The DRL may not relieve the Yonge line but it will help give riders in the East and West an alternative to getting downtown rather than the B-D transfer a Yonge arrangement now.

The crush of people trying to board at Bloor/Yonge onto an already cramped train contributes to the lines issues. The station is a choke point both to the individual station (in it's design) and to the entire line as the station has the longest dwell time for a non-terminal station.
 
kEiThZ said:
This. People don't realize it, but we'd achieve far more by taking the $7 billion that the DRL would cost and using it to install platform screens and ATC on the entire Yonge line, electrifying GO and fully integrating GO and TTC to enable 416 residents heading to the core to use GO.

You want relief for Yonge/Bloor? Forget the DRL. Put Scarborough residents on to GO trains at Agincourt and Kennedy at rush hour. That would accomplish a lot more, including substantially reducing vociferous demands for a Sheppard subway extension.
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Only if you define doing more as relieving Yonge. But that still leaves large, growing areas of downtown with no mass transit service that can't be well served by GO either. It still leaves the downtown core with only one heavy rail subway line. That's the real problem, just as much as crowding at Yonge-Bloor. Why the focus has always been on relieving Yonge and not the other benefits has always been a mystery to me.
 
Platform 27 said:
The problem is you can't relieve one service that's over-capacity at peak by connecting it to another service that's over-capacity at peak.

GO integration only works as a relief valve to the TTC in the peaks if you dramatically scale up the number of rush hour GO trains to both (a) add the raw capacity that is needed and (b) make the headways short enough that subway-acclimatized Torontonians will switch. That means more tracks and more overpasses and more rolling stock and more battles with NIMBYs. It's a lot cheaper than a new subway, but it certainly isn't free, and it'll only work to a point until GO again hits a capacity ceiling at the post-reno Union.

That said, I'm willing to guess the real reason we haven't seen GO-TTC fare integration to date has to do with the costs on the operating side. Commuter rail setups (especially extreme hub and spoke systems like GO) are notorious for having usage patterns that permit extremely limited "recycling" of capacity compared to the on-off turnover you see on a bus or subway. Chances are when a Torontonian taking the GO train home from work in the evening from Union to Danforth vacates their seat, it doesn't get re-filled by a fresh fare all the way from there to Oshawa. That Torontonian's ride might have actually been 5 km long, but from a cost perspective to GO it might as well have been 50 km long. And if that train turns at the end of the line, and heads back mostly-empty in the counterpeak direction without attracting another bum to subsidize that seat, the effective length (and cost) of the trip that one fare was supposed to cover keeps climbing and climbing.

In contrast, if a Torontonian rides for 1 km on the Dufferin bus and gets off, there'll be another token in the farebox soon enough that will be speaking for that seat for the next 2 km, and then another, so on such that a 50-passenger bus at rush hour will bring in multiple times that in fares paid. (Ironically GO is the one with a partial fare-by-distance, while the TTC is flat).

GO's 5 km-worth-of-bum-per-50-km-worth-of-seat problem can be turned into a 5 km-worth-of-bum-per-20-km-worth-of-seat problem by splitting the route, and having some trains run all-stops and short-turn in the shallower suburbs, and the rest run express and go out to Hamilton, Barrie, Oshawa etc. But that eats into the frequency of useful departures on offer to the 416er, which eats into its effectiveness as a subway relief valve.

I'll agree that better integrating GO with the TTC in places like Mt. Dennis is a great idea, and it will help the situation somewhat by encouraging people to commute in the morning from Brampton and transfer to the Crosstown to get to their job elsewhere on the TTC network, and have their seats become available for Mt. Dennis to Union traffic. But those numbers are probably not huge gamechangers in the grand scheme of Yonge line relief.
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Except that the TTC has a farebox recovery ratio of 63.2% in 2010, while GO Transit has a farebox recovery ratio of 82.2% in 2011. And they are two highest farebox recovery in North America. Even with "empty" trains, GO has less of a subsidy than the TTC.

Montreal (STM) had 57.1% in 2006, New York City (MTA) had 55.5% in 2009, New York/New Jersey (PATH) had 41.0% in 2002, Detroit (DDOT) had 13.9% in 2002, and Chicago (CTA) had 55.2% in 2010. From this link.
 
innsertnamehere said:
I was looking at TTC documents and apparently the DRL will actually only remove about 12% of the ridership on the Yonge line, (14% with the Eglinton extension) compared to the ATC that is coming online in 2016 that will add up to 35% capacity. I truly can't wait for 2016, the Yonge line will become a lot more enjoyable to ride then..
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If you look closer, the report also says that improvements will be done to the Yonge-Bloor station to achieve the 35%. It not separated what percentage of the 35% is due to ATC and what due to station improvements. I do not think the station improvements were listed, but I did note that Stintz carried a $1B number for Yonge-Bloor improvements in her OneCity plan. It sounds to me that in order to achieve the 35% improvment in capacity, extra platforms and vertical access will be required for faster passenger boardings.
 
