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Which transit plan do you prefer?

  • Transit City

    Votes: 95 79.2%

  • Ford City

    Votes: 25 20.8%
  • Total voters
    120
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
I don't think the Bloor line should go to Pearson. That's Eglinton's job (whether it be LRT or HRT)
Click to expand...

I have to agree with you on this one. I've been doing some thinking, and Eglinton is the superior route to also go to Square One, simply because the BRT ROW is already there (or will be shortly). Upgrading that to LRT will be a snap, especially because by that point Ottawa will have already done it, so we'll know exactly what the kinks in the process were.

Personally though, I think the DRL should go to Pearson, not Eglinton. If you're extending the DRL West up to Eglinton anyway, might as well share the ROW with Eglinton and bring it to Pearson (that is of course assuming that Eglinton will be HRT).

I'm actually working on a semi-fantasy transit plan right now (I say semi-fantasy because it's very much a 25 year 'half of this probably won't get built plan'), but I'm designing it with an emphasis on alternatives to current or past proposals. The two big changes from most other plans are:

1) Separating the Y from the US at Union, and running the DRL East and US line as one line. Yonge will always have higher ridership numbers than either of those two, so running it as its own separate line allows for greater flexibility in terms of headways, etc. Similarly, the projected ridership of the DRL East and the current ridership of US are very similar, so it makes sense to pair them up, seeing as how their required headways will be nearly identical.

2) A 4-tracked LRT subway (yes, you're reading that right) under Queen St from Roncesvalles to just past Broadview. Hear me out on this one. One route does the current 501 route from Long Branch to Neville Park, using the local tracks on the tunnel. Another route starts at Dundas West, uses Roncesvalles to get down to Queen, and then uses the express tracks on Queen to just past Broadview, where it continues in the rail ROW to Victoria Park Stn.

The biggest dilemma with the DRL along Queen is speed vs accessibility. The DRL needs to be fast, but Queen needs local stop spacing. A 4 track provides this. And building it as a 4-track LRT negates any capacity concerns, as the capacity of the line will be higher than a double-tracked subway line. It also provides the advantage of running as a normal streetcar outside of the tunnel (ie along Queen East and Lakeshore West). The traffic delays occuring outside the tunnel will not impact the DRL component, as it rides purely on the express tracks. The express portion also extends north via the Georgetown corridor to Eglinton, where it shares that ROW through the Richview corridor, until it hits the 427. Eglinton LRT continues on to Square One, DRL goes to Pearson. And voila, an express train from Vic Park to Pearson, via downtown, with more than enough capacity to serve the projected ridership, and the flexibility of offering transferless rides.

Crazy, I know, but I'm trying to think outside the box here. I'll post the map in the fantasy thread when I'm done with it.
 
gweed123 said:
1) Separating the Y from the US at Union, and running the DRL East and US line as one line. Yonge will always have higher ridership numbers than either of those two, so running it as its own separate line allows for greater flexibility in terms of headways, etc. Similarly, the projected ridership of the DRL East and the current ridership of US are very similar, so it makes sense to pair them up, seeing as how their required headways will be nearly identical.
Click to expand...

I've played with this idea as well, except that I keep the DRL east separate and run the the US line back up Jarvis in the hopes that the two lines bookending the Yonge line could buffer it from some of the loads that come in from the E-W bus routes.

However I've also thought, and wonder if you could add some insight, if there was a possible one station (or two) extension to the Yonge line from King south to the lake shore. Could that be possible?
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
I've played with this idea as well, except that I keep the DRL east separate and run the the US line back up Jarvis in the hopes that the two lines bookending the Yonge line could buffer it from some of the loads that come in from the E-W bus routes.

However I've also thought, and wonder if you could add some insight, if there was a possible one station (or two) extension to the Yonge line from King south to the lake shore. Could that be possible?
Click to expand...

That's an interesting idea. Another thing that I had included in my plan too was a Yonge Express subway, running from Eglinton to Union (actually from Richmond Hill to Union, but the Yonge line north of Eglinton is pretty much an express subway anyway). I ran it down Bay, so I would think that extending this express line down to Lakeshore or Queen Quay would be easier than trying to negotiate the curve on Yonge, as the Express Subway would run N-S at Front and Bay, not E-W like the current YUS platform does.

