Except costs. I happen to believe a "Rosedale" fashioned station with basic access points and no elaborate space required for feeder buses to terminate, is more than adequate.
So do we!
My fear is that we'd see more "Warden" mega-stations if done as subways.
I'm thinking more along the lines of ALRV or CLRV vehicles in a private right-of-way, within or on land adjacent to the Weston Galt and Kingston Subdivisions. The streamlined width of
vehicles occupies less space than RT75-T1 subway cars and yet can accomodate the same amount of passengers. The vehicles can be articulated (for continous walk-through) and double-decker (for additional seating in the top-level). I'm not sure how that'd work with subway cars.
How would the "streamlined width" (now there's a euphemism) possibly give these trains the same capacity as a subway? Think about it. Same length but narrower. You measure the capacity of a vehicle by its square footage. That's length times width. Translation: Same length, less width, means less square footage, means lower capacity. Now you actually want double-decker streetcars? Think about this... What you're basically saying is, with streetcars you can do anything, with subway cars, they have to be exactly like Toronto's. They can be articulated so you can walk through? Not for much longer than existing ALRVs, or they can't run on the street. Then, all you've got is a lower-capacity subway car that isn't compatible with the rest of the system. But it's awesome! Because it's called an LRT. And double-decker. Wow. Okay, I guess just because of the magic of LRT, a double-decker LRV can fit through a tunnel, but a double-decker subway car can't.
No need for sarcasm. I'm under the impression 10 kms of subway can equally afford 100 kms of light rail. It's the quantitive measure I'm focused with. There's just too many city-wide rapid transit demands for subways to possibly service them all. So long as the DRL alleviates some of the capacity issues on the YUS/BD lines and the downtown streetcar lines, it shouldn't matter what technology accomplishes it.
Well maybe a ridiculous claim like that isn't what you should be focused on. It's not the magic of LRT that makes a line 10 times less expensive. An LRT on the same alignment
will not be 10 times less expensive. It likely won't be significantly less expensive at all. That figure (extremely dubious even for this) comes from comparing a subway in a tunnel to a streetcar running in a private lane on an arterial road.
You have to understand that a better service alleviates more capacity issues. It's not the same. The same number of people are not going to take a DRL LRT in the middle of the street that takes half an hour to do a trip the subway currently does in 10 minutes, as a DRL subway that does that trip in 8 minutes.
I've witnessed on the subway infinite periods of overcrowding for a while then a long strech of 3/4 empty trains picking up handfuls of people per station. In spite of this most people say the current subway network is overcapacitated and need of alleviation; hence this proposal. Even if the entire surplus rode the DRL between Pape and Dundas West over BD, it still wouldn't warrant beyond a 90 second headway of LRTs (ICTS, CLRV, ALRV?). At Spadina Stn waiting for the 510 sometimes upto 200 people gather. However by the time one streetcar shows up there's 3 already visibly paused behind.
You have to understand that
that's a bad thing. Four streetcars bunched up isn't a demonstration of the success of wonderful streetcars. It's a demonstration of the complete failure of the TTC to operate any of the LRT lines that it has. They're supposed to operate on a headway, meaning a certain amount of space is supposed to be maintained between each car, so that people at stops can have a reliable wait. As a regular rider, I can assure you there's never a reliable wait on the Spadina car.
People are only inconvenienced by the duration it takes the vehicles to unload and reload (which is improving to 1 min tops thanks to transit patrol).
Do you understand that it's less convenient to ride the Spadina streetcar, which takes 30 minutes to cover a trip the parallel subway does in under 10? You must understand that.
I don't think you're paying attention. The line would be completely within the confines of the rail corridor. That's the whole point, to conserve funds from not tunneling. It's only east of the Skydome would the line slip into the building foundations and emerge again at some point east of Yonge (perhaps at Jarvis to serve St Lawrence directly). So at most that's 2 underground stations no more fancy than the QQ Ferry Docks Stn. People needing the CN Tower/Rogers Ctr, Cityplace, the Ex, King West and Liberty Vlgs, Queen/Dufferin condos and the 505/506 at College would use it, whether or not it's a LRT. I'd clock it closer to 15 mins or less (Union to Bloor/Danforth).
Any route through a rail corridor that LRT takes, subway can take too. They're just two pairs of rails. One just happens to have catenary overhead, the other a pair of third rails. The cost difference is negligible. The reason the subway DRL leaves the rail corridor at certain points is not because it's a subway. It's because the rail corridor route would mean no direct connection with any other rapid transit line, and not serving several important destinations. It would also be impossible, since the rail corridor east of the Don is just not wide enough for CN to give up any of its right of way to a rapid transit line.
