They should be working on the utilities and sewers during the meantime. Even putting in new streetcar tracks where needed before any big work starts.
 
These timeframes are unreasonable. There's no commitment to get this built otherwise you wouldn't hear of 9 years to construction.
 
Where are people getting these timelines? Completion of first phase of DRL is 15 years out or less, approximately 2030.
 
MisterF said:
Yes, as I said, College is pretty much the outer limit of the area that a Queen line would serve. And beyond the area that King would serve. People on College would be just as likely to use the Queen line as they are to use Bloor. As for Queen avoiding major destinations in the core, it's 380 m from King and Bay and there's no shortage of high density homes, offices and shopping on Queen Street. It's within easy walking distance of most of the downtown core, including all kinds of major destinations north and south of the line.
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No one living north of Dundas would walk or wait for a bus and take a forced transfer to use it unless they are going to a place far west of downtown to maybe Ossington or further out or some place on Don Mills. The question becomes why would they do that because there's nothing out there and if there were it would be almost as fast to use the surface transit already on Dundas or College than to transfer multiple times and walk walk walk.

MisterF said:
Are you saying that significant numbers of people won't use RER? Or are you saying that Metrolinx's projections for massive ridership growth were part of the Smarttrack lie years before Smarttrack was even dreamed up?
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MisterF said:
With RER/Smarttrack stations at Liberty Village and Unilever, a King subway would duplicate much of the market for RER, which will have subway-like service where the lines converge downtown. Queen avoids that duplication along with expanding the rapid transit network to more of downtown and making rapid transit walkable to most of the core, including the financial district. College and the employment cluster in that area will still be a bit of a stretch to either subway line, but less so than if the new line goes along King.
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The ridership report commissioned by the city says ScamTrack/RER doesn't compete for the same customers. The major nodes on King will be 1-1.5km away from rail stations by foot but sure it would "duplicate" the market in your eyes. No one is going to walk 1-1.5km to get to where they need to go or wait 10-15 minutes for a bus to take them from the station.
 
Forgotten said:
No one living north of Dundas would walk or wait for a bus and take a forced transfer to use it unless they are going to a place far west of downtown to maybe Ossington or further out or some place on Don Mills. The question becomes why would they do that because there's nothing out there and if there were it would be almost as fast to use the surface transit already on Dundas or College than to transfer multiple times and walk walk walk.
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No one north of Dundas will walk to Queen? Not one person? Zero? You don't think that anyone walks 500 m to get to a subway station? The truth, of course, is that people walk that distance to the subway all the time.

As I said when I first mentioned it, College was a maybe in terms of being served by a Queen line, as in being in the fringe of the area that a Queen subway might serve. Just as it's in the fringe of the area that the Bloor line serves - there aren't huge numbers walking to Bloor from College, but some do. And lots of people take streetcars and buses from College to Bloor and then transfer onto a Line 2 train. The Queen subway would be exactly the same.

Forgotten said:
The ridership report commissioned by the city says ScamTrack/RER doesn't compete for the same customers. The major nodes on King will be 1-1.5km away from rail stations by foot but sure it would "duplicate" the market in your eyes. No one is going to walk 1-1.5km to get to where they need to go or wait 10-15 minutes for a bus to take them from the station.
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The only reason they don't compete for the same customers is because GO and the TTC work in silos, pretending the other doesn't exist. Once fares are integrated and RER is up and running, they will serve the same market in many areas. If you're going from Gerrard station to Liberty Village you'd probably be likely to take an RER train because it will get you there faster than a subway+streetcar trip.

In cities that plan transit properly there's no "two silo" effect. Local trains and regional trains are all coordinated and passengers don't care which is which, they just take the one that gets them where they're going. That's the way we're headed in Toronto.
 
Tulse said:
According to Google Maps, my daily walk to the subway for my commute is 650 m.
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Obviously effective walking distance is sort of dependent on the walking experience as well - doing it in climate controlled PATH is different from say relatively well sheltered inner city neighbourhoods, and that from suburban greenfield-esque areas. That affects the willingness to walk to take transit - and by extension the effective catchment area.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Obviously effective walking distance is sort of dependent on the walking experience as well
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Definitely -- my walk is through a quiet residential area with large mature trees. It's pretty pleasant in good weather, and not terrible in bad weather.
 
Tulse said:
Definitely -- my walk is through a quiet residential area with large mature trees. It's pretty pleasant in good weather, and not terrible in bad weather.
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It would be interesting to study how this walk-in catchment relates to urban form and seasonality.

AoD
 
I would think that effective catchment would be very strongly tied to the local conditions, both in urban context and weather. I always find the same geometric circles of catchment or walking times to be rather absurd -- I'm happy to walk over half a kilometre in my tree-lined neighbourhood on a nice spring day, whereas walking along a busy arterial in a suburb with no trees in winter (or blazing summer) is an entirely different matter.
 
MisterF said:
In cities that plan transit properly there's no "two silo" effect. Local trains and regional trains are all coordinated and passengers don't care which is which, they just take the one that gets them where they're going. That's the way we're headed in Toronto.
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I agree with your other points, but I don't think this last part is that cut-and-dry. I was under the impression that it's a unanimous agreement on these boards that RER will be a premium service, which naturally will cost the transit-using public more than generic public transit.

Not that I don't support premium service, nor believe it to be an integral component to compete with slower medium or longer-haul alternatives. But won't these trains be carpeted, bilevel, and have washrooms? Having a bathroom on board doesn't sound like a service on par with typical public transit (i.e bus, subway, lrt, streetcar). This is why I think it's unfair at this point for "SmartTrack" to be presented as if it were a subway - i.e flat low fare and high frequencies. This will (and is) screwing with projections for projects that share its catchment (particularly SSE, SRT, and DRL).

If RER does somehow end up costing the exact same per km as typical public transit (something I find doubtful), I'd imagine the core sections would become overcrowded; but the outer sections would see a steep drop in projected ridership. Reasons may be that wealthier non-Torontonian riders would prefer the comfort of less crowded higher tier services (or their car).

Tulse said:
I would think that effective catchment would be very strongly tied to the local conditions, both in urban context and weather. I always find the same geometric circles of catchment or walking times to be rather absurd -- I'm happy to walk over half a kilometre in my tree-lined neighbourhood on a nice spring day, whereas walking along a busy arterial in a suburb with no trees in winter (or blazing summer) is an entirely different matter.
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True. Local walking conditions must play a big part in these decisions. A walk along a quiet leafy lane would be much more desirable than a windswept industrial or big box highway shoulder - even if it's the same distance. Or a skyway or underground path system could be more desirable than a surface route where peds have to wait at every red light. Or depending on the disjointedness of the former the opposite might be true. I guess this is why Keesmaat likes to stress the importance of the little things like safe bike locking facilities, or building connections where there currently are none (or where this is one, but it involves unofficial pathways such as holes in fences, illegal crossing of rail corridors, and trekking behind grubby loading docks).
 
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