pman said:
Agreed. A lot of other cities do deep bores - for example in London a large part of the Underground is super-deep.
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Because of the geology. There's a layer of clay (the London clay) that's very easy to tunnel in. That was essential when many of those tube lines were tunnelled by hand 100 years ago. They went that deep, because that is where the clay is. They couldn't have done it shallow. Such a clay doesn't exist in Toronto - we mostly find sands and silts at those elevaions, so it wouldn't have been feasible to build deep tunnels here 100 years ago; it would have all had to have been cut-and-cover, similar to the original Yonge line (and much of the BD line).

pman said:
Even Montreal lines are pretty deep compared to Toronto.
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Again, driven by geology. In Montreal, they go to bedrock, because that's where it is easier to tunnel. Again not an option in Toronto.

pman said:
But of course we do everything differently in Toronto.
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Perhaps because the geology is different here, making it very difficult and financially indefeasible to do much tunnelling anywhere but a road alignment. Who do we blame for that?
 
I took inspiration of the alternative western DRL route and made a full map:

IXVVyMl.png

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/viewer?mid=zsXb25uMFIrs.khRr3hNTuRK0

I really like this idea. The Spadina line already acts as a Western DRL to many degrees and Parkdale is not that built-up to justify subway.
 
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EnviroTO said:
Whipping it into Google Maps this is what it looks like. To go diagonal it would require a deep bored tunnel but there are obvious benefits in terms of trip time compared to trying to follow the street grid.

View attachment 29516
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Very interesting! I can see several benefits coming from this alignment:

1) It would solve the problem of Lakeshore West passengers not having a convenient route to Pearson (without going all the way into Union I mean). Transfer from GO to TTC at either Humber Loop or Roncesvalles, depending on where the stop is located.

2) It would be a God-send for the Mississauga Transitway, because it would be feeding directly into a downtown-bound subway, instead of the roundabout routing into Kipling. Ridership on the Transitway would boom.

3) Etobicoke Lakshore would boom even more than it already is, because the Lake Shore streetcar (which could relatively easily be upgraded to full LRT) would be feeding directly into a downtown-bound subway station.

4) It would tremendously reduce the pressure on the outer portion of Bloor-Danforth, because most of the Kipling-bound bus traffic would transfer onto the DRL, not B-D.


There would be only one change that I would make though: I would put one more station on the Queensway (at Islington), and then have it curve north to intersect the B-D line at Honeydale instead of Kipling. A major terminus like that really needs to be built from the ground up, to not be a hodge-podge. This was the same mentality that lead to the construction of Kennedy Station when the SRT was built, and I think it worked well (the design could have been improved, but the idea behind it was right).

That would also further encourage development along the Queensway, which I think is primed for massive redevelopment given the right catalyst.

I do have to say though, there are very few maps posted on here that are really a smack to the side of the head in that they're so obvious but no one has thought of it, but this one did just that. Well done!
 
What the hell would happen to my property values if I had a downtown bound/airport bound subway station 500m from my house?

My two favourite places in Toronto - the airport and downtown!
 
gweed123 said:
There would be only one change that I would make though: I would put one more station on the Queensway (at Islington), and then have it curve north to intersect the B-D line at Honeydale instead of Kipling. A major terminus like that really needs to be built from the ground up, to not be a hodge-podge. This was the same mentality that lead to the construction of Kennedy Station when the SRT was built, and I think it worked well (the design could have been improved, but the idea behind it was right).

That would also further encourage development along the Queensway, which I think is primed for massive redevelopment given the right catalyst.

I do have to say though, there are very few maps posted on here that are really a smack to the side of the head in that they're so obvious but no one has thought of it, but this one did just that. Well done!
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Agreed! I edited my map to apply these changes.

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zsXb25uMFIrs.khRr3hNTuRK0

I also added stations at Bloor-East Mall and Kipling-Queensway as the distances and local residential areas warranted stations. I also extended B-D all the way down to Sherway Gardens. Feel free to nitpick my routing as I was guessing.
 
WislaHD said:
I took inspiration of the alternative western DRL route and made a full map:

IXVVyMl.png

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/viewer?mid=zsXb25uMFIrs.khRr3hNTuRK0

I really like this idea. The Spadina line already acts as a Western DRL to many degrees and Parkdale is not that built-up to justify subway.
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While I do like the idea of ending phase one in the west at Sunnyside, I'm not sold on extending the subway all the way to Pearson along The Queensway. Parkdale is far more suited to a subway then the Queensway. I can't see tunnelling a subway underneath suburban Etobicoke being affordable, especially when there are far less expensive alternatives that have not yet been tried.

For instance I had always envisioned the Queensway as being an ideal route for the Waterfront West LRT given that there was lots of space in the ROW and because of the constrains of Lake Shore Boulevard past Humber Loop. As well, solutions such as BRT on the 427/East Mall or express buses and queue jumps on Islington or Jane haven't been tried yet. In addition, with the Kitchener Line converted to rapid transit with frequent AD2W GO, the argument for a western leg of the DRL becomes less solid.

