My Masters Projects on the Downtown Relief Line

[reaperexpress]

Again, Greektown does without local surface service, as does The Annex, and I'd suggest that they are every bit as "vibrant" as Queen East (by which I presume most people really mean "The Beach" as there are long stretches of un-vibrancy from Yonge east until The Beach). I don't see why any argument for Queen wouldn't apply equally to those areas.

Greektown and the Annex are not very good examples of your argument since they have very close stop spacing on the subways. The Annex has no fewer than 7 subway stops (8 if you count Spadina twice) on 2 subway lines, both with stop spacing around 500m. The Danforth line also has 500m spacing that provides good local transit to Greektown.

The main concerns about a subway on Queen are that the vibrancy could be lost in the construction of the subway.

The argument was not that subway wouldn't be good for local transit, it was that the DRL would be bad for local transit since, like it says on the website, it needs to be fast to be able to compete with the Yonge line.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I was going to bring up the Bremner alignment vis a vis the depth and buildings issue (Convention centre) but I think you answered that succinctly. At first blush good job.

Re. the Queen alignment I honestly believe that Queen is going to need a Local subway line in the far future (say 50+ years). If and when the DRL is completed it will draw passengers to it, however as the city grows there will be more and more pressure on the inner city's transportation corridors. King will be close enough to the DRL and does not have much residential density (and outside the core King's density drops as well) that riders will have real options to take the subway or the King car. Queen however has much more residential along it and not to mention a wider variety of uses/destinations and will not benefit from proximity to either the DRL or the Bloor line. Once congenstion picks back up after adjusting to the impact of the DRL the only solution is going to be to move public transit along Queen underground. Furthermore I just think that the pair of lines would provide the most benefit to the city.

 

[reaperexpress]

I was going to bring up the Bremner alignment vis a vis the depth and buildings issue (Convention centre) but I think you answered that succinctly. At first blush good job.

Re. the Queen alignment I honestly believe that Queen is going to need a Local subway line in the far future (say 50+ years). If and when the DRL is completed it will draw passengers to it, however as the city grows there will be more and more pressure on the inner city's transportation corridors. King will be close enough to the DRL and does not have much residential density (and outside the core King's density drops as well) that riders will have real options to take the subway or the King car. Queen however has much more residential along it and not to mention a wider variety of uses/destinations and will not benefit from proximity to either the DRL or the Bloor line. Once congenstion picks back up after adjusting to the impact of the DRL the only solution is going to be to move public transit along Queen underground. Furthermore I just think that the pair of lines would provide the most benefit to the city.

I agree 110%. I think that that pair of subways would be the best possible transit solution for the city. However, the chance of it ever happening is insanely small. We have enough trouble trying to get one new subway line through the downtown. Imagine asking for two! But in 50 years, who knows? Maybe they will realize that they need more transport capacity and road widenings are not an option.

And the Queen subway doesn't have to be a rapid transit subway. A streetcar subway would be more effective since it would allow existing tracks to be used outside of downtown, including a very nice right of way on the Queensway.

 

[ssiguy2]

I strongly disagree with any line along/south of King as being to close to Union which already has the best service in the city. Also Queen is a destination in itself. City Hall, Queen West shops , south China town, AGO, and the huge employment area of the Eaton Centre. These are also 24/7 destination while King/Bay is a 9 to 5. King would do nothing for inner city dwellers and the Entertainment district and Cityplace have nothing on Queen in terms of places to go after 5pm.
It is great that finally someone sees the benefits of using existing rail ROW. I think Toronto is the only city on the planet that has so many rail lines and doesn't use one of them for regular transit.
One of the biggest hurdles will be having to tunnel under the Yonge line and Queen already has a station under the Young line resulting in a big money and time saver.
Question...............exactly how long is the Queen station/line under the Yonge line?

 

[ssiguy2]

Sorry, also forgot to ask which section of the entire DRL from Sheppard to Pearson will be tunneled/at grade/elevated? Maybe I missed it but an explaintion or map of that would be great.

