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South Etobicoke CP RoW - for sale - South Etobicoke LRT?

jcam

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My equally transit-nerdy as I am brother passed this along to me:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/cp-rail-forms-joint-venture-to-develop-surplus-real-estate/article22533486/

The article notes redevelopment of the Obico yard in south Etobicoke. If Metrolinx or the TTC purchased this grade separated (at North Queen, Queensway, Gardiner) rail spur that splits off from Kipling Station...you could theoretically have an LRT run all the way down to Long Branch.

For the area south of the Lakeshore Go line, you could probably either travel along the north side of the corridor into Long Branch, or somehow have a flyover that took the tracks over the corridor next to the Mastercard Centre, and then shoot down Kipling to interline with Lakeshore, thus giving Humber College South a direct link to the subway.

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Connecting the Lakeshore West/Milton lines with a sort of "GO Train Shuttle" would be interesting. But I'd think the ridership in that corridor would still be pretty low.

On the flip side, it would be nice if that corridor could see some new development. The industrial areas are not very appealing, but I guess they serve a purpose.
 
My equally transit-nerdy as I am brother passed this along to me:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/cp-rail-forms-joint-venture-to-develop-surplus-real-estate/article22533486/

The article notes redevelopment of the Obico yard in south Etobicoke. If Metrolinx or the TTC purchased this grade separated (at North Queen, Queensway, Gardiner) rail spur that splits off from Kipling Station...you could theoretically have an LRT run all the way down to Long Branch.

For the area south of the Lakeshore Go line, you could probably either travel along the north side of the corridor into Long Branch, or somehow have a flyover that took the tracks over the corridor next to the Mastercard Centre, and then shoot down Kipling to interline with Lakeshore, thus giving Humber College South a direct link to the subway.

Interesting idea, would do well in the Transit Fantasy Maps thread. We're having a discussion about this (transit to Humber and South Etobicoke) right now.
 
There is plenty of land available for both a subway yard and residential development. Don't forget that the Obico yard also includes a large container facility off the tracks.

I would love to see a rapid transit connection from South Etobicoke to the Bloor-Danforth along this right-of-way. Currently, it takes quite a while to get up there. I think an interlined LRT that goes down Kipling is the best idea, as it provides a rapid transit link from the subway to Humber College to Long Branch station on the Lakeshore West GO Line.
 
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I would love to see a rapid transit connection from South Etobicoke to the Bloor-Danforth along this right-of-way. Currently, it takes quite a while to get up there. I think an interlined LRT that goes down Kipling is the best idea, as it provides a rapid transit link from the subway to Humber College to Long Branch station on the Lakeshore West GO Line.
Would it have the ridership though? The Long Branch GO station only serves about 750 riders a day. You'd presumably need closer to 5,000 to 10,000 riders per hour. I don't see anywhere near that number looking at the capactiy of the local buses and Long Branch streetcar.
 
Would it have the ridership though? The Long Branch GO station only serves about 750 riders a day. You'd presumably need closer to 5,000 to 10,000 riders per hour. I don't see anywhere near that number looking at the capactiy of the local buses and Long Branch streetcar.
Yeah, that could be an issue. Although presumably this line would poach a lot of ridership from 44 Kipling South, which serves ~ 9500 riders.
 
Could there be enough room in the ROW to extend the subway itself down to Long Branch? The CPR ROW wouldn't be much of an issue, I'm talking more the Lakeshore West corridor. You likely wouldn't find a less expensive per km subway extension than that. That would also allow the Obico Yard to be used as a subway yard.
 
Could there be enough room in the ROW to extend the subway itself down to Long Branch? The CPR ROW wouldn't be much of an issue, I'm talking more the Lakeshore West corridor. You likely wouldn't find a less expensive per km subway extension than that. That would also allow the Obico Yard to be used as a subway yard.
The row is double-tracked all the way from Obico Yard to the connection with the Oakville sub.There are two level crossings, one at Evans and one at Horner.
 
Yeah, that could be an issue. Although presumably this line would poach a lot of ridership from 44 Kipling South, which serves ~ 9500 riders.
The typical rule of thumb is that peak hour is about 10% of this. So 950.

And 10% may be generous - if you look at the Big Move modelling, for the major routes, it ranged from about 4.5% to 7%.

Another way to look at it is the 44 Kipling South capacity. It runs 16 buses an hour during AM peak. With up to 53 riders per bus being the TTC loading standard, that's a capacity of 848.

So perhaps 850.
 
The row is double-tracked all the way from Obico Yard to the connection with the Oakville sub.There are two level crossings, one at Evans and one at Horner.

Yup. I would imagine that there would probably a station at at least one of those two crossings. It's a pretty industrial area, so putting in a grade separation wouldn't be a show-stopper. My main concern is squeezing in two subway tracks along the Oakville Sub. It would probably require the demolition of the homes immediately east of Long Branch station on the south side of the tracks. On the other hand, this could give an excuse for a much needed upgrade to Long Branch GO station, as it's definitely one of the simpler looking GO stations on the line. Given the good sized parking lot there, building a new integrated facility could be achieved relatively easily.
 
On the other hand, if you did build it as an Etobicoke South LRT, you could build a short branch along the Queensway heading west to connect with Sherway. The result would be one branch to Sherway, one branch to Long Branch. It wouldn't be a direct subway connection, but at least Sherway would get a rapid transit connection.
 
The typical rule of thumb is that peak hour is about 10% of this. So 950.

And 10% may be generous - if you look at the Big Move modelling, for the major routes, it ranged from about 4.5% to 7%.

Another way to look at it is the 44 Kipling South capacity. It runs 16 buses an hour during AM peak. With up to 53 riders per bus being the TTC loading standard, that's a capacity of 848.

So perhaps 850.

Yeah, I get that the ridership isn't huge. I'm not saying that this should be built tomorrow, just that TTC should look at reserving the corridor, as it would be a good way to strengthen the poor links to South Etobicoke.
 
There is plenty of land available for both a subway yard and residential development. Don't forget that the Obico yard also includes a large container facility off the tracks.

I would love to see a rapid transit connection from South Etobicoke to the Bloor-Danforth along this right-of-way. Currently, it takes quite a while to get up there. I think an interlined LRT that goes down Kipling is the best idea, as it provides a rapid transit link from the subway to Humber College to Long Branch station on the Lakeshore West GO Line.

GO Transit should at least keep 2 tracks operational through here for redundancy purposes. In case an emergency happens in the Junction or on Lakeshore West trains can still get to Union (and out of the Mimico yard). Also during the Ex & TFC games Milton trains could be diverted south for direct access to the event.

Perhaps 1-2 lakeshore west could go through Toronto on Milton's tracks every hour. Would allow riders from the west to access the Bloor subway line directly (and reduce the load on the YUS line). Operationally difficult but it would be interesting to see the numbers of riders that would want this.

There will be a lot of pressure for residential here but I hope that the city can force it to remain industrial use. We need to keep our employment land.
 
Years ago I posted a fantasy map where I suggested combining this rail corridor with the hydro corridor north of Kipling station to create a north-south LRT corridor through Etobicoke.
 

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