[TheTigerMaster]

It's nice that Osgoode is ready for the Queen Subway, but we have to be honest with ourselves. The cost savings from that are minimal. We're talking small fractions of a percent of the overall construction cost of the line. And that is only if there are costs savings. Since the 60s, tunnel building standards have changed dramatically. There's a good chance that the moved utilities will not help us at all.

We have to ask ourselves whether or not savings (if there are any) that amount to pocket change are worth putting the line in a less desirable location. I think most will agree that it's not worth it.

 

[diminutive]

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.

Odds are we'll never see subway lines built with 400-500m station spacing again, especially with the DRL.

Compared to the Yonge line, the the DRL will lack many high volume feeders, which will reduce the need to have denser station spacing. Compare the King, Queen, Dundas and College cars to the N-S bus routes east of Yonge. No contest. Even B-D between the Don Valley and Yonge is pretty light on stations for this reason.

Compared to when Yonge and Bloor-Danforth were built, stations are way more expensive. Undeground station construction is pretty much the most expensive part of building a subway now. Stations are harder to place, more expensive to construct and take longer to build than when we first built Yonge.

Take a Queen alignment; where would stations realistically go? Probably Moss Park and somewhere between Parliament and River Street. You can't really fit more than two stations between Yonge and the Don River here.

Are Moss Park and Corktown really drastically better transit destinations then the St. Lawrence/East Bayfront area and DD/WDL/LDL? I don't think the difference would be drastic...

In the west I'd say the rail corridor alignment between Union and Dundas West is actually better than any street alternatives anyways.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

dimunitive:

I think you are overstating the importance of feeder lines for DRL within the core - given the pace of densification, what we really should be focusing on is an alignment that would serve existing and upcoming developments in the area. That's also the reason why I think the N/S alignment south of Bloor is problematic - it doesn't really hit any of the rapidly densifying areas east of the Don River. One really shouldn't be building DRL only for the sake of relieving Y+B - it is an excellent rationale, but not the only one. Each new station represents an area of increased accessibility - which will be of critical importance in shaping how intensification occurs in the core.

AoD

 

[diminutive]

dimunitive:

I think you are overstating the importance of feeder lines for DRL within the core - given the pace of densification, what we really should be focusing on is an alignment that would serve existing and upcoming developments in the area. That's also the reason why I think the N/S alignment south of Bloor is problematic - it doesn't really hit any of the rapidly densifying areas east of the Don River.

AoD

Yes, of course. When I was talking about potential DRL feeders in the eastern core, it was in reference to discussions of Yonge or University style station spacing. If the eastern DRL intersected as many high volume surface routes as Yonge and University I think it could justify similar spacing, but absent such routes I don't think we'll ever see much more than two stations between Yonge and the Don River.

As for your point about the N/S aliment south of Bloor, I take your point. I believe a rail corridor alignment could serve potential redevelopment in the quadrant bounded by Eastern, Lakeshore, the Don River and Leslie.

 

[BurlOak]

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).

I do not think that line would have to go North-East, even straight North up Don Mills to Seneca College would bleed off the passengers before they get to Yonge.

Another way to reduce the number of transfers at Yonge-Bloor is to provide more than one route for NE Scarborough to get Downtown. With either the B-D subway extension, or the SRT (as LRT) not connected to the ECLRT, all riders are forced to transfer at Yonge-Bloor, or at Pape-DRL, which would probably be hard to convert to a major interchange hub. Connecting the SRT to ECLRT would split the Scarborough Passengers onto more routes, and it would be much easier to build the new Science Centre Station as a major interchange - since it could be located in the parking lot on the South-West corner.

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.

I see the "U" being a rapid and frequent GO, travelling from Pearson (maybe Brampton) to Union to Kennedy to Markham. It would have connections to most other rapid transit lines as well. This would be a very useful line for those in Rexdale and Agincourt, but as you say, it will not do much to relieve Yonge.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Yes, of course. When I was talking about potential DRL feeders in the eastern core, it was in reference to discussions of Yonge or University style station spacing. If the eastern DRL intersected as many high volume surface routes as Yonge and University I think it could justify similar spacing, but absent such routes I don't think we'll ever see much more than two stations between Yonge and the Don River.

That's where I am leading to - that the often quoted alignment for the DRL south of Bloor might not be appropriate - and that taking a N-S route (Sherbourne? Parliament?) east of the Don, hitting as many of the high density developments and streetcar lines as possible before turning west into the Union Station area - might be a better idea. It will create complications as to how it will go on north of Bloor however.

Or maybe we need to break the BD line and have it lead directly into the core via this new stub?

As for your point about the N/S aliment south of Bloor, I take your point. I believe a rail corridor alignment could serve potential redevelopment in the quadrant bounded by Eastern, Lakeshore, the Don River and Leslie.

Indeed - that's the potential drawback. But in some ways, I think that node is better served by an electrified GO given the assets that are already available.

AoD

 

[Translude15]

That's where I am leading to - that the often quoted alignment for the DRL south of Bloor might not be appropriate - and that taking a N-S route (Sherbourne? Parliament?) east of the Don, hitting as many of the high density developments and streetcar lines as possible before turning west into the Union Station area - might be a better idea. It will create complications as to how it will go on north of Bloor however.

Or maybe we need to break the BD line and have it lead directly into the core via this new stub?



Indeed - that's the potential drawback. But in some ways, I think that node is better served by an electrified GO given the assets that are already available.

AoD

AoD I recall a few months ago that gweed suggested the DRL be routed via Parliament or Sherbourne and cross the Don River/DVP north of Bloor. He received a lot of flack for the suggestion; however, we were in agreement that in order to adequately relieve the YUS line, both an inner and outer U would have to be constructed.

