GO Richmond Hill Line

[andomano]

Apparently Metrolinx has purchased the section of CP's Belleville sub from Leaside to Cherry St. (which CP was originally planning to decommission), as it is the only way to connect to the future Peterborough line.

Also, the CP tracks on the West side of Don Mills and North of Eglinton connecting the Belleville Sub to the Bala Sub. was torn out a long time ago. If Metrolinx was to rebuild the tracks, there would still be a problem crossing over the CP tracks as it is the main line and is heavily used. In the long run, building an over/under pass to cross these tracks would be beneficial, but as this is one of the least used routes it's most likely not a priority.

 

[Rainforest]

South of the 401, it goes through parklands where you can't build a station, and places where people can just take the Subway. The only people who really even take the GO at Oriole are just massive egoistical elitists - the subway is right there, and its waaaay cheaper

Interestingly, those who drive are not considered "elitists", even though it usually costs more to own a car than to commute between Union and Oriole (or Old Cummer) by GO

 

[Chuck]

The only people who really even take the GO at Oriole are just massive egoistical elitists - the subway is right there, and its waaaay cheaper

Really? An adult GO pass is $144 for Oriole and $121 for TTC. Hardly a difference. A university monthly pass is $113 for Oriole and $121 for the TTC, meaning that GO is cheaper. The same fares apply to Old Cummer as well. If you live near Leslie or Bayview, chances are you're driving even to the subway as the bus is so infrequent. May as well park for free, pay an extra 50 cents, and get there faster.

I'd like to see more frequent service on the line between Union and Old Cummer, a change to LRT vehicles, and new stations in Toronto. This GO line can save a significant amount of time for people from North York and Scarborough who would otherwise head over to the Yonge subway. North of Steeles, where the GO line crosses into the Yonge corridor, it will be more convenient to use the subway, especially when it's extended north. No need for extra service in York Region, except for a northerly extension.

 

[EnviroTO]

Commuter trains are required by law to have priority. And the line only runs in the morning and afternoon rushes.

Why do you post what you do not know. First discussions about regional rail, then the northeast corridor, and now more nonsense.

The only people who really even take the GO at Oriole are just massive egoistical elitists - the subway is right there, and its waaaay cheaper

$20 per month is not waaay cheaper considering getting on at Oriole gets you to work in one stop, gives you a seat, and is 10 minutes faster. Since when did an egotistical elitist take public transit? $20 per month... oooh big spender??

 

[44 North]

*Decided to put my reply to these posts in the GO Richmond Hill thread, which I didn’t know existed.

I made a post in another forum, which is useful to repost here:

____________

Now that the RER electricification plan is announced, and it excludes electricification of Richmond Hill line, I propose the following idea as a useful transit line that may be cheaper than adding new subways:

Pros:
- More corridor space to double-track than Richmond Hill (can even triple-track small sections for passing)
- Two way frequent all day electricified service (15min or better)
- Metrolinx owns Don Branch now

Proposed stations:
1. Eglinton Station (ECLRT interchange, Ontario Science Centre)
2. Millwood St Station (large residential neighborhood to west)
3. Danforth Station (interchange with TTC Broadview subway, Greektown)
4. Gerrard St Station (interchange with TTC Gerrard streetcar, Bridgepoint Hospital, Riverdale ped bridge)
5. Queen St Station (interchange with TTC Queen streetcar, Regent Park)
6. Union

Requirements:
- Refurbishing and adding extra trackage
- Redoing the big bridge (1100 feet) to accomodate extra track
- There's already double-tracking to north of Gerrard, south of Danforth. Don Branch and Richmond Hill can share this.
- Add a small bit of track to the south of Leaside trainyard (between Eglinton and Millwood), may require expropriation of one small office/utility building, physically grade separated from freight. Delicate negotiations needed.
- Timeline would theoretically be "the next 10 year plan" (2025-2034)