 

[Fresh Start]

Sorry, also forgot to ask which section of the entire DRL from Sheppard to Pearson will be tunneled/at grade/elevated? Maybe I missed it but an explaintion or map of that would be great.

http://www.drlnow.ca/costanalysis.html

Look under the heading: track costs.

Jupiter,

Colour me impressed. I appreciate the level of detail you've put into producing this. Make sure to alert the media with your findings. My only qualms with your proposal with that your spacing gaps are a tad too wide in some spots, and while adhering to the rail corridor alignment as much as possible may save on construction costs, such an alignment is quite a way aways from denser parts of the downtown core. Even through the St Lawrence neighbourhood I see you use Esplanade going across, however using Front St E as the right-of-way would bring the line within a block's distance of the King St Corridor (and certainly exits could affront there) and still be a few minutes walk for all area residents to the south. I would also recommend a fusion of your Queen and CNR proposals when navigating the west end. Parkdale, Swansea and Roncesvalles Village would be inadequately served via running up the Weston-Galt west of Gladstone Stn. Having the tracks turn west along Queen Street would target a very dense area of Parkdale around Jameson Ave, a five minutes walk north of a large mid-rise residential apartment community and a more opportune connection point with the 47 bus than at MacDonell.

One final recomendation would be to consider running the leg to the airport west along Eglinton til about Kipling or Martin Grove before running up to Dixon level. The area between Scarlett Rd and Royal York Rd along Eglinton has high-density residency on a scale equal to the Kipling-Dixon neighbourhood and I think stopping for both Royal York and Scarlett is important from a walk-in standpoint. If transitioning northwest at Martin Grove all that's needed to route the subway in a trench through the hydro-corridor. At Kipling, it is also possible to veer the line NW thorough the Richview corridor, Stone House and West Grove parklands. This may require some minor expropriation but could result in the existence of a Martin Grove-Westway Stn where 3 routes could converge (46, 52, 111). The way I see it, Weston doesn't need a subway connection in the immediate future with several commuter-rail options at its disposal and it being a short ride of the DRL (via Eglinton) on buses heading either south, southwest or west.

Doing the alignment like this allows for the possibility of interlined trips to/from the airport: one heading to/from the downtown core, and the other east along Eglinton through Midtown to Scarborough Centre. This would allow citizens from anywhere in the city to have fast, direct access to the airport area, justifying the need to expand mass transit right across Eglinton Avenue using subway technology for ease of travel and cost-sharing of vehicles, storage yards and facilities. Anyhow best of luck. The more proposals like your's we have ruminanting in the public consciousness, the better.

 

[Second_in_pie]

I agree 110%. I think that that pair of subways would be the best possible transit solution for the city. However, the chance of it ever happening is insanely small. We have enough trouble trying to get one new subway line through the downtown. Imagine asking for two! But in 50 years, who knows? Maybe they will realize that they need more transport capacity and road widenings are not an option.

And the Queen subway doesn't have to be a rapid transit subway. A streetcar subway would be more effective since it would allow existing tracks to be used outside of downtown, including a very nice right of way on the Queensway.

And I'm also one of those optimists that believes that we'll realize the need to invest in our infrastructure and pick up an European view on this entire thing.

I think that a combination of tunneled + at grade LRT could work wonders for Queen, actually. That could make it a lot cheaper than a subway.

 

[jwill]

I have a couple questions about things I didn't see addressed in the texts on your site.

First, you rate the high residential density of the railway alignment as an advantage for that route. While I agree I would question wether residential or employment density is actually more important in selecting routes. The fact that the existing density along the waterfront has not overwhelmed the harbourfront streetcar makes me wonder whether there is really as big a ridership potential here as people assume. I would guess that many people living here actually walk or cycle to the core if they work there. I'm also wondering if residential density creates the ridership spikes that employment areas do, simply because people tend to arrive at work at the same time, but leave their homes at different times due to their various commuting times. I'm not sure if thats the case, but if it is then the existing streetcar's capacity may be enough to serve this corridor in the long term, particularly if the WWLRT is ever built.

