Question: would the Queen streetcar be eliminated when the RL/OL is built? Or just get reduced service?

Extremely Unlikely. The OL only covers a small section of the Queen Streetcar, only between Sherbourne and Spadina. The only service decrease I see happening is if somehow by 2027 (or whenever OL opens) Toronto STILL hasn't ordered new flexities yet, and thus will move the existing streetcars to other routes...
 
We've seen this story play out over and over again: (1) new government comes in, (2) scraps all the old plans and (3) proposes shiny and ambitious new plans.

I get that it's a very popular thing to say that the Ford government "scrapped all the plans" and "started from scratch". It gets people worked up emotionally, especially if they are predisposed to dislike the current government.

But it's not actually true, is it? I mean.... compare the plans. We are still getting a route that goes from Pape to Osgoode. The path through downtown is the same as was determined by the Relief Line. Remember when there was talk about putting a station at City Hall? CAD drawings were produced of how stations would look and how they'd connect to the outside world... most of that can and probably will be kept, with the only necessary adjustments being related to a shorter platform. The Relief Line North plans, such as they were in early 2019, were copied almost verbatim and inserted into the initial OL plans.... we're getting one of the RL North proposed routes.

They've even preserved many of the same managers. Malcolm MacKay, Elmira Moghani, Michael Tham.... these are all director-level people who worked on Relief Line South at the TTC and have continued on with Ontario Line at Metrolinx.

And also, let's not pretend that there were meticulous, ready-to-build engineering plans that were just sitting finished on someone's desk, waiting for a building contract to be issued. Going under the Don River, for example, was considered a major geotechnical challenge given the changing earth composition under the river. There were some draft CAD drawings, but it was a long ways from being finished. Yes, the in-progress work got thrown away in favour of building a bridge.... but I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were people on the team who were like, thank goodness, this will be way easier.

Same story with Gerrard. Did you see the original drawings for that station? It was almost as tall as it was long!! It would've been four Osgoode-length escalator rides from track level to the corner of Carlaw & Gerrard, plus a fifth long escalator to connect to GO/SmartTrack level. Or, three different elevators. It would've handily surpassed Spadina Subway <-> 510 Spadina as the worst connector in the city. If anything, we should be happy that horrible idea was scrapped!

Between 1954 and 2020, Toronto has built a grand total of two rapid transit lines of substantial length.

As for this... this is just an outright lie for the sake of making a salacious, emotively satisfying point. Facts remain facts, though: More rapid transit stations have been built from 1955 to today, than were built up to 1954. The Spadina/University line alone is 17 stops! CNR didn't provide a lot of in-city service in the 1950s (post-war Canadians wanted to drive to work & fill those giant parking lots we used to have everywhere downtown), and so GO Transit's servicing of several Toronto stops didn't come around until after the 1970s. Kipling GO, e.g., opened in the early 1980s. Plus there's the UP Express, which does count as rapid transit, regardless of how successful it may have been! Dozens of different road & bridge projects were required to get UP Express up and running. Plus, ignoring the dozens of Finch West LRT and Crosstown rapid transit stations that are opening in the next couple of years is frankly disingenuous. Yes, we would have liked both routes to have finished by now, and the blame lies squarely at the feet of Rob Ford for that. And yes, we all wanted more, years ago. But transit development has certainly been happening at a faster pace than we've seen since the 1980s. Come 2022, pretty much nobody, not even us enthusiasts, is going to be able to name & locate every transit stop in this city off the top of their head.... there will simply be too many of them.


The only real validity to this line of complaint is if you focus entirely on downtown and ignore the city at large. In which case, yes, I agree completely.
 
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Question: would the Queen streetcar be eliminated when the RL/OL is built? Or just get reduced service?

The Queen streetcar will stay.

A service increase is likely for the Carlton streetcar. Not long before the Ontario Line reset, the city did say that they would look at increasing service east of Gerrard/Carlaw. There's definitely something to the idea of people taking a streetcar to the OL on that route.

Whether we see the same on Queen East will depend on what happens with the proposed Leslieville stop. (I'm not convinced they can make it fit)
 
The Queen streetcar will stay.

A service increase is likely for the Carlton streetcar. Not long before the Ontario Line reset, the city did say that they would look at increasing service east of Gerrard/Carlaw. There's definitely something to the idea of people taking a streetcar to the OL on that route.

Whether we see the same on Queen East will depend on what happens with the proposed Leslieville stop. (I'm not convinced they can make it fit)

For Queen East, the decisions for riders will be how long will the transfer from the streetcar to the (what would they call them?) trains be? And vice versa. Will the transfer be an off-street transfer? A on-street streetcar stop/station transfer (like in downtown)? Or an on-street transfer like the old Bloor Station streetcar transfer?

streetcar-4115-07.jpg

ttc-4660-bloor-1955.jpg


From link.
 
