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

[junctionist]

It's sound planning to widen the sidewalks along a rapid transit corridor where people will be getting around with a car, not politics. The sidewalks should be widened on Eglinton, but also on the streets which have stations--for at least 500 metres north and south of the stations.

 

[nfitz]

It's sound planning to widen the sidewalks along a rapid transit corridor where people will be getting around with a car, not politics. The sidewalks should be widened on Eglinton, but also on the streets which have stations--for at least 500 metres north and south of the stations.

They should already be that wide on Eglinton ... and on many other streets where they are not. It's a different project, and shouldn't be linked. That's how we get these ridiculous outlandish costs where most of it isn't for transit ... like the $106 million ($15.6 million/km) that the St. Clair streetcar cost, rather than the real price of the TTC project which was $65 million ($9.6 million/km).

 

[andrewpmk]

Will the Eglinton line provided redundancy when the B-D line is closed? It should be an important consideration.

http://www.citynews.ca/2014/06/24/service-resumes-on-bloor-danforth-line/

Expect Eglinton to be obscenely crowded whenever Bloor-Danforth is replaced by shuttle buses for whatever reason.

Another reason why building the world's most expensive LRT line is a terrible idea.

 

[salsa]

Expect Eglinton to be obscenely crowded whenever Bloor-Danforth is replaced by shuttle buses for whatever reason.

No it won't. How come the Spadina line doesn't become "obscenely crowded" whenever the Yonge line shuts down (which happens often)?

Another reason why building the world's most expensive LRT line is a terrible idea.

Because a much more expensive subway should have been built instead based on your own massive imaginary ridership projections.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

So now we should be building a line as subway not on its' own merit but because of what supposedly would (without evidence) happen if a parallel line a significant distance away shuts down what, cumulatively 10 days a year?

AoD

 

[nfitz]

Expect Eglinton to be obscenely crowded whenever Bloor-Danforth is replaced by shuttle buses for whatever reason.

I'd expect that's true now of the Eglinton bus. The 506 was unusable on when the BD line was closed because of a jumper earlier this week between Woodbine and Broadview. And I heard even 501 had significantly higher volumes too.

Another reason why building the world's most expensive LRT line is a terrible idea.

Wow, there are just so many things wrong with that comment. The expensive piece is the piece that's in the subway tunnel. The surface piece isn't particularly expensive for LRT. And you don't built excess capacity for such a rare event. They don't close the BD line for construction during rush hour, so there'd be plenty of capacity on the LRT on weekends.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Expect Eglinton to be obscenely crowded whenever Bloor-Danforth is replaced by shuttle buses for whatever reason.

Another reason why building the world's most expensive LRT line is a terrible idea.

So you're telling us that you want to build billion dollar subways because the 2 BD may be shut down for an hour or two during an emergency?

And you're the same andrewpmk who was criticizing gov't overspending yesterday?

Okay then...

 

[diminutive]

Wow, there are just so many things wrong with that comment. The expensive piece is the piece that's in the subway tunnel. The surface piece isn't particularly expensive for LRT. And you don't built excess capacity for such a rare event. .

You can't completely disentangle the surface and subway portions, though. The subway component has to be designed around accommodating the LRT vehicles, so the stations are much larger than one would expect from such a low ridership subway.

At 5,000 pph/pd, the underground segment could easily get by with single car, 20m trains running every two minutes, with spare capacity through more frequent trains. Instead we have to build them with 90m platforms to accommodate bigger LRVs. That in turn usually means stations have to be deeper to still be totally flat, longer construction and so forth.

Vancouver was initially going to build the Canada Line as an LRT with surface running in Richmond, but found that lifetime operator costs and changes needed on the subway portion to accommodate LRVs ended up costing more than just segregating the whole line.

Frankly, if we just called the ECLRT a "subway," which most of it is cost-wise, it would never get built because its costs are extremely high compared to its ridership. But since we've called it an "LRT" it's totally ok, so there's politics and salesmanship for you.

Things are too late now, and I'm sure what eventually gets built will be an improvement on the current buses, but I highly doubt the current design represents anything like the best value for money.

 

[howl]

Things are too late now, and I'm sure what eventually gets built will be an improvement on the current buses, but I highly doubt the current design represents anything like the best value for money.

