There was a transfer in the inner city of Mexico, it was unbelievably long..........thought I was going to end up in Guatemala before I finally got to my next train.

If they were to build a new tunnel then I think Queen is the natural choice and by far the easiest and least expensive due to the Queen subway station already being there and the University/Queen station was designed and built with a Queen subway in mind so apparently there would be no major infrastructure to move/remove when building the station.

Like I said, an expensive endeavor which Toronto doesn't {and will not} have the money for so Union is the natural choice. As far as capacity, well Toronto already has the station built for the DRL, it's called the UPX station. I think when the games are over there will be an outrage expressed by Torontonians that they spend good money on a line that only the Rothchild's could afford to take. The will be huge pressure to transfer the line to EMU and make it part of the standard TTC system.
 
I fail to understand how an alignment that serves Union doesn't serve passengers. How does it not serve passengers? Ignoring Union is just absurd. Just because it's difficult to do, doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

That said, I am open to reading the TTC's report on the preferred alignment and hearing their conclusions.
 
ssiguy2 said:
If they were to build a new tunnel then I think Queen is the natural choice and by far the easiest and least expensive due to the Queen subway station already being there and the University/Queen station was designed and built with a Queen subway in mind so apparently there would be no major infrastructure to move/remove when building the station.

If you're referring to the roughed in streetcar tunnel under Queen Station, that will be of little use. Parts of it have been converted into the pedestrian tunnel between the north and south platforms, and the rest of it is tiny with some utilities running through it. The costs reductions (if there are any) because of the roughed in tunnel would be negligible.

I wasn't aware that Queen/University (I think you mean Osgoode) was designed with the Queen subway in mind though.

Like I said, an expensive endeavor which Toronto doesn't {and will not} have the money for so Union is the natural choice. As far as capacity, well Toronto already has the station built for the DRL, it's called the UPX station. I think when the games are over there will be an outrage expressed by Torontonians that they spend good money on a line that only the Rothchild's could afford to take. The will be huge pressure to transfer the line to EMU and make it part of the standard TTC system.
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People have a vert short memory. Don't be surprised if a few years after the PanAm games, people completely forget the thing exists. City Hall needs to pressure Metrolinx to hand the line over to the TTC.
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innsertnamehere said:
What about yonge riders transferring to the DRL? Not bloor, who would already have had that chance, but yonge?

Another key here is to remember how complicated already existing infrastructure is in the core. Because of skyscraper foundations you can't switch streets. (unless you want to dig down 30+ meters, which is way to far to be comfortably accessible by passengers) Because of the Royal York and RBC Plaza, a direct connection to a Wellington station is either difficult as you will have to dig up Bay or York, ( which is not preferable, as it seperates it from the TTCs Current main operations below front, meaning no fare paid transfers) or pointless if you opt out of that as you lose any advantages the Wellington alignment possibly had, which was the connection to Union.

To me, you either pitch out the big bucks and build a single station on front, ending up with a stupid western alignment, or forego a union transfer (which makes more sense to me anyways as my idea of the DRL is to eliminate the 504, relieving streetcar traffic, and act as a relief valve on the Yonge line)and build double stations on King. To me serving union is a secondary purpose, and in the end the several hundred million spent getting it to the station aren't worth it for the couple hundred people who will be transferring outside PATH hours.
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There are a lot of 30+m stations around the world today. LA will be building one very soon in China Town and no big deal other than the extra cost to get to/from it.

To build stations on either King/Queen or what every, you still need the streetcars since the stops will be few as the ridership is not there now nor 50+ years down the road. Most would only see less than 2,000 riders a day if you put them were the stops are today at 500+/-m.

If riders want to go to a section of Yonge St, they will transfer at the BD line and transfer to the Yonge line.

In London and Paris, you have long walks to transfer from one line to another within a pay area.

Talk to past City Chief Planners and they will tell you not a great idea for one major hub since Bay St and Bay & Front will never be able to handle the mass pedestrian crowd along with traffic. One reason I and other have call for the closure of Bay St south of Queen to traffic since they are already out number by pedestrian. to the point of 10:1+ at various time. There is a video the city has showing what the area would look like now and down the road at various times of the day and it unreal related to the pedestrian flow.
 
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It's quite clear there needs to be additional GO stations downtown to prevent everyone from going to Union Station, which would make for a less concentrated travel pattern. Although it would be necessary for each of them to have a subway transfer connection to make people transfer at them.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Like I said, an expensive endeavor which Toronto doesn't {and will not} have the money for so Union is the natural choice. As far as capacity, well Toronto already has the station built for the DRL, it's called the UPX station. I think when the games are over there will be an outrage expressed by Torontonians that they spend good money on a line that only the Rothchild's could afford to take. The will be huge pressure to transfer the line to EMU and make it part of the standard TTC system.
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1) All Ontarions funded that line....not just Torontonians
2) I get that you advocate turning UPX into a TTC line but really...exagarate much? If (as we expect) that line is priced at $20 - $25 per trip, it will be cheaper than the ways most people who travel from downtown to the airport now. Certainly cheaper than the Airport Express buses (expect them to have to radically adjust their pricing or, simply, cease to exist...and cheaper than any taxi and cheaper than driving and parking. So, I guess, everyone making the tirp from DT to Toronto is a Rosthchild?
3) Being the only option that does not rely on road conditions/traffic, it will be considerably more reliable/predictable than any of the existing options.
 
drum118 said:
There are a lot of 30+m stations around the world today. LA will be building one very soon in China Town and no big deal other than the extra cost to get to/from it.
......
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Totally agree! I used to live in St. Petersburg, which has one of the deepest (if not the deepest) subway system in the world. Actually, the deep stations (one of them 86m deep) were my favourite! It takes some time to get to the bottom, so you have time to relax, think a bit or read your book. I think those stations were the most consistent in terms of air conditions; all year around 19 degrees.
 
