BurlOak said:
Ford was the one who supported the LRT - the continuous Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown. And this was in his first year when he had the most power.
Ford used the words "subways, subways, subways" because that is what the people understand to be grade-separated transit. When shown the continuous LRT, Ford supported it because it met his, and the public's main need.
It was Stintz, GDB, Mitzi Hunter, the Scarborough Liberals - they where the ones who turned it into "only subways are acceptable".
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Burl: I agree, and I was thinking of you when stating how (gist) "I'm boggled as to how some are now inverting the "subways are better than LRT debate".

We have a difference in political stance, not that it really matters much when there's no money to be had, a bit like arguing what colour the pea is on the plate that doesn't exist.

You've impressed me with your drawn concepts and planning detail. I appreciate your post. I continue to boggled as to why anyone would want to invest in a Lada, when for 20% more, they can have a real Fiat. Value for money should apply equally for any political stripe. Why are so many Torontonians missing the bigger picture on this? The province is now saying "no" to endless funding of Toronto Council's latest brilliant idea. They lost me back at Rail Deck Park...

Toronto is going to have to present a *World class proposal* to win over investors to build one, once it meets a stiff business case examination. Investors are going to demand forward compatibility, as well they should, and that's boring full loading gauge sized tunnels.
 
WislaHD said:
Most world class cities already have their versions of the Queen Subway built. They didn't slack on it for a 100 years like Toronto did. The ones that did, like New York City, are ripping off the bandaid and embracing the massive cost subways encur in todays dollars (Second Avenue subway).

I'm not familiar with London enough to commentate. My understanding is that the Crossrail project is a consequence to London realizing they couldn't afford to build like 3 subway lines in their core, and deciding to synthesize them into one mega-mega-project in the Crossrail. It would be like if we had the urgent demand to build subways in downtown on all three of King, Queen and Dundas and deciding instead to build one massive RER tunnel under Queen running at 2.5 minute frequencies. [I might be totally off-the-mark on this comparison, like I said my knowledge on London is limited]

As for why we don't do this in Toronto, we come to several issues once again:
  • RER tunnel would be massive. If you think the DRL tunnel would be expensive, the RER is a whole other matter.
  • The PATH system and other utilities impose a massive barrier to a tunnel wider than subway
  • The stations would have to be substantially larger to accomodate commuter rail vehicles, which greatly adds to the cost
  • We aren't talking about just a downtown Queen subway anymore, this is a SmartTrack on crack scenario. We'd have to completely transform the Milton, Kitchener, Stoufville and Richmond Hill RER lines.
  • This involves the Missing Link on Milton and a completely new route for Richmond Hill. Whose going to negotiate with CP/CN and with what money?
  • This came up as a concern in the SmartTrack thread, we are at the mercy of real frequency limitations of the rail corridors as we get closer to the core on the east end. The engineering literally prevents RER from running at that high frequencies without doing something insane like double-decking the rail corridor.
  • The ridership just isn't there to warrant a RER-tunnel scenario.
  • This requires fare integration structure, which sounds like a silly concern, but really is not when we are talking about this region......
  • With what $$$ ??????
All this for arbitrary benefit. We wouldn't be able to have near as close station stop-spacing for example, nor would we be checking down other city building checkboxes like connecting priority neighbourhoods. We'd probably have to maintain local service too.

To put this in other words, I would file a downtown RER tunnel next to replacing the Gardiner with a tunneled highway+subway.
Click to expand...

“And you need that in Toronto? Do you need something as big as Crossrail?”

- Mayor of London, speaking to John Tory. Tory at the time believed SmartTrack was comparable to Crossrail.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
??? That's simply not true. The Crosstown LRVs are bigger and faster than many subway vehicles around the world.
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I didn't claim that, it might behoove you well to do some reading, it was a quote to make another point, and I've detailed how LRTs can be and are much faster than subways. Use your page search for "105 kph".

Thank you for making my point. Have a seat with Wisla, I'll get back to you.

Edit to Add: My younger muse beside me here is pointing out that I'm arguing with her generation, and anything greater than 140 characters is lost.

I bite my lip...

But there is some hope:
NEW YORK – Twitter has found more creative ways to ease its 140-character limit without officially raising it.

Now, the company says when you reply to someone – or to a group – usernames no longer will count toward those 140 characters. This especially will be helpful with group conversations, where replying to two, three or more users at a time could be especially difficult with the character constraints.

When users reply, the names of the people they are replying to will be on top of the text of the actual tweet, rather than a part of it. [...]
Click to expand...
http://www.nwherald.com/2017/03/30/twitter-eases-character-limit/a3nic2w/

No mention of complete sentences though...
 
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steveintoronto said:
You know, you absolutely exemplify what's so freakin' small about Toronto.

This isn't even about Toronto really. It's about *best practice*. Try learning from other cities. Ones generations ahead of us.
As you were...
Click to expand...

I suggest you don't feed the trolls. It's a losing game. It's like trying to escape a black hole.
 
