Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[muller877]

Not to derail this even further, but I totally agree.

There are a few things that are fairly clear at this point.

• Dufferin Bus is way over-capacity, it needs an alternative solution.
• Massive development is underway along the Dufferin corridor at points between Eglinton and Bloor, potentially totally overwhelming the Dufferin 29 Route.
• LRT won't work on Dufferin because it would have to be tunneled. LRT is a non-solution.
• Bloor line west of St. George and the Spadina line will need relief by 2035 projections.

This points to me that a subway line under Dufferin has the potential to solve multiple factors at once. Providing rapid transit to Dufferin corridor (which is needed) and providing relief to Spadina line (which is needed).

The Dufferin line will be hugely impacted by Eglinton. More than 1/2 the people coming from the North will likely shift off of the bus onto the LRT (and then use the University line to go downtown). Only the people that have destinations on the Bloor line will stay on.

The city is trying to emulate that for Jane with the Jane bus diverting to Black Creek stop.

Both are busy. However, i expect that the Dufferin bus has more short duration bus rides compared to Jane. Dufferin has a lot of trips that stop/start between King and Dupont while the Jane bus focuses on longer rides (post Eglinton). Which leads me to conclude Dufferin riders would prefer bus spacing for stops while Jane would prefer LRT/subway spacing.

I always find it fascinating looking at the N-S ridership in the west vs the east (and the E-W as well). Excluding lines that are (or are constructing) streetcars/LRT the top 3 lines are in the west. And yet we are planning to build more high order transit in the east compared to the west.

 

[Hopkins123]

I certainly hope that DRL West doesn't get frankensteined into a hybrid Dufferin subway.

There are far more communities to the west of Dufferin that need mass transit more (Parkdale, Swansea, High Park, Junction, Stockyards, Weston) that'll forever get screwed over if such a thing is undertaken.

29 Dufferin will NOT be s busy as it is today, if there's a subway at Queen and underground LRT at Eglinton to alleviate passenger loads.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Once the Eglinton West LRT reaches the airport, even more riders would only get to Eglinton before transferring west.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

The Dufferin line will be hugely impacted by Eglinton. More than 1/2 the people coming from the North will likely shift off of the bus onto the LRT (and then use the University line to go downtown). Only the people that have destinations on the Bloor line will stay on.

I'd like a more detailed analysis of the Dufferin bus, because I am not sure how true that is. Just looking at basic residential density, it seems fairly obvious that the majority of ridership (and potential ridership) is between Bloor and Eglinton. I don't take the Dufferin line myself, but I hear from people who do that it is packed and yet many people are trying to squeeze on still in between Eglinton and Bloor.

Now it could be true that many people use the bus from Yorkdale to Eglinton (someone in the last page made mention that it is already packed by the time it reaches Eglinton) and that they will get off on the Crosstown. But that doesn't say that ridership would be poor south of Eglinton. Remember, we are talking about a 44,000 a day bus route.

I always find it fascinating looking at the N-S ridership in the west vs the east (and the E-W as well). Excluding lines that are (or are constructing) streetcars/LRT the top 3 lines are in the west. And yet we are planning to build more high order transit in the east compared to the west.

Well it is not really a mystery is it? Scarborough subways are all politics.

And the west side already got their relief line through Spadina. It is a testament to the ridership on the west side that now we are in need of a second relief line.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

There are far more communities to the west of Dufferin that need mass transit more (Parkdale, Swansea, High Park, Junction, Stockyards, Weston) that'll forever get screwed over if such a thing is undertaken.

High Park has three subway stations and Swansea has two. The Stockyards needs an extension of the St. Clair streetcar. Weston community can be serviced by higher frequency bus route to Mt. Dennis (or in the future, a GO-RER stop at Weston)

How do you propose to serve The Junction? A stop at Jane and Dundas would do nothing for the majority of the Junction neighbourhood.

Parkdale however, is a good question. There are ways to service it well between Waterfront LRT and King Streetcar Mall, and I guess you could reroute the Roncesvalles streetcar down Queen to Dufferin. If Sunnyside could get a GO-RER station too.

 

[Hopkins123]

High Park has three subway stations and Swansea has two. The Stockyards needs an extension of the St. Clair streetcar. Weston community can be serviced by higher frequency bus route to Mt. Dennis (or in the future, a GO-RER stop at Weston)

How do you propose to serve The Junction? A stop at Jane and Dundas would do nothing for the majority of the Junction neighbourhood.

