I'm not quite sure what that last page was (
), but I am glad to have read it.
Since I began this discussion to begin with, I want to clarify that I believe that the intent of the Relief Line is to provide relief to the Yonge subway line given the crush capacity constraints there. The ridership on the Yonge Line (and transit ridership as a whole) in York Region is stemming from the Yonge corridor north of Steeles, not from areas in Markham between Hwy-404 and the Stouffville line. It is these commuters on the Yonge corridor who are flooding into Finch Station and bringing full trains to Eglinton at rush hour. Moreover, it is this same corridor that York Region is slating for massive residential growth, which will only make things worse along the Yonge line,
Whereas the logic of Relief Line South is to intercept the riders on the Danforth line before Bloor-Yonge station, the rationale for the Relief Line North is to intercept the bus riders on Eglinton, Lawrence, York Mills/Ellesmere and Sheppard (and Finch + Steeles should it go that far north) before they arrive at the over-capacity Yonge line. I would make the argument that the same rationale of intercepting bus riders before they reach the Yonge subway holds true if you extend the RLN northwest to Yonge Street, because given stop spacing, the Relief Line would be a quicker ride for downtown bound York Region commuters than the Yonge Line. So I would counter that, no, it isn't illogical to send the RLN to meet Yonge Street. What would be illogical is sending it to somewhere in Markham between Hwy-404 and the Stouffville line where the ridership is lacking and relief to the Yonge line is zero.
For a quick reference to the numbers (dated from 2014 and 2015), the Steeles East bus carries 28,300 daily riders (many of these are York Region commuters) and the VIVA Blue (Yonge) bus carries 19,774 daily riders.
For comparison, the VIVA Green (Vic Park to Markham) bus carries 644 daily riders. The 90 Leslie/Don Mills bus carries 3,655 daily riders. The 24 Woodbine North bus carries 1,140 daily riders. Given the above, I think it is actually ludicrous to send the Relief Line anywhere in York Region other than to meet Yonge Street.
Now to address Richmond Hill GO line for a moment, some were suggesting that it is asinine to end service of a GO line. But I ask to look at it from a numbers perspective. Richmond Hill GO carries a grand total of 10,000 daily riders which is by far the smallest in the GO system and the equivalent of the 11 Bayview bus. It is a costly service to maintain and the higher GO fare is unattractive for many riders. Unlike the other GO routes, the RHGO cannot even be upgraded and electrified to RER service without a prohibitively expensive new route through the Don Valley, and is unlikely to ever have an interchange with either Bloor or Eglinton subways.
I get that the suggestion of ending a GO rail service is near blasphemous, but if looked at objectively, it is doubtful the RHGO line would ever be worth the investment upgrading to RER, and if service was replaced by a Relief Line that met with Yonge Street, would it be so bad of a loss? The majority of those 10,000 riders likely board at Langstaff GO station, which a Relief Line under this configuration would intercept anyway.
So it boils down IMO to the legitimate question of whether the Bala Corridor has room for a subway line, given the interests of CN Rail. Could this be overcome by squeezing the subway next to the CN corridor, or by sending TBMs under the rail corridor? Tunnelling is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, but I am not sure what the factors with tunneling under an active rail corridor would be.
All this might just be a transit fantasy at the end of the day given that last question, but I wanted to justify the positions that having the RLN meet Yonge Street is intuitive rather than illogical, and that the idea of ending RHGO service south of Langstaff is not so blasphemous if the replacement is a subway line with wide stop spacing. Fantasy or not, I think it is good to dream big and search for creative solutions for our regional transit, because after all, discussion of a Relief Line North was considered fantasy just a few short years ago (and lets be real, the Yonge subway is going to need all the relief it can get).
