Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

[thettctransitfanatic]

Branding so it's better swallowed than "downtown relief", plus it goes from Ontario Place to Ontario Science Centre.

Makes snese. But then again, we could also just call it here's on UT "the Ford Line"the

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I am ineligible to "affordable housing".

I look forward to expansion of working class housing, which is only really achieved by the expansion of housing supply argument.

The market price going up-and-up signals that market supply isn't increasing quick enough. I am cognizant that Toronto's ever-increasing attractiveness as an international city, the city's rapid population growth, the use of housing as investment and storage of wealth by the market, and the trades labour shortage means that a millennial like myself is unlikely to ever own in this city, but sitting on our hands and doing nothing is hardly an appropriate response. Building transit and expanding access to a greater part of the city, resulting in large-scale residential development and intensification of areas such as the Eglinton Golden Mile on the other hand? That is a government-led, private sector delivered response that I am all for.

Not really - other jurisdictions have chosen policy options enabling public and/or public-private housing for the middle class. I think this speaks to the priorities of the government and the hold private development interests have on housing policy here in Ontario/Canada. In this context here in Toronto - why are we leveraging public assets by one-time sale that basically have to depend on uncertain market forces to service this "sandwich class"?

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

From the Budget:

Note the stations at King/Bathurst and the angle to/from Queen/Spadina, the angle again to Exhibition/OP

Also note stations marked Leslieville and Flemingdon Park

There remains a station marked Sumach, but the drawing is inconclusive about the original or an alternate location.

Budget states their costing includes a yard, does not state location.

 

[WislaHD]

Not really - other jurisdictions have chosen policy options enabling public and/or public-private housing for the middle class. I think this speaks to the priorities of the government and the hold private development interests have on housing policy here in Ontario/Canada.

AoD

Yes, we can look at public land leasing in Hong Kong and the Netherlands as examples, and John Tory's Housing Now initiative is supposed to involve public land-leasing.

But is it scalable to make an impact in Toronto? Most land here is privately owned.

Bringing it back to the Ontario Line, if extended to Sheppard, it would reduce the commute times downtown for large swathes of North York and Scarborough by intercepting east-west bus routes. If door-to-door commute times are reduced from 50-70 minutes to 20-40 minutes, the attractiveness of housing on corridors along Eglinton, Lawrence, York Mills, and Sheppard becomes attractive enough to develop. That might actually make an impact on housing supply.

 

[WislaHD]

From the Budget:

Note the stations at King/Bathurst and the angle to/from Queen/Spadina, the angle again to Exhibition/OP

Also note stations marked Leslieville and Flemingdon Park

There remains a station marked Sumach, but the drawing is inconclusive about the original or an alternate location.

Hot damn!

I am sold on this concept. Ontario Place was a dumb terminus point, but Exhibition GO is not, especially when the line is oriented towards future westward extension.

Retention of stations on Sherbourne, Sumach, Leslieville, Cosburn, Thorncliffe and Flemingdon is amazing!

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the Budget:

Note the stations at King/Bathurst and the angle to/from Queen/Spadina, the angle again to Exhibition/OP

Also note stations marked Leslieville and Flemingdon Park

There remains a station marked Sumach, but the drawing is inconclusive about the original or an alternate location.

Budget states their costing includes a yard, does not state location.

This is basically more or less what the DRL as proposed over the years is - nothing jaw dropping at all. Cosburn, Thorncliffe, Flemingdon are all proposed as station locations previously. At least they didn't mess with that (but this is the early days and conceptual alignment in and on itself is just that)

Yes, we can look at public land leasing in Hong Kong and the Netherlands as examples, and John Tory's Housing Now initiative is supposed to involve public land-leasing.

But is it scalable to make an impact in Toronto? Most land here is privately owned.