Looking at the Official Plan Land Use map for downtown its clear why Queen could be considered a poor choice, since stable neighbourhoods occupy the areas north of Queen outside of John-Jarvis, and south of Queen outside of Broadview-Bathurst. Obviously that reduces development opportunities and I agree that ripping up the street would harm the vitality of the street. But the bulk of the 'regeneration areas' slated for infill and renovation development and the majority of the jobs are located between Queen and the railway corridor. Does it make sense then to serve only the south or only the north of that emerging area? Is there a reason you didn't also study a King St. or Richmond, Wellington, Adelaide corridor through the middle of the core?

Have you considered the effects of the DRL on the transit network south of Bloor? It probably won't happen overnight, but I would expect less service on east-west streetcars and some new north-south routes to act as collectors for the DRL. How would that affect the ideal route? Does that a railway route too far south?

Lastly, what are the operational drawbacks of connecting to YUS at only one station? Basically you have one DRL station connected to three YUS stations. I dont think this will actually distribute any load. People transferring from the DRL are going in only three directions; north on Yonge, north on University, south to Union. That's true for any alignment. If you can already walk to Union, there's really no need to take the subway there from King or St. Andrew. Likewise there is little point in getting off the DRL, walking to King, then taking a train up University. So really, only the northbound platforms of King and St. Andrew will be used. Now, this is still better than connecting at Union where the platforms will already be filled with GO passengers, and it has some redundancy if there is a problem at King or St. Andrew Stations. But what if there is a problem at your DRL station?

By only having a single point of access to or from the DRL you create the possibility that one or both sides of the DRL will not be able to access the YUS line if there is a problem at the stations, or on its approaches. We know this will happen, if not often. A bigger issue may be that we will be creating a bigger problem than Bloor-Yonge in the long term. We will have all YUS bound passengers exiting at one DRL station. The interchange traffic may be less than between BD and YUS, but there are 2 (3 if you include Spadina) interchanges between those lines.

The beauty of the YUS loop is that it makes it easy to create 2 transfer stations with any potential east-west routes (subway or streetcar). Why not take advantage of this. Even with your alignment it would be possible to create 2 stations, and I think it would be well worth the cost.

 

[Jupiter]

I strongly disagree with any line along/south of King as being to close to Union which already has the best service in the city. Also Queen is a destination in itself. City Hall, Queen West shops , south China town, AGO, and the huge employment area of the Eaton Centre. These are also 24/7 destination while King/Bay is a 9 to 5. King would do nothing for inner city dwellers and the Entertainment district and Cityplace have nothing on Queen in terms of places to go after 5pm.
It is great that finally someone sees the benefits of using existing rail ROW. I think Toronto is the only city on the planet that has so many rail lines and doesn't use one of them for regular transit.
One of the biggest hurdles will be having to tunnel under the Yonge line and Queen already has a station under the Young line resulting in a big money and time saver.
Question...............exactly how long is the Queen station/line under the Yonge line?

I think I mentioned all these things specifically in my routing document.

City hall: Served already by the subway
Queen West: Close to Osgoode
China Town: Not on Queen
AGO: Not on Queen
Eaton Centre: Two subway stops.

It doesn't matter if it's a "24/7" destination, because the subway doesn't run past a certain hour anyway. King and Bay may be 9 to 5, but it's a very important 9 to 5, and beyond that, it also serves other destinations such as the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Sony Centre.

It seems you think that a southern route would just hit the financial district, and Cityplace. You mention trip generators along Queen, but conveniently leave out Rogers Centre, the Convention Centre, CN Tower, ACC, Liberty Village, St. Lawrence Market, and the Distillery District when talking about the south. They both have destinations, and as I said earlier, the areas along Queen where there is 24/7 life are largely over by Gladstone anyway, where there'd be a stop even on a southern routing.

Regarding the question about Lower Queen... it was designed for streetcar subway service... it'd be fairly useless in terms of an actual subway and trying to save a good chunk of money on station construction.

