[TheTigerMaster]

As our chief planner said, the Relief Line Short does not directly address Yonge's capacity crisis. I hope we stop twiddling our thumbs with this SmartTrack nonsense so that we can finally work on real solutions to Yonge crowding.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Well it's true that if you believe the report mentioned before, you can manage to keep Yonge line to capacity at peak times without the relief line... but only if you have the SmartTrack running every 5 minutes and no YSE.

View attachment 71139

SmartTrack won't be running at 5 mins. It's not physically possible, without significant upgrades.

A more realistic outcome is 5 to 10 min frequencies at a fare premium (all fare integration options on the table have this premium). This will have significantly lower ridership. One permutation of these frequencies + fare premium had daily ridership equal to the Keele Bus.

Whatever ST configuration is selected, I don't expect it will have a significant impact on Yonge crowing.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

SmartTrack doesn't intercept riders heading to the Yonge line, so even if it were working at ideal frequency and fare scenario, how can it provide real Yonge line relief?

SmartTrack's 'relief' in the ideal scenarios stems exclusively from picking up riders that would otherwise be boarding the Scarborough subway (Line 2). It does not pick up any of the bus routes north of Danforth bound for Yonge.

 

[nfitz]

The dirty little secret of Toronto transit is that the relief line short is completely ineffective at relieving Yonge line crowding. Anybody expecting to be able to fit into Yonge line trains when the Releif Line Short opens will be disappointed. It's primary benefit is relieving Bloor-Yonge crowding. 3,600 pphpd in Yonge line ridership reduction will be negated in 5 years or less with our expected population and ridership growths. Also note that 3,600 pphpd reduction is not enough to ever get Yonge operating below capacity. The Relief Line is only effective when it's north of Eglinton; everything else is a stopgap. We need to move forward with this now.

To put this all in perspective, automatic train control is twice as effective as the relief line short at reducing Yonge crowding

The dirty little secret of Toronto transit is that the published numbers for capacity increase because of ATC are bogus, because it assumes that the shorter dwell time is physically possible.

However, it's difficult to shorten the current dwell time at all at Yonge-Bloor, because of the current overcrowding - in fact, they seldom even achieve the current scheduled frequency because of this - let alone what they could do with ATC (were there no issues at Yonge-Bloor.

The DRL, even just from Pape to Queen - is essential at creating any extra capacity on the Yonge line.

The relief line is to relieve Yonge-Bloor station, and avoid a complex, ugly, >$1 billion upgrade of Yonge-Bloor station.

 

[innsertnamehere]

^TTC has stopped pretending it can achieve 90 second headways on the subway, the more recent ATC capacity numbers are reflective of reality. ATC will allow for 105-110 second frequencies, which will shave around 30 seconds off of todays 135-140 second peak frequencies. They will essentially be able to run 33 trains an hour instead of today's 28. Original claims had ATC running 40 trains an hour, which is clearly not possible.

 

[nfitz]

So reducing the number of people at Yonge-Bloor would allow 7 more trains an hour. Increasing capacity by 7,000 passengers an hour - in addition to moving 3,500 or so people off the Yonge line.

That sounds like an extra 10,000 passengers who can use the Yonge line. As opposed to the fiction that Region of York (ROY) are peddling.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The 90 second frequency can't be achieved both because of Bloor Yonge and the time it takes to turn a train around at the end of the line, so that will literally never happen.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

There aren't many places in the world that have achieved 90 seconds. I doubt we ever will with our passenger volumes.

 

[BurlOak]

SmartTrack doesn't intercept riders heading to the Yonge line, so even if it were working at ideal frequency and fare scenario, how can it provide real Yonge line relief?

SmartTrack's 'relief' in the ideal scenarios stems exclusively from picking up riders that would otherwise be boarding the Scarborough subway (Line 2). It does not pick up any of the bus routes north of Danforth bound for Yonge.

