[TheTigerMaster]

There is a lot of parking in the DM-Eg area. A combination of DM subway and Eg LRT could allow some of this to be built on. Were the configuration of DM-EG to allow a reasonable connection to a GO station on the CP line 500m north of there in the 2025-2030 timeframe then maybe there are enough buses coming down Don Mills to that area to justify extension to Lawrence or further.

There's probably enough ridership. Consider:

- This thing would have a connection to the Finch East bus; the single most used bus route in Toronto
- It connects to the Sheppard East bus route, one of the most used bus routes in Toronto. This will soon be replaced by an LRT which will generate even more ridership
- It connects to the ECLRT which will obviously generate massive ridership
- It connects to the Lawrence East bus, another one of the TTCs most use bus routes.
- The density of areas along the route would be similar to that of the Spadina Subway from Eglinton - Finch.

I can't see how the Don Mills Subway wouldn't have ridership of at least that of the Spadina Subway.

And of course tying the Don Mills Subway to the DRL is a great political move. It ensures that if the PC gov't were to be elected, they couldn't screw Toronto over like they did in the 90s (with the Eglinton Subway) by cancelling the DRL. Not unless they wanted to alienate the suburban voters.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Help Dig the Downtown (Suburban) Relief Line

Friday, September 27 at 4:00pm
Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, Ontario

https://www.facebook.com/events/304083779734520/

 

[snowystar]

I have answered you many times already, but you conveniently ignore me.. regardless, here are 10 different reasons why that I can think of off the top of my head, with the 10th one being most important;

Sorry for an extremely late reply... but there are just so many errors in this post that I need to correct...

1. LRT stops are 90m long, skytrain are 60.

The platform for Lougheed Station is about 110m, while all other stations are 80m with provision to be extended to 100m.

4. Vancouver money is not 2010 $, and needs to account for inflation. the Vancouver amount is probably measured in 2007 dollars or something.

I'm pretty sure the cost of $1.431 billion is expressed in escalating cost, in consistent with all other projects managed by Partnership BC. They had this paper stating that all reported cost should be expressed in current money, then escalating according to the estimated year of payment.

In fact, one of the benefit they said for building the Evergreen Line as PPP is that they can defer the bulk of the payment at completion date - $307 million will be paid in 2016$. The NPV of the project, discounted to 2010$ at a rate of 3.94% a year, is in fact $1.196 billion

5. I seem to recall that the vancouver total does not include vehicle purchasing, while the SRT replacement does.

The budget includes everything - vehicle, storage facility, planning, studies, procurement, property, consultation, and pre-construction works. So it includes a total of 28 MkII vehicles ordered for the project at a cost of $90.7 million.

The only thing isn't included, as far as I know, is probably GST. (PST is included though).

9. Evergreen line has no underground stations, Scarborough LRT has 2.

About half of Inlet Centre station is actually underground beneath a of roadway - the other half is either trenched or at-grade. This section of the station will be constructed during the Remembrance day long weekend using tunnel jacking method.

Guess what? The SRT replacement WILL COST $1.4 BILLION DOLLARS, THE EXACT SAME AS THE EVERGREEN LINE!!!

See #4.

 

[innsertnamehere]

my point still stands that the SRT replacement is very cost-similar to it.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Help Dig the Downtown (Suburban) Relief Line

Friday, September 27 at 4:00pm
Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, Ontario

https://www.facebook.com/events/304083779734520/

So, how'd it go?

 

[Rainforest]

Ideally we need both closely spaced lines and more "U-bahn-like" lines. That's why I've been advocating for connecting the Scarborough Subway to a TTC rail line that runs parallel to the existing GO commuter line that would then connect to the DRL. You could get from Lawrence East Station to King-Yonge Station in less than 25 minutes. And this relieves the Bloor-Danforth of the capacity issues associated with the Scarborough extension. This would be a relatively inexpensive solution at ~$1 Billion and would by far be the fastest of all the proposals for getting from Scarborough to the core. The one catch about this is that it requires some property expropriations. Mainly warehouses and single family homes.

I think that your concept is good, but but building such a long new eastbound line will be difficult and costly, even if it follows the rail corridor.

Therefore, I am thinking of a slightly modified version of your proposal (attached). As in your map, DRL is split in two branches, one branch going up Don Mills while the other going into Scarborough.

However, the Scarborough branch takes over the existing BD line tracks east of the Main station. Two Main stations will be needed: one will become the new terminus of the shortened BD line, while the other will be served by the new DRL - Scarborough line.

In this scheme, only about 4 km of new subway tracks will be required (between the DRL branching point and the Bloor / Main intersection), assuming that DRL will be already funded.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Rainforest, that is absolutely brilliant. It would accomplish the same thing for probably less than half the cost. And tying this to the DRL is a great way to ensure that the DRL is never cancelled.

 

[dunkalunk]

@Rainforest The Bloor-Danforth line is already to tightly spaced to make quick travel downtown convenient for Scarberians, even with a subway expansion. I quite like the idea in theory, although I see a couple challenges with this sort of alignment.

1) Geometry. There is a complex of highrise what appears to be affordable housing in the SE corner of Bloor and Main. This might complicate the potential for an interchange station at Main St. Depending on the vehicles it may instead be more feasible to relocate the B-D interchange to Victoria Park Ave.

2) Rail Gauge. The section of the Bloor-Danforth between Main and Kennedy would likely need to be converted to standard gauge in order for presumably EMU vehicles to run on the same track as GO and SRT.

3) Clearance. Tunnels and stations may still need to be retrofitted to allow for the usage of centenary wires. Alternatively, high floor EMUs with both third rail and centenary would need to be purchased.