 

[Jupiter]

http://www.drlnow.ca/costanalysis.html

Look under the heading: track costs.

Jupiter,

Colour me impressed. I appreciate the level of detail you've put into producing this. Make sure to alert the media with your findings. My only qualms with your proposal with that your spacing gaps are a tad too wide in some spots, and while adhering to the rail corridor alignment as much as possible may save on construction costs, such an alignment is quite a way aways from denser parts of the downtown core. Even through the St Lawrence neighbourhood I see you use Esplanade going across, however using Front St E as the right-of-way would bring the line within a block's distance of the King St Corridor (and certainly exits could affront there) and still be a few minutes walk for all area residents to the south. I would also recommend a fusion of your Queen and CNR proposals when navigating the west end. Parkdale, Swansea and Roncesvalles Village would be inadequately served via running up the Weston-Galt west of Gladstone Stn. Having the tracks turn west along Queen Street would target a very dense area of Parkdale around Jameson Ave, a five minutes walk north of a large mid-rise residential apartment community and a more opportune connection point with the 47 bus than at MacDonell.

One final recomendation would be to consider running the leg to the airport west along Eglinton til about Kipling or Martin Grove before running up to Dixon level. The area between Scarlett Rd and Royal York Rd along Eglinton has high-density residency on a scale equal to the Kipling-Dixon neighbourhood and I think stopping for both Royal York and Scarlett is important from a walk-in standpoint. If transitioning northwest at Martin Grove all that's needed to route the subway in a trench through the hydro-corridor. At Kipling, it is also possible to veer the line NW thorough the Richview corridor, Stone House and West Grove parklands. This may require some minor expropriation but could result in the existence of a Martin Grove-Westway Stn where 3 routes could converge (46, 52, 111). The way I see it, Weston doesn't need a subway connection in the immediate future with several commuter-rail options at its disposal and it being a short ride of the DRL (via Eglinton) on buses heading either south, southwest or west.

Doing the alignment like this allows for the possibility of interlined trips to/from the airport: one heading to/from the downtown core, and the other east along Eglinton through Midtown to Scarborough Centre. This would allow citizens from anywhere in the city to have fast, direct access to the airport area, justifying the need to expand mass transit right across Eglinton Avenue using subway technology for ease of travel and cost-sharing of vehicles, storage yards and facilities. Anyhow best of luck. The more proposals like your's we have ruminanting in the public consciousness, the better.

Thanks for the comments. I know much of the criticism received is just constructive debate, and I think most forum members would think the site is still a positive in terms of getting the word out, but it's nice to hear some commendation with criticism to keep me from fearing the last 8 months of my life were wasted.

A press release will be going out soon... just a matter of seeing if anyone cares. Given the star has published things about pedestrian walkways over Spadina/Dundas that no one would ever use, I would hope they would care about this.

Regarding Front... it's certainly a possibility. I just thought Esplanade is so close to front and could be built as cut and cover if people are willing to dig up and replace the park. That said, that may cause an issue for residents. The precise routing of the proposed subway is not something I'm super picky about... and Front vs. The Esplanade would ultimately have the same stops anyway, so if the city feels it's better to go along front (And it very well may be, as then the catchment zones extend further north), I'd support that.

To your point about going west on Queen at Dufferin... that was a hard decision for me. Unlike the southern routing vs. Queen where I came to a conclusive decision, it came down to almost a toss-up to determine which way to go once the route hit Queen and Dufferin. One way provides cost and time savings, the other greater potential ridership. The last major project I did before this was actually a study on transportation in Parkdale, so I'm familiar with the area. I think I say in route determination consultation should be done with Parkdale to see how badly they'd want the subway and be willing to deal with the construction issues, given Dufferin really wouldn't be that far away anyway.

But the tipping point comes in terms of figuring out how to curve up Roncesvalles. The TTC doesn't like doing any super tight curves like at Union anymore, so that isn't an option. If you need to do a curve with a much larger radius, you miss out on a potential stop at Queen and Roncesvalles, where a GO connection could have been placed.

