[MisterF]

Forgotten, you can only rant about Queen Street and Smarttrack so much before it becomes white noise and people stop reading your posts, let alone responding. Do you ever post about anything else?

 

[smallspy]

Does it add only one minute to the entire system? I thought it was more. Like, you'd save more than just a minute by getting rid of Summerhill station. Especially in rush hours.

The average amount of time for a train to decelerate from cruising speed, come to a stop, have the doors open and then close, and then accelerate back to cruising speed is about 50 seconds.

If you want to save over a minute, what's the next stop you propose to cut?

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[aquateam]

Is there an efficient way to keep the Queen streetcar where the Subway isn't under so that they route down to King and back up when the subway is no longer under? A King transit mall would need more cars and "should" be able to handle more.

It won't. What about Neville Park to Downtown and Downtown to Long Branch?

I didn't mean the entire 501, just the downtown section. The full DRL would have stations at both ends where King and Queen connect, so the "501" would either continue south onto the King transit mall, which can handle more vehicles, or it would operate for just the outer parts and expect people to transfer.

This is what I picture:

 

[adrianaliu]

I didn't mean the entire 501, just the downtown section. The full DRL would have stations at both ends where King and Queen connect, so the "501" would either continue south onto the King transit mall, which can handle more vehicles, or it would operate for just the outer parts and expect people to transfer.

This is what I picture:

View attachment 102629

i really like this idea alot i hope to see it implemented. what do you guys think they will do with the track if they remove the streetcar line on queen from roncy to cherry street, is it possible that they reuse it for future streetcar lines like east bayfront if the track is in good condition.

 

[aquateam]

i really like this idea alot i hope to see it implemented. what do you guys think they will do with the track if they remove the streetcar line on queen from roncy to cherry street, is it possible that they reuse it for future streetcar lines like east bayfront if the track is in good condition.

I think they might leave sections of tracks in. The official reason is in case they have to perform diversions but really it would be just to annoy drivers and to injure hipster cyclists.

 

[salsa]

So the mayor's office says it expects to get $5 billion for public transit out of the federal budget. That's about 1/3 of the $15.3B worth of projects the city submitted on its priority list for federal funding: Relief Line, SmartTrack, Eglinton East LRT, Waterfront LRT.

The province has not made commitments to fund those projects, and has ruled out paying for SmartTrack and Eglinton East. Mayor Tory: "we're hoping the province comes up with the cash".

 

[TrickyRicky]

^Let's argue about it for another decade then put all the money into a one stop subway to Scarborough the budget of which will have climbed north of 10 billion!

P.S. in response to the general conversation over the last few pages. I don't think system length is much of an indicator of public transit anything. Cities have very different built forms and travel dynamics. Total ridership and transit mode share breakdowns matter. I have been on "subways" that are no bigger than a TTC streetcar.

 

[BurlOak]

So the mayor's office says it expects to get $5 billion for public transit out of the federal budget. That's about 1/3 of the $15.3B worth of projects the city submitted on its priority list for federal funding: Relief Line, SmartTrack, Eglinton East LRT, Waterfront LRT.

The province has not made commitments to fund those projects, and has ruled out paying for SmartTrack and Eglinton East. Mayor Tory: "we're hoping the province comes up with the cash".

I thought all the talk on this forum was that the Feds would fund 50% of any project that is put forward?

 

[Rainforest]

The station at Sherbourne-Queen would be next to Schnitzel Queen and dive bars. How many customer trips do those businesses generate? I would be surprised if it amounted to more than a dozen a day. Now consider a station at Sherbourne-King with St. James campus within 200m and the King east office cluster on top of the station. How many customer trips would those generate per day? 1000x more? If you had to choose between clogging 600m of scarce and narrow inner city sidewalks for 12 people a day versus 12,000, it shouldn't be hard. Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Why should 1000x the people have to walk 5-20x the distance and overload city sidewalks just to appease Tory's ego?

I think you are overstating the impact of using Queen instead of King. The Sherbourne station at King may generate 100x or 1000x more than a station at Queen, but either of them will be no more than a few % of the total ridership of the Relief line. The busiest downtown stations will be those at Yonge and University, and they will be very well used in any scenario.