Parkdale however, is a good question. There are ways to service it well between Waterfront LRT and King Streetcar Mall, and I guess you could reroute the Roncesvalles streetcar down Queen to Dufferin. If Sunnyside could get a GO-RER station too.

I'm presuming a Keele alignment. This would adequately serve Parkdale, and make serving real Swansea (Windermere/Queensway) a hop, skip, jump away from a Roncesvalles Stn.

The interchange at Bloor also gives the apartment communities of High Park a secondary alternative to the Bloor-Danforth to get around.

The Junction would be perfectly served via a station on Keele with a southern exit at Annette St and northern exit at Dundas St.

Beyond St Clair I presuming an alignment in the Weston Galt with more stops and better headways than GO could ever possibly achieve.

That's just a suggestion though. I ride the 29 every so often and while I find it does get crowded, I find that by Rogers Road heading north from Bloor, and Sylvan heading south; the bus truly starts to empty out.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I'm presuming a Keele alignment. This would adequately serve Parkdale, and make serving real Swansea (Windermere/Queensway) a hop, skip, jump away from a Roncesvalles Stn.

The interchange at Bloor also gives the apartment communities of High Park a secondary alternative to the Bloor-Danforth to get around.

The Junction would be perfectly served via a station on Keele with a southern exit at Annette St and northern exit at Dundas St.

Beyond St Clair I presuming an alignment in the Weston Galt with more stops and better headways than GO could ever possibly achieve.

That's just a suggestion though. I ride the 29 every so often and while I find it does get crowded, I find that by Rogers Road heading north from Bloor, and Sylvan heading south; the bus truly starts to empty out.

Keele is not a bad alignment either. It has lower ridership than Dufferin though, even if it does provide good coverage (as Dufferin does).

Ultimately, I would want both streets to be studied by the EA, and their pros and cons pitted against each other.

 

[Steve X]

Let's remember 44,000 daily riders don't warrants a subway. Dufferin is quite crowded in most parts of the day. TTC has also reduced service (on paper) on the 29 with artics and additional round trip times. It is suppose to reflect actual travel times and more of the advertised service is operated.

Subways or underground LRT (which is still subway) should have at least 5,000 pph in rush hour. The Dufferin bus carries like 1200 pph which is no where near subway territory. Dufferin doesn't have a high chance of becoming a popular regional corridor either as the Spadina Line is more direct and already serve that purpose. Plus the Dufferin bus's demand is on local stops. Local meaning people like to get on or off on side streets. They can still be going to Bloor but they get on a side street stop meaning they'll prefer to travel on the surface. A subway on Dufferin is really not going to work.

What the city needs to go is put in bus lanes. Cars are never sustainable in large cities. Having a subway everywhere is not either.

Keele is not a bad alignment either. It has lower ridership than Dufferin though, even if it does provide good coverage (as Dufferin does).

Ultimately, I would want both streets to be studied by the EA, and their pros and cons pitted against each other.

Keele is a big no-no. It's doesn't even have the required ridership anywhere closed to a surface LRT during offpeak.

Jane should be prioritized after the DRL and Don Mills. The Jane LRT EA never really finished. I don't recall them every support a specific alignment. Eglinton Crosstown is going to be a big game changer for Jane. The 35/195 is already heaviest used north of Eglinton. Most of the people who head south of Eglinton head straight down the subway. All those people would soon use Eglinton LRT instead. TTC is going to run less service south of Jane after Eglinton opens. I'm going to argue that Steeles to Eglinton should be phase 1 and they can sort out whatever underground alignment they'll built south to Bloor later.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Jane is going to have Finch West LRT and Eglinton Crosstown splitting its ridership.

Subways or underground LRT (which is still subway) should have at least 5,000 pph in rush hour. The Dufferin bus carries like 1200 pph which is no where near subway territory. Dufferin doesn't have a high chance of becoming a popular regional corridor either as the Spadina Line is more direct and already serve that purpose

Well remember, in this discussion whichever corridor north of Bloor won't be getting high ridership for the forseeable future whether it is Dufferin, Keele, or Jane. It is a matter of relief on Bloor and Spadina Subways, and catching large ridership/density of destinations south of Bloor.

