DENTROBATE54
Banned
Unfortunately, the surface sections of Eglinton may well have bus-stop-style spacing, which would lead to bunching that would completely eliminate the benefit of the underground section. What's the point of a billion-dollar tunnel when the streetcars arrive at the portal in 4-vehicle clumps every 25 minutes?
I don't see how that's possible. The further east and west one travels on Eglinton Ave the less frequent the number of stops. Hence the surface portion would have spacing comparable to the underground portion (450m or roughly two stops to a concession [bipartites]).
I also hope against hope for a DRL, but it seems the best case scenario would be some kind of underground streetcar, limited to the capacity of the surface section on Don Mills.
The DRL does little for Old Town Toronto. The inner city gets bypassed and commuters would still be dependent on streetcars for east-west travel. BRT could fulfil everything a DRL can for far less.
The current arrangement really shows that Transit City isn't really about carefully considered transit planning: the Don Mills streetcar dumps everyone on the Bloor line, adding even more pressure on Bloor-Yonge station and the Yonge line south of Bloor, the most congested points on the system. But, as Glenn de Baeremaeker says, it gets a streetcar to every councillor's ward!
Yeah, I agree, BD's already nearing at-capacity levels. The added stresses of an extended SRT along with four new LRT lines (Jane, DM, Eglinton, Scarb-Malvern) might be too much. A second east-west subway to siphon away alot of the passengers coming in from the suburbs would prevent overcrowding.
If what you say is true about bus-bunching, then most obviously the Eglinton tunnel should be a subway from the get-go and directly intercept the two north-south TC lines (Jane, DM) at a mass transit terminal at both ends instead of petering off in Leaside and Black Creek.
The next thing they'll do is propose a billion-dollar rebuild of Bloor-Yonge station, instead of just spending the same amount on a DRL subway!
Yes it is a waste of funds to reno an already asethetically pleasing station while there's still unpaved walls on the Sheppard line, missing wall panels at St. Geogre, guck and ooze smeared on the walls of Islington, missing name plaques at St Patrick and the list goes on !