So... I certainly wouldn't argue against either of your points here. In both cases I picked the cheaper option, but your alignment would definitely be nice to see.

On a sidenote you mention Macdonell... going there to shoot pictures was just depressing. I had no idea what to even shoot, which is why there's only two photos on that station page.

 

[ssiguy2]

I can completely understand wanting to serve Distillery/Corktown but I strongly feel that it should north/north west once it hits Parliament and then head west. It doesn't necessarily have to go down Queen but Richmond and possible Adelaide will do. It will serve just as much of the King/Bay area as it will Queen/NPS/Eaton Centre. It would also not interfere with the the King/Queen streetcars.
I don't see the reasoning for going under Esplanade. If you are going that far south you might as well save a cool billion and use the Lakeshore rail ROW which is only one further block south. If the intent is to get to Union station then you might as well just put in some high frequency EMUs and save a small fortune.
Union already has the best service in the city so I don't see the point of just duplicating it. To me using a line straight to Union is the equivalent of building a DRL starting at Church. All that is going to happen is that you are twinning service.
Also being further north is better in the long term. King/Bay is built out and offices and future hotels cannot spread further west due to CityPlace and east due to St.Lawrence Market and Distillery. That means that there will be one direction for further commercial/office development...........north of King. Also anyone heading to Union during 9-5 business hours who live outside the original city boundaries are much more prone to take GO so a new DRL will mean nothing for them.
Adelaide is just as close to King/Bay as it is to Union but you would also be serving the busy Queen shopping/entertainment areas as well as the large employers of City Hall, the Law Courts/ University/Queen government/business centres and the massive employment and shopping of the Eaton Centre.
If the purpose of the DRL to get people strickely to Union then save the billions and just use all the existing rail ROW for high frequency EMUs a la Melbourne/Sydney/Berlin S-Bahn.

 

[Jupiter]

I can completely understand wanting to serve Distillery/Corktown but I strongly feel that it should north/north west once it hits Parliament and then head west. It doesn't necessarily have to go down Queen but Richmond and possible Adelaide will do. It will serve just as much of the King/Bay area as it will Queen/NPS/Eaton Centre. It would also not interfere with the the King/Queen streetcars.
I don't see the reasoning for going under Esplanade. If you are going that far south you might as well save a cool billion and use the Lakeshore rail ROW which is only one further block south. If the intent is to get to Union station then you might as well just put in some high frequency EMUs and save a small fortune.
Union already has the best service in the city so I don't see the point of just duplicating it. To me using a line straight to Union is the equivalent of building a DRL starting at Church. All that is going to happen is that you are twinning service.
Also being further north is better in the long term. King/Bay is built out and offices and future hotels cannot spread further west due to CityPlace and east due to St.Lawrence Market and Distillery. That means that there will be one direction for further commercial/office development...........north of King. Also anyone heading to Union during 9-5 business hours who live outside the original city boundaries are much more prone to take GO so a new DRL will mean nothing for them.
Adelaide is just as close to King/Bay as it is to Union but you would also be serving the busy Queen shopping/entertainment areas as well as the large employers of City Hall, the Law Courts/ University/Queen government/business centres and the massive employment and shopping of the Eaton Centre.
If the purpose of the DRL to get people strickely to Union then save the billions and just use all the existing rail ROW for high frequency EMUs a la Melbourne/Sydney/Berlin S-Bahn.

There is no room in the Lakeshore right of way. If there was, trust me... I would have used it to save a good chunk of cash. The goal isn't just to serve Union, it's to serve everything en route to that as well.

You say "Union already has the best service in the city"... in fact, you've said this several times. But again, there are OTHER STOPS on the line. Transit nodes are created for a reason... If Union has great service and the DRL connects to it (or in this case very near to it), it allos people to switch to other lines. That is a positive, not a negative so long as the service you're providing isn't a duplicate of service, which this isn't. You say it's twinning service, but what is it twinning?

