[Transportfan]

If the DRL is built along Queen, that could mean the end of full Queen streetcar line. I'd think the western portion would continue from where the subway terminates at Spadina (and then along The Queensway and Lakeshore) and the eastern part would be combined to make a replacement "King-Queen East" line east of King/Don River, with the tracks simply turning onto King.

 

[Palma]

Interesting how industries seem to limit people's choices of where to work. In many industries it seems most jobs are downtown, yet I've met many who live downtown who's dream it is to work downtown who apparently can only find work out in Scarborough or Markham and have long commutes out the the suburbs.

I do feel sorry for them

 

[Palma]

New Relief Line report plainly says that the planned Relief Line cannot address Yonge crowding:

"Combined, the two lines further reduce these transfers by up to 53%. Thus, both lines individually and in combination have the potential to greatly reduce the problem of crowding from transfers at Bloor station. As discussed above, Yonge line crowding still generally remains a concern, however, due to the heavy volumes boarding the line from the north. The little-J RL options cannot address this problem directly"

Little J = Relief Line Short (to Danforth)

thats why this expansion of the subway further north needs to stop. Is there a way to build another tunnel down Yonge St?

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

So we have an EA on the Relief Line underway having already determined the route of preference, detailed ridership projections for Relief Line routings, a letter to the City Manager openly stating that the Relief Line AND 5-minute frequency SmartTrack will not be enough to relieve Yonge subway, and a recommendation to pursue studying to Sheppard and Don Mills.

We are a lot further along with planning this thing then the naysayers in this thread have been claiming. Further, there seems to be a sense of urgency, I think City Planning is establishing the Relief Line as our #1 priority, something that has never really been the case. (From the 1950s onward our #1 priorities in planning documents have been first Line 2 then a subway on Eglinton)

 

[TheTigerMaster]

thats why this expansion of the subway further north needs to stop. Is there a way to build another tunnel down Yonge St?

An express tunnel running parallel to Yonge would be more costly than the Relief Line, and not provide any relief. That's should be our last resort, once all relief possibilities are exhausted.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

So we have an EA on the Relief Line underway having already determined the route of preference, detailed ridership projections for Relief Line routings, a letter to the City Manager openly stating that the Relief Line AND 5-minute frequency SmartTrack will not be enough to relieve Yonge subway, and a recommendation to pursue studying to Sheppard and Don Mills.

We are a lot further along with planning this thing then the naysayers in this thread have been claiming. Further, there seems to be a sense of urgency, I think City Planning is establishing the Relief Line as our #1 priority, something that has never really been the case. (From the 1950s onward our #1 priorities in planning documents have been first Line 2 then a subway on Eglinton)

Relief Line to Sheppard needs to be operational within a few years (less than 5) of the Relief Line to Danforth. It's possible if we move forward with it now.

 

[Forgotten]

Creates Dynamic Multi-Modal Hub in the Core
Opportunity to create interchange station in the psychological centre of the city (Nathan Phillips Square at City Hall)
Supported with strong pedestrian connections to Queen and Osgoode Stations on Line 1 and to the Financial District via PATH network

I feel good already. Did Sorbara start working at City Hall when I wasn't looking? Is the strong pedestrian connection to Osgoode the cracked 10 foot wide sidewalk?

Fills Rapid Transit Void in the Core
Improves rapid transit connections to northerly areas of the core (between Union Station and Yonge-Bloor Station)
Recognizes That Downtown is Not Just 9-5 Provides alternative route for people to access jobs in the Financial District
Best for full array of daily travel needs and destinations, such as universities, hospitals and public institutions

There's no post secondary institution on Queen... planners are drunk.

You have an indoor mall. You have an outdoor mall. You have a tiny indoor rink. You have homeless shelters. You had Jilly's.

I see some people are already drinking the Keesemat Kool-aid.

If Queen is so important why are we wasting so much tax money here at night?

What parallel universe did this report get spit out of?

Spreads Out Pedestrians
Does not add more pedestrian congestion to Union Station area
Supports more options for people to access jobs throughout the downtown

That's just what we need

Performs Well with Other Transit Initiatives
Complements SmartTrack / GO RER connections into Union Station
Complements planned transit priority corridor along King Street
Connects to #6 Bay bus and bus lanes for onward connections north and south
Bike Station under Nathan Phillips Square to open soon

Oh I see it now. No competition for Tory's pet project. If you avoided Queen you wouldn't have to close down King for streetcars to begin with and actually start to remove them.

Supports Social Equity
Closest to Regent Park Neighbourhood Improvement Area (5 minute walk)
Closest to Moss Park at Queen & Sherbourne

Yey! Looks like sanity prevailed.

Not. If it's social justice you want, spend billions on TCHC, not gerrymandering pet projects to make them look better.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Two more images I snapped at the Public Presentation tonight, that do not seem to be in the presentation PDF.

These show detailed Relief Line alignment options. Sorry about crappy photo-taking, people were walking around me and my hands shaked... edit: I stitched the image together

 

[salsa]

Yeah, but remember also as the City states, King is more for solely the 9-to-5 business crowd meanwhile Queen has 24/7 ridership appeal. Anyone whom happens to be around King and Bay at 8:00 pm knows this. It's a dead zone.

This particular argument and its narrow focus on the downtown core ignores all the explosive growth that is happening all along King street beyond the small handful of city blocks in the financial district. King & Bay may be 9-5, but what about the dozen other subway stations that could have been in the heart of the Entertainment District, Liberty Village, St Lawrence, or Distillery District for example? Moss Park is definitely not 24/7.

