- Thread starter 299 bloor call control.
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M II A II R II K
Senior Member
And the stations are so long, you could probably have one GO station that connects with both Osgoode and Queen at the same time.
salsa
Senior Member
I like the proposal, however that would dump thousands of new riders onto the Yonge Line. If the purpose of Crossrail was to add capacity to the transit network, a Midtown GO line wouldn't do that. It would merely shift the overcrowding from Union station onto Line 1.
steveintoronto
Superstar
Agreed completely, and that's where the studies in those reports have made a mistake by using the *present* (actually 2011) state of GO Transit in reaching the conclusions they have. It presumes the Don Valley to always be at the present service level, which is as you stated, very limited. Since the DRL and Yonge extension are projected as being a decade or more away, surely it's only sensible to plan with the service on the northern GO routes will be within that time frame, not what it is now? In the event, I think those studies will be reworked, and reach a quite different conclusion. Funding is limited, and it must be maximized for yield per investment. In fact, it might even be PPP, and radically differently projected and completed much sooner.
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-bc-edition/20170410/281517930980268
Yeah, that's the Summerhill conundrum. There's an easy way to address a good deal of that, and Metrolinx are working on it at this very moment: The CP spur off the Midtown and down the Don Valley. Any thoughts as to why Metrolinx is renewing it? It will move passengers express down to Union, and a station at Queen, where historically there used to be one. They can then transfer to the King and Queen streetcars by climbing up the steps. Absolutely minimum improvements needed for now. Since Summerhill would be a through-running station, a good part of the load can be shared at Dupont Station (Spadina).
M II A II R II K
Senior Member
Unless you don't have a Summerhill Station and only have interchanges at Dupont and a future DRL station.
steveintoronto
Superstar
Summerhill is a given. There might be ways of ameliorating the 'crush' factor, Spadina an obvious one, but Summerhill is potentially Union Station North. As for DRL, I don't see why, other than those accessing overhead stops, would anyone want to change onto the subway at that point when from the east at least, you could RER express it to King/Queen and then Union via the Don Valley spur?
rbt
Senior Member
Caveat being that Spadina line is rapidly approaching capacity too.
If mid-town corridor was free'd up, I'd actually like to see VIA kicked out of Union to a station around Dupont rather than GO shifting their own services on it. VIA customers destined for office parks downtown can transfer to a RER service. VIA customers doing touristy things can start at Casa Loma.
I'm not sure what that free's up for track time but it certainly frees up quite a bit of platform space.
adrianaliu
Active Member
I feel like having summerhill stn on midtown is important, sure many will transfer to line 1 southbound, but many of those same riders (coming from mississauga, milton) already transfer to line 1 northbound at union today because most downtown destinations are in between union and summerhill. if anything moving the milton line to the midtown corridor will relieve union stn (about time we start planning for the future) and it could go to malvern and provide them a quick ride to downtown. theres also the option for riders to transfer to university line coming from the west so I am not too worried. I think its important that go rer slowly moves away from the existing hub and spoke system that exists today, if we want it to be the regional rapid transit system that we always talk about.
steveintoronto
Superstar
You're missing a huge point: The problem for Yonge services southbound during morning peak is that it would not handle a trainload of arriving RER passengers at Summerhill. The subway will be jam packed coming south into Summerhill subway station during peak....which is exactly the crux of problem being discussed. Union offers many diversions from a single trainload, onto other trains in some cases, GO buses and if onto the subway at Union, there's the choice of *two directions to get midtown!* And on relatively empty subway cars. That's the equivalent of two subway systems, or one with four tracks. That's why rbt and myself were discussing Spadina, even though there are issues with Spadina too, but at least it's an option to 'spread the load'. If Summerhill becomes a terminus for HFR, for instance, or an RER service from the east that isn't 'run-through' please explain to me how Summerhill is going to handle the load.
