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

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Wow, a good 2/3 of the 1994 Eglinton West subway is now tunneled.

I've always found it strange that the 1994 Eglinton subway only went west from Allen, not covering Yonge-Eg or central Eglinton.

Politics.

The Eglinton West bus was and still is much busier then the Eglinton East route.

 

[Johnny Au]

The stretch of Eglinton between Yonge and Mt. Pleasant is served by six bus routes even (and five between Mt. Pleasant and Laird).

 

[1overcosc]

It should be noted that if the 1994 Eglinton West subway was built, it would have created a problem just like Sheppard. Recall that the original proposal was for a Sheppard subway from Downsview to Scarborough Centre, and a Eglinton subway from Eglinton-Allen to Renforth. But the NDP government, faced with budget difficulties and unable to afford both lines, had to make a choice: either pay for one line in its entirely, or chop each line to a stub. They chose the latter in order to politically please as many areas as possible. So they moved forward with a Sheppard subway from Yonge to Don Mills, and an Eglinton subway from Eglinton-Allen to Black Creek. That was the 1994 subway plan. The remaining segments of Sheppard & Eglinton were pushed into an unscheduled mythical 'Phase 2'. When Harris was elected, he scaled it back even further, cancelling the Eglinton stub and retaining only the Sheppard stub that is now today's Sheppard subway.

If Harris hadn't cancelled Eglinton, then we would have ended up with a Sheppard stub to Don Mills, and an Eglinton stub to Black Creek. The mess with Sheppard--where we're going to have an LRT-subway transfer forced at Don Mills, would have been repeated with Eg, or we would have to have built an entire Eglinton subway. Harris' cancellation at least allowed us to build the entire line as LRT from scratch.

Imagine if Sheppard had been cancelled too. Miller could have built a single Sheppard-Finch LRT from Humber College all the way to Morningside and people would have loved it.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The original plan had a brt on eglinton, it was replaced with a subway because politics. The brt only ran west of eglinton west, thus the subway plan only ran west of it as well.


The original plan also had sheppard to Vic park, it got cut back to don mills.

 

[andrewpmk]

This is why putting LRT on Eglinton is such a bad idea. A developer wants to tear down the Celestica building at Eglinton/Don Mills and replace it with thousands of condo units. http://www.blogto.com/city/2014/08/crosstown_lrt_spurs_massive_redevelopment_proposal/ It looks like Celestica will move to new buildings which occupy the eastern end of the site rather than moving to somewhere else in the GTA.

My guess is the Real Canadian Superstore will get redeveloped, as will the Ontario Science Centre parking lot, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints parking lot. There are probably also a few strip plazas and maybe some low rise office buildings that could be torn down to build more density. Expect tens of thousands of new residents at least once all these sites get redeveloped. This proposal alone says 2,897 units (claims they will be all 3 bedroom, seems rather unusual to me) which seems to suggest we will have about 10,000 people living in this development alone.

Has anyone at Metrolinx or TTC thought about what building massive condo developments will do to this line? My guess is that you will get several thousand new riders westbound during the peak hour of 8-9am on weekdays from a development of this size. Add in demand from the existing 20,000 or so residents of the Flemingdon Park area (who might walk or use bus 100), people transferring from bus routes 25 and 54, and people coming from further east and I have a suspicion that the LRT, if we don't change it to a subway now like we did with the Scarborough RT in the 1980s, and with no downtown relief line, will be overcrowded west of Don Mills, west in AM rush hour and east in PM rush hour. The inaccurate ridership projections that the Miller administration created are probably totally invalid if huge condo developments of this size get built, as I suspect that they assume that very little or no new development gets built along Eglinton and are totally invalid if that is not the case.

Don't count on the downtown relief line being built to deal with this problem because it is so expensive, so unlikely to get built anytime soon. Even if that does built, I'm not sure whether a new north south line will exactly mean that an east west line isn't still really busy, particularly in the long term. (The 401 is much busier than the Don Valley Parkway for instance).

 

[jeffreym]

Has anyone at Metrolinx or TTC thought about what building massive condo developments will do to this line? My guess is that you will get several thousand new riders westbound during the peak hour of 8-9am on weekdays from a development of this size. Add in demand from the existing 20,000 or so residents of the Flemingdon Park area (who might walk or use bus 100), people transferring from bus routes 25 and 54, and people coming from further east and I have a suspicion that the LRT, if we don't change it to a subway now like we did with the Scarborough RT in the 1980s, and with no downtown relief line, will be overcrowded west of Don Mills, west in AM rush hour and east in PM rush hour. The inaccurate ridership projections that the Miller administration created are probably totally invalid if huge condo developments of this size get built, as I suspect that they assume that very little or no new development gets built along Eglinton and are totally invalid if that is not the case.

Right, when then modelled the ridership projections they assumed no population growth. Give me a break. While it might be reasonable to say that you feel their projections are a bit high or a bit low, to suggest that demand will be multiple times what's projected – seemingly so much so that even a subway will be packed – just because of your gut feeling is pretty weak.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Oh man Andrew you crack me up

 

[ehlow]

Oh man Andrew you crack me up

The same thing will be posted every time a new condo goes up near Eglinton for the next 10 years.

 

[Tuscani01]

Right, when then modelled the ridership projections they assumed no population growth. Give me a break. While it might be reasonable to say that you feel their projections are a bit high or a bit low, to suggest that demand will be multiple times what's projected – seemingly so much so that even a subway will be packed – just because of your gut feeling is pretty weak.

Not to mention that Eglinton falls under Toronto's avenues plan, which calls for midrise, and not "Massive condo developments".

