One issue is whether OL should continue west of Yonge at all. It probably should.

Another issue is whether the route west of Yonge should veer far to the south and hit the Exhibition GO station. I don't believe that's a great choice. A straight route under Queen would serve areas both south and north of Queen. Liberty Village would be within a short bus ride (Dufferin or Ossington) from the Queen subway. Most importantly, it would be a lot easier to extend the line further west to meet Bloor subway and then go north.

From the Exhibition terminus, any route back north would be long and quite expensive.
 
generalcanada said:
like east harbour exhibition will be a huge transfer point. its going to offload a ton of riders from union GO which means we wont need to worry about it capacity for years, even after the platform upgrades. remember were going to be running GO trains like at 2 minute intervals out of union right after go expansion
you cant just look at financials as the only way to judge whether a transit project is good
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Unfortunately this might be the weakest point of the whole project. Imagine you are on the Lakeshore East GO train heading towards Union, during the AM rush. Will you want to exit at East Harbor, and then squeeze into the busy peak-direction OL train for the final 2-km ride into downtown? Or, would you rather stay on the GO train till Union? Even if your destination is on Queen, staying on GO till Union lets you board a counter-peak Line 1 train up north.

During the PM rush, boarding the Lakeshore East GO train gives you ar seat, or at least a better standing spot. If you board at East Harbor instead of Union, all good spots are already taken and you have to stand wherever you can.

There will be some positive effect, for example a few GO riders will want to take the northbound OL during the AM rush if their destination is near the Gerrard Square or near Danforth. But the relief might not be as effective as Metrolinx hopes for.
 
I would think transferring at East Harbour for points north would be much faster and easier (quick up and over, though not cross-platform, unfortunately) than transferring at Union. Maybe some of that will be offset by how deep the stations will be downtown.
 
syn said:
Is this corridor most in need of transit improvement?
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Yes. It's a very high traffic corridor, it's were people from the suburbs are commuting too, and it will help alleviate the crowding on our busiest subway line.

Miller's fetish for all things being a LRT/Streetcar are getting in the way of good transit, because honestly this should be replacing the King/Queen streetcar.
 
Rainforest said:
Unfortunately this might be the weakest point of the whole project. Imagine you are on the Lakeshore East GO train heading towards Union, during the AM rush. Will you want to exit at East Harbor, and then squeeze into the busy peak-direction OL train for the final 2-km ride into downtown? Or, would you rather stay on the GO train till Union? Even if your destination is on Queen, staying on GO till Union lets you board a counter-peak Line 1 train up north.
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It will take a lot longer to walk from the GO platform at Union to the TTC station, than it will to change from GO to the Ontario subway at East Harbour. Capacity should be fine.

Rainforest said:
There will be some positive effect, for example a few GO riders will want to take the northbound OL during the AM rush if their destination is near the Gerrard Square or near Danforth. But the relief might not be as effective as Metrolinx hopes for.
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Won't it? Given how long it will take the GO train to get from East Harbour into Union, I don't know why anyone heading to near Queen, or even to Ryerson, would stay on the GO. It can easily take 5 minutes to get from inside the GO Train to the subway platform. And then you have to get the subway. I'd think that those who got off at East Harbour would be arriving at Queen Station via the Ontario subway before those coming via the Yonge subway.

It's a shame they can't arrange for cross-platform transfers at East Harbour though.
 
Skytrain has had roving transit attendants for over 35 years - I would expect the successful proponent for the Ontario Line to be required (under the terms of the Concession Agreement, which I have not checked if publicly available) to do the same. Vancouver also has Transit Police (a specially constituted police force) roving the system as well.
Predictions of the sky (or tunnel roof) falling are likely premature.
 
officedweller said:
Skytrain has had roving transit attendants for over 35 years - I would expect the successful proponent for the Ontario Line to be required (under the terms of the Concession Agreement, which I have not checked if publicly available) to do the same. Vancouver also has Transit Police (a specially constituted police force) roving the system as well.
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Absolutely. And if Metrolinx is running it - I certainly see a lot more Metrolinx security, fare enforcement, safety officers, etc., downtown than I do TTC.
 