TOareaFan said:
But if the main goal of this, or any, "relief" line is to move people in and out of downtown while taking the strain off of (ie relieving) the existing network, are we not better off with a station that draws people away from the existing lines totally?
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Would any of the E-W alignments really have such a huge impact? At the max we're talking about corridors which are 700m apart.

If anything proper relief of Yonge is more dependent on stretching the 'DRL' as far into the suburbs as possible. <10,000 people in peak hour transfer from Bloor to Yonge southbound. While that isn't nothing, it's only about a quarter of Yonge's projected capacity. More substantial relief would require bleeding more of the Yonge feeder routes from the North East.

A roughly North-East line from Don Mills and Eglinton into northern Scarborough would bleed passengers off of the major Yonge feeder corridors (Lawrence, York Mills, Wilson, Sheppard, Finch, Steeles).

A North West line from Dundas West to Pearson or Rexdale would probably also have similar impacts. Probably smaller though since most corridors from the West will feed into the Spadina line first, especially once the extension is open.

Better yet, creating an outer "U" line would improve capacity utilization on existing bus routes, since presumably some passengers will switch to travel out to the "U", especially if it could be made faster than the Yonge line.

Compared to bleeding those feeder corridors, Queen vs. King vs. Wellington vs. rail corridor really isn't super important. No way the difference in ridership from lowest to highest here would be more than a few hundred passengers per hour.

Especially in the eastern downtown leg of the DRL. Odds are there will only be two stops between the CBD and the Don River; Sherbourne/Jarvis and Parliament/River/Cherry.

A rail corridor station at Parliament or Cherry would have the advantage of serving all of the WDL and Distillery District as well as Lower Don and maybe East Bayfront. Plus there would be the Cherry LRT, which would make it the natural hub for any regional transit into and out of the Portlands. On balance a station at Sherbourne/Jarvis would probably do better a little further north, though. Still, I don't think it's fair to act as though any of these corridors has a huge advantage over any other.
 
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diminutive said:
Compared to bleeding those feeder corridors, Queen vs. King vs. Wellington vs. rail corridor really isn't super important. No way the difference in ridership from lowest to highest here would be more than a few hundred passengers per hour.

Especially in the eastern downtown leg of the DRL. Odds are there will only be two stops between the CBD and the Don River; Sherbourne/Jarvis and Parliament/River/Cherry.

A rail corridor station at Parliament or Cherry would have the advantage of serving all of the WDL and Distillery District as well as Lower Don and maybe East Bayfront. Plus there would be the Cherry LRT, which would make it the natural hub for any regional transit into and out of the Portlands. On balance a station at Sherbourne/Jarvis would probably do better a little further north, though. Still, I don't think it's fair to act as though any of these corridors has a huge advantage over any other.
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Your last point is why a corridor north of the GO lines would be the most effective. There are pretty big areas of east downtown with no rapid transit service that wouldn't benefit at all from a rail corridor alignment. With electrification of the Lakeshore line (and other lines later) and fares eventually integrated, a new GO station in the West Don Lands area will make a lot of sense, even if none is planned now. A separate subway line on the same corridor would be a waste and have no benefit. The DRL would be most effective serving areas farther north, with a more local type of service than GO can offer. In the downtown area it should really have the same kind of station spacing as the existing downtown subway lines and on a separate corridor from GO.
 
TigerMaster............yes, apparently the Osgood {thank you as I can never remember the names on University} was built with a Queen subway in mind. There is no underground station like at Yonge but the station was built and the underground infrastructure arranged so that any potential Queen subway line station would not require any relocation of the infrastructure. This would not only make it faster to build but far, far less disruptive to boot.

As far as UPX, yes I know that even non-Rothchild's can afford it but it is still primarily for tourists and business class who can use it as a tax write-off. It certainly won't be any cheaper for 2 people to get downtown or a lot of places in the city as 2 people will probably cost $50 one way, about the same as a cab. Also I can't imagine it having integrated fares with the TTC as long as GO runs it so unless they are leaving right from Union station, there is the extra fare to also pay for.

The line will do absolutely nothing for the poor working slobs who actually work at Pearson even though their tax dollars are helping to not only build it but subsidize it's operations as well. I think the UPX will find ridership levels very low and well under Metrolinx's rosy projections.
 
ssiguy2 said:
TigerMaster............yes, apparently the Osgood {thank you as I can never remember the names on University} was built with a Queen subway in mind. There is no underground station like at Yonge but the station was built and the underground infrastructure arranged so that any potential Queen subway line station would not require any relocation of the infrastructure. This would not only make it faster to build but far, far less disruptive to boot.
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And you have proof of this?
 
JayBeeGooner said:
The area under Queen Station, yes.

Ssiguy2 is referring to Osgoode Station.
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Persistent rumours exist that there is a roughed-in station like Lower Queen beneath Osgoode Station on the University line. There are no records to prove this, and this is likely an urban legend. When Osgoode Station was built, sewer pipes and electrical lines were moved to one side of Queen Street to make the construction of a Lower Osgoode station easier (just in case it was built).
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