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Transit Fantasy Maps

Hipster Duck said:
^Again, I think there really is a lot of merit in building intermediate level stations that cannot, and should not, be handled by regional rail.

What sort of message are we sending if we have subway stations at places like Bessarion and Chaplin, but nothing at King and Bathurst? Or Broadview? Or anything in Parkdale between Dufferin and Roncessvalles? You can't get a lot of political support if you expect people in dense urban neighbourhoods to endure years of dirt, detours and delays and then basically run an express train underneath their feet to serve suburbanites.

Why is there only one stop in the entire financial district for the DRL? Wouldn't that lead to huge dwell times as trains disgorge thousands of passengers?

Like I said, I support regional rail, but it should stick to the established regional rail corridor (that is, the USRC). Many, if not most, of the trips on the DRL will probably be old City of Toronto residents traveling around the old, urban city, like from Ossington to St. Lawrence market (impossible in your map), or from Roncessvalles to Spadina, or Thorncliffe Park to Sherbourne (15 minute waits).
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I like the idea of a central tunnel to serve GO REX, but I believe said tunnel should remain within the railway corridor and go underneath Union. Furthermore, frequent service, electrification, and then switching to EMU should be implemented first and foremost before any tunnelling begins.

Again, the DRL should function as a dual commuter-local subway line as opposed to catering to one need more than the other. Not to mention the current timeframe for DRL construction seems far more feasible than tunnelling for regional rail.
 
ehlow said:
Unfortunately, as your long streetcar trip shows, E-W travel downtown can and should be faster than the current streetcars. Any grade-separated transit line with 600m to 1km stop spacing would cut down significantly on many people's commutes, since most people take either the subway or GO trains downtown, and then take the streetcar to their final destination.
Click to expand...

It's a tricky question, how to improve "local" travel within downtown. As trips become shorter, variables like travel times become less sensitive to vehicle speed than to access times.

For instance, let's assume a 2km trip from Yonge to Bathurst. A metro (24 km/h) should take 5 minutes, but a decent LRT (16 km/h?) should be about 7-8 minutes. The access times of getting from street to platform level alone would cancel that out.

For trips under 5km, the most efficient solutions seem to be devoting more roadspace to bike lanes and surface transit.
 
Hipster Duck said:
^Again, I think there really is a lot of merit in building intermediate level stations that cannot, and should not, be handled by regional rail.
Click to expand...

The issue here is coming from establishing commuter/regional rail and local metro as separate categories. There's no reason why you can't have compact station spacing in the core and wider, more commuter friendly, spacing elsewhere.

Part of me wants to make mention of Japan, where commuter lines regularly run through subway lines, but we could just as easily use the Yonge line, which serves all sorts of commute types.

If a station has enough residential/employment density and/or connections to justify the ~100-200 million dollars it costs to build an underground station then it may as well be part of the "regional" transit network since obviously there's lots going on there.

I don't know what situations exist where we could justify the cost of building a new station but not connecting those stations to regional transit networks. The only situations that come to mind are parochial stations like Bessarion.
 
diminutive said:
For trips under 5km, the most efficient solutions seem to be devoting more roadspace to bike lanes and surface transit.
Click to expand...

Is the converse of this true? In the suburbs most trips are over 5km long and devoting roadspace to surface transit is NOT the most efficient solution.

diminutive said:
The issue here is coming from establishing commuter/regional rail and local metro as separate categories. There's no reason why you can't have compact station spacing in the core and wider, more commuter friendly, spacing elsewhere.
Click to expand...

For Eglinton, I believe that the stations are actually farther through the core (Bayview to Mount Dennis) than they are in the burbs (Wynford to Kennedy).
 
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BurlOak said:
For Eglinton, I believe that the stations are actually farther through the core (Bayview to Mount Dennis) than they are in the burbs (Wynford to Kennedy).
Click to expand...

Yes, though the "core" of Eglinton isn't exactly the "core" of the City. The residential and employment density along Eglinton, outside of Yonge/Eg, really isn't very high. We still see a couple stations with very low local demand (Avenue, Laird, Chaplin ect..) as a result. Those 3-4 stations really wont make life any worse for anyone, though.

As a general rule, I'd say that a route with wide outer spacing and tight inner spacing is justified if the route passes through an area w/a high density of transit destinations, like a CBD. I'm not sure that's the case with Eglinton.

BurlOak said:
Is the converse of this true? In the suburbs most trips are over 5km long and devoting roadspace to surface transit is NOT the most efficient solution.
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I'm not sure what the converse of my statement would be... Converse statements of true statements don't have to be true themselves (the converse of cats are mammals is mammals are cats...).

Anyways, I feel like this is some kind of sideways comment that elevated transit is best. And I wouldn't even disagree, but, as I was talking about downtown, I was assuming elevated transit isn't possible and a simple binary between surface-subsurface transit.
 
Hipster Duck said:
^Again, I think there really is a lot of merit in building intermediate level stations that cannot, and should not, be handled by regional rail.

What sort of message are we sending if we have subway stations at places like Bessarion and Chaplin, but nothing at King and Bathurst? Or Broadview? Or anything in Parkdale between Dufferin and Roncessvalles? You can't get a lot of political support if you expect people in dense urban neighbourhoods to endure years of dirt, detours and delays and then basically run an express train underneath their feet to serve suburbanites.