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

He is not entirely wrong though. I strongly suspect Eglinton will surpass ridership expectations by some distance, but they won't surpass capacity for the LRT.

I also think having Eglinton short turn at Laird instead of Don Mills will be a massive headache in the long-term.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Not to mention that Eglinton falls under Toronto's avenues plan, which calls for midrise, and not "Massive condo developments".

I think it is quite reasonable to believe that massive sites like Eglinton and Don Mills will call for "Massive condo developments".

Midrises as per the plans will be at other intersections like Bayview and along everything else in between.

 

[sixrings]

I think it is quite reasonable to believe that massive sites like Eglinton and Don Mills will call for "Massive condo developments".

Midrises as per the plans will be at other intersections like Bayview and along everything else in between.

There are high rises at Bayview and Sheppard. I don't see why they won't show up at Bayview and eglinton.

 

[the lemur]

This is why putting LRT on Eglinton is such a bad idea. A developer wants to tear down the Celestica building at Eglinton/Don Mills and replace it with thousands of condo units. http://www.blogto.com/city/2014/08/crosstown_lrt_spurs_massive_redevelopment_proposal/ It looks like Celestica will move to new buildings which occupy the eastern end of the site rather than moving to somewhere else in the GTA.

My guess is the Real Canadian Superstore will get redeveloped, as will the Ontario Science Centre parking lot, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints parking lot. There are probably also a few strip plazas and maybe some low rise office buildings that could be torn down to build more density. Expect tens of thousands of new residents at least once all these sites get redeveloped. This proposal alone says 2,897 units (claims they will be all 3 bedroom, seems rather unusual to me) which seems to suggest we will have about 10,000 people living in this development alone.

Has anyone at Metrolinx or TTC thought about what building massive condo developments will do to this line? My guess is that you will get several thousand new riders westbound during the peak hour of 8-9am on weekdays from a development of this size. Add in demand from the existing 20,000 or so residents of the Flemingdon Park area (who might walk or use bus 100), people transferring from bus routes 25 and 54, and people coming from further east and I have a suspicion that the LRT, if we don't change it to a subway now like we did with the Scarborough RT in the 1980s, and with no downtown relief line, will be overcrowded west of Don Mills, west in AM rush hour and east in PM rush hour. The inaccurate ridership projections that the Miller administration created are probably totally invalid if huge condo developments of this size get built, as I suspect that they assume that very little or no new development gets built along Eglinton and are totally invalid if that is not the case.

Don't count on the downtown relief line being built to deal with this problem because it is so expensive, so unlikely to get built anytime soon. Even if that does built, I'm not sure whether a new north south line will exactly mean that an east west line isn't still really busy, particularly in the long term. (The 401 is much busier than the Don Valley Parkway for instance).

You don't think condo developers took the future transit situation into account, or the fact that some people will still not be taking transit even with the LRT outside their front door?

That transit planners didn't anticipate population growth relative to the mode of transport?

The 401 is much busier than the DVP, that's true, but that's primarily because it's also much longer and wider and has a much greater capacity due to its intended function. The DVP connects downtown to the 401 and the 404. It's not as busy as the 401, but then it's not intended or designed to be, and it becomes congested a lot more easily.

 

[ksun]

I don't see that as a problem. If at all, it is good news the Eglinton corridor becomes a lot denser when people move from the suburbs to somewhere much closer to the core.
As to crowdedness, people will handle it, just like people handle it just fine in Tokyo. Big cities are crowded, so what. Expect less personal space in the train and your back may be forced to press against some else's chest during rush hour, big deal. And if situation really becomes crippling, the government will be forced to make decisions they otherwise would be afraid to.

Huge condos spring up and 100,000 move in, fantastic news. Better than them living in Vaughan or Brampton.

 

[andrewpmk]

The same thing will be posted every time a new condo goes up near Eglinton for the next 10 years.

We are talking about a huge multi-building development that probably will hold 10,000 residents or so, not just 1 small condo development. This definitely isn't midrise. I expected that Don Mills/Eglinton would be redeveloped but I never expected that a huge proposal like this would happen so soon. I don't believe that the OMB will really stick to the "midrise" thing that city council/the urban planning department claims they want (developers will succeed in getting the zoning changed and get taller buildings approved). Then again I think that the OMB will probably allow much taller buildings around Don Mills/Eglinton than anywhere else along Eglinton except around Yonge. There is simply far more developable land around Eglinton/Don Mills then most parts of Eglinton Avenue, and very few single family home owner NIMBYs near here who fight to keep tall buildings out.

If the downtown relief line is needed because Eglinton is overcrowded (not just because the Yonge line is overcrowded) then Eglinton will be viewed as a failure. It is much cheaper to make Eglinton East elevated (and even cheaper still to build a subway between Black Creek and Don Mills with no eastern section) than to build the DRL to Eglinton/Don Mills.

Toronto seems to be the only large densely populated city in the world where people who are against building a proper subway system are taken seriously. Even LA is building subways along Wilshire Blvd. And the Eglinton LRT plan is really weird, very few cities are building LRT systems with significant underground sections, and none are building a LRT line that is over 50% underground (but not a subway) and that costs over $5 billion. This weird obsession with LRT among the Miller administration and many members of city council (to the point of wanting to build something really unusual like Eglinton) seems to be a uniquely Toronto phenomenon. The fact that Ford is crazy and people don't take his subway proposals seriously is also part of the problem. I think that in any other city with sensible politicians, we would have built a subway on Eglinton, though certainly not underground east of Don Mills the way Ford wanted.