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.

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.

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Your fantasy map is great. That's the exact alignment I pictured for the western leg of the DRL. Makes me wish I was faster about making my fantasy map. You're right about the AD2W GO reducing the impetus for a western DRL, though, but at a minimum it has to go to Sunnyside. Parkside makes more sense for an alignment than Roncesvalles, in terms of construction.
 
I think everyone must have gotten tired debating the Eastern alignment, so now we're debating the Western alignment :]
 
Which we will be lucky to be alive to see built. Let's hope we can get the eastern part done in the next decade.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I think everyone must have gotten tired debating the Eastern alignment, so now we're debating the Western alignment :]
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Well to be fair, the eastern alignment is relatively set. Downtown to somewhere along the Danforth (either Pape or Donlands), with a possible extension to Eglinton & Don Mills. The western alignment has a far greater degree of variability, because it isn't just about relieving Bloor-Yonge, it's about serving the areas west of downtown, while potentially relieving the streetcar network.
 
aquateam said:
Your fantasy map is great. That's the exact alignment I pictured for the western leg of the DRL. Makes me wish I was faster about making my fantasy map. You're right about the AD2W GO reducing the impetus for a western DRL, though, but at a minimum it has to go to Sunnyside. Parkside makes more sense for an alignment than Roncesvalles, in terms of construction.
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Yes. Bloor West and the Junction is the new Manhattan. While Yonge is served with 2 north-south tracks, there is no way Bloor West could be expected to function adequately with the 8 GO tracks and 2 streetcar tracks with the density that exists in Howard Park and the Junction. We need 4 new subway tracks to bring it to 12 for sure.
If the Giraffe condo had been approved I'm not even sure if 12 north-south tracks could handle the demand.
 
EnviroTO said:
Yes. Bloor West and the Junction is the new Manhattan. While Yonge is served with 2 north-south tracks, there is no way Bloor West could be expected to function adequately with the 8 GO tracks and 2 streetcar tracks with the density that exists in Howard Park and the Junction. We need 4 new subway tracks to bring it to 12 for sure.
If the Giraffe condo had been approved I'm not even sure if 12 north-south tracks could handle the demand.
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By the time the DRL is actually built in the mid 2100s I'm sure that the junction will have achieved Manhattan-level densities. :p


I think it's important to distinguish between long-haul and local service. One of the main advantages of GO is a speedy trip between major nodes, not stops every 500 meters. The western DRL, as shown in Dunkalunk's map, provides local service and connectivity benefits that don't come easily with the isolated GO corridors. GO is, and should remain, an express service.

The western part of the DRL would perform a large benefit, besides serving rapidly developing neighbourhoods, in terms of connectivity. It effectively acts as a north-south arc to connect to the western ends of the primary east-west transit lines and provide a way into downtown.

Following dunkalunk's map:
-Sunnyside station allows for relief of the Queen car by allowing the Etobicoke commuters to transfer to the subway rather than continuing along the congested downtown portion of the Queen car. Splitting the queen car in half would make a lot of sense operationally here. It also services as the eastern terminus of a waterfront west LRT.
-Howard park station is admittedly a concession station but it has utility in being the terminus of the College streetcar.
-Connecting up to Keele and the Bloor-Danforth line allows a shorter commute from all areas of the west and relief of St. George station.
-Stockyards station gives a western endpoint to the St. Clair car. It's also in a rapidly developing and gentrifying area with much developable land (the giant big box stores and meat packing plants are on their way out).
-Finally going up to mount dennis/eglinton connects to the western end of the Eglinton LRT. It would also potentially provide a southern end to the Jane LRT, rather than attempting to bury the Jane LRT down to the bloor line.
 
aquateam said:
Following dunkalunk's map:
-Sunnyside station allows for relief of the Queen car by allowing the Etobicoke commuters to transfer to the subway rather than continuing along the congested downtown portion of the Queen car. Splitting the queen car in half would make a lot of sense operationally here. It also services as the eastern terminus of a waterfront west LRT.
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I am still hoping that Ontario Place will open again one day. A King or Queen route for the DRL western leg is well above the EX/BMO Field/Ontario Place and is divided by the barrier that is the rail corridor, Liberty Village and the Gardiner Expressway.

My preference would be for WWLRT's eastern terminus to be Union station, serve the western waterfront, and have Sunnyside as an interchange station along the route.
 
Relinking the map since it's on the previous page.
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There seems to be some confusion about the teal line. The teal line is is essentially the UP Express extended to Scarborough with additional stations and would function almost identically to the rest of the GO REX network, but have the TTC's fare structure. You could feasibly remove a few stops along the line to speed up the service and to avoid duplication with the DRL. In particular, the Townsley (St Clair West) station is probably redundant, although similar arguments could be made for Degrassi (Queen East) and Monarch (Coxwell).

Also, given that it would be almost impossible to construct a wye on the DRL connecting to the YUS or BD lines, the DRL is going to need its own yard. The best locations I reckon is the CPR Runnymede Yards, the Gatineau Hydro Corridor, or somewhere in the Port Lands.
 
dunkalunk said:
There seems to be some confusion about the teal line. The teal line is is essentially the UP Express extended to Scarborough with additional stations and would function almost identically to the rest of the GO REX network, but have the TTC's fare structure.
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What a waste to rip out the tracks from Victoria Park to Scarborough to replace a extra high density metro with low density airport express.
 
EnviroTO said:
What a waste to rip out the tracks from Victoria Park to Scarborough to replace a extra high density metro with low density airport express.
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With a dedicated right of way and tunnel under Union and positive train control, you could feasibly run at frequencies of 5 minutes or less. For a one-seat ride downtown from STC, I think it would be worth the effort once the loads on the Kitchener, Stouffville and Lakeshore lines become too much to handle. I'll link the full map here since I don't want to take up too much space in the DRL thread with fantasy maps.
 
Stouffville is hardly a high ridership line. That may be changing with York U building a campus right beside Unionville station now, but as of right now it is far from GOs busiest line, with little growth potential as there are essentially 0 real good trip generators along it until you get to Steeles.

most of Stouffville's ridership growth is coming from the construction of Cornell, and other residential growth. that kind of stuff provides extremely unidirectional demand and overall weak transit trip generation. You need office and institutional to drive use, which other than 1 or 2 stations Stouffville has almost 0 of.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
Stouffville is hardly a high ridership line. That may be changing with York U building a campus right beside Unionville station now, but as of right now it is far from GOs busiest line, with little growth potential as there are essentially 0 real good trip generators along it until you get to Steeles.
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... Kennedy station ... Agincourt station ... could even stop at Danforth station. All TTC interchanges
 
innsertnamehere said:
Stouffville is hardly a high ridership line. That may be changing with York U building a campus right beside Unionville station now, but as of right now it is far from GOs busiest line, with little growth potential as there are essentially 0 real good trip generators along it until you get to Steeles.

most of Stouffville's ridership growth is coming from the construction of Cornell, and other residential growth. that kind of stuff provides extremely unidirectional demand and overall weak transit trip generation. You need office and institutional to drive use, which other than 1 or 2 stations Stouffville has almost 0 of.
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If Scarborough's bus and RT routes were modified to feed into it, I think it could be the 3rd busiest line on the system (counting Lakeshore as 1 line). The lack of ridership right now is due to lack of frequency and lack of integration, not potential.
 
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