Bringing it back to the Ontario Line, if extended to Sheppard, it would reduce the commute times downtown for large swathes of North York and Scarborough by intercepting east-west bus routes. If door-to-door commute times are reduced from 50-70 minutes to 20-40 minutes, the attractiveness of housing on corridors along Eglinton, Lawrence, York Mills, and Sheppard becomes attractive enough to develop. That might actually make an impact on housing supply.

Nothing against the notion of building infrastructure to assist intensification - but I don't think leveraging public - and as you have mentioned - somewhat rare land assets that could be put to more targeted uses is the solution.

AoD

 

[gweed123]

Extend Phase 2 up to Bloor via Dufferin and I think that's a pretty decent line. Honestly not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

One of the biggest question marks with the Exhibition station though is whether the platform will be oriented E-W or N-S. E-W makes a future extension possible. N-S means that that location is a permanent terminus.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Extend Phase 2 up to Bloor via Dufferin and I think that's a pretty decent line. Honestly not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

One of the biggest question marks with the Exhibition station though is whether the platform will be oriented E-W or N-S. E-W makes a future extension possible. N-S means that that location is a permanent terminus.

Alignment is fine. My concern is undersizing - a la Canada Line - trainset and station size/infrastructure to hit the bare minimum - like if someone built Line 1 at half the station length and claim that you can satisfy all projected future needs simply by running the trains more frequently.

The extension to Ex could be designed as a branch line perhaps?

AoD

 

[smallspy]

By going with PPP on the Canada Line it guarantees that the line came in on time and on budget as any cost overruns would be paid 100% by the private company and they would face EXTREMELY high and on-going penalties for every day they were late. Needless to say the CL came on in on-budget and opened 4 months AHEAD of time. Conversely it also tied the governments to the project. They too were going to be hit with very heavy and on-going penalties if they decided to back out......….they were guaranteed to get every penny they expected to get from the line over the entire course of repayment. This offered then the assurance that it couldn't be started by one government and cancelled by the next.

You seem to have conveniently forgotten to state the reason why the Canada Line came in on time and on budget.

The consortium was allowed very late in the process to change the construction method from TBM/bored to cut-and-cover. There was very little public consultation made to the community, and so they had to endure a major artery being almost completely unusable for something approaching 4 years.

Dan

 

[Cobra]

Looking at the rest of the budget where they gutted most ministries... seems like infrastructure is the cornerstone of their 1st mandate policy.

 

[hw621]

^whichh I actually agree with.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I quite like this alignment to be honest, I'm excited by the inclusion of a western extension. My one critique would be to include a station at Strachan as well as Exhibition GO.

The stations seem well positioned to maximize density within a 10 minute walk, however their positions also place little density in a 3 minute walk. It skirts the periphery of the various density points in the west end.

 

[crs1026]

The market price going up-and-up signals that market supply isn't increasing quick enough to keep up. I am cognizant that Toronto's ever-increasing attractiveness as an international city, the city's rapid population growth, the use of housing as investment and storage of wealth by the market, and the trades labour shortage means that a millennial like myself is unlikely to ever own in this city, but sitting on our hands and doing nothing is hardly an appropriate response. Building transit and expanding access to a greater part of the city, resulting in large-scale residential development and intensification of areas such as the Eglinton Golden Mile on the other hand? That is a government-led, private sector delivered response that I am all for.

I support taking a very different approach to housing than in the past. (why do we have single family monster homes going up within walking distance of subway stations, when severing the lot, and/or building a triplex on the same lot would provide multiple family homes at a different price point?)

The big u-turn that will lead to stabilising housing supply will come from encouraging something other than condo's. I'm not hearing any suggestions for the CNE/Ontario Place except more condo's .

My comments were with regard to the excellent work that City planners do to point out the pitfalls and excesses of development proposals, which generally have more stories, too little sidewalk, and mediocre to lackluster streets. I just can't believe that the development community won't take the opportunity to point out to their pal Douggie that all this "impediment" is preventing them from getting shovels in the ground. Considering the emasculated, milktoast positioning that seems to be all Tory is capable of, I suspect their job will become harder now that "getting subways completed" will be the provincial mantra.