What's more important though, moving more people per trip per capita or moving slightly less but have enough resources leftover to build a larger, more comprehensive system? What will appease the most riders, an underground, high-tech, ultra-modern subway from Roncesvalles to Carlaw or a simplistic, at-grade, open-air LRT from Don-Mills/Lawrence to Weston/Lawrence or from Pape/Danforth to Peasron?
Or what about busways to Kenora and Pembroke? Obviously the system that moves more people will make more people "appeased" (Now there's a socialwoe/Dentrobate word for ya). Normal riders
do not want a system that is less reliable, and takes more time to cover the same distance as the existing subway. The point is also that an LRT line in the same corridor as the subway costs virtually the same amount. The underground sections of the DRL subway are not because it uses subway technology, but because the rail corridor can't accommodate the line for its entire length, and the line needs to leave the rail corridor in order to serve certain important trip generators.
I do indeed want a lot of transit, just everywhere ASAP! We've waited far too long for officials to sign-off on a transit funds windfall, such that by now almost every city ward can claim worthiness. A subway in the downtown might anger Scarborough residents, one there might offend Etobicoke residents. If it's financially impossible to serve them all with new subway lines, why bother? What's the point of $$ First Class, Grade-A subway transit in the rail corridor only to have passengers dumped out onto the same tired innercity bus/streetcar routes renown for long breaks in service? I'd like to see improvements of all kinds. All that matters is that we get something started soon. A LRT can be up and running within 3 years.
I think maybe we should take an extra year or two and build a system that will last the ages, rather than building some cheap solution a bit quicker.
Dude I just admitted that I'm uncertain of the logistic details. That's why I brought up with the LRT proposal to fish out the answers I seek. I figured since this was an at-grade relief line (designed primarily with the intent of alleviating existing subways) prior conventions of 'subway' needn't apply. Obviously the vehicles wouldn't be exactly alike the CLRVs but modified to accomodate more passengers and other special conditions. According to your own figures at least 792 passengers could fit onto a 3-car, double-decker LRT train. This could run on 90 second intervals w/platforms no more elaborate than Scarborough RT stations.
It's absolutely impossible to build the DRL without tunnelling. That means that you're going to have to build tunnels even wider than subway tunnels in order to accommodate double-decker LRTs. That's going to make it
more expensive than a comparable subway, not less.
It's not that I'm against subways as much as I fear they'll try to build it over-the-top expensively; resulting in far too few new stations, proper interchanges, PATH-links or adequate upgrades to surface bus/streetcar service/fleet to get passengers to/from DRL stops. I also heard that it'll be fully incorporated into the BD subway (interlining), which begs the question how could that possibly work? It doesn't really matter to me either way whether it's subway or LRT so long as the financial differential is slim.
Don't worry. It's not going to be interlined. Get that out of your head. It's not going to happen. There's no reason why subway has to be overbuilt or expensive. That's why the DRL is so great. It's only underground when being underground brings significant benefits. Those surface subway stations can and should be just as simple as RT stations, as you've said. Some underground stations would obviously need to be elaborate, like Union, because of the very high use they would see, but that would be the case regardless of the technology if you want the system to operate properly.
While I could be wrong about the technology, at least my heart's definitely in the right place for wanting more mass transit for less time and resources to get into operation.
Yes, your heart's in the right place for wanting more transit. You just have to understand that all transit technologies aren't the same. I could say I don't want any LRT, I want five times as many buses. You don't think that's a good idea, do you? You see, more miles or more lines on a map isn't necessarily the be-all and end-all of transit. Lines on a map don't move people. Trains and buses do. And if those trains and buses are slow and unreliable, people aren't going to ride them no matter how many there are. Also, people's trips, especially out in the suburbs, don't tend to be only on one route. That means that someone going from, say, UTSC to Downtown would benefit from a subway extension to Scarborough Centre
even though that subway extension doesn't directly serve either their origin or destination point. That's because the extension would provide a significantly quicker ride on a portion of the route that they will be travelling. Likewise, an LRT on Morningside that "serves" UTSC would not benefit a UTSC student who wants to go shopping at Town Centre. They would still be taking the same 38 bus, because that's not the way the LRT goes. Even though they're "served" by LRT, they're not getting any benefit from it. You see? Planning transit is more than just quantity of lines on a map. You have to look at where the largest numbers of people are actually going, what routes they might be taking, and how long it takes them to get there.
The city has been taken over by a group of people who have such intense ideological blinders that they feel that LRT, and only LRT, can magically solve all our city's problems. It's just simply false. There are places where LRT makes sense, places where buses make sense, and, yes, places where subway makes sense (and that's not just York Region). Ideology and trendiness in transit is absolutely the wrong way to go. That's what got streetcar routes abandoned in the first place, and got us orphan technologies like the RT. Take a dispassionate look. One technology will
not solve our problems.
. Nuff said! 