Engineering Challenge Note:
- Flooding on low tracks. Need to raise flood-prone tracks first. (biggie)
- Hillside Escalators (like Ontario Science Centre), e.g. Danforth station connecting Playter Gardens to a Don Valley overpass to station on west edge of Don Branch under Bloor-Danforth. Broadview TTC is only ~200m horizontal separation, not too much more than the 150m TTC Spadina hallway, and escalator will reduce walking compared to that. Ped tunneling may be an engineering challenge.
- Electric substation potentially in way of one of the stations (is there room? Reaching near end-of-life? Relocation opportunity? RER electricification opportunity?)
- Union capacity (offpeak won't be a problem, but peak might be problematic in 15 years)

This line may have large amount of community pressure, due to scenery disruption, but would be greatly preferable over widening the Don Valley Parkway. Once Toronto falls in love with RER convenience, community opposition might loosen a bit by the mid-2020s, especially if Don Valley Parkway gets worse and part of Gardiner is planned to be demolished.

As we know, one single GOtrain carries one full hour of freeway lane traffic (2000 cars per hour) -- don't underestimate the need for this train in Toronto, circa 2031. A single track can move far more people during peak than an 8-lane freeway! A pair of railroad tracks, properly signalled, with some extra passing track, can push eight GOtrains per hour in each direction, moves more people than the whole width 16-lane of 401 combined! Europe has pulled that off, with even-more-frequent trains in some corridors (e.g. Paris RER 3-minute headways). In addition to population growth through 2031, combined with demolishing parts of the Gardiner, we will need RER in the Don Valley (on either line).

Some of these are good ideas. And not all that dissimilar from proposals brought up in the 80s and 90s:

1986:

https://swanboatsteve.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/rhstudyjune1986.pdf

1994:

http://levyrapidtransit.ca/chapter-...d-transit-expansion-program-1992-94/#more-604

I’m fairly certain we’ll be (re)visiting many of these ideas soon enough. But one thing I can’t help dwelling on is that if we’re spending all this money on improving the Richmond Hill corridor, why not just bundle it with the Queen Subway / DRL wherever possible? If we could save several Billion dollars, fast-track the whole thing, and actually see some progress on the DRL instead of broken and empty promises – I don’t see why anyone would be against it. There's no denying the two lines have similarities that can be shared if given the opportunity. Another bonus is we could work into the plan a Redway Road extension, and possibly a Leslie Street Extension.

My preferred solution for the Richmond Hill corridor is this:

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43869799/Richmond Hill Line.jpg

It basically combines the DRL with GO RER. Benefits:

1) It maximizes the relief potential of the DRL, by stretching way further north than any TTC Subway DRL proposal ever could, without an unlimited budget.

2) It makes the Richmond Hill line actually useful south of York Mills.

3) It serves the "traditional" DRL catchment area.

4) It gives commuters along the line the choice of heading either straight into the CBD (via the Central Tunnel, aka the Red Line), or into Union via the Green Line.

5) It reduces the need for the North Yonge Subway extension.

Ah, this makes sense. One RHDRLRER (and a proper Yonge Relief line) built from downtown to RHC in one shot. One alternative to this that I’ve been contemplating recently is dropping the Don Mills section altogether, and having the line meet the Crosstown’s Leslie stop instead. Yes, Don Mills/Eglinton is an optimal intersection to have a major intermodal transit hub - but intersecting with the Crosstown at Leslie may be better if the line could use the Leaside Spur to get from Eglinton to the RH mainline north of Lawrence. And by "better" I mean more affordable.

Obviously running a line right under Don Mills would be more preferable from a transportation and planning standpoint, but it's hard to discount a former rail corridor that parallels Don Mills and offers the chance to save ~$1bn or more. Another point is that Leslie north of Eglinton is seeing quite a bit of development, and with a potential Leslie Street Extension south to Redway Rd and (potentially) Bayview - could be a better corridor to invest in than Don Mills.

 

[mdrejhon]

Interesting. Thanks for the history lesson.

Now that Metrolinx owns all the Don Valley rail corridors, there is some better flexibiity to revisit this.
Although, I think the obvious showstopper is the flooding remeditation required first, which reportedly may cost a billion.