Steps will have to be taken to ameliorate that, as I stated prior. An obvious one is to divert a good deal of the *crush* factor from the east down the CP connecting spur onto the Don Valley route into Union with a stop at King/Queen, to allow at least some of that *crush* to dissipate along that corridor to their destinations. That will be more direct than going to Union, then up the subway lines....no? It would be a partial 'Relief Line'. This addresses Mark's point to an extent. A stop might also be considered at Gerrard, but more problematic than the obvious King/Queen one with an accessible bridge above.
I love Summerhill, and it WAS CP's main station in Toronto until the connecting spur was built to connect to the then new New Union Station. That spur is being refurbished at this very time by Metrolinx for re-use. Why do you think that might be? As it now is, Summerhill will handle light traffic, maybe even medium and wonderfully so, but it can't handle rush-hour crushes....unless some major infrastructure is added to alleviate it....and I don't want to get into that scenario. It can be a hub again, but only with careful consideration as to how to distribute the load to various other modes and/or stations. Maybe even a surface LRT in addition to the Yonge and Spadina subway branches?
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adrianaliu
Active Member
i guess you're right. but i think it would be whack to service the midtown line and not allow a transfer to the yonge line. if anything, they need to figure out a way to keep to yonge line from overcrowding as a result of this. it's much better to try and find a solution for a potential problem, than to avoid the problem altogether. the midtown line would be like a line 2 express service that serves the suburban municipalities. I understand that allowing a transfer to yonge line would be detrimental, but it would be convenient for many, and we should be thinking of ways to accomodate the extra riders. I really don't know but what if they tunneled right beside the existing yonge line from union to eglinton and operate 2 services on the corridor south of eglinton, an express service from union to steeles that only stops every 2km or so (it would use the existing tunnel north of eglinton), and another from vmc to eglinton that uses the existing tunnel and stops at all stns. This would help accomodate the extra riders from midtown and line 5, this won't happen anytime soon, but hey it's an idea. i just dont think it makes sense to not allow a transfer because of how many ppl use it.
steveintoronto
Superstar
You're on to it....it's a tough one, as Midtown has to come into use as an east-west trunk for RER. There is space to run an LRT west from Summerhill CP adjacent to the tracks, (Historically, there was an Interurban that did this!) I'm just reaching for some kind of solution to make this work. LRT could be a feeder/distributor for the RER, reducing the number of stations, always a good thing to keep RER moving fast, and better serving the neighbourhood.
Edit to Add: Maybe not LRT, maybe just plain old streetcar? Spadina streetcar and/or Bathurst streetcar extended up to Midtown tracks, ramp onto the rail RoW (I just checked Google, the bridges and RoW are all four track or more) and run adjacent to tracks to Yonge and terminate in Summerhill Station. Double-ended streetcars would be needed to avoid a costly loop at Summerhill.
Second Edit: Close Google Satellite and Street View dismisses Spadina streetcar connection as described, but shows large value for Bathurst, not the least that Bathurst has streetcar tracks in good shape and extant right up to St Clair and available land at Midtown Line bridge to provide ramps up to Midtown RoW and ample capacity across to Summerhill train station.
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lead82
Senior Member
I ride the Spadina line daily and there is plenty of capacity. It only fills up at St. George, and even then it's only truly full from St. George to Queen's Park, where a large number of passengers disembark. It's nowhere near over-capacity like the Yonge line. Ridership will pick up with the extension and the Crosstown, but I don't think it will be full anytime soon. It will never be as busy as Yonge as the demand on Spadina line is more of a commuter line, especially north of Eglinton, where ridership is fairly sparse, and is mostly captive riders.
rbt
Senior Member
A mid-town corridor is, optimistically, 10 to 15 years away. Spadina ridership isn't projected to remain static during that time.
Still a problem if you all of sudden you start adding a lot of people at Dupont.
nfitz
Superstar
Given the last Metrolinx modelling I've seen for this line, only had 7,500 riders at the AM peak point, and that includes the Milton riders still going to Union, I'd think the passenger volume at Dupont would be less than many a TTC bus line.
Given the CP complexities, and the lack of predicted ridership, I suspect this has fallen way down the list.