"Downtown Core Line" - Possible Alignments?

As per ShonTron's suggestion, I thought I would create a thread specifically about the technical details of any possible subway. And what could more scientificly determine the benefits of each route than an open UT poll?

Finally. We can separate discussions about alignments and advocacy. Given how much chatter there was about alignment in the other thread, it might actually make sense to merge the threads and create a new DRL advocacy thread.

Great idea! So far, Front/Rail is leading the way, but WAY to early to judge. Good idea making it a poll though. I do suggest you put Richmond and Adelaide together, because they are practically the same alignment.

I voted Front/Rail. Although the exact alignment for me doesn't matter too much as long as it hits certain must-serve locations, especially Union Station. Also important are the CN Tower, Rogers SkyDome, the Ex. And I'm sure there's others but I don't know the area that well.

PS Definitely agree with above about finally splitting the alignment discussion off from the advocacy.

Front / Rail from Pape to Union, and then jog it under the railway and run it under Bremner for two spots to better serve Rogers Centre and City place, and then jog back up to the corridor to meet up with Dundas West.

Personally, I consider Wellington and Front to be essentially the same corridor.

Since each of these alignments have additional alignment possibilities east/west of the CBD, the choice here seems to be where we'd prefer the DRL to cross the YUS loop. For example, a line could run from the Danforth down along Wellington, and then shift down to Front west of ~St. Andrew.

kEiThZ said:

That's what Queen is competing with. It would have to commercial development to rival Wellington/Front, residential development to rival the Lakeshore and sufficient traffic from the entertainment district to rival all the attractions on Front. After all, who'd argue against having a subway stop specifically for the CN Tower and the SkyDome.

But I guess we'll all have to wait for the study to be proven right or wrong. Maybe the best corridor win.

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moved from other thread....

The point that you made about Queen Street being averse to development is one reason why Queen route by itself does not give me a lot of confidence. The development seems to be going along King Street (roughly) on the west side. If cost is not part of the equation then I favour Adelaide on the west side, the steps would exit almost directly onto King St. (south) and on the North - it would likely reach around Richmond (fairly close to Queen). There are some interesting. There seems to be a fair amount of development going on below King/Front St. on the east. Where-ever the subway runs, there has to be the ability to increase density. Now if it was up to me.... I would put it down Dundas .... but that is because of my proximity It would allow me to zip down to Chinatown and back in no time.... although I find myself typically shopping at St. Lawrence Market (a slight detour on the walk back home), since they have more of what I need than Metro.

Although the rail seems like an idea solution, the existing Union station is already overloaded -- the redevelopment of that location will likely ease that issue - but you already have a lot going in at Union. If you need to transfer from GO to the new line - it will still be fairly easy, one stop (assuming you are too lazy to walk), and transfer....

I actually do not take the subway much, just because I prefer to walk the 25 - 35 minutes to work ....

^Hehe. For the sake of being disruptive...I vote to throw Dundas into the mix too....close to my alma mater, Chinatown, and can follow a single street to Dundas West....

I like the Wellington alignment between Yonge and University, assuming that it creates three transfer points between YUS and DRL (Union, King, and St Andrew), rather than a single point at Union.

Such alignment will distribute the transferring crowds more evenly. Moreover, many DRL passengers won't even need to transfer to YUS to get north, as they can walk to their destination (say, to King and Bay) using PATH.

East of Yonge and west of University, the line can join the rail corridor, or even venture south of it to serve places of interest such as SkyDome and Exhibition.

Darren B said:

Ok, look back at all my comments and see who I'm no favouring weekend use over weekday use. I want the DRL to benefit the highest weekday traffic and attract a sizeable weekend crowd.

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But you've made the argument that clubbers from the entertainment district should be considered when designing the line. Looking at Google maps, seems to me like all the big buildings are concentrated between King and the Lakeshore. Moreover, whatever land is left to develop is all along the Lakeshore. Waterfront Toronto definitely thinks that way:

http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/dynamic.php?first=43fa75b221b08&second=43fa7f3cddad8

East Bayfront - 7100 housing units -1 million sq ft of commercial space
West Donlands - 5800 housing units - 1 million sq ft of 'employment space'
Portlands and Lower Donlands - Planning ongoing.

Now add up all the development along Queen. Unless you can show that there are going to be over 25 000 housing units and 2 million sq ft of commercial space (which will draw in a lot of suburban riders) it's going to be hard to make the case for Queen St.

You keep listing specific developments along Queen. And CDL.TO has already provided a counterpoint listing all the developments along the Lakeshore. But all that development does not even add up to what's going to be there in the locations I've listed here when Waterfront Toronto is through with its mandate. If you feel that Queen Street deserves a subway for its development than by any reasonable standard the coming onslaught of development in these designated areas makes serving them with a subway a much higher priority. The city isn't working on building a few buildings here and there. These are entire neighbourhoods springing up. Surely they deserve one subway station each.

One reason I am partial to an Adelaide or an otherwise more northern route as opposed to the railcorridor is the Harbourfront LRT. By which, I mean, if we take a route like Queen or King the already existing streetcar is probably already as close to "LRT" that it will get. South of the rail corridor, the Harbourfront LRT actually has some fairly good bones which, with a bit of polishing up (why does the train travel @ 5km/h in the tunnel?!?!), could easily be pretty decent.

i think Queen would be th ebest alignment because it would be able to serve both the king and Dundas streets areas as well since Queen is right in between and meybe at most it would take like 5 mins to walk to queen street from either street. And as well it would relieve lots of the streetcar congestion on those routes, and lastly not to mention that Queen street has some of the best pedestrian environment in the city, its allways alive with people on it, whereas front/rail corridor seems to have lots of condos wiht people but not much life.

Exactly what I was thinking, Whoaccio. I know in transit city (i know, i know) they called for a dedicated LRT corridor all the way along Queen's Quay including the distillery district. As long as they polish up the service on the LRT and improve north/south connections there is no reason why the subway cannot have a more northern alignment through downtown. A more northern alignment would also help to better distribute commuter passengers downtown due to the dispersal of connections and centralized location of the corridor.



I would also not be opposed to a Wellington alignment

-courtesy Mr. F

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Separating transfers going north on Yonge and University from those going south-east and west on the Harbourfront LRT. Brilliant! In all likelihood, I think a Rail-Wellington-Queen alignment would be the alignment that gets chosen.

Sidenote, why does the Queen Streetcar not have its own right of way already?

jamesbow said:

One thing that we should note is that both fiscal reality and the raison d'etre of this line (relieving pressure on the Bloor-Yonge interchange) means that this service will be an express service, rather than a local one, meaning that station stops, on average, will be substantially wider than what we see for the Bloor-Danforth subway, which as well as functioning as a commuter route is providing local support to Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue.

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(from the advocacy thread)

I sincerely hope this doesn't happen. I don't really see the point of building a glorified GO line through the densest part of Toronto. I've got nothing against GO but if we are going to spend the requisite billions on a grade separated rail line, cheapening out on stations makes no sense.