I meant the Don River Line by the way.

Louis Mark championed the Don River Line. I came up with Don River Line though.
 
kEiThZ said:
Where's the money for DRL Long though? The province is barely committed to a short core DRL (Yonge to Pape). They've not showing much interest in funding DRL Long.

Now if Tory can pivot from Smart Track and get a whack of city, provincial and federal dollars fully committed to the DRL, maybe....
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There's a bit of a presupposition that the DRL to Sheppard can only cost +$8bn. But like with most projects there are options for routing/building that can reduce that number. If, say, south of Danforth we utilize the City's Broadview option; but north of Danforth we use aspects of Metrolinx's 'surface subway' proposal - I think that $8bn can be cut by a third or more. This would involve things like using abandoned rail lines, surface stations away from existing population nodes, and building methods like trenching along Don Mills. Obviously this wouldn't be optimal from a city-building or local planning perspective when compared with an all-underground DRTES or DRL Long routing. But it may be seen as more advantageous from a regional and political POV.

If however there were $8bn sitting on a table earmarked specifically for a DRL, and the City were open to the idea of using affordable options north of Danforth through East York/North York, I think I'd like to see the savings go toward extending the line west of University to Roncey. Or to loop back up with Keele or Dundas West. More coverage, more people served. I think that'd be a good use of funds.

Johnny Au said:
I meant the Don River Line by the way.

Louis Mark championed the Don River Line. I came up with Don River Line though.
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Hmm. You mean the term "Don River Line"? I'm pretty sure I came up with that. Or at the very least I hadn't seen it posted here or elsewhere before I mentioned it. Edit: okay, maybe not. I just did a search and it appears going back to 09. So perhaps you're right.
 
44 North said:
There's a bit of a presupposition that the DRL to Sheppard can only c ost +$8bn. But like with most projects there are options for routing/building that can reduce that number. If, say, south of Danforth we utilize the City's Broadview option; but north of Danforth we use aspects of Metrolinx's 'surface subway' proposal - I think that $8bn can be cut by a third or more. This would involve things like using abandoned rail lines, surface stations away from existing population nodes, and building methods like trenching along Don Mills. Obviously this wouldn't be optimal from a city-building or local planning perspective when compared with an all-underground DRTES or DRL Long routing. But it may be seen as more advantageous from a regional and political POV.

If however there were $8bn sitting on a table earmarked specifically for a DRL, and the City were open to the idea of using affordable options north of Danforth through East York/North York, I think I'd like to see the savings go toward extending the line west of University to Roncey. Or to loop back up with Keele or Dundas West. More coverage, more people served. I think that'd be a good use of funds.
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Cheaper does not necessarily mean better, or more politically palatable.

The Broadview alignment is essentially repeating the transit mistakes of building the western leg of Line 1 at University, so close to Yonge Street. It is not great from a city-building perspective, missing many key neighbourhoods (some of which are designated priority neighbourhoods), connecting surface transit routes, and minimizing redevelopment potential significantly. The Surface Subway proposal from Metrolinx is actually slower than the traditional LONG option despite it being an express route with less stations and shorter route, doesn't offer as many benefits as the LONG option (it actually has significantly less Net Benefits financially over 60 years than the LONG option according to the YRNS technical report), and it scores pretty poorly in the environmental and air pollution measures when compared to the LONG option.

Plus it would not reach the Unilever site, which seems to for whatever reason, be pulling political strings in the city at the moment. So whether such a cheaper alignment is more politically palatable remains to be seen.

And ultimately, I find the high cost of the Relief Line to Sheppard to be a mute point when considering the very high Benefit/Cost ratio of the line. For each $1.00 a Torontonian puts into the Relief Line the expected return is $1.80. It is just a matter of financing that initial capital cost.
Hmm. You mean the term "Don River Line"? I'm pretty sure I came up with that. Or at the very least I hadn't seen it posted here or elsewhere before I mentioned it. Edit: okay, maybe not. I just did a search and it appears going back to 09. So perhaps you're right.
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I do hope this is the name and branding the Relief Line eventually acquires, upon completion. It is just so appropriate.
 
WislaHD said:
Cheaper does not necessarily mean better, or more politically palatable.

The Broadview alignment is essentially repeating the transit mistakes of building the western leg of Line 1 at University, so close to Yonge Street. It is not great from a city-building perspective, missing many key neighbourhoods (some of which are designated priority neighbourhoods), connecting surface transit routes, and minimizing redevelopment potential significantly. The Surface Subway proposal from Metrolinx is actually slower than the traditional LONG option despite it being an express route with less stations and shorter route, doesn't offer as many benefits as the LONG option (it actually has significantly less Net Benefits financially over 60 years than the LONG option according to the YRNS technical report), and it scores pretty poorly in the environmental and air pollution measures when compared to the LONG option.

