[44 North]

Another subway line through downtown would be such a tall order on every level (or just political and money level). I tend to be reserved and think the best case scenario would be a short stretch of tunneled LRT just for the core, outside there a mix of on-street and in-median.

 

[dkt]

College seems reasonable if you want an East-West corridor every 1km.

A transit priority corridor on College between Parliament and Bathurst or something would be a lot quicker and cheaper

We have the streetcar lines, why not just make them better?

 

[syn]

Pick one

College
Dundas
Richmond
Adelaide
King
Wellington
Front

Parliament
Sherbourne
Jarvis
Spadina
Bathurst

Part of the reason the Yonge line has so much traffic is because it's the only N/S line and the only line to go into Downtown.

Build the Ontario line, GO RER and maybe another U-line going through the downtown core and people from Victoria Park and Finch won't be using the Yonge University Line to go downtown.

I take it we would have to build this underground?

If so why not just make the investment now? Why not build a higher capacity underground line where it's actually needed?

The notion that we can just build another line later on seems rather unrealistic. After all these years the idea of investing in downtown transit expansion is still a political hot potato.

We can all hope that changes but that's no guarantee. It's probably not going to get cheaper either.

 

[afransen]

I take it we would have to build this underground?

If so why not just make the investment now? Why not build a higher capacity underground line where it's actually needed?

The notion that we can just build another line later on seems rather unrealistic. After all these years the idea of investing in downtown transit expansion is still a political hot potato.

We can all hope that changes but that's no guarantee. It's probably not going to get cheaper either.

The present value of that future investment is very small. It makes sense to defer in until it is truly needed. And this approach will provide greater redundancy and coverage of rapid transit.

 

[syn]

The present value of that future investment is very small. It makes sense to defer in until it is truly needed. And this approach will provide greater redundancy and coverage of rapid transit.

Based on how quickly Toronto and the region are going we'll 'truly need it' very soon. Far sooner than any of the other expensive underground projects that have been defended on the basis of future need.

 

[afransen]

Why is it that Toronto uniquely among world cities needs to build subway lines with capacity of 40k, 50k pphpd?

I think if anything, the political consensus in the GTA (and thus Ontario) has swung to the idea that transit investment is essential and not merely political posturing. Traffic congestion is only going to get worse, and propensity to make transit investments will only increase. Particularly as more and more of the GTA becomes urban rather than suburban. Especially when 905ers get used to seeing trains trundling around their neck of the woods, I think they are more likely to be amenable to that kind of transit investment.

I'm not sure what you're advocating at this point--delaying OL another 5 years so it can be re-engineered for 150m trains?

I'd also note that it would be relatively cost effective to build a Yonge Express subway line that is deeper and only built with maybe 6 or so stations. Tunneling is not so bad, it is the stations that are so spendy. With wide stop spacings you could probably get from Bridge Station to Union in 20 minutes. Might actually make that 407 orbital line more popular for that matter! Could also have it jog over to Bay and have a few extra stops closer to the surface to avoid putting additional pressure on Union.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Why is it that Toronto uniquely among world cities needs to build subway lines with capacity of 40k, 50k pphpd?

We could've asked the exact same question in the 1940s. Why was little Toronto so unique that it needed a subway line of 30k pphpd? Surely this tiny city would've never be able to saturate 150 metre trains at sub two-minute frequencies. Two car trains surely would've provided enough capacity for decades to come.

Any new rapid transit line really oughta be built with the capacity to accommodate demand from any conceivable extensions and population growth. We were wise to do that with the Yonge Line. I don't suppose any of us here lament that the Yonge Line was overbuilt by 1940s Toronto standards. The mere millions of dollars they invested in "overbuilding" the Yonge Line has undoubtedly reaped countless billions in benefits. Had the penny pinchers of the day had their way, we never would've had a Yonge Line capable of reaching Sheppard or Finch, let alone York Region..

In the case of Ontario Line, that means that it should've been built with the capacity needed to reach Markham. 30k pphpd simply does not do that. I don't care what any other cities do, all cities have their own unique geographies and constraints.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I'm sure we could find a useful route... College-Gerrard-Golden Mile-Warden-Markham TC? But really, if we're seeing these kinds of demands to get downtown from the outer suburbs, we can get a lot of bang for the buck from expanding GO service.

Yeah, and none of those options would've provided as much bang for the buck or service quality as extending OL from Sheppard to Markham Town Centre. It's something that would've been really easy to accomplish had we spent just a bit more money today.

 

[afransen]

Yeah, and none of those options would've provided as much bang for the buck or service quality as extending OL from Sheppard to Markham Town Centre. It's something that would've been really easy to accomplish had we spent just a bit more money today.

Why are you assuming that the OL can't be extended if it is relieved? If it is flanked on both sides by subways, it is really just serving the 2-3 km wide strip up to Markham TC.

 

[Deadpool X]

It's hard for me to imagine how or why a customers originating from east of Leslie would favour the Yonge Line over the Ontario Line to get Downtown. That's another 5 kilometres stuck in a mixed traffic bus. The Ontario Line will get them Downtown faster. And even if it didn't, I'm sure most of them would still pick the OL just out of passenger comfort.

