TTC, Metrolinx estimate time for transfers on Crosstown
Transit riders hate to transfer.
Eliminating a transfer at Kennedy Station was one of the key justifications for a city council decision to build a $3 billion, three-stop subway extension in Scarborough rather than an LRT.
But it turns out that transfer would have been relatively quick compared to what’s coming at other stops on Toronto’s new transit map.
The Kennedy connection was expected to take riders 40 seconds on average in the morning peak, according to Metrolinx. The estimate doesn’t include time spent waiting for trains.
That transfer at Kennedy would have been relatively short compared to estimates for the interchange stations on the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT.
While Metrolinx and the TTC have different numbers, both suggest it will take longer to move between subway and LRT at Eglinton West and Eglinton Station.
Metrolinx, which uses computer modeling to come up with its estimates, projects that the transfer between LRT and subway at Eglinton Station, will average 1 minute, 45 seconds. At Eglinton West, it will be about 3.5 minutes.
Those times — again, the product of computer simulations — are based on ridership projections for the peak hour of the morning commute.
While the TTC transfer times are longer, they are not directly comparable to the Metrolinx projections, stressed TTC head of engineering Susan Reed Tanaka.
Unlike Metrolinx, the TTC calculates its transfer times using the Ontario Building Code guidelines for rapid transit stations. Those estimates of walking times are far more conservative and don’t necessarily reflect the average rider’s walking speeds, she said.
“(The Ontario Building Code is) not really looking at an average walking time. They’re looking at a reasonable worst case. That would include children and seniors and people who would have difficulty walking or moving in a crowd. The reality is I might be able to walk twice as fast as those speeds,” said Reed Tanaka.
Using those guidelines, the TTC projects a 5-minute, 25-second transfer between subway and LRT at Eglinton West, where the LRT platform will be one level below the subway.
At Yonge and Eglinton, where riders will have to walk two levels between the LRT and the Yonge subway, the TTC is projecting 2.5 minutes.
Those transfer times are based on walking from the middle of one platform to the middle of the other.
The same guidelines put the average transfer at Bloor-Yonge Station at 3 minutes, 10 seconds.
The interchange stations are one of the most challenging design problems on the Crosstown. In addition to keeping the connections fast and simple, the LRT has to be built while the subway stations are still mostly functioning.
The design for the Eglinton West station is 30 per cent complete. Eglinton Station at Yonge is only 5 per cent complete. The link for the Crosstown at Kennedy Station hasn’t even got that far, said Reed Tanaka.
The designs could still change, in which case they would go back to the TTC board for approval, she said.
The preliminary Eglinton Station design actually proposes shifting the existing subway platform about 70 metres to the north of its current location so that it runs directly under the road rather than south of Eglinton Ave. That would allow for LRT connecting stairs to be built at the north and south ends of the platform. If the station were to stay where it is, all riders would have to connect via the north end of the platform, creating a bottleneck.
To move the subway platform, the TTC will have to eliminate a pocket track — a section used to store work trains at the north end of the station. Those can be stored elsewhere, said Reed Tanaka.
Dispersing crowds is a consideration in both station designs. Transit officials are estimating 10,000 people an hour will transfer in the peak hour at Eglinton Station by 2051; 6,800 at Eglinton West.
The Eglinton-Yonge station is estimated to involve about 50 weekend closures.
Station construction isn’t scheduled until around 2016, said Metrolinx spokesman Jamie Robinson.