What's sad is that rail transit has been neglected so long by Toronto, and only now this huge spending surge for GO RER, forced by the congestion quagmire today.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I like gweed's idea - it's pretty clear that the current Don Valley alignment is suboptimal and would take a good billion to remedy (and that's not considering the impact on the corridor itself).

AoD

 

[44 North]

Interesting. Thanks for the history lesson.

Now that Metrolinx owns all the Don Valley rail corridors, there is some better flexibiity to revisit this.
Although, I think the obvious showstopper is the flooding remeditation required first, which reportedly may cost a billion.

What's sad is that rail transit has been neglected so long by Toronto, and only now this huge spending surge for GO RER, forced by the congestion quagmire today.

Yeah, I like old maps of plans that never came to be. Particularly if they hold clues about what we might expect for the future. There’s no denying that a future RH line has a lot of interesting aspects, design elements, and opportunities.

I was definitely a bit let down when I saw that this huge spending surge for RER didn’t include the RH line (and the Milton line, but I don’t really care about that). And you’re 100% right that the flooding situation is an issue requiring costly remedying. But I actually don’t see that as the reason the RH corridor has been ignored from immediate RER investment. Nor do I think it’s because of the line’s low existing ridership.

My guess is that the RH corridor has been vastly ignored so as to improve the business case for the Markham Subway to RHC. The ridership modelling for Yonge North presumed that by 2031 the RH line would still be running the same slow diesel trains along the same slow circuitous valley routing. That’s not fair, particularly when there's a twenty year window to implement improvements along the RH corridor.

Had Metrolinx actually modeled data with a high-frequency, high-speed, more direct 2031 GO Richmond Hill routing - with added stops at Lawrence, Eglinton, Leaside/East York Centre, and possibly downtown – there’s no doubt the absurdly high 2031 ridership projection for the Markham Subway would be minimized substantially. This wasn’t done. And it seems the RH corridor on the whole has been unnecessarily off the radar for the last 30 years.

Back onto the issue of flood protection:

Excluding the $1bn new Don River mouth, which only affects the southernmost ~1% of the RH corridor (and even then doesn’t fix flooding along that portion since the RH line would still be in the floodplain) – I wonder how much this remedy would really cost. If using the Don Branch, the only area where the tracks would need to be raised above flood level is from about Front to Wellesley. That’s less than 2km.

I don’t know how high the line would have to be raised, or the process/complexity of elevating a rail line ~1 metre (or more?). But surely a 1.8km section couldn’t cost all that much.

 

[minilude]

Markham subway to Richmond Hill Center? Am I missing something? with the Viva bus rapid way already built, is there a proposal for markham subway to rhc??? even by 2051??

 

[BMO]

Markham subway to Richmond Hill Center? Am I missing something? with the Viva bus rapid way already built, is there a proposal for markham subway to rhc??? even by 2051??

extension of the Yonge Subway north from Finch to Richmond Hill Centre

 

[minilude]

extension of the Yonge Subway north from Finch to Richmond Hill Centre

then it's the yonge subway lol..never heard of markham subway

 

[gweed123]

Ah, this makes sense. One RHDRLRER (and a proper Yonge Relief line) built from downtown to RHC in one shot. One alternative to this that I’ve been contemplating recently is dropping the Don Mills section altogether, and having the line meet the Crosstown’s Leslie stop instead. Yes, Don Mills/Eglinton is an optimal intersection to have a major intermodal transit hub - but intersecting with the Crosstown at Leslie may be better if the line could use the Leaside Spur to get from Eglinton to the RH mainline north of Lawrence. And by "better" I mean more affordable.

Obviously running a line right under Don Mills would be more preferable from a transportation and planning standpoint, but it's hard to discount a former rail corridor that parallels Don Mills and offers the chance to save ~$1bn or more. Another point is that Leslie north of Eglinton is seeing quite a bit of development, and with a potential Leslie Street Extension south to Redway Rd and (potentially) Bayview - could be a better corridor to invest in than Don Mills.