People here seem to want to use RER as a cheaper DRL. A "poor mans DRL".

We've had proposals to run RER at subway-like frequencies for years. Every time it comes up, the people who work in the field will explain that RER has very real physical frequency and capacity limitations. The commuter lines can be upgraded to accommodate more trains, yes, but these upgrades would cost several billion dollars to an RER DRL reliably running with 2.5 minute or greater headways.

RER vehicles are taller and longer than subway vehicles. That means we'll be spending significantly more money on tunnel and station contruction.

So for some (likely small) amount of money saved, what do we gain or lose in service quality?

- Less frequent service
- Fewer stations, making the line less accessible
- Poorly placed staions; these rail lines were frequently built far from development and major destinations, meaning that people will have longer trips to get to the stations. Some stations will also have significant elevation challenges (such as at Eglinton), which might very well makee stations in certain locations infeasible .
- Less oppertunities for transit-oriented development (more cars on the road in the long term)
- A line that would have trip time lengthened by a winding trip through the Don Valley
- Overall longer trip times compared to subway-DRL due to fewer stations (a lesson learned from SSE), difficult to access stations, longer headways and potentially slower travel speeds

I encourage you to read City Planning's report on the Relief Line and Yonge Line demand forecasting, to see how sensitive the potential for Yonge Line relief is to travel time and other factors. In that report, you'll see how even an increase in trip time of two minutes is expected to dramatically cut into the ridership of the Relief Line, while also reducing its potential to relieve Yonge Line crowding. And obviously, the reduced the station count that RER would offer would further harm our goal of reliving a Yonge Line crowding. Keep in mind that any RER solution would have to perform at least as well as the subway proposal at these goals, while also costing less.

I'll conclude by saying that Metrolinx has at least twice considered the potential of an RER Relief Line. Twice they've thoroughly rejected the idea. And I'll remind you that Metrolinx was by no measure enthusiastic about building a subway Relief Line; they believed for a long time that RER + upgrades to Yonge capacity would be sufficient to reduce Yonge ridership to manageable levels for another decade or so. There's no anti-RER bias; these planners have seen these ideas many times. RER as a Relief Line is just not a workable solution.
 
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steveintoronto said:
"WislaHD, post: 1209463, member: 57468"

As for why we don't do this in Toronto, we come to several issues once again:
  • RER tunnel would be massive. If you think the DRL tunnel would be expensive, the RER is a whole other matter.
  • Read my posts. I even posted in pictures, what more does it take? Same loading gauge.

  • The PATH system and other utilities impose a massive barrier to a tunnel wider than subway
You go under them.
  • The stations would have to be substantially larger to accomodate commuter rail vehicles, which greatly adds to the cost
I'm sorry? Stations are cheaper. Already detailed.
  • We aren't talking about just a downtown Queen subway anymore, this is a SmartTrack on crack scenario. We'd have to completely transform the Milton, Kitchener, Stoufville and Richmond Hill RER lines.
No you wouldn't. You might have to get a new mindset though. This is *nothing* to do with SmartTrack. Stop using jingos and mimes. I already addressed that point in detail.
  • This involves the Missing Link on Milton and a completely new route for Richmond Hill. Whose going to negotiate with CP/CN and with what money?
How big is your strawman? Missing Link would make everything better. So because the Missing Link isn't presently funded, you build the DRL like you've always done subways with money that also doesn't exist? Is Descartes in on this somewhow? You build for *future compatibility* and by using trams, you can run through on the surface, you know, like the King Transit Mall? And later, that same tunnel up through Papetown can easily host RER, as well as LRVs *intermixed*...as I've stated and linked many times, *as is done in Europe* and in the US. Meantime, you get your DRL *and* surface run-through via street running LRVs.
  • This came up as a concern in the SmartTrack thread, we are at the mercy of real frequency limitations of the rail corridors as we get closer to the core.
  • So many presumptions, where to begin? The LRVs and RERs alike will be reversible. You increase frequency on the centre section where the greatest need is. Just like *Crossrail*!!! How many times do I have to reference that, and the Paris RER? (which is now integrated with some tram-lines, all detailed and referenced in previous posts.
  • We literally cannot run RER that quickly without doing something insane like double-decking the rail corridor.
Ah yes, Torontonians dictating to the world how they can't do what they're already doing. Already detailed. Read the posts. Express can run down the Don Valley, locals can be mixed with LRVs, same track, same gauge, same loading profile, same power supply, same platform height. Already being done in Europe. Karlsruhe been doing it for over a century.
  • The ridership just isn't there to warrant a RER-tunnel scenario.
Is this a *relief* line or not? You are now completely debasing your own case. Go right ahead and make this for local overhead only. Good luck with your business model.
  • This requires fare integration structure, which sounds like a silly concern, but really is not when we are talking about this region......
Already addressed. There seems to be an ingrained inability to read. Fares will be integrated long before your touted version of DRL comes into existence. If ever.
  • With what $$$ ??????
lol....exactly. And where is it for DRL? Already detailed. Your subway has hit the buffers.