But in principle, you are right. King is busier than Queen, has more destinations, and in addition it would be possible to walk between a station at King and Union Stn GO trains without boarding the U/S loop. King would be a better option, I just don't think Queen is so dramatically worse than King.

 

[Rainforest]

But streetcars as used in downtown Toronto really isn't rapid transit - it's bus on rails.

It makes little sense to build stations 1 or 2 km apart in the core as a philosophy - independent of whether there is local demand. If you only want express service from point A (presumably somewhere out in the burbs) to B alone, you'd be better off with the GO model, not subways in the core. Besides I don't think anyone is contemplating a straight up replication of BD stop frequencies (not that frequent stops have prevented anyone from using Line 2 either).

AoD

The main reason for choosing a relatively wide stop spacing on the Relief Line is the cost of stations. There is more infrastructure to deal with than in the days of Yonge or Bloor line construction, and in addition we don't do cut-n-cover any more. The cost of Relief line will be humongous anyway, but going from say 1.5 km spacing average to 1.0 km would add another billion or more, just for the eastern leg. For the western leg, it could be as much as 2 billion dependent the route. Those extra money can be spent in the midtown or inner suburbs, instead of downtown that is already well endowed with transit.

By keeping both Queen and King streetcar lines in addition to the subway Relief line, we can provide a comparable overall quality of transit in downtown, but for a lower capital cost.

 

[Rainforest]

Regarding the operational expenses: the drivers' labor costs will be higher if we operate both the subway Relief line and the streetcar line in the same corridor, but that will be partly or fully offset by the costs saved on up-keeping the additional subway stations.

It isn't even obvious in which scenario (very frequent subway stops and no streetcar, or less frequent subway stops plus streetcar) the total operational expenses will be lower.

 

[BurlOak]

2 Reasons to have the DRL as a shallow, cut-and-cover line.

1. Stations are much less expensive.
2. Much less time for riders to get from street to transit.

Rainforest is right, the number of stations is all related to cost. An extra few stations will not affect ridership (assuming no matter how many they add, it will still be less than Bloor). If the DRL goes close to peoples destination, they will use it. If not, they will transfer to the Yonge line.

 

[44 North]

Too bad we couldn't do both King and Queen. Relief Line could be three or four tracks coming down Pape/Don Mills, but west of East Harbour it diverges into two separate 2-track sections. The King section could be designed more as an express line (e.g minus Sumach and Sherbourne) thus serving the CBD direct, not unlike the separate services on NYC's lines. And perhaps the Queen section could be spec'd to 4-car 100m max to save costs. Whether the line is on King or Queen I have doubts whether the tiny stations of St Andrew, King, Osgoode, and Queen could adequately handle the influx of peak riders without significant redesign and $$$. But by splitting the RL service peak loads would be naturally diffused between the two corridors.

 

[Euphoria]

The best alignment for service without duplication is to run the eastbound trains under Adelaide and the westbound trains under Richmond, with stations situated in between on the north-south streets, much as lines in Montreal run parallel to but not along St. Catherine. This still places the line closer to Queen without eliminating the value of the streetcars lines. The construction is less disruptive, and if we were bright and innovative and wanted this built in the near future without bankrupting the city, each direction of track, eastbound and westbound, could be incorporated in a separate bi-level toll tunnel with a direction of auto traffic, funding the DRL from Queen and Pape to Eglinton West, extending the Allen underground, and allowing for the replacement and removal of the elevated Gardiner. The existing Gardiner could remain open until construction is complete, and the off and on-ramps of the Gardiner in the west to Front St. and the city grid could remain toll-free, as they would to and from the DVP in the east. This is the solution to multiple longstanding problems. What's more, it's possible to have transfers in the CBD for the Yonge-U line at St. Andrew, Osgoode, Queen, and King stations. The Path system facilitates this.

 

[WislaHD]

i really like this idea alot i hope to see it implemented. what do you guys think they will do with the track if they remove the streetcar line on queen from roncy to cherry street, is it possible that they reuse it for future streetcar lines like east bayfront if the track is in good condition.

I hope they do.

We can run streetcars on Queen on the occasions the subway is out of service.