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We seem to be off-route around here!The capacity is more than adequate for many years to come. And tunnelling was necessary if you wanted to build it. With 90-metre long stations the capacity reduction is primarily in the length of the stations than anything else; which is similar to what we see on the Ontario line as well. If it ever gets to needing 4 times the current anticipated ridership, we'll be into another generation of equipment. At that point a vehicle could be selected that can run automatically every 90 seconds between Pearson and Don Valley station, with minor modifications at Leslie, increasing capacity to heavy rail numbers.
There's certainly modern subways with less capacity. The 40-metres stations (perhaps expandable to 50 metres) of the Canada line come to mind!
Sheppard seems a bit far to me. But there's other alternatives on Lawrence and/or St. Clair - which would be fantastic. But long after most of us are dead, I'd think.
But imagine a St. Clair line, from Warden station to Kipling station. With rail crossings of the ravines and valleys between Mount Pleasant and Woodbine!
I recalled QQE will not going to the Executive Committee until April follow by council unless something has change
European metro per km costs for a 3.8 km dedicated tram ROW... I know economies of scale come into play, but this is just sad. Smells like crazy high soft costs à la PSE in Montreal:
There's an even easier solution to this problem, that's to stop calling the East Bayfront LRT an LRT because it's literally not; it's just an expansion of the streetcar network. When we constructed the tracks along Sumach for the PanAms nobody batted an eye and it was built without much fuss. If we just called the East Bayfront line a streetcar we wouldn't have to do all of these mental gymnastics, Torontonians know what a streetcar line is so just tell them that. Also introducing yet another bespoke vehicle type that is only used in 1 city on earth, has no guaranteed long term manufacturer support, and will just create new compatibility and maintenance headaches is not a solution. The TTC has been very deliberate in its effort in trying to streamline all aspects of operations by reducing the number of different vehicle types in the network. Toronto is not the place to be experimenting with new gadgethbahn nonsense we need actually real and proven solutions for our transit woes and not making wild gambles on new technologies; let other cities be the guinea pigs for new technologies and we'll examine them ourselves if they prove a viable alternative in the future.
I have never heard that anyone intends to buy a different type of vehicle for the QQE LRT - in fact when the TTC bought the second tranche of new streetcars a few years ago some were particularly bought for this line. I agree with you that there is some confusion between streetcars and Light Rail here but the proposed QQE line is, as you say, an extension of the current streetcar system, will use the same vehicles as the existing streetcar network and will be linked to the rest of the streetcar network., The new lines 5 and 6 ARE LRT lines and they do not use same vehicles nor do they link to the streetcar network - which is actually a different gauge.