BurlOak said:
If you look closer, the report also says that improvements will be done to the Yonge-Bloor station to achieve the 35%. It not separated what percentage of the 35% is due to ATC and what due to station improvements. I do not think the station improvements were listed, but I did note that Stintz carried a $1B number for Yonge-Bloor improvements in her OneCity plan. It sounds to me that in order to achieve the 35% improvment in capacity, extra platforms and vertical access will be required for faster passenger boardings.
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Don't forget about the Yonge extension being a prerequisite too. Turnbacks at Finch are too slow for that capacity increase.

35% on Yonge is $5B away (additional trains, Yonge terminal turnback fix [see Spadina extension design], Bloor/Yonge improvements, second exits at popular stations like Dundas, 7th car order, and likely several unknowns to reduce delays due to passenger emergency alarms).
 
So I got thinking about possible routings of the DRL, as well as potential stations on the line. I decided to illustrate all of the reasonably possible routings visually with a map. I included "reroutes" to intercept bathurst GO station (Probably best if they go with the Union station tunnel though), and included lines on Front, Wellington, King, and Queen, with a couple of "switches" so the line can move between the routes.

(black are rough ins for stations)









 
In a world where the DRL exists, where there be a need for a Bathurst GO station? The station spacing between Bathurst and Union seems a bit too tight for regional rail.
 
GO is planning for one of two options to deal with congestion at union station once it goes over the capacity of the current extension. One option is to build a new terminus station for the kitchener and barrie lines at the Bathurst yard and connect the DRL to it, and another is to build an underground tunnel under union for the Lakeshore lines. The dip south is to account for the possible Bathurst Station.
 
I would think that running through service, electrification, and building a second yard on the other side of Union (possibly in the Portlands, at Victoria Park Ave, or in Pickering) and positive train control would be a better alternatives to building a second terminus station at Bathurst.
 
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MisterF said:
Only if you define doing more as relieving Yonge. But that still leaves large, growing areas of downtown with no mass transit service that can't be well served by GO either. It still leaves the downtown core with only one heavy rail subway line. That's the real problem, just as much as crowding at Yonge-Bloor. Why the focus has always been on relieving Yonge and not the other benefits has always been a mystery to me.
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blind people can see we need a subway line on King or Queen st, yet we constantly talk about Richmond Hill, Vaughan or north Scarborough...
 
innsertnamehere:

re: alignment - just wondering if tunnelling under/through the newly constructed flood protection landform in West Don Lands could create an issue.

AoD
 
So when there's an eventually an announcement with funding to start it with a route, it would probably take 15 years from then for the first segment to be opened. After EA's, ongoing alterations to the route even as their building it and Nimbyism stuff.
 
I think we should keep an eye on Metrolinx here - it seems to me a costly business to thread the DRL to Bathurst merely to facilitate Metrolinx's overflow, especially if it compromises options for the west side of downtown beyond Bathurst to the point of unviability.
 
Don't call it the Downtown Relief Line, call it the Relief Line.

From The Star, at this link:

Subway relief line to be studied by Metrolinx

Metrolinx puts out feelers for a study of a Yonge-bypassing suburbs-to-core line, which will also look at options for better using GO train lines.

Metrolinx has put out a call for qualified bidders to do a preliminary study on what, until now, was termed the downtown relief line.

It’s a very early step, but transit watchers, eager for any word of progress, will see it as a clear sign of progress.

A request for qualifications from consultants has been posted on a website for public agency procurement. The notice refers only to a “relief line” study — a look at the options for moving more people into the city core without further burdening the Yonge subway.

The word “downtown” has been removed from the relief line scenario because “it was giving people the wrong impression,” said Metrolinx spokeswoman Anne Marie Aikins.

“What people weren’t getting was, it was to give relief to people coming in from the region, the outer suburbs,” she said.

“We’re working very closely with the TTC to study options for the relief line,” said Aikins.

But the study will also consider other options, including “better ways we can use the GO rail lines,” she said.

The consultant won’t be chosen until the end of August or early September. Although 20 companies have requested details of the project, it’s not known how many will apply and qualify.

Metrolinx has internal estimates of what the study will cost, but those won’t be published until the bids have closed.

The posted document asks for consultants with project management, transit network and travel demand experience. It also asks for experience in rail operations and service planning, demographic forecasting and public communications.

A relief line is among a second wave of transit projects earmarked by Metrolinx, which so far remain unfunded. The provincial transportation agency has recommended the province raise the HST by 1 per cent, hike gas taxes by 5 cents a litre and charge property owners for commercial parking spaces and steeper development charges. Combined those measures would raise about $2 billion a year to be invested in public transit.

The relief line is seen as critical if the Yonge subway is ever to be expanded north to Richmond Hill.
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