Plus it would not reach the Unilever site, which seems to for whatever reason, be pulling political strings in the city at the moment. So whether such a cheaper alignment is more politically palatable remains to be seen.

And ultimately, I find the high cost of the Relief Line to Sheppard to be a mute point when considering the very high Benefit/Cost ratio of the line. For each $1.00 a Torontonian puts into the Relief Line the expected return is $1.80. It is just a matter of financing that initial capital cost.
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No doubt. This isn't the line to screw around with and reduce its enormous potential. It's too important, and too beneficial to be denuded and cheapened. And plus, there's already the precedence set of building deep bore heavy rail below farms and factories in unpopulated Vaughan Metro Centre. And soon a massive highway-like suburban arterial that is Yonge north of Steeles. If cost is no option and we can build underground there, then I don't see why we can't tunnel below Don Mills or Pape.

One thing though is that with the runtimes of the recent YRNS options, the columns were mislabeled. It appears that the Surface LRT and Surface Subway data were switched with one another. This would explain the weird numbers (e.g an in-median LRT getting across downtown faster than an underground subway).

YRNS-runtime.png


WislaHD said:
I do hope this is the name and branding the Relief Line eventually acquires, upon completion. It is just so appropriate.
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Agreed, it is pretty good. Simple, unbiased, draws on our natural heritage... I think the public would accept it a lot more than anything with "Downtown" in its title.
 

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What makes you think they were switched @44 North? The LRT was supposed to terminate at Union (Ala the plans from the 80s), my understating is that the express surface subway option was still tunnelled in the downtown portion.
 
WislaHD said:
What makes you think they were switched @44 North? The LRT was supposed to terminate at Union (Ala the plans from the 80s), my understating is that the express surface subway option was still tunnelled in the downtown portion.
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When you look at the avg speed, journey time, length, and whether it terminates at St Andrew or Union - then compare that with what's on pages 24 and 29 of the report - it seems pretty clear that the runtimes are mislabeled. And like you said, the surface subway was supposed to follow below King to St Andrew, but the LRT was to follow Front on the surface to Union. On the runtime chart that's reversed. So the data is right, it's just the column headings that are switched. *The number of stations however doesn't add up, so I don't what's going on there. Perhaps there's a reason this report was buried until Munro got ahold of it.
 
Does the relief line really need a name? Since we've gone to a number system for our rapid transit lines, why not just refer to it as Line 6 (or whatever number it would be)?

I still find it odd that so many people here continue to try to find ways of cost cutting the RL. The YRNS and previous models have clearly shown that the line needs to be a high capacity heavy rail line. If the YRNS is correct, the RL would have almost the same peak point ridership as Lines 1 and 2 despite being only half the length. Extend it west and it could very well be the busiest line in the city.
 
Well assuming we start moving forward with the Relief Line, I'm interested in discussing the profound impact this will likely have on streetcar routing. Below are my thoughts.

501 and 504
* Note: a "/" indicates that the station or street depends on the alignment chosen.

A full Relief Line-U eliminates the need for the 504 between Dundas West and Sunnyside, and the 501 or 504 between Sunnyside and the Don. If we assume the Relief Line terminates at the University Line, based on studies to date, I would expect the 504 to become a service between Dundas West and St Andrew/Osgoode. The 501 could develop a new branch to serve Broadview, but should still terminate at Neville Park loop.

For a Queen alignment scenario, the 501 could run on King between Sunnyside and the Don. The 504 could turn from Roncesvalles to Queen and terminate at Osgoode.

514
What happens to the 514 if a King alignment is chosen? Perhaps it could become the new route running from Broadview station, down Broadview and King, to the Distillery District?

502 and 503
Will these need to be separate routes? Can they just be folded into one, terminating at the first Relief Line station on Queen?

505
The odds look good to me for a station to be at Gerrard and Carlaw. In this case, I believe it makes the 505 a bit redundant between Main Street and Gerrard @ Carlaw. I can see it terminating at this new Relief Line station, but would it continue east to Main Street?
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
505
The odds look good to me for a station to be at Gerrard and Carlaw. In this case, I believe it makes the 505 a bit redundant between Main Street and Gerrard @ Carlaw. I can see it terminating at this new Relief Line station, but would it continue east to Main Street?
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I assume you mean 506.

Hang, on. The 506 is normally packed like a sardine by the time you hit Marjory in AM peak. No one east of their benefits from the relief line; why would you change it? The relief line might even out the flow a bit (emptying many off at Carlaw), but it still fills up again by Parliament (there's a huge amount of on/off along the route - many people aren't going all the way into town).

Personally, I'd extend the 505 east on Dundas, and run it into a loop (under the tracks before Carlaw?) that accesses the new subway station, eliminating service on Broadview (which 504 already does).

Other than that, need to see the alignment and station locations. I can't really see streetcars being eliminated on King or Queen, if there's only 3 or 4 subway stations constructed.
 
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