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Not many people know about this service
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Replace the Queen St & King St streetcar lines with a "crosstown styled" tunneled LRT line that can extend pass the Humber loop and along The Queensway, all the way to Kipling or Sherway. Convert streetcar track between Roncesvalle and Humber loop to standard gauge to accommodate LRT trains. This would be the only portion of the line that would be above ground.

this would definitely be my preferred route for an Ontario Line 2 light metro line in the future. however I don't think you'll ever see another Crosstown line like Line 5 again. there's zero benefit to spending that much $ on tunnelling several km's for an LRT line and the streetcar TTC track gauge also isn't beneficial at all to an LRT project where it can simply just take over existing track like you described on the Queensway. a south core metro line that parallels Line 2 would be great though.

OL 2 Phase 1: Park Lawn GO /Humber Bay to Queen & Woodbine or Kingston Road.

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this would definitely be my preferred route for an Ontario Line 2 light metro line in the future.
I'd also submit that there could be a very quick and dirty phase one (phase -1?) of this if city were to make permanent changes to the king priority infrastructure. The western part of this route could connect the high density Humber Bay to downtown with local service and would be very quick and cheap. Of course this would require giving extended priority to Streetcars which the city has proven it has no serious interest in doing.
 
I'd also submit that there could be a very quick and dirty phase one (phase -1?) of this if city were to make permanent changes to the king priority infrastructure. The western part of this route could connect the high density Humber Bay to downtown with local service and would be very quick and cheap. Of course this would require giving extended priority to Streetcars which the city has proven it has no serious interest in doing.

not a bad idea either, but the ridership / demand is there for a higher capacity form of transit along the south core. personally i wouldn't want to take streetcar from Humber Bay all the way to the core, i guess GO can theoretically meet the demand of that specific trip once Park Lawn station is a thing. the east end towards the Beaches is pretty much a transit desert though for longer distant trips above 10km.

i'd imagine a metro line along this route would easily hit a > 250k pphpd easy.
 
Agreed, I also see the need for a higher order east/west transit line beyond the OL is necessary. I've just always felt there is a stopgap that could be achieved within a year for reasonable cost. Something that could work in tandem with GO to create more comprehensive transit for the coming density in Humber Bay, which will arrive before new rapid transit does.
 
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this isn't exactly a transit fantasy map, but its an idea i've been thinking about for a while. when talking about go electrification/RER and intensification of the downtown core, i can't help but think of the massive potential for redevelopment at the No Frills site on Dundas West. barring some random restriction i'm unaware of, this site would be perfect for a GO station in the future, potentially titled Sterling Station. this station would sit on both the Barrie and Kitchener lines, allowing not only for transfer between these two services but also access to transit to a neighbourhood that today is a bit hard to reach.

in my very rudimentary map, i have included a relocation of the No Frills to the south side of that lot (in yellow, with mid-high rise mixed-use TOD on top). my idea is that once the new No Frills is ready (with a new station mouth, indicated in blue), demolition of the old structure can begin so it could be transformed into a new park (in green) and more TOD mixed-use in magenta. there would also be station boxes/entrances from Wabash Avenue (through a short bridge), Dundas West at Sterling, and Sorauren park through a longer bridge.

i think that once GO RER starts becoming more of a thing we need to think at which sites near GO lines in the city are being underutilized so they can be redeveloped into mixed use transit nodes.

excited to hear some feedback!
 
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this isn't exactly a transit fantasy map, but its an idea i've been thinking about for a while. when talking about go electrification/RER and intensification of the downtown core, i can't help but think of the massive potential for redevelopment at the No Frills site on Dundas West. barring some random restriction i'm unaware of, this site would be perfect for a GO station in the future, potentially titled Sterling Station. this station would sit on both the Barrie and Kitchener lines, allowing not only for transfer between these two services but also access to transit to a neighbourhood that today is a bit hard to reach.

in my very rudimentary map, i have included a relocation of the No Frills to the south side of that lot (in yellow, with mid-high rise mixed-use TOD on top). my idea is that once the new No Frills is ready (with a new station mouth, indicated in blue), demolition of the old structure can begin so it could be transformed into a new park (in green) and more TOD mixed-use in magenta. there would also be station boxes/entrances from Wabash Avenue (through a short bridge), Dundas West at Sterling, and Sorauren park through a longer bridge.

i think that once GO RER starts becoming more of a thing we need to think at which sites near GO lines in the city are being underutilized so they can be redeveloped into mixed use transit nodes.

excited to hear some feedback!

I like it. However this station would compete with the potential combined Dundas W/Lansdown GO station. Locating the station slightly North, while losing the convenience of a cross GO line transfer, gains access to the Bloor Subway line.
 
I like it. However this station would compete with the potential combined Dundas W/Lansdown GO station. Locating the station slightly North, while losing the convenience of a cross GO line transfer, gains access to the Bloor Subway line.

Are there plans to combine the future Lansdowne GO station with Dundas West? I thought they'd remain as separate stations on separate lines. Also yeah, the distances are quite short, but about the same as that between Union and the future Front-Spadina section. I have been living and travelling all over Europe since leaving Toronto five years ago and I am really impressed by how some cities manage to seamlessly integrate their suburban rail with the rest of the network. It's not uncommon to see these types of services covering stations ~1km away from each other in certain sections.

I also think there's a lot of potential to look at these more suburban stations as more than just transit nodes but entire commerce hubs, as they do in cities like Berlin perhaps. I imagine that a master plan of the site with as many plots as possible would allow the entire Dundas West area to be revitalized.
 
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Hi, this is a timeline of Ontarian tram and trolleybus systems using data from this source. Its neat to see the transition from horse tramways to electric tramways and then to trolleybuses. I am working on a project to create an interactive map of Ontarian tramways by year
 

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