This would be something like my ideal DRL

Where thick dash lines imply an elevated and totally open air structure, thin dash lines imply a cut/cover box tunnel with open air trenches wherever possible and thick lines imply some kind of deep tunnel.

The main difference I suppose would be as follows:

Docklands Bulge: unlike most more northerly alignments, rather than turning off on Queen East or Eastern, my ideal routing would swing through the Portlands on a some kind of elevated structure before heading back up north. Depending on station spacing, this shouldn't really add much time and should save some money on figuring how best to run a subway through Queen East. Given the plans for the area, seems worth serving.

Adelaide alignment: A minute by foot to anything important downtown (i.e. City Hall/Courts, Eaton Center, the financial district) and more or less equidistant between King and Queen. It wouldn't be much good to, say, someone at York and Queen's Quay, but that is the WaterFront LRT's job anyways. It should also be possible to cut/cover along Adelaide (or Richmond), or at the very least much easier than along Queen or King or Front. In my view, this is important. If we have to build Spadina esque uber-bahns under downtown this will simply never happen .The costs will be obscene. Nobody really does much on Adelaide itself, so it should be possible to convince people the short term pain is worth the long term gain.

Spur line: This is an option I'm surprised nobody really mentions. There is no one strait line that will hit everything that should be hit, so why not just make a few tactical spurs to hit them? In this case, it seemed important that CityPlace and Bathurst/Queen'sQuay area have a quick link downtown. It wouldn't have to be very robust given it would only have 2 or three stations over 2km. May even be possible for it to be a single track, with a bypass track at CityPlace. Operationally, It would operate as every third or fourth train from Don Mills peeling south at Spadina.

Light rolling stock: Can't see it on a map, but I don't think this should be the same as the existing subway system. Ideally it would be ICTS but not ICTS. Something on a Madrid or Copenhagen scale.
 
^With the amount of ridership expected on the DRL a full size train would make more sense.

junctionist said:
It seem ideal then to build a new subway line for local trips, especially once its expanded north of Dundas West, and GO as the express option. This would probably tackle many different kinds of trips quickly and make transit the best form of transportation for a change here.
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You don't need a subway line for local trips unless there's enough demand to warrant it. Just build a handful of new GO stations and have local and express trains. Meanwhile the subway would go up Dufferin, relieving one of the busiest bus routes in the city.
 
^^ I agree that the Georgetown line just needs a few more stations instead of coupling the DRL with it. A station at King or Queen and one at Eglinton is really all that's necessary. Putting a subway line along the Georgetown corridor would be both very expensive and all in all a pretty big waste of money.
 
Second_in_pie said:
^^ I agree that the Georgetown line just needs a few more stations instead of coupling the DRL with it. A station at King or Queen and one at Eglinton is really all that's necessary. Putting a subway line along the Georgetown corridor would be both very expensive and all in all a pretty big waste of money.
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I think there's a lot of merit to building stations to serve the Junction and St. Clair. Whether you do so using a DRL or GO both have their own advantages and disadvantages.
 
I dont think its a waste of money. First of all, GO can stop at Queen/King, Bloor, and Eglinton at most. That leaves out a lot (St. Clair, Junction, College/Dundas for example).

Secondly, it likely easier to build along the line, as there is space along the corridor, at least north of the Junction. No roads need to be disrupted, but it will connect to both east-west and north-south routes as it is a diagonal. And we've all learned from St. Clair that business owners and residents who are inconvenienced for a long period of time are a formidable foe, best avoided.

I'd like some though to be put into the Keele St alignment that I've seen thrown around a few times. After a stop at Roncesvalles/Queen/King it would follow the rail corridor to Parkside Dr. then could be cut and cover along the edge of High Park. Seems like a simpler approach to Bloor, as the rail corridor is going to have 8 tracks along that stretch. After Keele it can stop at the heart of the Junction, then rejoin the rail corridor before it gets to Eglinton. Obviously Dundas West is a better hub, but I think Keele might be easier to build, at least to Bloor, and it would pick up the 506 nicely at Howard Park loop. Any thoughts?
 
jwill said:
I dont think its a waste of money. First of all, GO can stop at Queen/King, Bloor, and Eglinton at most. That leaves out a lot (St. Clair, Junction, College/Dundas for example).

Secondly, it likely easier to build along the line, as there is space along the corridor, at least north of the Junction. No roads need to be disrupted, but it will connect to both east-west and north-south routes as it is a diagonal. And we've all learned from St. Clair that business owners and residents who are inconvenienced for a long period of time are a formidable foe, best avoided.

I'd like some though to be put into the Keele St alignment that I've seen thrown around a few times. After a stop at Roncesvalles/Queen/King it would follow the rail corridor to Parkside Dr. then could be cut and cover along the edge of High Park. Seems like a simpler approach to Bloor, as the rail corridor is going to have 8 tracks along that stretch. After Keele it can stop at the heart of the Junction, then rejoin the rail corridor before it gets to Eglinton. Obviously Dundas West is a better hub, but I think Keele might be easier to build, at least to Bloor, and it would pick up the 506 nicely at Howard Park loop. Any thoughts?
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There's pretty much nothing at Parkside. A subway definitely doesn't make sense there, and cut and covering through High Park would desecrate the beautiful section of it where it borders Parkside.