Well, what are the alternatives?

1. Buses aren't fast enough and clog up the roads.

2. BRT (separate lanes) can't go underground so they would have to run on the surface the whole way greatly reducing the capacity of Eglinton between Bayview and Keele.

3. Streetcars are essentially the same as LRT with less capacity.

4. Subways can't run on the surface within a road right-of-way so it would need to be buried all the way to Kennedy, greatly increasing the costs; plus no one is predicting we will ever need that kind of capacity.

LRT is the most cost-effective option that meets all of the functional and capacity requirement. There doesn't appear to be any other logical choices, unless you are one of the spend-spend-spend conservatives who want nothing but subways.

 

[BurlOak]

Expect Eglinton to be obscenely crowded whenever Bloor-Danforth is replaced by shuttle buses for whatever reason.

Another reason why building the world's most expensive LRT line is a terrible idea.

I guess this would be true on when B-D is busy, not just days that it is closed

Good thing it is rarely busy.

 

[nfitz]

You can't completely disentangle the surface and subway portions, though. The subway component has to be designed around accommodating the LRT vehicles, so the stations are much larger than one would expect from such a low ridership subway.

The platform length is shorter than the subway stations. The clearance is a bit higher in the centre, but they cheapest way to build the station is to dig a big hole. There's not much cost (if any) to making the ceiling a bit higher. Saves on fill ... which is why many of the newer stations have such high ceilings. The extra costs, if any, are trivial.

At 5,000 pph/pd, the underground segment could easily get by with single car, 20m trains running every two minutes, with spare capacity through more frequent trains. Instead we have to build them with 90m platforms to accommodate bigger LRVs. That in turn usually means stations have to be deeper to still be totally flat, longer construction and so forth.

A 20-m subway car would have a capacity of about 145 people. 30 trains an hour at peak gives you only 4,300 an hour. Even you squeezed 5,000 on, your completely screwed after 2031 as presumably ridership would continue to grow. It might work day 1, but it won't last 50 years. I'd think you'd want to design for at least 15K capacity ... which would require 70 metre platforms. 90 metres isn't that much more than that.

At 5,000 pph/pd, the underground segment could easily get by with single car, 20m trains running every two minutes, with spare capacity Frankly, if we just called the ECLRT a "subway," which most of it is cost-wise, it would never get built because its costs are extremely high compared to its ridership. But since we've called it an "LRT" it's totally ok, so there's politics and salesmanship for you.

So we call the Spadnia extension from Steeles West to Highway 7 a subway, with it's 2,000 pph/pd forecast ridership, it would never get built either?

Things are too late now, and I'm sure what eventually gets built will be an improvement on the current buses, but I highly doubt the current design represents anything like the best value for money.

It can't be too far off. There were no alternatives to tunnelling Eglinton through the centre of the city. And there's no alternatives cheaper than the current alignment from Brentcliffe to Kennedy (other than perhaps skipping the piece of tunnel at Don Mills Road and under Kennedy Road). How would we do any of it cheaper ... other than stopping the line at Don Mills Road and making everyone change to a BRT?

 

[BurlOak]

No it won't. How come the Spadina line doesn't become "obscenely crowded" whenever the Yonge line shuts down (which happens often)?

Take the peak direction rider going from STC to Financial.

The STC passenger is funnelled through Kennedy, so ECLRT is a logical route (especially if it appears on the TTC rapid transit map.

How would a similar passenger from NYC or Finch station even get over to the Spadina line. Maybe when the Sheppard West subway is built it would be a more reasonable comparison.

 

[ehlow]

When this gets built in 200 years, there'll be redundancy:

 

[BurlOak]

Well, what are the alternatives?
. . . . .
LRT is the most cost-effective option that meets all of the functional and capacity requirement. There doesn't appear to be any other logical choices, unless you are one of the spend-spend-spend conservatives who want nothing but subways.

Well considering that this ECLRT plan forced the B-D extension. This LRT plan was actually over $1B more than the alternative.

 

[spider]

Expect Eglinton to be obscenely crowded whenever Bloor-Danforth is replaced by shuttle buses for whatever reason.

How crowded will it be when the Eglinton line goes down and must be replaced by shuttle buses with no bus facility at Yonge and only one lane each way on Eglinton. Yikes!