For Queen East, the decisions for riders will be how long will the transfer from the streetcar to the (what would they call them?) trains be? And vice versa. Will the transfer be an off-street transfer? A on-street streetcar stop/station transfer (like in downtown)? Or an on-street transfer like the old Bloor Station streetcar transfer?

streetcar-4115-07.jpg

ttc-4660-bloor-1955.jpg


From link.

If the TTC could make the second order of streetcars double-ended, which means doors on both sides, they could go with an on-street center platform to transfer from the streetcars to the underground station. Single set of steps, escalators, and elevators.

F109_7898.jpg

From link. (Like the name of the tram stop: Batman Park and Flinders Street)
 
Please give some feedback as to the Ontario Line track slope and if I have it correct.


Depth / Slope of tracks ascending to surface OR descending to tunnel
  • Based on a discussion with a Metrolinx Engineer at the Open House Tuesday, January 28, 2020 - he confirmed that Ground zero would be the No Frills Grocery Store at Gerrard and Carlaw. He also confirmed the following
  • 25m - depth subway portion runs underground ( Below Grade )
  • 4 degree, 4 percent slope for the track
  • 25m / 0.04 = 625m for the sloped portion to reach Grade OR reach 25m depth
West Side Track that travels South - this will be the slope and depth looking north
  • 0m NoFrills Ground Zero, S side of NoFrills at the train tracks
  • 86m Tunnel starts i.e. no more daylight 3.4m BG Just SW of Carpet Mill front door
  • 214m Langley 8.6m Below Grade (BG)
  • 329m Riverdale 13m BG
  • 427m Withrow 17m BG
  • 525m Bain 21m BG
  • 607m Dingwall 24m BG
  • 625m 519 Pape 25m BG
Route to Surface
  • West Track - Travelling South, 86m from NoFrills, the tunnel will see daylight at 3.4m BG
    • Just SW of Carpet Mill
  • East Track - Traveling East along the Go Corridor, descending for 86m, the track will reach 3.4m and will no longer see daylight. This will allow it to turn NE and travel under the Go Corridor. The tunnel will continue N till it meets up with Pape at Langley
  • In an email and phone call with Metrolinx, they could not confirm the above and only said we would get the data once the RFQ’s were made public.




View attachment 261073

Welcome to Urban Toronto, great research, any interest in doing the Distillery / West Don lands portal?
 
Between 1954 and 2020, Toronto has built a grand total of two rapid transit lines of substantial length
As for this... this is just an outright lie for the sake of making a salacious, emotively satisfying point

The Spadina/University line alone is 17 stops! CNR didn't provide a lot of in-city service in the 1950s (post-war Canadians wanted to drive to work & fill those giant parking lots we used to have everywhere downtown), and so GO Transit's servicing of several Toronto stops didn't come around until after the 1970s. Kipling GO, e.g., opened in the early 1980s. Plus there's the UP Express, which does count as rapid transit, regardless of how successful it may have been! Dozens of different road & bridge projects were required to get UP Express up and running. Plus, ignoring the dozens of Finch West LRT and Crosstown rapid transit stations that are opening in the next couple of years is frankly disingenuous. Yes, we would have liked both routes to have finished by now, and the blame lies squarely at the feet of Rob Ford for that. And yes, we all wanted more, years ago. But transit development has certainly been happening at a faster pace than we've seen since the 1980s. Come 2022, pretty much nobody, not even us enthusiasts, is going to be able to name & locate every transit stop in this city off the top of their head.... there will simply be too many of them.


Okay, buddy, you're really splitting hairs here and missing the forest for the trees. Clearly my point in saying that, "between 1954 and 2020, Toronto has built a grand total of two rapid transit lines of substantial length" was to highlight the anemic pace of rapid transit development in Toronto over the past 70 years, despite the costs of transit and subway expansion being relatively low up until recent. If you want to count the UPX - a route that barely carries as many riders as a low ridership TTC bus route - as rapid transit, be my guest. I know people on this forum love semantic debates - the commuters really don't give a damn about semantics though.

Nevertheless, my point still stands: Rapid transit expansion in Toronto over the past 70 years has been relatively cheap, and despite that, Toronto's pace of rapid transit expansion has been anemic at best. Toronto's transit expansion woes have everything to do with politics, and little to due with finances.

I get that it's a very popular thing to say that the Ford government "scrapped all the plans" and "started from scratch". It gets people worked up emotionally, especially if they are predisposed to dislike the current government.

But it's not actually true, is it? I mean.... compare the plans...

