[W. K. Lis]

With option 5, the Relief Line North could go up into the open if it follows the railway right-of-way from Don Mills Road over to Victoria Park Avenue.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

To offset some of the added construction cost, money could be diverted from the North Yonge Subway project, as that line would no longer be needed. The Yonge corridor south of RHC could instead be built as a Rapidway, consistent with the rest of the VIVA system.

The Yonge subway should still be extended to Steeles though.

Steeles buses are heavy ridership bus routes, the development potential at Cummer/Drewry, and both the 416 and 905 sides of Steeles & Yonge, all warrant extension. Perhaps most importantly reason however, we need to design a Yonge terminus that can efficiently turn trains around to take advantage of the 110 second headways promised by ATC. The present design of Finch station creates a bottleneck as the double crossover limits the turnaround times for trains to 140 (iirc?) second frequency.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The Yonge subway should still be extended to Steeles though.

Steeles buses are heavy ridership bus routes, the development potential at Cummer/Drewry, and both the 416 and 905 sides of Steeles & Yonge, all warrant extension. Perhaps most importantly reason however, we need to design a Yonge terminus that can efficiently turn trains around to take advantage of the 110 second headways promised by ATC. The present design of Finch station creates a bottleneck as the double crossover limits the turnaround times for trains to 140 (iirc?) second frequency.

The Line 1 Yonge extension should be built s-l-o-w-l-y.

The Relief Line South should be built fast, and the Relief Line North should be built just as the Line 1 Yonge extension opens. Then the Relief Line West should start its Environmental Assessment before the Relief Line North finishes.

 

[JSF-1]

With option 5, the Relief Line North could go up into the open if it follows the railway right-of-way from Don Mills Road over to Victoria Park Avenue.

View attachment 162227

I do wonder if that would have bad inplecations for future use though. Right now that Midtown Corridor is being used by CP, and we know GO/ML have been eyeing it for decades. If ML ever assumes control of it I think we can all agree it will be double tracked so I wonder if running the Subway through there may pose a threat to that? ML may not be open to the idea of running the RLN along the Midtown if it may impact the future use of it for GO. As well CP owns the ROW so they may not even want the Subway running on it.

 

[Streety McCarface]

The Line 1 Yonge extension should be built s-l-o-w-l-y.

The Relief Line South should be built fast, and the Relief Line North should be built just as the Line 1 Yonge extension opens. Then the Relief Line West should start its Environmental Assessment before the Relief Line North finishes.

Sooner. The Bloor subway is the second most congested line in the city, and is reaching the 32K PPHPD mark (I believe it's between 27 and 28K currently as it enters St George).

 

[44 North]

Newbie to the transit side of UT, but is there any plans or need or possible need, for the TTC/Metrolinx/whomever to build in station bypasses or express train bypasses on future subway builds?

No plans for it, and maybe the "need" is outside the realm of planning in these parts. I think there could be benefit. Davisville is our only true 3-track station, and maybe Kipling has the potential with the trackless space. Though might be hard to build into some of these stations being so deep, and without plans for different services or branches maybe any benefit is more nebulous than tangible.

I do wonder if that would have bad inplecations for future use though. Right now that Midtown Corridor is being used by CP, and we know GO/ML have been eyeing it for decades. If ML ever assumes control of it I think we can all agree it will be double tracked so I wonder if running the Subway through there may pose a threat to that? ML may not be open to the idea of running the RLN along the Midtown if it may impact the future use of it for GO. As well CP owns the ROW so they may not even want the Subway running on it.

Even if the surface remained untouched and open for continued freight, the right-of-way could potentially be used I think. Some alignments of the 80s-era "DRL" used the space above rail corridors, and old Gardiner East of DVP plans were to be below rail corridors. So it's not completely unheard of to use a rail corridor without actually *using* a rail corridor. And Midtown from Don Mills to Sheppard is pretty well aligned and hits some key nodes/intersections. Theoretically could even connect to the Line 3 ROW (both the existing and unused extension portion), and finally give it a future.

Sooner. The Bloor subway is the second most congested line in the city, and is reaching the 32K PPHPD mark (I believe it's between 27 and 28K currently as it enters St George).

85-100% full from Ossington to Yonge. It's a problem. But we're supposed to ignore that. I guess 85-100% in Toronto parlance is damn-near empty.

 

[Streety McCarface]

85-100% full from Ossington to Yonge. It's a problem. But we're supposed to ignore that. I guess 85-100% in Toronto parlance is damn-near empty.

Remember, the same can be said for the Crosstown, carrying nearly the same volume of traffic as Line 2 (per kilometer) by 2030, the Sheppard Subway, which is "grossly underutilized" (it's underutilized, but much of that is by design) while having ridership averages higher than the Spadina line, the Scarborough Debacle, where 7,500 PPHPD is considered perfectly optimal for day one LRT usage, and all the major surface routes in this city, where 40K PPD is considered "Normal" for buses.

