list is Eglinton east complete (and already has plans for surface lrt soo), jane and then Dufferin (I'm hoping jane gets something a little bit higher order, like an Ontario line extension, and Dufferin is a bit narrow), and then Steeles west, finch east, and Lawrence east. I'm not sure where to find it anymore but there's a document that goes into detail; about each corridor, they looked into, and what kind of timeline they proposed for that, so that could show even longer-term goals
 
maybe omitting jane and Dufferin, I think going down the list of rapid TO priorities gives you a pretty good idea for how these might pan out if there was to be another push for surface lrts. The current implementation list is Eglinton east complete (and already has plans for surface lrt soo), jane and then Dufferin (I'm hoping jane gets something a little bit higher order, like an Ontario line extension, and Dufferin is a bit narrow), and then Steeles west, finch east, and Lawrence east. I'm not sure where to find it anymore but there's a document that goes into detail; about each corridor, they looked into, and what kind of timeline they proposed for that, so that could show even longer-term goals
I believe I have seen the rapidTO priorities.

I thought it would be great if the OL west went straight up Dufferin to relieve that route.
 

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