VatH5CC.png
 
You are right, tunneled southern Etobicoke is probably overkill.

Elevated can work on the Queensway. Phase 3 on my map as an LRT might even be worth investigating.
 
I posted a GO REX fantasy map a few months back that called for rerouting the Milton line under the Queensway and into downtown after Dixie station.

No response from that post but figured I would bring it up again to see what others think about it. Obviously more expensive than LRT or BRT but would serve southern Etobicoke cheaper than tunneling a DRL to the airport.
 
Translude15 said:
I posted a GO REX fantasy map a few months back that called for rerouting the Milton line under the Queensway and into downtown after Dixie station.

No response from that post but figured I would bring it up again to see what others think about it. Obviously more expensive than LRT or BRT but would serve southern Etobicoke cheaper than tunneling a DRL to the airport.
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Since this new DRL routing was posted earlier today I've been trying to think how to incorporate all or part of it into my GO REX DRL. The two options that I came up with was diverting the Milton line (as you mentioned), or potentially diverting the local overlap route of the Lakeshore line down it.

The Milton line may make the most sense, especially considering that, from what I understand, Dixie to the Georgetown corridor is a pretty big choke point on the Milton line, isn't it?
 
dunkalunk said:
While I do like the idea of ending phase one in the west at Sunnyside, I'm not sold on extending the subway all the way to Pearson along The Queensway. Parkdale is far more suited to a subway then the Queensway. I can't see tunnelling a subway underneath suburban Etobicoke being affordable, especially when there are far less expensive alternatives that have not yet been tried.

VatH5CC.png
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I look at that map and see a Cyan Line going Shaw to Bloor West, 2 REX lines to Bloor West, a King streetcar that goes to Bloor West, and a DRL extension to Bloor West. It seems completely overkill. Yonge has one line, and the area between a big empty park and Lansdowne which is mostly homes that will not be intensified has 5 lines north-south? Meanwhile Etobicoke has no north-south lines at all and 1 is unreasonable? The population of Parkdale (Ward 15) is about 53k growing 2.5%. Ward 3 and 5 (Etobicoke) have a combined population of 116k and a much higher growth rate. Renforth is a huge connection to one of the largest employment areas and BRT, what is at the Junction?
 
EnviroTO said:
I look at that map and see a Cyan Line going Shaw to Bloor West, 2 REX lines to Bloor West, a King streetcar that goes to Bloor West, and a DRL extension to Bloor West. It seems completely overkill. Yonge has one line, and the area between a big empty park and Lansdowne which is mostly homes that will not be intensified has 5 lines north-south? Meanwhile Etobicoke has no north-south lines at all and 1 is unreasonable? The population of Parkdale (Ward 15) is about 53k growing 2.5%. Ward 3 and 5 (Etobicoke) have a combined population of 116k and a much higher growth rate. Renforth is a huge connection to one of the largest employment areas and BRT, what is at the Junction?
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I have doubts that a subway along Keele would ever get built as long as RER servive is running on the Kitchener Line. I've included it there as a future phase since it makes sense from a network connectivity standpoint and the roadway is too narror for anything else.

Serving Parkdale has a lot less to do with its total population and a lot more to do with its density. Also, the fact that it's on the way to Sunnyside and the constrained nature of the road corridor has a lot to do with it getting a stop.

I'm at work and can't look up the comparitive densities, but in general population density around the node and potentiual travel patterns have a lot more to do with the success of a rapid transit line than the population of an entire municipality. Putting a subway on the Queensway is as good of an idea as putting a subway on Sheppard Ave (the two areas are actually very similar being a major arterial to the north of a major highway.)
 
gweed123 said:
Since this new DRL routing was posted earlier today I've been trying to think how to incorporate all or part of it into my GO REX DRL. The two options that I came up with was diverting the Milton line (as you mentioned), or potentially diverting the local overlap route of the Lakeshore line down it.

The Milton line may make the most sense, especially considering that, from what I understand, Dixie to the Georgetown corridor is a pretty big choke point on the Milton line, isn't it?
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I do like the idea of diverting the Milton line under the Queensway. On my map the newly rerouted Milton line continued underneath Queen Street through downtown as a GO REX DRL as you suggested.

It's an interesting idea in that it provides a far more direct route into downtown for southern Etobicoke and southeastern Mississauga. I know you and others have proposed a regional hub at Honeydale but perhaps there is some merit in extending Line 2 south of there to Sherway as well to provide a TTC-GO REX link at that location.

With that in mind, perhaps the traditional subway DRL would be left to serve the downtown core and shoulder areas like Parkdale.

PS: Just saw your new map. Looks good as always! Would be cool to see a rerouted Milton line on your GO REX map too.
 
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