Our city just has a perspective problem. If it's not 85-100% full, it's a boondoggle that no one uses, and if it's at 101+% capacity, then it's "Bursting at the seams, a hazard to riders, etc"

This is not to say that Yonge isn't bursting at the seams, but we have a high tolerance with regards to what should be deemed acceptable for public transit usage.

 

[gweed123]

The Yonge subway should still be extended to Steeles though.

Steeles buses are heavy ridership bus routes, the development potential at Cummer/Drewry, and both the 416 and 905 sides of Steeles & Yonge, all warrant extension. Perhaps most importantly reason however, we need to design a Yonge terminus that can efficiently turn trains around to take advantage of the 110 second headways promised by ATC. The present design of Finch station creates a bottleneck as the double crossover limits the turnaround times for trains to 140 (iirc?) second frequency.

I agree with that completely. Going to Steeles makes sense, if nothing else to create a proper transfer complex with shorter connection times between everything. I'm just saying that if a surface subway along the RH corridor is built to RHC, then taking the tunnelled Yonge Subway all the way to RHC doesn't make much sense, at least for a significant period of time.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I agree with that completely. Going to Steeles makes sense, if nothing else to create a proper transfer complex with shorter connection times between everything. I'm just saying that if a surface subway along the RH corridor is built to RHC, then taking the tunnelled Yonge Subway all the way to RHC doesn't make much sense, at least for a significant period of time.

Any rapid transit line that gets extended beyond the borders of the City of Toronto, means that frontier land should be annexed by the City of Toronto.

 

[muller877]

Any rapid transit line that gets extended beyond the borders of the City of Toronto, means that frontier land should be annexed by the City of Toronto.

And when Toronto used to refuse to pay for GO? Should have the 905 Annexed the downtown core?

 

[micheal_can]

Any rapid transit line that gets extended beyond the borders of the City of Toronto, means that frontier land should be annexed by the City of Toronto.

I agree. bringing parts of York Region and even Peel Region into Toronto would make planning and transit much better.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Quickly heading for Fantasy Thread territory here!
Canadian municipalities cannot "annex" one another.
Doug Ford - even DOUG FORD - is not going to merge Toronto and any of the 905 regions (though he might amalgamate within the 905; wouldn't surprise me).
And when the Yonge extension is built, there is a 100% chance it will be built all the way to Highway 7, for any number of reasons, so no point talking about how it "at least has to go to Steeles." They're not going to take it above grade - either as a subway or a new LRT or whatever. That ship has sailed.

As we build more transit that crosses borders, they have to figure out fare integration. They should have done it before the Spadina extension and they DEFINITELY have to do it before RER comes online. All the rest of this is getting off-topic.

 

[Neutrino]

Somehow I think they'll continue procrastinating on fare integration well past RER implementation. If the spend happy Liberal government procrastinated on fare integration, I don't think the Conservatives will do it.

 

[micheal_can]

Quickly heading for Fantasy Thread territory here!
Canadian municipalities cannot "annex" one another.
Doug Ford - even DOUG FORD - is not going to merge Toronto and any of the 905 regions (though he might amalgamate within the 905; wouldn't surprise me).
And when the Yonge extension is built, there is a 100% chance it will be built all the way to Highway 7, for any number of reasons, so no point talking about how it "at least has to go to Steeles." They're not going to take it above grade - either as a subway or a new LRT or whatever. That ship has sailed.

As we build more transit that crosses borders, they have to figure out fare integration. They should have done it before the Spadina extension and they DEFINITELY have to do it before RER comes online. All the rest of this is getting off-topic.

The people of the mid 1990s would argue that....

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Remember, the same can be said for the Crosstown, carrying nearly the same volume of traffic as Line 2 (per kilometer) by 2030, the Sheppard Subway, which is "grossly underutilized" (it's underutilized, but much of that is by design) while having ridership averages higher than the Spadina line, the Scarborough Debacle, where 7,500 PPHPD is considered perfectly optimal for day one LRT usage, and all the major surface routes in this city, where 40K PPD is considered "Normal" for buses.

Our city just has a perspective problem. If it's not 85-100% full, it's a boondoggle that no one uses, and if it's at 101+% capacity, then it's "Bursting at the seams, a hazard to riders, etc"

This is not to say that Yonge isn't bursting at the seams, but we have a high tolerance with regards to what should be deemed acceptable for public transit usage.

Well put. I think it is pretty interesting state of affairs where the Dufferin bus (clocking in at 44,000 daily users, and this is before several mega-development projects along the corridor) is seen as a total non-concern on our transit radar to the point that using Dufferin as the western corridor for the Relief Line is a minority position on here. Many rapid transit lines in the United States have less daily ridership than Dufferin. (To not even speak about our streetcar lines...)

The Spadina leg of the Line 1 subway is projected to have present-day Yonge Line ridership numbers by 2031/2041.

I am sure that many people reading this thread are aware of the task that is before us in this City. We are massively behind in our transportation infrastructure, yet the city continues to grow at a phenomenal pace. Even if we were to one day wake up with the political willingness and funds to build all the transit infrastructure that we need to build, we would still be faced with a labour shortage in the trades and general labour.