It would also be a stub that has stations that are actual destinations. Unlike other stubs.

It would be a stub of sorts - but not as stubby as Sheppard. People from Scarborough would be asked to make a transfer (another transfer, depending on what is done at Kennedy) just so that more people from North York or Richmond Hill could use the Yonge line.
 
It would be a stub of sorts - but not as stubby as Sheppard. People from Scarborough would be asked to make a transfer (another transfer, depending on what is done at Kennedy) just so that more people from North York or Richmond Hill could use the Yonge line.

The current plan with the BD subway eliminates the transfer at Kennedy in fairness.
 
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Tory's campaign has now called the DRL from downtown to Pape a 'stub'.

And this guy was an ardent support of the DRL merely weeks ago....


Tory has no backbone. He moves whichever way the wind is blowing. He takes a public survey before he reluctantly makes an opinion. If public opinion changes, so does Tory, along with all of his principles. He is not what I consider a leader. Send him back to Rogers where he belongs. Building public transit takes a strong leader who can stand up to the opposition, who hate paying for public transit, they figure they will never use.
 
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It would also be a stub that has stations that are actual destinations. Unlike other stubs.

Maybe it should be called a shuttle? New York City has a few shuttle subway lines. Their 42nd Street Shuttle is just two stations, both terminals.

I would call the Sheppard Subway a shuttle. The Yonge Relief Line/Downtown Relief Line would not be a shuttle.
 
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If there are to only be GO integration and no DRL, then it would at least have to have shuttle subways that connect to some of the new GO Stations.
 
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/comm...urface_subways_only_part_of_the_solution.html

It's encouraging to see that “Run 'surface subways' on GO lines” made the list of the Star’s top 35 Big Ideas for the future of Toronto, and that Star readers support the concept by a 3-to-1 margin.


But the accompanying explanatory statement — “Rather than build a Downtown Relief Line, Toronto should run a subway-like service on existing GO Transit lines to alleviate downtown congestion” — is a dangerous misinterpretation of the issues, the technological limitations and the seriousness of the crunch.


As pointed out by several people when Transport Action Ontario released its Regional Rapid Rail report last summer, an intelligently electrified GO rail system would only buy time. A new subway through the core — underground and with truly urban station frequency — will remain an urgent need.


Efficient electrification of GO corridors, which would require overhead power supply and electric-multiple-unit (EMU) trains, rather than the previously considered electric locomotives, can get people downtown from York Region and Scarborough faster than subways, with real capital and operational savings over the much-discussed Yonge and Bloor-Danforth extension plans. EMUs on GO corridors can also provide this service without aggravating the overcrowding on the inner-city subway. They can even allow us to add some stations without slowing GO service. But they cannot provide urban subway station spacing and the fine web of network connections to local transit that a Relief Line would offer.


Most new capacity available through an EMU conversion will be swallowed by ridership flowing onto the Yonge-University-Spadina line from the under-construction Eglinton-Crosstown LRT, not to mention the largely approved LRT lines on Sheppard and Finch. And don't forget that, in terms of combined residential and employment expansion, downtown is the fastest growing part of the entire GTA.


An EMU conversion on GO corridors can be operational years sooner than the Relief Line can be built, so it plays an important role in its own right with region-wide reach. But without an entirely new subway into the core, we cannot responsibly contemplate extensions of the Yonge line to Richmond Hill or the Bloor-Danforth to Scarborough Town Centre — no matter how urgent the SRT replacement is.


At present, we squeeze 420,000 daily passenger movements through Bloor-Yonge station on an average weekday. That's more than the combined total for Union Station (275,000 for GO rail and bus, TTC and VIA trains) and Pearson Airport (120,000 for record busy day). Even St. George handles nearly as many as Union.


And things will only get worse.


It's no longer just the Yonge line that needs relief. Downtown streetcars are jammed and often unusable for many inner-city residents. The westbound Bloor-Danforth east of Yonge has hit capacity in the morning rush. Just like North Toronto’s Yonge riders, east-enders now have difficulty getting onto Bloor-Danforth trains. Just one minor delay — not an uncommon occurrence — creates crowding that leaves many would-be riders on platforms at Woodbine, Coxwell and other stations towards Yonge.


