Euphoria said:
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An RL under Richmond is essentially a Queen Line, accessible from Queen, but built more cheaply without any disruptions to streetcar service along Queen throughout construction. The connection between a City Hall station and the Queen station is easy through PATH. Another benefit relates to traffic flow and congestion. By digging a little deeper we can combine the construction of an RL with a buried Gardiner Expressway in the same tunnel(s). The on/off ramps can rise straight up to street level and flow in the same direction as the surface traffic, west along Richmond and east along Adelaide.

My version of the RL curves north at Trinity Bellwoods, though it could continue west. I don’t think tolls would be necessary in a buried Gardiner, though there is the possibility of extending the expressway north-west (tunneled with the RL under the parks that follow the old Taddle Creek alignment) and connecting with the Allen Expressway. I would place heavy tolls on this portion, since it isn’t replacing an existing highway and its tolls could fund an extended RL. We need to plan in a cost effective way with our long-term goals in mind. Put the cars underground, reconnect the city to the lake, and complete the subway network.
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The fantasy transit thread is right here. Knock yourself out.
 
It's a matter of taking steps of a size we can handle, and keeping a clear view of what prize we can reasonably expect.

A DRL by itself is such a big win for the city that we are wise to not encumber it with other complexities. There will be enough complications as it is. A tunnelled improvement to road congestion is not bad in itself, but let's do it separately and think it through on its own.

For what it's worth, the Big Dig remade Boston in a phenomenal way. Removing the overhead expressway has vastly improved the downtown. And it's a beautiful tunnel. The disruption and added cost were worth it - and there was an end to it all. Same with Seattle - if they stick it out and solve some very tricky issues, they will end up with a much better harbourfront. Yes, both were absurdly risky projects that no one in hindsight can justify, but no risk is no gain. It's only time and money, after all.

So I'm not discounting the idea of a road tunnel - let's just get DRL done. I'm hoping it will be done before I have to bring a walker with me for my discounted senior's fare ride.

- Paul
 
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crs1026 said:
For what it's worth, the Big Dig remade Boston in a phenomenal way. Removing the overhead expressway has vastly improved the downtown.
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I agree, however, tunneling isn't the only way to do it and isn't worth the cost ($15 billion for Boston). In San Francisco, removing the Embarcadero freeway and replacing it with a boulevard vastly improved the downtown as well at a fraction of the cost.
 
BurlOak said:
The Yonge subway is 50m to 100m east of Yonge and many people do not even realize it. If was done there to reduce disruption, reduce costs, and essentially get more subway for the money. These exact things should be goals today as well.

Put the subway on Richmond with City Hall platform between Yonge and Bay, with entrance at Bay and underground connection to City Hall and people wouldn't even realize that the subway is not under Queen. Same thing can be said for a station at Sherbourne and Cherry.
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With the escalators and steps going up diagonally from deep platforms along Richmond, the entrances could end up at Queen Street... or King Street as well.
 
What's special about Sumach... Think it would be better to have a station at King and Queen under the bridge which can also connect it with the RH Line.
 
Euphoria said:
The small-mindedness and lack of imagination is painful...You get the city you deserve.
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You seem to be using "small-mindedness" as a way of saying "technically capable" or "engineer".

Yes, if the only restrictions are those of the imagination, then I suppose we are small-minded. There are, however, real-world tradeoffs and limitations that occur when working with the non-imaginary world.

There are some problems with the current planning process, such as the restriction from slight modifications of the target when large benefits are to be had (see Gardiner plans with a slightly lower speed limit); but those are pretty far and few between.

I do very strongly agree that we could have a much larger system if funding was pumped up. I don't think a 1% sales tax, for example, would be an economic catastrophe to the GTA.
 
M II A II R II K said:
What's special about Sumach... Think it would be better to have a station at King and Queen under the bridge which can also connect it with the RH Line.
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Sumach is one block south of Regent Park. A station at River St (i.e King & Queen) would have to be extremely deep and harder to build because of the nearby Don River.
 
salsa said:
Sumach is one block south of Regent Park. A station at River St (i.e King & Queen) would have to be extremely deep and harder to build because of the nearby Don River.
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If the Sumach Stn is situated in-between River and Sumach Streets with exits to both, it accomplishes the same goals and not be interfered with by with the water table. The problem is the omission of a Parliament Stn, which could be easily resolved by moving the Sherbourne stop over closer to Jarvis St such that there's decent stop spacing downtown (Bay to Sherbourne is 1200 metres - too wide not to have a stop)
 
Look, removing the Gardiner altogether and not bothering with either a hybrid or tunneled Gardiner is a valid discussion to have. I just prefer a tunneled version to a hybrid if Joe Public says we have to have an express connection between the Gardiner and DVP. If we're tunneling anyway for a DRL, doesn't it stand to reason to direct the money we were going to spend on a lackluster hybrid toward putting the expressway in the same tunnel(s) as the DRL?
 
Euphoria said:
Look, removing the Gardiner altogether and not bothering with either a hybrid or tunneled Gardiner is a valid discussion to have. I just prefer a tunneled version to a hybrid if Joe Public says we have to have an express connection between the Gardiner and DVP. If we're tunneling anyway for a DRL, doesn't it stand to reason to direct the money we were going to spend on a lackluster hybrid toward putting the expressway in the same tunnel(s) as the DRL?
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No, because tunneling for a highway has completely different requirements from tunneling for a DRL. And from looking at highway burial costs around the world, it's going to cost far more money to tunnel the Gardiner than to build the hybrid.
 
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