Interesting idea, and something I've considered. It would certainly save some money, but I can see significant community opposition to re-installing the rail tracks along that corridor. Also, going via Leslie misses the opportunity for intensification at Don Mills & Lawrence, as well as redevelopment opportunities of large sections of the Science Centre parking lot.

I like gweed's idea - it's pretty clear that the current Don Valley alignment is suboptimal and would take a good billion to remedy (and that's not considering the impact on the corridor itself).

AoD

Exactly. South of York Mills, the current RH alignment is useless as anything other than an express corridor (and due to the track geometry, it isn't even very good at that).

Overall, I see the RH RER line as really 3 separate projects, all of which can be achieved independently, but work best together:

1) Electrification and double tracking of the northern section of the line, from York Mills northward.
2) The East York Tunnel, from just north of Don Mills & Lawrence to Gerrard Square.
3) The Gerrard Square wye and the Central Tunnel. This would allow RH RER trains bound for Union to jump onto the current GO tracks, while RH RER trains (and other Red Line trains) bound for the CBD to use the central tunnel).

Any one of these segments would be useful on their own, but together they provide a much more cohesive solution that a TTC DRL ever could, for about the same cost.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Overall, I see the RH RER line as really 3 separate projects, all of which can be achieved independently, but work best together:

1) Electrification and double tracking of the northern section of the line, from York Mills northward.
2) The East York Tunnel, from just north of Don Mills & Lawrence to Gerrard Square.
3) The Gerrard Square wye and the Central Tunnel. This would allow RH RER trains bound for Union to jump onto the current GO tracks, while RH RER trains (and other Red Line trains) bound for the CBD to use the central tunnel).

Any one of these segments would be useful on their own, but together they provide a much more cohesive solution that a TTC DRL ever could, for about the same cost.

I am not sure if the last point stands to scrutiny - the central tunnel and East York tunnel alone would be equivalent to, if not greater than the cost of any putative DRL for the same stretch I'd imagine.

AoD

 

[gweed123]

I am not sure if the last point stands to scrutiny - the central tunnel and East York tunnel alone would be equivalent to, if not greater than the cost of any putative DRL for the same stretch I'd imagine.

AoD

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you need to factor into that cost the benefit of not upgrading the southern portion of the RH line to RER standards, or something close to it. That section through the Don Valley needs a lot of work, and that needs to be factored into the cost analysis as well. The cost of a TTC DRL tunnel vs an RER DRL tunnel should be nearly the same per km. Subtract the bottom half of the RH line that doesn't need to be upgraded, and that should cover the extra ~2km of tunnel needed compared to stopping the line at Eglinton & Don Mills.

Also, consider the fact that this would negate (or nearly negate) the need for the North Yonge extension. When you look at the two options (DRL + Yonge Ext vs. RH RER), RH RER would be less expensive, and would arguably do a better job of relieving the existing Yonge Subway than the DRL + Yonge Ext option.

Sorry, should have been more specific in my initial wording.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that you need to factor into that cost the benefit of not upgrading the southern portion of the RH line to RER standards, or something close to it. That section through the Don Valley needs a lot of work, and that needs to be factored into the cost analysis as well. The cost of a TTC DRL tunnel vs an RER DRL tunnel should be nearly the same per km. Subtract the bottom half of the RH line that doesn't need to be upgraded, and that should cover the extra ~2km of tunnel needed compared to stopping the line at Eglinton & Don Mills.

Also, consider the fact that this would negate (or nearly negate) the need for the North Yonge extension. When you look at the two options (DRL + Yonge Ext vs. RH RER), RH RER would be less expensive, and would arguably do a better job of relieving the existing Yonge Subway than the DRL + Yonge Ext option.

Sorry, should have been more specific in my initial wording.

I think the cost of a tunnel designed to handle RER as conceived will probably be a bit pricier, given we will in all likelihood require a tunnel of greater width - plus if you are looking at subway level of service frequency for the defacto DRL portion, you might be looking at the need to double deck the tunnel.

AoD