The path to hell is paved with good intentions. On many occasions, new politicians have rolled into town, scrapped the old plans, and brought in shiny new plans. They may have very well intended those plans to get built, but, you know... shit happens, and shiny new plans almost always get downscaled and scrapped. You could literally (literally!) fill a book with all the grand plans politicians have trotted around over the decades. I'm still waiting for the GO ALRT Bill Davis promised us.

One of two things will happen with the Ontario Line proposal:

A) If the Ontario Line gets built, it will be a brilliant shake-up of the infrastructure development modus operandi, to deliver Toronto's most ambitious transit expansion, perhaps ever.

B) If the Ontario Line doesn't get built, the only thing it will have accomplished is the cancelation of the Relief Line.

Nobody knows how this proposal will end up. But given Ontario's new track record, I'm obviously not optimistic. I will remain intensely suspicious of any politicians that cancel transit development under any circumstance, until they actually accomplish something meaningful

I, for one, am sick of politicians and their grand new plans.
 
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.. something to keep in mind is that the Queen West Heritage district also protected the streetcar and tracks. That means University to Bathurst always has to have some kind of streetcar running on that section.
 
Toronto's streetcar network carries 64,917,000 (2018) riders. While less than Guadelajara at 98,269,000 and Calgary at 91,029,100, it is more than Los Angeles Metro light rail (Blue, Expo, Gold, & Green lines) at 64,715,700, Boston's light rail at 53,715,600, San Francisco's Muni at 49,971,700, and Edmonton at 39,448,700. From link.
 
Okay, buddy, you're really splitting hairs here and missing the forest for the trees. Clearly my point in saying that, "between 1954 and 2020, Toronto has built a grand total of two rapid transit lines of substantial length" was to highlight the anemic pace of rapid transit development in Toronto over the past 70 years, despite the costs of transit and subway expansion being relatively low up until recent. If you want to count the UPX - a route that barely carries as many riders as a low ridership TTC bus route - as rapid transit, be my guest. I know people on this forum love semantic debates - the commuters really don't give a damn about semantics though.

Nevertheless, my point still stands: Rapid transit expansion in Toronto over the past 70 years has been relatively cheap, and despite that, Toronto's pace of rapid transit expansion has been anemic at best. Toronto's transit expansion woes have everything to do with politics, and little to due with finances.



The path to hell is paved with good intentions. On many occasions, new politicians have rolled into town, scrapped the old plans, and brought in shiny new plans. They may have very well intended those plans to get built, but, you know... shit happens, and shiny new plans almost always get downscaled and scrapped. You could literally (literally!) fill a book with all the grand plans politicians have trotted around over the decades. I'm still waiting for the GO ALRT Bill Davis promised us.

One of two things will happen with the Ontario Line proposal:

A) If the Ontario Line gets built, it will be a brilliant shake-up of the infrastructure development modus operandi, to deliver Toronto's most ambitious transit expansion, perhaps ever.

B) If the Ontario Line doesn't get built, the only thing it will have accomplished is the cancelation of the Relief Line.

Nobody knows how this proposal will end up. But given Ontario's new track record, I'm obviously not optimistic. I will remain intensely suspicious of any politicians that cancel transit development under any circumstance, until they actually accomplish something meaningful

I, for one, am sick of politicians and their grand new plans.

You’d think that after what happened with the Shepppard and Finch LRTs, people around here would learn to stop being impressed with plans.

As a quick reminder, both of those projects were shovel ready, and Liberal government had committed to building them. The Liberals, and their useless lapdogs at Metrolinx, sat on their ass for years, lying the public, until we reached the point where the Sheppard LRT was chanceled, and we came within days of losing the Finch West LRT as well.

So, no, nothing about canceling the DRL for grand new “plans” amuses me. I’ll celebrate when something is actually under construction
 
Melbourne Tram should sell naming rights to that stop to Warner Bros. (owner of DC Comics, which Batman is a part of).

Side note: Warner Bros. should also buy naming rights to the Turkish city of Batman.

Marvel Stadium, which isn't too far away, won't be happy with that!

1596744425289.png

 
Tunneling under the don river would've taken ages and the costs far too high.
Bridging it makes the most sense.

As for the station entrances/exits, they could be put where it makes absolute sense. Depending how it's done, you wouldn't need very long walkways (in excess of 100-200 meters) to the stations. Old or abandoned properties could be used for said entrances, retaining the facade and walls for historical purposes, an example is a few entrances at Spadina station, which was deemed historical.
 
I just would like to see it built. It’s not perfect, but I am worried that because tendering has been pushed out past this term that it’ll die in a black hole.
 
I just would like to see it built. It’s not perfect, but I am worried that because tendering has been pushed out past this term that it’ll die in a black hole.

I hope the Liberals would be content with just tweaking the plans, and continuing the tendering process. Burning everything with Ford's fingerprints on it is good for nobody.
 

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