Patrick98 said:
I honestly can't believe that we are debating all this when no one in government that I am aware of is actually proposing these changes to the Ontario line. We finally have this thing under construction let's just be happy it's happening at all.
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quite the opposite, the contract is signed and preliminary demolition is already occurring at Exhibition. The whole thing is happening and soon.
 
lead82 said:
Miller is wrong because he glosses over one key fact - this city cannot run a streetcar line period. They don’t offer priority signals, they don’t remove the ridiculously close stops, they don’t remove parking on streetcar routes to give it a dedicated ROW (King/Queen/Dundas/College/Bathurst). Simple operational changes could have made streetcars faster and more convenient to get around.

...
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Could the streetcars go faster? Yes, but they are always going to struggle to serve diagonal trips which the OL will do quite seamlessly. At the same time, it will likely be faster to take OL crosstown even if it means going a bit north and south on it, it's just going to be so much faster than the streetcars - and the existing subway since the stop spacing is wider.

Rainforest said:
One issue is whether OL should continue west of Yonge at all. It probably should.

Another issue is whether the route west of Yonge should veer far to the south and hit the Exhibition GO station. I don't believe that's a great choice. A straight route under Queen would serve areas both south and north of Queen. Liberty Village would be within a short bus ride (Dufferin or Ossington) from the Queen subway. Most importantly, it would be a lot easier to extend the line further west to meet Bloor subway and then go north.

From the Exhibition terminus, any route back north would be long and quite expensive.
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Except part of the point here is to serve the density - which exists in Liberty Village thanks to our good friends David M and Adam V, other parts of the city didn't need to densify much because loads of condos could be plopped down there. A connecting bus on a wide suburban street for a 20+ minute journey is fine, a 7 minute bus ride that you'll probably have to wait 10 minutes for (at least) will be hell, just try the Ossington or Dufferin buses. Getting up to Bloor seems to get people very excited but there is a much better (potential / eventual) connection between GO and TTC at Dundas West, and the four tracks of the Kitchener Line have a LOT of capacity.

Rainforest said:
Unfortunately this might be the weakest point of the whole project. Imagine you are on the Lakeshore East GO train heading towards Union, during the AM rush. Will you want to exit at East Harbor, and then squeeze into the busy peak-direction OL train for the final 2-km ride into downtown? Or, would you rather stay on the GO train till Union? Even if your destination is on Queen, staying on GO till Union lets you board a counter-peak Line 1 train up north.

During the PM rush, boarding the Lakeshore East GO train gives you ar seat, or at least a better standing spot. If you board at East Harbor instead of Union, all good spots are already taken and you have to stand wherever you can.

There will be some positive effect, for example a few GO riders will want to take the northbound OL during the AM rush if their destination is near the Gerrard Square or near Danforth. But the relief might not be as effective as Metrolinx hopes for.
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This concerned me at one point, but I think its overblown. I expect East Harbour will have a lot of turnover - people will ideally also be getting off their OL trains and getting on a frequent and fare integrated GO train to Union (or other new downtown stations) - which is still where most of the offices are, things are probably getting pulled south by all the development around the station and front street. At the same time, depending on what streetcar and bike infrastructure gets built (and another east end GO station) people might not even want to switch to GO.
 
superelevation said:
This concerned me at one point, but I think its overblown. I expect East Harbour will have a lot of turnover - people will ideally also be getting off their OL trains and getting on a frequent and fare integrated GO train to Union (or other new downtown stations) - which is still where most of the offices are, things are probably getting pulled south by all the development around the station and front street. At the same time, depending on what streetcar and bike infrastructure gets built (and another east end GO station) people might not even want to switch to GO.
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I wouldn't be surprised if it is well-used but I don't think the inbound MINT crowd will be using it unless their trip destination is close to Queen; and I think outbound will have lower usage (more desirable to get a seat at Union than to ride the OL to Exhibition).

AoD
 
picard102 said:
Yes. It's a very high traffic corridor, it's were people from the suburbs are commuting too, and it will help alleviate the crowding on our busiest subway line.

Miller's fetish for all things being a LRT/Streetcar are getting in the way of good transit, because honestly this should be replacing the King/Queen streetcar.
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The tweet he responded to pertained to the western portion of the OL.

If this was going to replace the streetcar, then it needs more than a few stops along King and Queen. Would've needed to go much further west along Queen.
 
LOL I come home today to got a glossy Ontario Line postcard.

But it was not in my mailbox, it was stuffed in my apartment door. So they are paying to have people wander through condos and apartment buildings to give these out now? Yet another useless expense from Metrolinx' bloated, useless, PR team.
Blabbering on about what it can do for me ten years before it opens? LOL what a waste.
IMG_20221215_155209.jpg
 
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