A station at the Junction wouldn't be hard to do for the Georgetown Line. In my opinion, the Junction is a regional attraction, and giving a fast connection from Union Station would be great. I know I'd use it (once we get all day service on the Stouffville line :p) It'd also connect with the Midtown line, so I don't see any reason not to. But really, there's nothing in that corridor worth providing a local subway service to.

In terms of connecting with College/Dundas, the Georgetown line already connects with Dundas at Bloor, and a Roncesvales routed DRL would connect with the Carlton Streetcar quite nicely. Again, I just don't see what's along the Georgetown Corridor that would justify duplicating service for one that's only slightly more local. Putting on top of that the fact that you're missing the Exhibition (useful for people in the West End wanting to get to the Ex,) and all that density that's west of Dufferin, I really don't get it.
 
I agree there is nothing along Parkside, and hopefully there never will be. Yes, cut and cover would damage a nice strip of High Park, but it will grow back.

I doubt there will ever be a GO station in the Junction. Its extremely close to Bloor Station, even for an EMU service. Possible at St Clair maybe, but that wont serve the Junction so well. I also dont think of the Junction as a regional attraction, but maybe on day it will be.

I agree with you that the Georgetown corridor shouldn't be used. A Front St alignment would likely go through the Exhibition, then there are several options to go north from there. A Queen alignment could either take the corridor north, or Dufferin, or Roncesvalles, or Parkside. I cant see anyone in Parkdale wanting to rip up Roncesvalles again, or even Dufferin.
 
jwill said:
I dont think its a waste of money. First of all, GO can stop at Queen/King, Bloor, and Eglinton at most. That leaves out a lot (St. Clair, Junction, College/Dundas for example).
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Why do you say that? Stations can be a lot closer than that. Having express trains that don't stop at every station solves the problem of too many stations.
 
jwill said:
GO bus routes:
likely to be cut back when all-day train service comes online for more corridors. For routes that aren't replicated by train service (like Square One) they might be better off being rerouted to the outer GO hubs, like Kipling, or Kennedy Stations (and Langstaff/Richmond Hill Centre in the future) which are both close enough to the highway and give people the option of continuing to Union on GO trains, or taking the subway.
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That will not be happening in the foreseeable future. A fully separated Milton GO that hits Square One is nowhere near happening, which means Square One will be having buses for a long time to come. As long as Square One has buses, they'll probably go to Union. You might think that Milton line buses would connect to the GO trains on Lakeshore, but they don't. It's too out of the way, too many transfers. Even if all-day service came to the Milton line, I still see Square One buses going to Union.

GO train routes:
This one seems like a no-brainer, but I'm not convinced it is. The DRL will likely stop at Dundas West to pick up Georgetown and Milton customers, Exhibition to pick up Lakeshore West riders, and I would expect a stop could be created at Cherry, Queen E., or Gerrard to catch the Lakeshore East and Stoufville riders. That leaves only Richmond Hill and Barrie trains which won't connect directly to the DRL.
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Most Georgetown/Milton GO line customers won't be getting off at Dundas West, even with the DRL. I suspect most will continue on to Union and walk form there. You might be able to divert 30% of people who'd usually take the subway from GO. But most don't take the subway anyway. They walk right through lol. Point is, most people would rather get on to the DRL from Union, at least GO types.

VIA:
no connections.
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Yeah, I think that's a bit of a problem. Not the end of the world problem by no means. But why forsake the convenience of a transferless ride because some people think the DRL should bypass Union?

a DRL that skips Union will just be another part of Transfer City in my opinion.
 
If GO users walk to their office from Union anyway than who cares where the DRL goes?

I think the debate boils down to creating a hub or a grid. Every heavy rail project in this city is somehow focused on Union already. Every GO improvement, the ARL, the YUS extensions, even the waterfront LRT all are designed to improve access to Union Station.

So, if we add the DRL to the mix are we overdoing it? Do we really need all those transfers to pass through one location when we could create more of a grid that still allows most connections in other places?

We run our bus routes on a grid, so why not our heavy rail too?
 
^^ I'd prefer it if the connection with Union was a 1 minute walk, and the connection with King and St. Andrew was a 3 or 4 minute walk. But it doesn't have to be right next to/under Union, but it's more important for it to be closer to Union than King.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Yeah, I think that's a bit of a problem. Not the end of the world problem by no means. But why forsake the convenience of a transferless ride because some people think the DRL should bypass Union?

a DRL that skips Union will just be another part of Transfer City in my opinion.
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Better question is why care so much about making a transfer free ride for VIA customers? The daily volumes are a tiny fraction of those you would be inconveniencing by not having the new line pass through the middle of the CBD.

How many VIA passengers use Union each day? 7-8 thousand at best? How many use the subway to get to the CBD each day? It's probably an order of magnitude more. (probably a lot more than that)

It's not as if the impetus for the DRL is a lack of existing capacity on the YUS from Union. VIA and GO people coming in will get by fine even if the map doesn't look neat and pretty.
 
It's less than 200 metres from Wellington to Union along Bay, not 500. That is less than 3 minutes walking, and a moving sidewalk in a tunnel would bring it to well under 2 minutes. Several subway and rail lines around the world have transfers in that range.
 
CapitalSeven said:
It's less than 200 metres from Wellington to Union along Bay, not 500. That is less than 3 minutes walking, and a moving sidewalk in a tunnel would bring it to well under 2 minutes. Several subway and rail lines around the world have transfers in that range.
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Geez...moving sidewalk. Let's make people exercise a bit shall we?
 
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