SmartTrack would intercept Steeles, Finch, and Sheppard riders -possibly Ellesmere, Lawrence and Eglinton too. Combined with SmartSpur, it could provide a lot of relief.
But key Liberal MPPs from Scarborough want the subway, so they will deliberately sabatoge SmartSpur and force us to shell out Billions extra.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

SmartTrack would intercept Steeles, Finch, and Sheppard riders -possibly Ellesmere, Lawrence and Eglinton too. Combined with SmartSpur, it could provide a lot of relief.
But key Liberal MPPs from Scarborough want the subway, so they will deliberately sabatoge SmartSpur and force us to shell out Billions extra.

SmartTrack intercepts those routes at a point too far east to intercept many Yonge-bound bus riders.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

SmartTrack intercepts those routes at a point too far east to intercept many Yonge-bound bus riders.

Frequencies on smartspur would be too low. If we were able to get frequencies below 5 mins, we'd see 8+ min frequencies on each branch. Not attractive frequencies, and not good enough for Scarborough centre.

 

[Cobra]

The full length of the DRL from Spadina to Steeles needs to be built as one project, but open in phases.

Phase 1 to Danforth with Eglinton as phase 2 follow by Sheppard as phase 3 and Steeles as phase 4. You could break it down more with phase 4 being Finch and Steeles as 5. You could still have more phases and that needs to hapen from day one as to what they are.

Stopping DRL at Danforth offer no improvement to the Yonge Line. Eglinton will add some improvement, but taken up by new development around the Yonge station.

Again, if you extend the DRL to Hwy 7 at some future date, it would help the Yonge line.

If the plan for the SRT subway had remain to Sheppard, you could open that in phases as well.

I still say that this DRL needs to be built to handle DD trains and be Tram-Train. You could built a connect to the RH Line around Lawrence to allow the Tram-Train to use that line. Zurich has such a line as I proposed and my idea is based on that model using short trains.

If you want to be over built now with protection for future capacity needs, you built a box station that will support 10 cars, but only complete haft of it to support 5 cars now. The rest can be built at a later date as needed.

One needs to think where the yard will be and it could be under a development.

Furthermore, the political climate will never be as good as now with the Feds willing to spend billions on mega projects and also willing to pay beyond the traditional 1/3 of the bill. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get funding for the line ALL AT ONCE while being opened in phases.

I'm hoping the city and the province gets the whole line shovel ready ASAP. (City Hall to Sheppard-Don Mills)
I would hope for some audacity and having them propose Don Mills-Sheppard to Mt.Dennis via Downtown.

 

[GenerationW]

Good luck finding that audacity any time soon. The current DRL-short study is already about six months behind the original estimate.

 

[dowlingm]

I would hope for some audacity and having them propose Don Mills-Sheppard to Mt.Dennis via Downtown.

Don't we all. But how do we get enough cash to build that as a single project? Maybe we could have some of Crosstown running already if there wasn't a desire to construct it and commission it in one shot (and put the yard beside the tunnelled bit)

 

[Cobra]

Don't we all. But how do we get enough cash to build that as a single project? Maybe we could have some of Crosstown running already if there wasn't a desire to construct it and commission it in one shot (and put the yard beside the tunnelled bit)

Take a look

http://business.financialpost.com/n...astructure-were-looking-for-projects-of-scale

Canadian pension funds urge Trudeau to think big on infrastructure: ‘We’re looking for projects of scale’

In a nutshell, the money's there on the federal's side, which is willing to pay for more than a third of the cost of infrastructure projects. The province had promised the DRL last election and Metrolinx did came out "out our pleasant surprise" with DRL long.

It's really up to not the city to screw this up and take advantage of this "1 in a generation" opportunity. The Feds can't fund what never makes it to their table. That's why I'm frustrated at the city only talking Pape to City Hall...

Pitch the whole damn line all at once (Mount.Dennis to Sheppard-Don Mills)...Even if we're told we're getting Sheppard to City Hall instead, wasn't that what we all wanted from the get go?