 

[gweed123]

@Rainforest The Bloor-Danforth line is already to tightly spaced to make quick travel downtown convenient for Scarberians, even with a subway expansion. I quite like the idea in theory, although I see a couple challenges with this sort of alignment.

1) Geometry. There is a complex of highrise what appears to be affordable housing in the SW corner of Bloor and Main. This might complicate the potential for an interchange station at Main St. Depending on the vehicles it may instead be more feasible to relocate the B-D interchange to Victoria Park Ave.

2) Rail Gauge. The section of the Bloor-Danforth between Main and Kennedy would likely need to be converted to standard gauge in order for presumably EMU vehicles to run on the same track as GO and SRT.

3) Clearance. Tunnels and stations may still need to be retrofitted to allow for the usage of centenary wires. Alternatively, high floor EMUs with both third rail and centenary would need to be purchased.

That is definitely a very interesting idea, Rainforest! I agree with dunkalunk on a lot of his points. Due to the complex nature of the area around Main St Station, I think that Victoria Park would be a more natural terminus (it's also a very busy bus route).

What may be possible is, because of the lack of space along the rail corridor, would be to build elevated above the existing rail corridor. Stacking it may not be popular with neighbours, but it would reduce costs substantially, and would allow the existing rail tracks to be used for GO and VIA.

That would allow the tracks to be TTC gauge, so any conversion of existing trackage wouldn't be necessary.

 

[Rainforest]

@Rainforest The Bloor-Danforth line is already to tightly spaced to make quick travel downtown convenient for Scarberians, even with a subway expansion. I quite like the idea in theory, although I see a couple challenges with this sort of alignment.

1) Geometry. There is a complex of highrise what appears to be affordable housing in the SE corner of Bloor and Main. This might complicate the potential for an interchange station at Main St. Depending on the vehicles it may instead be more feasible to relocate the B-D interchange to Victoria Park Ave.

Probably. I wanted to place the interchange at Main, as going to Victoria Park means 1 extra kilometer of tracks and higher project costs. But if it won't fit at Main, then it has to be somewhere else.

2) Rail Gauge. The section of the Bloor-Danforth between Main and Kennedy would likely need to be converted to standard gauge in order for presumably EMU vehicles to run on the same track as GO and SRT.

3) Clearance. Tunnels and stations may still need to be retrofitted to allow for the usage of centenary wires. Alternatively, high floor EMUs with both third rail and centenary would need to be purchased.

I do not hope to fit the proposed new subway section into the Lakeshore East corridor at grade. The space is too tight there.

The subway would have to be either tunneled, or as Gweed123 suggested, stacked above the mainline tracks.

Thus, the subway will be functionally separated from the mainline, and use TTC's standard gauge / rolling stock / third rail.

 

[dunkalunk]

I do not hope to fit the proposed new subway section into the Lakeshore East corridor at grade. The space is too tight there.

The subway would have to be either tunneled, or as Gweed123 suggested, stacked above the mainline tracks.

Thus, the subway will be functionally separated from the mainline, and use TTC's standard gauge / rolling stock / third rail.

I was just thinking, do you know what else runs in a rail corridor, has its own right of way, will be electrified, and go Downtown? UP Express!

Why not interline them? I've visualized what a line such as this could look like: https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zpLFG_wFzy9U.kIHcDSOK7K58

 

[doady]

DRL should be a north-south line to provide relief to Yonge same way Spadina-Unviersity does. Last thing Toronto needs is yet another east-west rail line (Sheppard, Eglinton, Finch, Bloor-Danforth...), especially one that overlaps with Danforth... Leave service in the Lakeshroe East corridor to GO.

 

[dunkalunk]

DRL should be a north-south line to provide relief to Yonge same way Spadina-Unviersity does. Last thing Toronto needs is yet another east-west rail line (Sheppard, Eglinton, Finch, Bloor-Danforth...), especially one that overlaps with Danforth... Leave service in the Lakeshroe East corridor to GO.

I'm not suggesting that we replace the DRL with an RER running in existing rail corridors. I would suggest that extending the UP express eastward would be a better use of resources than a Scarborough Subway. A DRL is needed, especially between Downtown and up to Don Mills via Pape.

After saying this, I realized that we're discussing this RER idea on the wrong thread.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

DRL should be a north-south line to provide relief to Yonge same way Spadina-Unviersity does. Last thing Toronto needs is yet another east-west rail line (Sheppard, Eglinton, Finch, Bloor-Danforth...), especially one that overlaps with Danforth... Leave service in the Lakeshroe East corridor to GO.

Frankly, we should be on to planning Islington, Martin Grove, Warden, Kennedy, Birchmount, etc. All of these corridors needed BRT 10 years ago.

 

[gweed123]

Frankly, we should be on to planning Islington, Martin Grove, Warden, Kennedy, Birchmount, etc. All of these corridors needed BRT 10 years ago.

I'd like to see ~$100 million allocated to allow for intersections along those corridors to be reconfigured to have queue jump lanes. That alone would make a huge difference in the quality and reliability of surface routes.

If nothing else, if you can shave 5 mins off a run, that will allow the TTC to either increase frequency at no cost, or adjust the number of buses to reduce the operational costs of that route.

The routes I would include are: Martin Grove, Islington, Jane, Keele, Bathurst, Leslie, Don Mills, Victoria Park, Warden, Kennedy, McCowan, Morningside, Lawrence, Wilson/York Mills/Ellesmere, Sheppard West, and Finch.

That seems like a lot, but keep in mind that we're only talking about intersections, and a lot of the intersections on those corridors are common between both selected corridors.