As for Union and the central GO corridors, while there’s unused capacity, it too will be gone soon, likely before we can build a Relief Line — even if it's fast-tracked. A new subway is needed to provide hub and distributor functions for the GO system to take impending pressure off Union, and few of the biggest beneficiaries will be downtowners.


Yes, there’s opportunity in the GO corridors. An electrified GO service — properly integrated with local buses and TTC transfer accessibility — can become a useful workhorse for 416 and 905 relatively soon at a reasonable price. But view it as first aid in a serious emergency.


This is no either/or situation: We've dithered too long while the city and region boomed. We need to act fast on both.




Signatories:





Karl Junkin, senior researcher Transport Action Ontario





Stephen Wickens, transportation writer and researcher





Ed Levy, P.Eng, transportation planner, consultant and author of Rapid Transit in Toronto, A Century of Plans, Progress, Politics and Paralysis





Dr. Richard Soberman transportation planner, consultant and former chair of University of Toronto’s Civil Engineering department.





Steve Munro, transit advocate
 
I hate whoever created this stupid "surface subway" term. People keep using it and it's driving me mad.

It's not technically accurate, but as the term "LRT" demonstrated, a significant percentage of Torontonians have a knee-jerk negative reaction to any type of transit solution they aren't already familiar with. Unfamiliarity also opens the door for ignorant/deceitful politicians to manipulate public opinion by spouting off false equivalencies. Terms like "RER", "S-Bahn", "Overground", and "GO REX" may mean something to transit experts, transit enthusiasts, and well travelled citizens, but to a lot of people they mean absolutely nothing.

Surface subway may be slightly deceiving, but overall it's a pretty accurate description: frequent, electrified service that runs on a grade-separated corridor, that just happens to be above-ground in a rail corridor. People associate "surface subway" with speed, reliability, frequency, a lower cost than digging a subway, and lack of interference with/from cars, all of which are true of GO REX.
 
I don't mind the term. Describing something as "subway-like" is fine, it implies certain qualities we expect from subways as Gweed said.
 
You can thank John Tory for that.

Why blame John Tory? The term predates him. After a quick google, the earliest reference I saw was Tess Kalinowski reporting on the Clean-Train-Coalition and TAO pushing for "an above ground subway" along UPX under the headline "Electric GO trains could run like a surface subway" There were a few similar articles which sprung up around TAO's report. I think TAO is the genesis of the term in Toronto.

Moreover, I think it's not a bad way to describe the idea. It's kind of like our version of the Overground. It conveys the service level the public attaches to the subway with a suggestion of why it would be cheaper or more practical. Certainly more intuitive than RER or S-Bahn, the meaning of which >80% of Torontonians wouldn't know.

Terms like "Heavy rail transit" and "light rail transit" are so vague and non-descriptive. I don't even think they're technically accurate (LRVs are heavy...) and they can describe such a wide range of services. The C-Train is different from St. Clair is different from a tram-train is different from the Crosstown.
 
Surface subway may be slightly deceiving, but overall it's a pretty accurate description: frequent, electrified service that runs on a grade-separated corridor, that just happens to be above-ground in a rail corridor. People associate "surface subway" with speed, reliability, frequency, a lower cost than digging a subway, and lack of interference with/from cars, all of which are true of GO REX.

I don't agree. Subways are urban transit and needs multiple stops in central areas like the sbahn or rer. The frequent go will have no stops in central Toronto except a train station that is union. It is just a commute train for the suburban commuters, not a subway by any stretch. It doesn't really go anywhere except suburban residential areas and Union.
 
I don't agree. Subways are urban transit and needs multiple stops in central areas like the sbahn or rer. The frequent go will have no stops in central Toronto except a train station that is union. It is just a commute train for the suburban commuters, not a subway by any stretch. It doesn't really go anywhere except suburban residential areas and Union.

Metrolinx hasn't ruled out additional stations in Toronto. In fact, I think they're planning on adding some when the lines get electrified. You're assuming that the number of and location of stops will remain the same after electrification.
 

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