Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

I dont know what to say except that its a bad idea to pass through high density areas with residents and jobs without stopping.

If people want such a fast ride over a long distance with few stops, they should take the adjacent Richmond Hill GO line. Lets not forget that a primary role of the subway is to serve local trips as well as long distance commutes.

I would argue that there is potential for three or four stops between Eglinton and Danforth (Cosburn, Thornecliff GO station, East York Town Centre, Flemingdon)

It will be a long time before this line makes it north of Eglinton, so a few stops in thornecliff/flemo is only going to slow down people transferring from Eglinton LRT, but it will provide great service to a lot of people.
 
I dont have a birds eye view but I am almost 100% sure the Victoria park is more dense then Don Mills. If we want to build only in dense neighbourhoods wouldnt victoria park make more sense..I dont know why TC chose Don Mills other then the possible thought that don mills would be easier to convert to LRT without causing traffic nightmares.

My priority is to get the SUbway up to Finch... If that means I have to miss a few stops to save money on stations to use for tunneling thats what I would do. The City and the TTC are basically bankrupt.. So there are going to be comprimises...

Im thinking there are 2 options

Option 1 The DRL up to eglinton with the four extra stops you propose
Option 2 The DRL up to Finch without those four stops...

Its a matter of preference.
 
jwill said:
I would argue that there is potential for three or four stops between Eglinton and Danforth (Cosburn, Thornecliff GO station, East York Town Centre, Flemingdon)
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I'd have three: Cosburn, Thorncliff, and Flemingdon. Would Thorncliffe Go station be for the Richmond Hill line or the Midtown Line? For either, I'd have the station be a bit closer to Eglinton, where it would have a good E-W transfer point rather than just a population centre.
 
I guess the question is Option 1 or 2

Option 1 The DRL up to eglinton with the four extra stops you propose
Option 2 The DRL up to Finch without those four stops...

IF YOU COULD ONLY HAVE ONE WHICH WOULD YOU TAKE????????
 
sixrings said:
I guess the question is Option 1 or 2

Option 1 The DRL up to eglinton with the four extra stops you propose
Option 2 The DRL up to Finch without those four stops...

IF YOU COULD ONLY HAVE ONE WHICH WOULD YOU TAKE????????
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Obviously option 1 since, as previously mentioned, the primary purpose of the Downtown Relief Line is to provide a relief line to downtown. That means helping take the load of southbound passengers from Eglinton and points south (and east counting Danforth line).

If you insist on pushing your vision of extending the line to Finch, would you be so kind as to cite some kind of official documentation that counts that (and not providing relief to a line downtown) as a priority? Otherwise it is simply a matter of what you want with little regard to what is genuinely needed and that is no way to build a transit network.
 
Asterix said:
If you insist on pushing your vision of extending the line to Finch, would you be so kind as to cite some kind of official documentation that counts that (and not providing relief to a line downtown) as a priority? Otherwise it is simply a matter of what you want with little regard to what is genuinely needed and that is no way to build a transit network.
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The line needs to go to Finch, but not with the silly station list mentioned earlier.

EnviroTO said:
The assumption when creating the relief line should be that the YUS subway has no available capacity.
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Why, if it's not true? People aren't going to walk for 10 minutes up or down Yonge or University after getting off the DRL when the YUS line can take them to their destination faster. Of course, for people coming from the B/D line, they're also more likely to simply stay on the YUS line and continue transferring at Y&B if using the DRL takes them more than a few minutes walk out of their way (compared to where the YUS stations take them).

EnviroTO said:
The Downtown Relief Line should be designed to have as few passengers transfer to the Yonge University Line as possible or it will have come up short in providing relief. A Queen line is walkable to Chinatown, Queen West, Dundas Square, Eaton Centre, in addition to the Central Business District. Take pictures anywhere along King and at the equivalent place on Queen and there is less density on Queen.

The potential for intensification is inversely propertional to the density that is already there and partially related to how old buildings are. Consider that in 10-15 years Cityplace will have been completed, the Fort York neighbourhood will have been completed, Liberty Village east of Atlantic will have been completed, many other developments like TIFF, RBC, Ritz, M5V, etc will have been completed over a decade ago. The areas served by the Cherry LRT and Waterfront East LRT will be under major development. All the lands around Union will be fully developed. Where will the potential for intensification be then?
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So the DRL should run along Queen because Queen can potentially be redeveloped into something bigger and better than CityPlace. Yeah, that's going to happen. Hell, let's run a subway up Bayview...all those detached houses on half-acre lots make for a stunningly juicy ratio of existing to potential density!
 
jwill said:
I dont know what to say except that its a bad idea to pass through high density areas with residents and jobs without stopping.

If people want such a fast ride over a long distance with few stops, they should take the adjacent Richmond Hill GO line. Lets not forget that a primary role of the subway is to serve local trips as well as long distance commutes.
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I agree with the first part, except that it depends on the second part being true, and the second part isn't. In other words, if the RH GO line really was a fast ride over a long distance with a few stops, then it would make sense for a DRL like the one described to have more local stop spacing similar to the Yonge line.

In reality the RH GO line is a slow ride over a meandering distance. But upgrading it would make good sense as part of the transit mix -- and comparatively cheap, too, insofar as no holes to dig, and very few rights of way and expropriation to worry about. (These would come up only for the necessary station realignment/builds at Finch, Sheppard, Eglinton and, I guess, Queen.)
 
I think its realistic to assume that by the time the DRL gets up to Finch the RH GO line will at least have a lot more service, and possibly be electrified.