As for the buffering of Yonge, you're right that Jarvis would be the likely alternative. However, if you wanted to emmulate the University line, I think that Parliament would be a more suitable alternative, as it would directly serve both Regent Park and St. Jamestown. It would also connect to Castle Frank station, which quite frankly, if it was shut down completely for a year or so in order to be rebuilt, not many people would miss.
 
Very interesting ideas guys. I made my own map here: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U....696563,-79.421225&spn=0.135282,0.338173&z=12

I did what y'all suggested and separated Yonge from University-Spadina. I agree that in the near-term, DRL East Leg and U-S can be interlined and run as one line since the lines will have similar demand. I extended Yonge down to Harbor and up to where I think it should go (approximately). I also showed the Spadina line's extension to VCC on the map. My DRL East goes up to Sheppard, which might be a tad bit optimistic. I figure Yonge can have a station at Front Street which would basically link up with Union Station.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Very interesting ideas guys. I made my own map here: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U....696563,-79.421225&spn=0.135282,0.338173&z=12

I did what y'all suggested and separated Yonge from University-Spadina. I agree that in the near-term, DRL East Leg and U-S can be interlined and run as one line since the lines will have similar demand. I extended Yonge down to Harbor and up to where I think it should go (approximately). I also showed the Spadina line's extension to VCC on the map. My DRL East goes up to Sheppard, which might be a tad bit optimistic. I figure Yonge can have a station at Front Street which would basically link up with Union Station.
Click to expand...

Very nice. Mine looks very similar. Although I do think it would be worth it to extend the DRL up to Seneca if you're going to go all the way to Sheppard anyway. The extra cost would be worth it to service Seneca and intercept the loads of Finch riders.
 
gweed123 said:
Very nice. Mine looks very similar. Although I do think it would be worth it to extend the DRL up to Seneca if you're going to go all the way to Sheppard anyway. The extra cost would be worth it to service Seneca and intercept the loads of Finch riders.
Click to expand...

I don't know the area at all so I just want it to link up with Sheppard.
 
So I finally finished my map, unfortunately the size of it is too large to be effectively shrunken down and still be readable. I have posted it on my blog instead of here, because at least there its semi-readable: http://jandrew86.blogspot.com/2010/08/fantasy-map-for-toronto-transit.html

If anyone would be willing to host the full image on their site, I would be very grateful.

A couple things I have done:

1) I have taken a page from NYC's books and labelled individual routes along the various lines. Subway routes are numbered, LRT and BRT routes are lettered. Black station dots are local stations, white station dots are either express stations, or simply the only stations on the line (ex: B-D only has white dots, because there is no express route on it).

2) I mentioned earlier the Queen thing. I figured a good cost-saving measure would be to build the local stations to accomodate maximum 2-car trainsets, this would save on construction as well as maintenance costs, as the stations would be much smaller, and thus cheaper to build. Only the express stations would need to have full length platforms.

3) The lines with the funny shading on them are dedicated express tracks (the 5 and A trains run on the express tracks). The E, F, G, and H BRT routes could potentially run some express buses too.

4) The D Train is a version of the Jane LRT. Same ROW north of Eglinton as the current proposal, but south of Eglinton it uses a combination of the A train tracks and the B train tracks to go through downtown and terminate at Queen East Stn. I figured a Jane LRT that at least went downtown would be much more useful than the current proposal. Not necessarily a fan of LRT on this corridor, but the interlining potential makes it at least worth looking at.

Questions and comments welcome. I do realize at first the map looks pretty confusing, as it's a pretty radical departure from a typical TTC map. Also maybe some different things on there that people haven't really seen before.
 
Nicely done. Although I know we were discussing this in this thread, maybe it should be in the fantasy map thread?
 
Well outside the city centre, it should be less disruptive and faster to build it in the suburbs, but speaking of the city centre, certain stretches could certainly use a line or 2 of separated LRT, particularly in the east.
 
montreal-metro.jpg


While Toronto is planning to convert the Scarborough Rapid Transit to light rail, Montréal is thinking about converting their rubber-wheeled Metro to steel-wheel. At the moment, the rubber wheeled trains must be covered to protect the tires from the snow. With steel wheels, they can expand their Metro in the open. See this link.

Fig11-Monorail.png


Monorails generally also are rubber tired. They would have the same problem with snow, unless heated (or covered) as well. Unless they are not used in the winter.

staobahn.jpg


Even guided busways have to use heaters to melt the snow. Or have to be covered like the Montréal Metro.
 
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