Why is there only one stop in the entire financial district for the DRL? Wouldn't that lead to huge dwell times as trains disgorge thousands of passengers?

Like I said, I support regional rail, but it should stick to the established regional rail corridor (that is, the USRC). Many, if not most, of the trips on the DRL will probably be old City of Toronto residents traveling around the old, urban city, like from Ossington to St. Lawrence market (impossible in your map), or from Roncessvalles to Spadina, or Thorncliffe Park to Sherbourne (15 minute waits).
Click to expand...

I suppose a station could be added west of University. Perhaps from Spadina stretching eastward, Bathurst stretching westward, and then one centred on Shaw. That would provide a stop spacing that would be suitable to local demand.

As for the one station in the Financial district, I would think that one larger station would be easier than two smaller stations. That way it can be built as a two-track, 3 platform station. The stop spacing on the east side is very similar to most "traditional" DRL proposals.

I also chose Queen because then that way, if there is still demand, a TTC DRL can be built under King.
 
Fantasy Future streetcar network. Red means there's a ROW while pink means it is running in mixed traffic. I've left out subways an GO lines for clarity.

kSk91W5.png

Google Map here

It features a Queensway LRT to Sherway Gardens, Lakeshore West and East LRTs, build out of the streetcars in the portlands. I'm not too sure how feasible some of the additional mixed-traffic streetcars would be. I know there is more than enough room for a streetcar on Shaw/Ossington, although I'm unsure whether terminating the route at Bloor would force too many transfers. As well, while an extension of the Broadview streetcar into East York along Cosburn makes a lot of sense from a network connectivity standpoint, I'm not sure if it would fit.
 
I'd be more inclined to further extend the Kingston streetcar further along Kingston rather than have it drop down to Queen. I don't know how possible that is anyway, that area is fairly hilly IIRC.
 
dunkalunk said:
Fantasy Future streetcar network. Red means there's a ROW while pink means it is running in mixed traffic. I've left out subways an GO lines for clarity.

It features a Queensway LRT to Sherway Gardens, Lakeshore West and East LRTs, build out of the streetcars in the portlands. I'm not too sure how feasible some of the additional mixed-traffic streetcars would be. I know there is more than enough room for a streetcar on Shaw/Ossington, although I'm unsure whether terminating the route at Bloor would force too many transfers. As well, while an extension of the Broadview streetcar into East York along Cosburn makes a lot of sense from a network connectivity standpoint, I'm not sure if it would fit.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea for a fantasy map! The Junction definitely benefit from a direct streetcar to the core.

What software do people use to make these? If I did a streetcar fantasy map with new mixed-traffic sections, I'd be tempted to put one on Mt Pleasant-Jarvis from Eglinton to St Lawrence Market, and extend the Bathurst one up to Sheppard. Also maybe Avenue Rd and Dufferin, extending well north of Bloor. Since this is fantasy, maybe elevated lines.

I wonder if there are any Waterloo transit fantasy maps?
 
My thinking here was to terminate all of the east end streetcars at Victoria Park Station to intersect a Kingston Road BRT at Danforth.
 
I hate to say it but I don't think we're going to see any expansion of streetcar lines running in mixed traffic, even though there are areas where it would make sense.
 
ehlow said:
That's a great idea for a fantasy map! The Junction definitely benefit from a direct streetcar to the core.

What software do people use to make these? If I did a streetcar fantasy map with new mixed-traffic sections, I'd be tempted to put one on Mt Pleasant-Jarvis from Eglinton to St Lawrence Market, and extend the Bathurst one up to Sheppard. Also maybe Avenue Rd and Dufferin, extending well north of Bloor. Since this is fantasy, maybe elevated lines.

I wonder if there are any Waterloo transit fantasy maps?
Click to expand...

Google Maps Engine

Or if you're feeling really adventurous and are willing to waste days of your life making pro looking maps, you can try Adobe Illustrator.
 
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dunkalunk said:
Fantasy Future streetcar network. Red means there's a ROW while pink means it is running in mixed traffic. I've left out subways an GO lines for clarity.

kSk91W5.png

Google Map here

It features a Queensway LRT to Sherway Gardens, Lakeshore West and East LRTs, build out of the streetcars in the portlands. I'm not too sure how feasible some of the additional mixed-traffic streetcars would be. I know there is more than enough room for a streetcar on Shaw/Ossington, although I'm unsure whether terminating the route at Bloor would force too many transfers. As well, while an extension of the Broadview streetcar into East York along Cosburn makes a lot of sense from a network connectivity standpoint, I'm not sure if it would fit.
Click to expand...

Looking good! Only big change I'd make is this: Rather than having a ROW on Queen East (which would be difficult to do), extend the East Bayfront LRT along Lake Shore to the Beaches, and instead of having the ROW go up Coxwell, have it go up Woodbine instead. Same general effect, but the streetcar then becomes an "express option" for people in the Beaches as opposed to having to crawl down Queen (which they likely still would even if there was a ROW there).

TheTigerMaster said:
Google Maps Engine

Or if you're feeling really adventurous and are willing to waste days of your life making pro looking maps, you can try Adobe Illustrator.
Click to expand...

Illustrator is a good one. I use Ortelius, but I think it's Mac only.
 
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