If your proposed DRL has only a handful of stops before Union, then it isnt much more useful than an upgraded RH GO line, expecially for Finch East and Sheppard East, which already connect to that line. Why serve them twice with poorly connected express routes when instead we can serve all of Thornecliff and Flemingdon Park properly?

At the very least there needs to be a station at Thornecliff Park. If that makes it too expensive to get to Finch, so be it.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
Why, if it's not true?
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Because it will be true. The whole GO expansion plan and the whole Waterfront plan dumps almost all of its people at a single subway station... Union. All those people are northbound in the AM and southbound in the PM. The developable area in the East Bayfront and Port Lands is far larger than any development site in the city.

scarberiankhatru said:
So the DRL should run along Queen because Queen can potentially be redeveloped into something bigger and better than CityPlace. Yeah, that's going to happen. Hell, let's run a subway up Bayview...all those detached houses on half-acre lots make for a stunningly juicy ratio of existing to potential density!
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Closer to Queen is what logically follows after the current developments are complete. I doubt Queen would be built as high as Cityplace... it would likely be density in the 10 to 15 floor range much like that seen at King and Strachan and the office tower east of Bathurst and Richmond.
 
EnviroTO said:
Because it will be true. The whole GO expansion plan and the whole Waterfront plan dumps almost all of its people at a single subway station... Union. All those people are northbound in the AM and southbound in the PM. The developable area in the East Bayfront and Port Lands is far larger than any development site in the city.
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It won't be true just because you insist. Tons of people walk post-GO and those that take the subway north do so along 2 lines. Really, there's lots of potential GO riders who will [continue to] use the subway network to get where they're going if using GO means added waits and transfers and backtracking on the TTC. Much of the GO ridership increases will be off-peak or from non-Union stations to other non-Union stations. GO and the TTC may already be handling most of the 9-5 CBD transit using crowd it will ever see...there's less room for growth for those type of trips than any others.

EnviroTO said:
Closer to Queen is what logically follows after the current developments are complete. I doubt Queen would be built as high as Cityplace... it would likely be density in the 10 to 15 floor range much like that seen at King and Strachan and the office tower east of Bathurst and Richmond.
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Not so much. Queen will never be lined with 10-15 floor towers. The dozens of streets off Queen lined with houses will never be turned into towers. Dundas won't be, either. If we're basing the DRL decision on existing and future developments, Queen is easily ruled out.
 
So maybe we don't need a DRL then. There will be no growth in the number of people taking the YUS subway to anywhere other than Union because Queen and Dundas aren't going to see any significant development. If only traffic at Union is what is causing the problem at Yonge-Bloor then we are in luck because there are many ways to get to Union that already exist. The addition of a GO station around Liberty Village on the Georgetown line and at Cherry should be all we need. Frequent GO from Dundas West and Danforth will provide the DRL function without significant expense. Since it would be the province that would pay for any DRL it should be easy to convince them TTC transfers should be accepted on GO for trips between Exhibition, King West, Dundas West, Cherry, Danforth and Union.
 
In my humble opinion, Phase I of the DRL should be Pape to Union, Phase II should be Sheppard/Don Mills to Pape. Phase III should be Union to Dundas West. Phase IV would be Don Mills to Finch. Phase V would be Dundas West to Eglinton.
 
^^Phase I: Pape-Union
Phases II & III: Union-Dundas West, Pape-Eglinton
Phase IV: Incremental extension of the Eastern leg up Don Mills, from Eglinton to Finch.

Phases 2 and 3 should happen at the same time, IMO. Before the first portion gets built, the Georgetown line should be electrified and start improving service to work towards all-day service similar to S-Bahn, or the RER. When Phase 4 gets started, the Richmond Hill line should be electrified with all day, metro-frequency service.
 
sixrings said:
OK I tried to be polite.. Thorncliffe is the Region Park of the Don Mills Eglinton Area.. Its low income its notorious for a public school with more portables then actual rooms. I appologize if you live in such a place. Besides I am sure the ppl in thorncliffe will be able to figure out a way to take a bus or Walk to don mills and Eglinton.
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Why don't we eliminate Sherbourne station too? It's too close to a poor area, and God forbid it if a line passing by a poor area actually stops there...

And with regards to the point about speed vs accessibility: DRL south of Danforth is all about speed, north of Danforth it's all about accessibility, taking those riders that used to take buses that were dumped onto B-D or YUS and have them take the DRL instead. On the note of the stations on the east leg of the DRL, here's what I have on my fantasy map:

Union, Jarvis, West Donlands, Queen East, Gerrard Square, Pape-Danforth, Mortimer, O'Connor, Thorncliffe Park, Gateway, Science Centre, Don Mills Centre, York Mills East, Sheppard-Don Mills.

It should be noted however, that I have an express line running parallel to it from Union to Gerrard Square (if you need a visual, look a few pages back).
 
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"And with regards to the point about speed vs accessibility: DRL south of Danforth is all about speed, north of Danforth it's all about accessibility, taking those riders that used to take buses that were dumped onto B-D or YUS and have them take the DRL instead."

This is exactly what I have a problem with. I think there should be more stations south of Danforth and less stations north of Danforth..

South is going to be the future of development. North can be serviced by only hitting major intersections.

There must be at least a few other people that believe that there should be more stations south of Danforthl. But who would agree with a racist and an elitest?

I would like to address some of you that also believe that development is not or should not be a major priority developing the line. I would disagree strongly. Glencarin is a result of building somewhere there will not be new and high amounts of development. ROSEDALE as well.. Sure its built up but the people there have houses so big its really not meeting that many peoples needs. PLus the people who live there are so rich they rarely take transit. Castle Frank same situation. Development is the only reason to justify a yonge expansion as well.
 
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