If we send it north of Bloor, I'd hope we send it on an alignment that has development potential, reaches destinations, and solves overcrowding on local routes.

 

[Cobra]

The Dufferin line will be hugely impacted by Eglinton. More than 1/2 the people coming from the North will likely shift off of the bus onto the LRT (and then use the University line to go downtown). Only the people that have destinations on the Bloor line will stay on.

I see all the time at Dufferin station "southbound" the buse gets empty so passengers gets on the Bloor line, however the line ups to go further south is just as bad. The line is overcrowded south of Bloor as well. Eglinton LRT won't fix that

 

[Cobra]

Let's remember 44,000 daily riders don't warrants a subway. Dufferin is quite crowded in most parts of the day. TTC has also reduced service (on paper) on the 29 with artics and additional round trip times. It is suppose to reflect actual travel times and more of the advertised service is operated.

You can't use that number to determine if Dufferin needs a subway or not. The route is so terrible that many take eastbound bus routes to the Spadina subway instead. I could see it on St. Clair streetcar every morning when I was in the area.

A Dufferin subway will most likely take people away from the east-west bus/streetcar routes. That will not only reduce crowding and horrendous service but increase the ridership on Dufferin that would be much higher that 44k daily. People find alternatives to routes that gets overcrowded and have bad service.

It's another symptom of this city lack of subways.

 

[BMO]

I see all the time at Dufferin station "southbound" the buse gets empty so passengers gets on the Bloor line, however the line ups to go further south is just as bad. The line is overcrowded south of Bloor as well. Eglinton LRT won't fix that

As someone who takes the Dufferin bus every day from around Eglinton to King, it gets super busy south of Eglinton with a bunch of transfers onto the route from Eglinton buses. This is actually compounded by the fact that construction is going on at Allen Rd so it's either spend 10-15 minutes getting from Dufferin to Eglinton West Station, or spend 15-20 minutes to get to Bloor. Very few people transfer to St. Clair because it's so slow. So you basically have a bunch of people piling on until Bloor to get over to the Spadina/Yonge lines. I think Eglinton Xtown will alleviate a good portion of this, but there's still a tremendous amount of demand south of Bloor as it services the Liberty Village employment area ( I imagine people prefer to take the 29 instead of take the King Streetcar).

 

[OneCity]

I question why they couldn't have started the above ground portions in the far East and West portions of the line while they've been tunnelling? Certainly that ship has sailed but if the extensions are approved I would hope we can attempt to be efficient enough to have multiple contracts going at the same time.

 

[Palma]

Not to derail this even further, but I totally agree.

There are a few things that are fairly clear at this point.

• Dufferin Bus is way over-capacity, it needs an alternative solution.
• Massive development is underway along the Dufferin corridor at points between Eglinton and Bloor, potentially totally overwhelming the Dufferin 29 Route.
• LRT won't work on Dufferin because it would have to be tunneled. LRT is a non-solution.
• Bloor line west of St. George and the Spadina line will need relief by 2035 projections.

This points to me that a subway line under Dufferin has the potential to solve multiple factors at once. Providing rapid transit to Dufferin corridor (which is needed) and providing relief to Spadina line (which is needed).

Plus with the Finch LRT hitting Dufferin St, will eliiminate people going over to Finch and Yonge and may relieve the Yonge line

 

[Palma]

I'd like a more detailed analysis of the Dufferin bus, because I am not sure how true that is. Just looking at basic residential density, it seems fairly obvious that the majority of ridership (and potential ridership) is between Bloor and Eglinton. I don't take the Dufferin line myself, but I hear from people who do that it is packed and yet many people are trying to squeeze on still in between Eglinton and Bloor.

Now it could be true that many people use the bus from Yorkdale to Eglinton (someone in the last page made mention that it is already packed by the time it reaches Eglinton) and that they will get off on the Crosstown. But that doesn't say that ridership would be poor south of Eglinton. Remember, we are talking about a 44,000 a day bus route.


Well it is not really a mystery is it? Scarborough subways are all politics.

And the west side already got their relief line through Spadina. It is a testament to the ridership on the west side that now we are in need of a second relief line.

So anything west of Yonge is considered the west side but you can't be serious to say this