BurlOak
Senior Member
The only thing more preposterous than the premise of this thread is the idea that building a 1.6km long, 10m wide bridge in the sky would be cheap.
Does $200M count as cheap.
The only thing more preposterous than the premise of this thread is the idea that building a 1.6km long, 10m wide bridge in the sky would be cheap.
The only thing more preposterous than the premise of this thread is the idea that building a 1.6km long, 10m wide bridge in the sky would be cheap.
Wow, I actually really like this idea.
I am almost near certain that the central portion of Eglinton will have greater demand than anticipated. This can be dealt with by increasing the frequency through the central portion by interlining the Crosstown with a Sheppard-Don Mills route. Half of trains through the central portion can originate from Eglinton East, and the other half on Sheppard. This is actually quite similar to the current bus route situation on Eglinton where buses from Lawrence, Leslie, Laird and Flemingdon Park all accumulate through the central portion of Eglinton East, increasing frequency where it is needed most.
Build the DRL to Eglinton-Don Mills and all those Sheppard riders would take the Sheppard line down to Eglinton and transfer on to the DRL. This would actually provide REAL relief to the Yonge line!
I'm sold. Someone make a map in the Fantasy Map thread.
Edit: Got excited, made one myself.
Whoever thinks the main purpose of the drl is to relieve Yonge line is very very short-sighted. It is very suburban minded ( they won't admit tho) to think our subway system's sole purpose is to carry people from the suburbs to the CBD during weekday rush hours.
I used the term viaduct on purpose. The section through Riverdale and ET Seton would predominantly be an elevated line less than 5m above the ground – most wouldn’t use the term “in the sky” for that. Earthen embankments can work for much of those stretches, but I’d wager that would be costlier and deemed more obtrusive than concrete piers. Dozens of cities are using elevated technology when faced with high tunnelling costs, even here in TO.
And let’s look at UPX for a second. It has a 3km elevated spur (half the distance as my proposal), twin tracks, totally elevated, with a 28m altitude at its highest point...and they did it for $128M!
The largest span in my Don Line proposal is the “Half-Mile Bridge” (actually just 350m). An almost identical structure over the Humber was reinforced and twinned for the Georgetown South/UPX project, and barely anyone took notice. It’s not that complex a project when much of the infrastructure is in place; unlike the span needed for the majority of DRL plans where it crosses from Pape/Millwood to Thorncliffe Park.
The more I talk about my proposal, the more plausible and fiscally responsible it seems. It shares a lot of similarities with UPX - neighbourhood opposition, elevated sections, use of current infrastructure and corridors... And when looking at the costs of UPX, I'd wager my Don Line could be done for 1/5 of an all-underground DRL route.
Edit: And can anyone answer as to whether a DRL (any alignment) can run 3-car Transit City type LRT trains? Or is it accepted that's not possible and 6-car heavy rail is the only way?
Just as the Yonge subway replicated/replaced the (over capacity) Yonge streetcar line, and the Bloor subway replicated/replaced the (over capacity) Bloor streetcar line, it seems to me that the most obvious option is to have the DRL simply follow the (over capacity) 504 streetcar line. South from Broadview station, west on Queen/King to Bathurst, then eventually up Roncesvalles to Dundas West station.
The more I talk about my proposal, the more plausible and fiscally responsible it seems. It shares a lot of similarities with UPX - neighbourhood opposition, elevated sections, use of current infrastructure and corridors... And when looking at the costs of UPX, I'd wager my Don Line could be done for 1/5 of an all-underground DRL route.
Edit: And can anyone answer as to whether a DRL (any alignment) can run 3-car Transit City type LRT trains? Or is it accepted that's not possible and 6-car heavy rail is the only way?
Agreed. And as for the Transit City LRV thing, I had worked on something similar a while back. Basically what I had then was the Jane and Don Mills LRTs funnelling into a DRL tunnel, as well as the Queen Streetcar (which would have been an LRT in the west end). Ultimately though, I determined that the headways would be too small with 3 car trains to make it efficient. You'd need to be running subway-length LRT trains in order to handle the ridership, which would be unfit for surface operations anyway, so the entire impetus for using LRT (cheaper suburban surface sections) would be impractical.
In reality, the DRL needs to either be TTC subway, or GO REX EMUs. LRT may work as a secondary line in downtown (I come back to the Parliament LRT again), but I think that any substantial tunnelled LRT length in downtown, other than perhaps to facilitate easier connections to the subway stations, is pretty cost inefficient in terms of passenger capacity per dollars spent.
If your alignment is really that much cheaper & faster to build, then it's definitely worth considering. They must be looking at a similar alignment during the study happening now.
Having said that, there are many examples of rapid transit lines built where they are because it was cheap & easy rather than where density of residents & jobs are, which we now look back at and say is not ideal.
Examples in Toronto:
- the Spadina subway along Allen Rd & Cedarvale ravine. It's starting to get development now, but has been underused for many years, and many would've preferred it to be under a road like Bathurst or Dufferin.
- the SRT: goes through existing ROW through industrial lands, which was cheap to build on, but as a result many of the intermediary stations are under-used.
I'm undecided, I'd have to know how many years of construction faster it could be built and how much cheaper. The argument you'll run into is "if we're going to do the DRL we should do it right for future generations".
Re: vehicle types, should we use light rail or heavy rail vehicles when the line is elevated? I think you can potentially even get 4-car LRT trains, which would be 120m long. They're still narrower, which could be a benefit for the bridges & elevated structures. It could be very high capacity with automated control and full grade separation, and since your route doesn't have many stations, probably pretty high speed.
I have to say that the image of LRT trains running elevated through through the rail corridors & ravine, across bridges, is very appealing.
How much train traffic does the Don Valley { or whatever it's called} actually carry everyday. Is it a busy freight or or just basically used for GO? Reason I ask is if it has lite traffic than maybe a tram-train would be a good start.
I've been kicking around the notion of a mirror platform on the east side of Union to the UPX one to the west, which could have DMUs shuttling between Union and (at least) Redway Road with options to extend back to the DVP with various levels of capital works and CP co-operation. A lot of challenges and like the Richmond Hill track subject to flooding south of Bloor but it just bugs me that the alignment is there, in Metrolinx ownership as far as the CP yard, and no use being made of it.
Of course, if such a proposal did move forward Metrolinx might have to admit to significant work being needed on the viaduct for trains to cross it at any speed...
Okay, yeah. It seems you read my mind in knowing why I asked. But I guess the idea of a Don Mills and/or Jane LRT through-routed with a DRL has been discussed over the years. My idea of a Don Mills LRT (from Eglinton to Sheppard) would've been completely grade-separated, probably some kind of elevated concrete viaduct. I haven't looked at it too closely though, but a thorough Yonge relief is an interesting idea worth pursuing.