News   Mar 28, 2024
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Transit Fantasy Maps

God, Line 1 makes my eyes bleed. It's time to split the line, especially when it gets extended to RHC (Not included?). The rest (Even the Ontario Line) seem fine.

The fact that Line 1 isnt two lines on paper is crazy to me. Not only is it confusing to people at Union, but its also silly when the announcements say "Line 1 to Vaughan Station" when you are boarding at Finch station. Like, yeah technically true, but no one would ever take Line 1 from Finch to Vaughan. Its useless information.

Just have 2 lines and at Union say "this train is continuing north along Line X towards station X"
 
Someone might take train from King or Queen to Vaughan, or Rosedale to St. Andrew or something. It's one line and so it should be shown on the map as one line. But just announce to train is going to Union then after Union announce it is going to Vaughan.
 
Line 1 should stay as is. The only way it would work is if the train turned back around. Is there even infrastructure there to switch tracks on either side of Union?
 
To be clear, when I say split Line 1, I genuinely mean split it. Terminate the Yonge Line at a new, lower level at Union Station, or through run it at Union East to Exhibition or something, We're looking at a line approaching 45 km long when the YNSE opens with 6 distinct 90 degree turns, 2 regular turnback stations, and 2 unofficial ones, ridership differences of almost 100% between the Yonge and University-Spadina lines, and 2, soon to be 3 different yards. The yard thing may be a challenge because most of the trains are Stored at wilson, but the point that the line is just too long right now remains.
 
It would be the same deal with the western & eastern extensions of the Crosstown and even more so since I believe a fully completed crosstown would be the longest line in Toronto and I believe 2nd in North America only behind the A Train in NYC. How any can think that full line could be operated as a single service is nuts, it will have to be split. As for the map problem there are two ways to solve it, either make the maps longer or buy vehicles with LCD displays.
Part of the reason why I'm in favour of a future split of Line 5 at Science Centre (if the ridership warrants it). The difference between the tunnel and the surface section is going to be staggering.
 
The A Line in NYC is over 50km long and it works fine. There is no reason to change things.
No A Train runs local the entire length of the line though. 3 Services operate the A Train and all run express over some part of the line. The only time it doesn't is overnight when trains run at like 30 minute intervals. New York understands it would be ludicrous to run a local service the entire 50Km so they have the trains skip stations depending on what service they are running, thus significantly reducing the travel time. Currently a train ride from Inwood-207th street to Far Rockaway is nearly 2 Hours even with the large express portion. A local run would have to be nearly 3.5/4 hours long. Eventually a line becomes to long that it stops being a viable commuting option for travelers and an operational nightmare for the operator, so you must either split the line into services with some skipping stops or you break up the line for better operational consistency.
 
Part of the reason why I'm in favour of a future split of Line 5 at Science Centre (if the ridership warrants it). The difference between the tunnel and the surface section is going to be staggering.
If anything, I'd say the Eglinton line could be split - with some overlap. From Pearson to Science Centre as the West one, and Kennedy (or Malvern) to Mount Dennis as the East one.
Of course running a long line is nowhere near as difficult in non-rush, so it would be 1 long line when frequencies are 4 minutes or less.
(of course that on-street Leslie portion really screwed up a lot of things).
 
To be clear, when I say split Line 1, I genuinely mean split it. Terminate the Yonge Line at a new, lower level at Union Station, or through run it at Union East to Exhibition or something, We're looking at a line approaching 45 km long when the YNSE opens with 6 distinct 90 degree turns, 2 regular turnback stations, and 2 unofficial ones, ridership differences of almost 100% between the Yonge and University-Spadina lines, and 2, soon to be 3 different yards. The yard thing may be a challenge because most of the trains are Stored at wilson, but the point that the line is just too long right now remains.

Want to break Line 1 up without any new infrastructure, we could bring back the interline/wye. Finch to Kipling 1-A, Finch to Kennedy 1-B. The former 'Spadina' portion would default to Line 5 then be VMC-Spadina. This would allow proper transferring between each line. Doesn't really solve the length issue tho.

Another alternative would be Finch to Bay (Lower) one Line, VMC to St George as a separate line. However Bay Lower doesn't really work as a terminal without crossovers leading into it (which I'm sure could be added at minimal cost). Could there be merit to this? Possibly.
 
Someone might take train from King or Queen to Vaughan, or Rosedale to St. Andrew or something. It's one line and so it should be shown on the map as one line. But just announce to train is going to Union then after Union announce it is going to Vaughan.
Often, I commute between Glencairn (closest to my home) and Dundas to go to the Eaton Centre's northern section.

I few times, I commute from Glencairn to Davisville (where I work) only using Line 1 on days with very inclement weather. In very rare instances (primarily due to construction of Chaplin station), this is faster than 14 Glencairn.
 
Want to break Line 1 up without any new infrastructure, we could bring back the interline/wye. Finch to Kipling 1-A, Finch to Kennedy 1-B. The former 'Spadina' portion would default to Line 5 then be VMC-Spadina. This would allow proper transferring between each line. Doesn't really solve the length issue tho.

Another alternative would be Finch to Bay (Lower) one Line, VMC to St George as a separate line. However Bay Lower doesn't really work as a terminal without crossovers leading into it (which I'm sure could be added at minimal cost). Could there be merit to this? Possibly.

What ever you are smoking, please share. One broken train could really mess up things in the 2, sorry, 3 lines.
 
Could always de couple the Spadina line north of Bloor, continue it south to Dundas, then veer East to meet the University and Yonge lines. That would bring back the interlined operation while still giving Spadina riders a one seat ride to the majority of the downtown core.

The problem is that the TTC demonstrated (albeit it was 60 years ago) the inability to efficiently run an interlined operation.
 
What do you say to that person that wants to go from one side of the U south of Bloor to the other side, but does not want to get wet/cold having to use a street car? I don't seee the line getting extended further north than Major Mack for both ends.
 
When the Relief Line was Queen-alignment, I thought there would be some logic to splitting Line 1 so that:
  • Yonge terminated at Queen's Quay / Harbourfront Centre
  • Spadina-University continued east to the Portlands with stops at Lower Jarvis, Distillery District, maybe at Cherry, then into the Portlands
  • Waterfront LRT is built without any concern for looping it up to Union Station.
 

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