Same gauge as Eglinton Crosstown. You do realize this is for EMUs', don't you? I posted the loading gauge sizes prior.

Here's an excellent article at this very publication (UrbanToronto) detailing "CityRail" (actually extant in Sydney, Oz, but I digress)(Sydney is an excellent model to study)

Updated - The CityRail Concept: Real Regional Rail for the GTA
July 6, 2012 5:00 pm | by Jonathan English | 14 Comments
Jonathan English's new column on transit continues following last week's inaugural article on the OneCity transit plan. This week we look at CityRail, a concept which would bring rapid transit to underserved areas of Toronto and across the GTA sooner and at less cost than other methods. Could a version of this concept get traction here?

This article is shared with the blog Transit Futures.
[...]
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2012/07/cityrail-concept-real-regional-rail-gta

What I'm proposing is hardly radical or new. It's unfortunate that some Torontonians are still stuck in the past. What is new is incorporating the DRL into a branch of RER.
Click to expand...

You should consider downloading a basic drawing program to make diagrams of this RER-DRL and post ideas in the Fantasy thread. You'd be surprised at the support here for something like that, or how many others have also proposed something similar. Even Metrolinx/GO have toyed with the idea of a central tunnel. There's obviously huge merit, and no question a much larger area could be served. Personally I don't really support it, and I think we're well past that stage. I believe we could use parts of rail corridors to run subways for sections (still as subways and 100% separate from other rail), but I think the high-density nodes and clusters in/around the core area is too hard to serve by an RER type system. The station requirement would be too high, and relying on surface improvements to fill in the gaps can't be done effectively on account of the narrow streets and tight grid of blocks.

TheTigerMaster said:
A kid asked me if we could genetically modify plants so they grow into full houses. Maybe we can genetically modify them into subways
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Blech, I prefer locally-grown subways. You pay a bit more, but it's a much better ride.
 
WislaHD said:
So I hear at the Relief Line meeting tonight about Carlaw vs Pape, now that the Pape alignment has fallen out of favor for the Carlaw alignment in the eyes of city planning, that the NIMBYs of Carlaw are now coming out in significant numbers to protest why they aren't going with the Pape alignment.

Amazing.
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I guess it is impossible to placate everyone. There will be some upset residents, but the city still has to go ahead.
 
For the record:
Eglinton Crosstown tunnels are
"Each tunnel will be 6.75 metres internal diameter"
http://thecrosstown.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/avenue_road_to_bayview_avenue.pdf

London Crossrail are:
"6.2 metres in diameter"
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/construction/tunnelling/railway-tunnels/

[Single Large Diameter Tunnel

Most of the Scarborough Subway Extension is planned to be constructed using a single large tunnel boring machine (TBM) (10.7 metre diameter) to accommodate tracks in both directions. Other recent TTC subway projects (such as the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension and the Sheppard Subway) were constructed using twin TBM (about 6 metre diameter tunnels). Eglinton Crosstown LRT (Metrolinx project – currently under construction) also uses twin TBM (6.5 metre diameter). Single large diameter tunnels have been constructed for several subway lines in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In Canada, this type of tunnel is being used for the Vancouver Evergreen Line (10 metre diameter), which is currently under construction. The key benefit of the single large diameter tunnel is that it minimizes the areas that must be constructed using cut and cover construction, such as crossovers, resulting in reduced construction disruption at the surface level.]

- See more at: http://www.scarboroughsubwayextension.ca/construction.html#sthash.mCVZWXr5.dpuf
 
salsa said:
You seem like a nice person.
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Hey, all he has to do is read what I've posted, and respond in kind with reference and/or links. He refuses to read, and/or refuses to acknowledge what is presented.

You are welcome to respond with itemized and referenced counterpoints. Instead it's become like a hockey game...and not good hockey at that. Shouting doesn't win the game.

Let me ask you a very basic question: Where is the funding for DRL as proposed?
 
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Theoretically, a downtown tunnel build for RER standards, perhaps with 4 tracks instead of 2, could be a more cost-effective solution in the long run than a standard subway. The main advantage would be the ability to hook multiple surface rail lines into that downtown tunnel. The up-front costs would be much higher than for a standard subway tunnel of the same length, but the extensions would be much cheaper and easier and we could have multiple branches.

That said, standard TTC subway technology is a much safer bet for the Relief line. Lower up-front cost of Phase 1 improves the chance that it will be actually funded, not remain in limbo forever. It should be easier to convince the local politicians to commit the funding.

Part of the reason Metrolinx studies didn't recommend RER technology for the Relief line is that they were not bold enough in their selection of options. Their original set of options left no chance for a RER Relief line. For better or worse, I don't see any champion for a RER Relief line. John Tory is certainly not the one, he will get some low-hanging fruits with his SmartTrack but he will not be persistent enough to explore the technology to its full extent.

We probably should just focus on the TTC subway Relief line. That's something comprehensive and sellable for those who control the public funds.
 
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