- Paul

 

[steveintoronto]

the DRL will be built either first or second, but it won’t begin in earnest until there is some major disaster that occurs due to the overcrowding at Y/B. If somebody falls on the track and dies, or there is a stampede situation, funding will flow.

How’s that for pessimism?

I up the stakes on that: Major disaster does occur and still nothing changes...

Not really - other jurisdictions have chosen policy options enabling public and/or public-private housing for the middle class. I think this speaks to the priorities of the government and the hold private development interests have on housing policy here in Ontario/Canada. In this context here in Toronto - why are we leveraging public assets by one-time sale that basically have to depend on uncertain market forces to service this "sandwich class"?

Yes, we can look at public land leasing in Hong Kong and the Netherlands as examples, and John Tory's Housing Now initiative is supposed to involve public land-leasing.
But is it scalable to make an impact in Toronto? Most land here is privately owned.

Nothing against the notion of building infrastructure to assist intensification - but I don't think leveraging public - and as you have mentioned - somewhat rare land assets that could be put to more targeted uses is the solution.

It's a conundrum, without doubt, and oddly the more small 'c' conservative nations of Europe do supply ample public housing. It has its own problems, like families hanging onto it through the generations, but it's still far better than our situation. Vienna, one of the best transportation systems in the world, one of the highest standards of living and one of the most cultured has 2/3 of its housing subsidized.

Google: "vienna public housing", and some astounding reading is to be had. Vienna is exceptional by degree and a hundred year history of being so, but not that unusual in Europe. There's real parallels in transit and housing thinking. Vienna is also considered one of the leading cities in the world for transit.

With a population of nearly 2.5 million people in its greater metropolitan area, Vienna is the largest city in Austria. Its metro system sees 1.3 million passengers every single day and it is the best performing public transport system in the entire world, according to the International Association of Public Transport.

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/...ve/vienna-austria-ranked-smartest-city/34914/

Is it fair to wonder if Toronto's present advantage, already showing very real shortcomings, is about to plummet?

Alignment is fine. My concern is undersizing - a la Canada Line - trainset and station size/infrastructure to hit the bare minimum - like if someone built Line 1 at half the station length and claim that you can satisfy all projected future needs simply by running the trains more frequently.

Absolutely agreed, as I have with @crs1026 previously. It would be like building a ten foot driveway to service a mall. Penny-wise, Pound moronic. It HAS to be built to accommodate heavier transit later, no matter what form that takes. I see some posters answering how much more expensive it would be to bore to subway diameter, and I beg to differ with them. Yes, it costs slightly more, but the *yield* is multiples more for that investment. "Subway sized bore" can also host RER and HFR as well as orthodox subway. (most) Metro sized tunnel can host HFR, but it's an unnecessary squeeze and would greatly limit speed and performance.
Interoperability Study to Operate HFR VIA Trains ... - SYSTRA Canada

The extension to Ex could be designed as a branch line perhaps?

I just don't see the business case for this. Some kind of link, absolutely, but I think Ford threw this in for decoration, not function. Private Initiative would never propose this, but they would propose extension to Dundas West, there's a solid business case to be made for it. (Massive proviso to this: UPX reformation withstanding. If UPX and/or RER are morphed to local service function on the Western Corridor, the claim is moot)

 

[Leo_Chan]

N-S means that that location is a permanent terminus.

You underestimate the power of the Ontario Line going under Lake Ontario.

I quite like this alignment to be honest, I'm excited by the inclusion of a western extension. My one critique would be to include a station at Strachan as well as Exhibition GO.

The stations seem well positioned to maximize density within a 10 minute walk, however their positions also place little density in a 3 minute walk. It skirts the periphery of the various density points in the west end.

I agree that a station at Strachan/King or Strachan/Liberty would be nice, but I guess it may be cheaper to build the Ontario Line along the USRC from Bathurst to Exhibition. Still could use a stop in that area though.