Your claims of development are also misguided. For one, an area being built out means it shouldn't get a subway? What sense does that make if it's already dense? Secondly, you say that development will shift north, but what's happened is development in the financial district is pushing south (18 York, Telus Tower) and west. There is no room north of Queen with Osgoode, City Hall, Old City Hall, and the Eaton Centre, and that forms a barrier to any major commercial construction north of Dundas which would be out of place.

You say that a DRL won't mean anything to those who live outside the city boundaries because they'll take GO... why would a Queen subway be any more useful to them?

You continue to repeat the locations along Queen that I've addressed twice already. You continue to ignore the locations further south and how useful they would be, and act as though this strictly serves the financial district and nothing else. If you want to debate the routing, that's fine, but can you please actually try to address some of my arguments rather than just repeat the same points I've responded to?

 

[gweed123]

Greektown and the Annex are not very good examples of your argument since they have very close stop spacing on the subways. The Annex has no fewer than 7 subway stops (8 if you count Spadina twice) on 2 subway lines, both with stop spacing around 500m. The Danforth line also has 500m spacing that provides good local transit to Greektown.

The main concerns about a subway on Queen are that the vibrancy could be lost in the construction of the subway.

The argument was not that subway wouldn't be good for local transit, it was that the DRL would be bad for local transit since, like it says on the website, it needs to be fast to be able to compete with the Yonge line.

Also, the impact of the construction of the subway on Bloor-Danforth itself was minimal (relatively, in terms of the scale of the project). Remember, the entire subway except for 2 stations are north of Bloor-Danforth. The line was build using cut and cover behind the buildings fronting onto the street, so the only construction that actually took place ON the street was the removal of the streetcar tracks. This type of construction wouldn't fly along Queen today. The subway would need to be tunneled under the street. Regardless of how it's done, it would negatively impact the street during construction, especially in the spots where the stations would be built.

 

[gweed123]

I was going to bring up the Bremner alignment vis a vis the depth and buildings issue (Convention centre) but I think you answered that succinctly. At first blush good job.

Re. the Queen alignment I honestly believe that Queen is going to need a Local subway line in the far future (say 50+ years). If and when the DRL is completed it will draw passengers to it, however as the city grows there will be more and more pressure on the inner city's transportation corridors. King will be close enough to the DRL and does not have much residential density (and outside the core King's density drops as well) that riders will have real options to take the subway or the King car. Queen however has much more residential along it and not to mention a wider variety of uses/destinations and will not benefit from proximity to either the DRL or the Bloor line. Once congenstion picks back up after adjusting to the impact of the DRL the only solution is going to be to move public transit along Queen underground. Furthermore I just think that the pair of lines would provide the most benefit to the city.

I agree completely. DRL along the alignment proposed in this report (kudos to that by the way Jupiter, and you used nearly the exact same alignment that I proposed in my original 'fantasy plan'. The only difference is I didn't use Dixon, which after reading your rationale, makes complete sense) is needed in the short-term. Ultimately, I would like to see the DRL using the alignment listed here, and then a Queen LRT subway like what is being proposed along Eglinton. LRT technology would allow for smaller stations, which would allow for stations closer together, which is exactly what Queen needs.

 

[Jupiter]

I agree completely. DRL along the alignment proposed in this report (kudos to that by the way Jupiter, and you used nearly the exact same alignment that I proposed in my original 'fantasy plan'. The only difference is I didn't use Dixon, which after reading your rationale, makes complete sense) is needed in the short-term. Ultimately, I would like to see the DRL using the alignment listed here, and then a Queen LRT subway like what is being proposed along Eglinton. LRT technology would allow for smaller stations, which would allow for stations closer together, which is exactly what Queen needs.

Clearly we have the same thought pattern. It's not that Queen couldn't support a subway of some kind, it's just that it needs to have close stop spacings, so it wouldn't work for the DRL. If stop spacing is close, then street life should be fine (ie. Bloor). The concern would be during construction though, as you pointed out.