Perhaps an inner U alignment would run south of Bloor on Parliament, swing west at Front/Esplanade and hit Union at Bay, underneath the bus terminal. Heading west, the line would travel along Bremner and perhaps loop north up Spadina until Bloor. This line would provide more localized service within the dense downtown core with shorter lengths in between stations.

The second U line would perhaps follow the typical King-Queen alignment and travel up Pape in the East until Eglinton, and -Bloor-Dundas in the west, thus serving more outlying areas and providing a more commuter-type service with lengthier spacing between stations.

Unlikely of course given the cost, but more ideal than a single line.

 

[diminutive]

That's where I am leading to - that the often quoted alignment for the DRL south of Bloor might not be appropriate - and that taking a N-S route (Sherbourne? Parliament?) east of the Don, hitting as many of the high density developments and streetcar lines as possible before turning west into the Union Station area - might be a better idea. It will create complications as to how it will go on north of Bloor however.

Or maybe we need to break the BD line and have it lead directly into the core via this new stub?

This is probably pretty far from what you had in mind, but what if this kind of 'U' was a miniature streetcar subway network centred around a Queen-ish (or wtv worked...) tunnel?

In the West, services from the Queensway and Roncesvalles via Queen West could enter a subway around Queen & Dufferin (w/interchange to DRL), while Bathurst services would enter at Bathurst and Spadina and Queen's Quay West services would enter at Spadina and continue through the downtown.

To the east that would splinter off into Sherbourne, Parliament, Cherry, Broadview and Queen East services at appropriate portals.

This would provide a rapid route for the King and Queen cars through downtown and give good local service to most of downtown.

The DRL could then focus more on relieving the outer stretches of Yonge.

I've created a (grossly out of proportion...) schematic diagram of this arrangement here.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Other rapid transit lines in the world, both heavy and light rail, also have branches. Why only one DRL route, when there can be two branches in the northeast or east, and another two branches in the northwest or west.

The negative would be that each branch would have half the headway or frequency than points past where they join. Could we live on 10 m headway service on a branch line? It would be worse if there were even more branches. That's one reason for having separate lines, to keep the headway service at an acceptable level, but people don't seem to like transfers even it allows for better headway service.

The current TTC non-hour service on the heavy rail lines is around 5 m, the same 5 m service is proposed for the Transit City lines.

 

[BurlOak]

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.

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.

I wonder if the DRL was SkyTrain, would the Lower Queen station be useful. SkyTrain dimensions are more similar to the Streetcars and maybe they could use this existing infrastructure. I imagine that tunnelling under the Yonge and University lines is a big expense and if this could save some serious money, it could be explored - from what I have read, I doubt it would save significant $ though.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The queen rough in has since been filled in with utilities. The cost of trying to reuse it would be similar, if not higher than building new. Is it really a smart idea to change the technology to a lower capacity version in order to save 50 million anyways? Remember, the queen rough in is for 2 PCCs chained together, and you would likely need 8 car Skytrains.

 

[rbt]

I wonder if the DRL was SkyTrain, would the Lower Queen station be useful.

No. Station size is dictated by firecode; which is defined around the number of passengers.

You make Lower Queen useful by ensuring the DRL doesn't go anywhere useful (fewer passengers). Skytrain holds too many people, unless your trains are 1 car in length.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The queen rough in has since been filled in with utilities. The cost of trying to reuse it would be similar, if not higher than building new. Is it really a smart idea to change the technology to a lower capacity version in order to save 50 million anyways? Remember, the queen rough in is for 2 PCCs chained together, and you would likely need 8 car Skytrains.

The width would be the same as the current streetcars and the Montréal Metro trains. To have it fit the wider Bombardier Freedom light rail vehicle (Transit City models) they'll need to chisel out some of the concrete, hopefully, if they need to. The length does not matter, they'll just make the stations longer and add on more cars to the train as needed. However, to be acceptable to current building standards, they'll probably have to put the station itself away from Yonge.

 

[MisterF]

Take a Queen alignment; where would stations realistically go? Probably Moss Park and somewhere between Parliament and River Street. You can't really fit more than two stations between Yonge and the Don River here.

Exactly, two stations would be identical station spacing as the Bloor line in the same distance. That kind of station spacing is similar much of the Bloor-Danforth line. You'd need stations that close together to provide effective mass transit service to the neighbourhoods it runs through.

Are Moss Park and Corktown really drastically better transit destinations then the St. Lawrence/East Bayfront area and DD/WDL/LDL? I don't think the difference would be drastic...

In the west I'd say the rail corridor alignment between Union and Dundas West is actually better than any street alternatives anyways.

It's not a question of Moss Park and Corktown being better. It's a case of areas like the East Bayfront already being on a rapid transit line (the GO corridor) and areas to the north having nothing more than streetcars. Upgrading the GO lines and building a subway line to the north gives downtown two east-west rapid transit lines and would give the city the type of mobility it needs. In the west it's the same thing. A rail alignment works fine for people along that corridor, but it does nothing for people packed onto streetcars on Queen or even King.

The GO lines are getting electrified and upgraded anyway. Building a new subway line next to another mass transit line doesn't improve anything. The two systems should complement each other, not duplicate each other. Think the U-bahn and S-bahn. The U-bahn lines don't tend to be in the same corridors as the S-bahn lines, not for long distances anyway. To do that would be pointless.

 

[Dan416]

I agree, as long as the DRL hits Union, outside of Union it should be somewhere in between the YUS loop and the rail corridor.