If the issue is simply noise along the above ground section that can be mitigated in many ways; sound barriers, sound dampening sleepers with rubberized tie plates, constant rail grinding etc.

The biggest noise that Leslieville people are complaining about come from the diesel engines of the GO trains.

The Ontario line will be electric.
 
syn said:
There are plenty of good reasons this should be underground, the least of which are noise concerns (not that those aren't valid either).
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Transit should be underground where practical (to minimize impacts to buildings, noise pollution, etc). I think the OL being elevated over the valley to Eglinton is perfectly fine.
 
smallspy said:
More than half of the people getting off of the subway at Kennedy are not getting onto the SRT.

Dan
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Can't argue with that. Eglinton is a busy route. That's why I said "big", not majority of the passengers are heading beyond Kennedy, but I think you missed the point in my original post. Line 3 is seen as an extension of line 2, but OL is not an extension of line 5 or vice versa.
 
kotsy said:
I hope the supports/structure for the elevated sections are similar to that of L in Chicago and not ugly concrete like the RT.



There's two big reasons - Money and construction time.
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Is it likely to be more costly and disruptive to build underground in dense downtown area vs. inner suburbs?
 
robmausser said:
If the issue is simply noise along the above ground section that can be mitigated in many ways; sound barriers, sound dampening sleepers with rubberized tie plates, constant rail grinding etc.

The biggest noise that Leslieville people are complaining about come from the diesel engines of the GO trains.

The Ontario line will be electric.
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Exactly....a lot of whiners are drawing their conclusions from honking diesels or even srt type cars (which admittedly can get a bit annoying) whereas the reality is far from it.
 
kotsy said:
I hope the supports/structure for the elevated sections are similar to that of L in Chicago and not ugly concrete like the RT.



There's two big reasons - Money and construction time.
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Those are good reasons. However, when we weigh them against lowered capacity, the investment is a no-brainer.

If we aren't going to build underground in the areas that actually justify it with the most important piece of subway infrastructure in generations, we might as well not build anything underground anymore.


asher__jo said:
Transit should be underground where practical (to minimize impacts to buildings, noise pollution, etc). I think the OL being elevated over the valley to Eglinton is perfectly fine.
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I was referring to the downtown sections, where it's very practical.

cplchanb said:
Exactly....a lot of whiners are drawing their conclusions from honking diesels or even srt type cars (which admittedly can get a bit annoying) whereas the reality is far from it.
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It doesn't matter how quiet it is if the capacity is dramatically lower than it is for a full, underground subway.
 
Rainforest said:
Noise is not the major concern.

Capacity is. The proposed route, spagetti shaped and with elevation changes, will dictate narrow trains (enabling sharp turns) and short stations (fitting into environment).
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Well... regardless of what wisdom us armchair experts are presenting, as far as I can recall, the majority of the grievances that were voiced by the nimbyers on record, are noise related and how itll make their lives "unbearable" or "damaging to their health".... key phrases that they were obviously coached into using for maximum impact
 
If I knew for a fact that the proposal as it stands would result in true relief for Line 1 and good service for surrounding neighbourhoods - without this "90 second headway" nonsense - then I would support it. I even prefer the new route it takes east of Yonge to the city's old plan. I'm more concerned that the public is being kept in the dark so that we don't see that this is a vitally important infrastructure project being half-assed.

There will always be people complaining about elevated lines, but we need a good reason to counter them first.
 
north-of-anything said:
There will always be people complaining about elevated lines, but we need a good reason to counter them first.
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Exactly. People will be complaining if it's elevated, or if it's underground. "Subway vents, near my house, I don't think so! *places hands on hips angrily". The issue with this foisted plan is that it was rejected, over thirty years ago. And not really because of nimbyism, but because of the impact on the rail corridor and its space limitations. Now it's back, likely to be rejected again for the same reason.
 
cplchanb said:
Well... regardless of what wisdom us armchair experts are presenting, as far as I can recall, the majority of the grievances that were voiced by the nimbyers on record, are noise related and how itll make their lives "unbearable" or "damaging to their health".... key phrases that they were obviously coached into using for maximum impact
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Naturally, the nimbyers, aka the community activists, will be complaining about their local issues. Most of them don't care, and don't even know, anything about the big picture, network capacities, and the Yonge relief.

Those nimbyers might be exaggerating their issues like the noise (indeed, they are living near the mainline rail corridor and massive diesel trains, so what ...), but that doesn't invalidate the legitimate concerns regarding the line's capacity.
 
11th said:
Can't argue with that. Eglinton is a busy route. That's why I said "big", not majority of the passengers are heading beyond Kennedy, but I think you missed the point in my original post. Line 3 is seen as an extension of line 2, but OL is not an extension of line 5 or vice versa.
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I completely understand the point of your original post - which is why I posted mine.

Extending the B-D to STC is not nearly as "logical" as most people think. Kennedy works as a transfer point because people take the subway there and then spread out to a wide variety of destinations. The SRT could be seen as an extension of the B-D, but only to people heading north-east from Kennedy - and the majority of people who arrive at Kennedy on the subway trains are not heading to the north-east.

If the research found that more people - even if slightly less than a total majority - headed due east along Eglinton, wouldn't it make sense to extend the line in that direction then?

Dan
 
syn said:
Right. But that's relatively small compared to the OL exposure, above ground for about 2km downtown.

These trains are expected to be louder and more frequent as well.
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Louder than the diesel GO train they chose to live next? Louder than the ‭138‬ meter long, 20yr T1 train running on old tracks? *Facepalm*

The length of 2km does mean it affects more people. But Vancouver's Skytrain stays above ground for longer on many sections and they aren't having that many problems. (I do admit there were recent complaints there about noise on old tracks though)
The High Park Station track is about 9 meters away from the nearest house. The T1 trains here come 30 seconds less frequently than the rush hour Ontario Line trains will in rush hour at peak capacity decades after opening...
211234
 
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