If you think people won't travel that far west to Yonge line to head south to downtown and take OL instead, then you should also consider that Line 2 is extending to Sheppard (at lease a decade sooner than OL) and it would absorb all the traffic from east of McCowan heading to downtown. If Yonge line is serving a "thin strip" of areas along Yonge then OL too is serving a similar "thin strip" of areas which are not even as dense.

Not to forget Stouffville RER which is getting new stations and services and runs in between OL and Line 2, further undercutting the catchment of OL.

 

[ARG1]

We could've asked the exact same question in the 1940s. Why was little Toronto so unique that it needed a subway line of 30k pphpd? Surely this tiny city would've never be able to saturate 150 metre trains at sub two-minute frequencies. Two car trains surely would've provided enough capacity for decades to come.

It didn't. It only reached 30k pphpd recently as part of ATC installation - technology that did not exist in the 1950s. The only reason why we have such high capacity right now is because of new technology that was created that allowed us to expand the capacity.

Not to mention, subway construction was so much cheaper even accounting for inflation back in the day, building a subway of that scale for a small town in the 1950s was far more reasonable than doing so today.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Why are you assuming that the OL can't be extended if it is relieved?

No, that's not what I was assuming, but you seem to understand what I'm getting at... that the OL can't be extended to Markham without an additional line relieving the OL.

The only reason we're in this situation is because we've under built the OL. A relief line for the Ontario Line would not be necessary if we simply built the OL with the capacity to reach Markham from Day 1. Had we made a rather modest investment in additional capacity today, we would not need to spend another $10+ Billion to relieve the Ontario Line tomorrow.

However, more realistically, the OL is just never going to reach Markham due to the capacity constraints. Which is a damn shame... There’s a lot of people that exist north of Sheppard that could’ve benefited from this thing.

What would've been a very simple, cheap, straightforward extension to Markham Town Centre is unlikely to ever materialize because of our penny pinching today. But, hey, at least we’re making the fiscal hawks happy.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Why is it that Toronto uniquely among world cities needs to build subway lines with capacity of 40k, 50k pphpd?

You’re the only one suggesting 50k pphpd.

Anyways there’s nothing unprecedented of capacities well in excess of 30,000 pphpd.

Off the top of my head, Crossrail in London will be operating at a minimum of 36,000 pphpd on Day 1. And that's with a rather modest headways of just 2.5 mins. Presumably they could push that well beyond 40,000 pphpd with tighter scheduling.

Victoria Line (an ancient line) also operates at 36,000 pphpd.

Targets in this range would’ve been perfectly acceptable for the OL, as it would’ve accommodated basically any conceivable extensions and employment growth. There is nothing extraordinary about the ridership pressures on the OL corridor.

As it turns out, very long lines in very big cities can dictate very high capacity requirements.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It didn't. It only reached 30k pphpd recently as part of ATC installation - technology that did not exist in the 1950s. The only reason why we have such high capacity right now is because of new technology that was created that allowed us to expand the capacity.

Not to mention, subway construction was so much cheaper even accounting for inflation back in the day, building a subway of that scale for a small town in the 1950s was far more reasonable than doing so today.

We’re splitting hairs here. Line 1’s “capacity” prior to ATO was 28,000 pphpd, however ridership well in excess of 30,000 pphpd had been observed. I really don’t care to argue about 1 or 2 thousand pax per hour.

My point here is that I’m sure none of us would’ve gone back to 1940 and tell them to slash the capacity of Line 1 to save money. No, what we would’ve done is told them to build Line 1 to accommodate future employment and population growth, along with ridership from future extensions. Which, fortunately, is exactly what they did. Hats off to them.

 

[smallspy]

It's hard for me to imagine how or why a customers originating from east of Leslie would favour the Yonge Line over the Ontario Line to get Downtown. That's another 5 kilometres stuck in a mixed traffic bus. The Ontario Line will get them Downtown faster. And even if it didn't, I'm sure most of them would still pick the OL just out of passenger comfort.

The Yonge Line will remain very busy, but at peak hours it'll be reduced to serving customers from York Region and the narrow band of Toronto residents between the OL and Spadina Line (which, to be fair, is the densest part of the city).

I think that there's a serious flaw in this part of your thinking.

It seems that you are assuming that most people are heading downtown.

I would suggest that the numbers say otherwise. If that were actually the case, then people would not be able to get on southbound subways each morning from Sheppard, rather than from Eglinton or St Clair as was the case pre-COVID. Instead, there is very heavy ridership turnover at Sheppard, at York Mills, at Eglinton, at St. Clair and at Bloor each morning.

I agree with you that most customers living east of Leslie (maybe even east of Bayview) and south of about Sheppard will likely funnel into the Ontario Line if they are heading downtown. But for a lot (maybe even most?) of the people who are destined for other locations, the Ontario Line will do nothing for their trips. Those people will likely continue on the same route that they've been taking all this time to get to their destination.

Yes, downtown is a still a huge draw for people commuting. But it most certainly is not the only location that people are headed to.

Dan