Getting back on topic for a second, I'm still not sold on a Don Mills originating DRL, I'd rather see a shorter DRL that serves the downtown population (directly replacing the streetcar route on King/Queen/whichever road it follows) while increasing the frequency and electrifying the GO network at the same time. I feel like actually building a RER network to fix the problems commuters are facing would work better than misusing subways like we have on the YUS and BD. Subways shouldn't be for long-run commutes imo, they should be focused on serving dense areas where surface networks can no longer keep up with the numbers of people trying to move through.
Rainforest said:
DRL whose primarily goal is local service, will not have ridership to justify its very expensive construction.
MisterF said:
I mentioned earlier that if the DRL tries to serve long distance commutes and local service it won't be good at either. Well that describes what our subway system on the whole has been doing for the last 50 years. We now have slow subway commutes from outer suburbs that would be better served by an RER type network, and even slower commutes on streetcars in areas that should be served by subway. Based on the Big Move, Metrolinx seems to at least partially understand this.
calimehtar said:
In fact one good reason for making the DRL express is to avoid competing with Streetcars. The proximity of Liberty Village and City Place to the financial district means that there is theoretically a huge demand for local transit that can continue to be met with the King and Queen Streetcars, while the DRL can serve the main purpose of relieving the Yonge line. Regardless of what Ford and others think, it would be a shame to lose those iconic streetcar lines.
There's a lot of mangling of express/local going on here and how big of an impact it would have. We could serve both local and express demand reasonably well with a station spacing of ~700m through the E-W downtown section and >1km outside of that. Again, we don't need to think too creatively about this. The Yonge and Spadina subways both clearly out-compete GO at least until Hwy 7, despite having <500m station spacing south of Bloor to Union.
Further, to the DRL's relief impact, the only section of the DRL that matters is between Pape Station and downtown, and station spacing here is pretty much laid out by geography. Almost certainly, you're talking about 2 stations between Yonge and the Don River and 2-3 stations (depending on route) from there to Pape Station.
If you built a subway along King or Queen from Leslieville to Parkdale, the total transit time would be <15m from end to end assuming ~700m spacing. Since express trips would only be half of that (one extremity to the CBD), you're talking about a total travel time of ~7m. The difference between ~700m and a more 'express' spacing along such a short distance would only add up to one or two minutes. And ~700m spacing is still perfectly acceptable for urban local service. Especially since all new stations will have two exits spaced apart, the effective street level spacing between entrances would probably be closer to ~600m.
As to whether it would eliminate demand for the surface streetcars, I don't know. I've never heard of a case where a streetcar survives having a subway installed underneath it. I personally think Queen/King's surface ROW could be much better used than having streetcars trundling along at walking speed. You could have 1L of traffic either direction, a sweet bike path and probably some small sidewalk extensions/streetscape improvements.
TL;DR: There's no obvious difference between an 'express' and a 'local' DRL, at least on the CBD-Pape-Eglinton leg (which is all that matters for relief). I challenge anyone to give me competing 'express' vs. 'local' station layouts for a potential DRL route. At most you'd add or subtract a single station, which is hardly a big deal.