According to this evaluation criteria, the King alignments received the same overall score as the preferred option. But King scored a lot better at one very important criteria that should have been given more weight: "supports city growth". If being less affordable than Queen is the biggest disadvantage, that is a rather sad excuse to not select that alignment. If King is better for the city (assuming that is the case), then it should have been pursued. The DRL is the last transit project that anyone should be cheapening out on. The investment we make here will live on for the rest of our lives and have a profound impact on the city's future.

People visit the Eaton Centre and Nathan Philips Square at all hours.

You're dismissing the fact that a King alignment would have higher ridership and more development just because one particular station would have more streetlife at certain hours. We're talking about an interchange station that will have high usage no matter where it goes. The Eaton Centre and NPS are both already well served by two subway stations, and are a five minute walk from King. I know that there are certain other benefits with a Queen alignment, but 24/7 street life is one of the weakest reasons to prefer it. If the city is planning to put the subway along a street that is almost entirely lowrise while intense population and commercial development a few blocks south is being relegated to a streetcar line, then I sure hope there are some really good reasons for that other than "it's next to the Eaton Centre".

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It was mentioned before that the critical flaw with King alignment is pedestrian traffic. The Union Station area is already packed with pedestrians at rush hour. RER will double that. We don't need the Relief Line feeding into the same spot, causing even more problems.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It was mentioned before that the critical flaw with King alignment is pedestrian traffic. The Union Station area is already packed with pedestrians at rush hour. RER will double that. We don't need the Relief Line feeding into the same spot, causing even more problems.

Remeber, this is what Union's pedestrian crowding looked like 6 years ago. It's even worse today. Now imagine that crowding doubled due to RER. Now imagine SmartTrack amplifying the attractiveness of RER. Now dump another 15,000 pedestrians at peak hour into the area because of the RL. Then add another 10,000 peak hour commuters by extending the Relief Line to Sheppard. Then add thousands more for a western relief line extension

I just can't see the rush hour pedestrian flows working in the area. By building a station at King, you'd solve one pedestrian capacity issue (Bloor-Yonge) just to create a second, even worse pedestrian capacity issue.

 

[dunkalunk]

Remeber, this is what Union's pedestrian crowding looked like 6 years ago. It's even worse today. Now imagine that crowding doubled due to RER. Now imagine SmartTrack amplifying the attractiveness of RER. Now dump another 15,000 pedestrians at peak hour into the area because of the RL. Then add another 10,000 peak hour commuters by extending the Relief Line to Sheppard. Then add thousands more for a western relief line extension

I just can't see the rush hour pedestrian flows working in the area. By building a station at King, you'd solve one pedestrian capacity issue (Bloor-Yonge) just to create a second, even worse pedestrian capacity issue.

There's an easy if unpalatable fix for high pedestrian loads at peak. Reduce the lane count on York and Bay Streets and widen the sidewalks. As a society seem to pour concrete to widen highways for peak demand all the time.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

There's an easy if unpalatable fix for high pedestrian loads at peak. Reduce the lane count on York and Bay Streets and widen the sidewalks. As a society seem to pour concrete to widen highways for peak demand all the time.

Okay, lets put this into numbers

14,000 people exited Union onto Front Street in 2006 AM peak period. 2021 pedestrian modelling estimated that 24,000 people would exit onto Front street in AM peak hour. This doesn't include GO RER, which is set to double Union Station usage. So that brings us up to 28,000 users

At 15 min frequencies, SmartTrack will add 14,000 pedestrians to Union Station in peak hour. It will add 26,000 at 5 min frequencies.

Now, the Relief Line Short (Downtown to Danforth), according to Yonge Relief Network Study, is set to add 10,800 passengers at peak hour to the vicinity.

The Relief Line Long extension will add another 9,200 riders to the vicinity.

28,000 + 26,000 + 10,800 + 9,200 = 74,000 pedestrians at peak hour.

Now this still doesn't include alightings from a Relief Line western extension, nor does it account for future growth, nor does it account for increase Yonge or University Line ridership.

We can bicker about the exact numbers, but what is clear is that the area infrastructure is nowhere near sufficient for handling these loads. Perhaps we could make area streets into pedestrian malls.

Oh, and then there's the issue of Union Station (TTC) capacity. It's apparently running at high capacity today. It won't be able to handle these loads, that's for sure.

 

[salsa]

Now, the Relief Line Short (Downtown to Danforth), according to Yonge Relief Network Study, is set to add 10,800 passengers at peak hour to the vicinity.

The Relief Line Long extension will add another 9,200 riders to the vicinity.

28,000 + 26,000 + 10,800 + 9,200 = 74,000 pedestrians at peak hour.

You seem to be under the impression that every projected relief line passenger is also a pedestrian. But not everyone is alighting at the financial district. Some of those riders will be using other stations, some people will be transferring to Line 1 (and thus remain underground), and some people that do get off here will be using the PATH system instead of the sidewalks. Your point about pedestrian traffic is an important one, but I think you are overestimating the volume of people. Plus don't forget that a lot of the relief line riders will be the same people who are already using the Yonge line to get to the same area.

 

[crs1026]

All these projections put a whole lot more people coming into the area by 2031.

Planning the pedestrian flows will be as important as planning the transit itself. If Queen prevails for DRL, you will have northbound flows in the same places that already you have southbound flows headed for Union. PATH needs a significant upgrading and expansion. Sidewalk capacity and/or shortcuts needs to be studied.

The prospect of walking a few blocks to access the subway, or make a connection between subway lines, is a big change for this city but taken for granted elsewhere. Having only one station serving the University and Yonge sides creates risks. If the Line 1 station is closer, will they walk the additional distance?

I wonder how much of the projection depends on additional downtown development, versus what's already built and committed.

- Paul