Richmond Hill Yonge Line 1 North Subway Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

Haydenpoon said:
Trains every 15-20 mins + detour to the east will not persuade people to not take the Yonge line.
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That' true. However, even if you have GO trains every 3 min but those trains still detour to the east, you will not beat the appeal of Yonge line.

For the connections from Richmond Hill to points south:
- Yonge line serves the dense corridor around Yonge north of 401, RH line totally bypasses it.
- Yonge line makes practical connections to both Eglinton West and East, as well as Bloor West and Bloor East / Danforth. RH line can be connected to Eglinton East, and maybe at a great cost to Danforth, but not to the western destinations.
- Most importantly, Yonge line serves multiple very busy stations between Bloor and Union. RH line, besides Union, perhaps can serve Distillery and have one or two connections to the dowtown streetcar lines near the Don bridges, but all those connections would attract much less ridership than the matching stations of the Yonge line.

So, there is a niche market for direct express service from Langstaff to Union, and it is worthwhile to improve the RH line one way or another to serve that market better. But if you choose to upgrade the RH GO corridor to real subway-like frequencies, then the bulk of your ridership would be between the downtown and the Overlea / Flemmington / Science Centre / Don Mills & Lawrence areas. There would be no point running trains all the way to Langstaff every 3 min because those trains wouldn't be even 20% full once they get north of Sheppard.
 
Haydenpoon said:
Trains every 15-20 mins + detour to the east will not persuade people to not take the Yonge line.
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For a RH Relief Line, I would ideally want to see frequency improved for the Richmond Hill branch to every 10 minutes or better at peak hour.

The detour to the east is really not an issue though for a RH Relief Line if your destination is downtown. The farther stop-stop spacing between stations and less overall stops would mean that trains can operate at higher speeds and the trip would be like an express line to Queen Station compared to taking the the Yonge Line southbound.

Plus less crowded, which would be nice.
 
WislaHD said:
For a RH Relief Line, I would ideally want to see frequency improved for the Richmond Hill branch to every 10 minutes or better at peak hour.

The detour to the east is really not an issue though for a RH Relief Line if your destination is downtown. The farther stop-stop spacing between stations and less overall stops would mean that trains can operate at higher speeds and the trip would be like an express line to Queen Station compared to taking the the Yonge Line southbound.

Plus less crowded, which would be nice.
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I am not sure every 10 min is sustainable if the Richmond Hill line continues to share the Union corridor with other services: LS East plus Uxbridge plus VIA.

On the other hand, if the Richmond Hille line was to get its own tunnel through downtown, then we would want a much higher frequency through the tunnel, split between multiple branches in the outer areas.
 
WislaHD said:
For a RH Relief Line, I would ideally want to see frequency improved for the Richmond Hill branch to every 10 minutes or better at peak hour.

The detour to the east is really not an issue though for a RH Relief Line if your destination is downtown. The farther stop-stop spacing between stations and less overall stops would mean that trains can operate at higher speeds and the trip would be like an express line to Queen Station compared to taking the the Yonge Line southbound.

Plus less crowded, which would be nice.
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So, you want a train that comes 5 times less than the packed one?

Let's build a new 2 lane freeway to bypass the 401....
 
Rainforest said:
I am not sure every 10 min is sustainable if the Richmond Hill line continues to share the Union corridor with other services: LS East plus Uxbridge plus VIA.

On the other hand, if the Richmond Hille line was to get its own tunnel through downtown, then we would want a much higher frequency through the tunnel, split between multiple branches in the outer areas.
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This tunnel would have to completely bypass the Don River banks as ML would not want to spend money upgrading a line that is prone to flooding. It's a major reason why they won't electrify this line.
 
I don’t know what will ever come first, the all day RER for the RH line, or the yonge north extension.
 
Steve X said:
This tunnel would have to completely bypass the Don River banks as ML would not want to spend money upgrading a line that is prone to flooding. It's a major reason why they won't electrify this line.
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Perhaps that belongs to the Fantasy Maps domain, but I thought of the route that follows the RH surface line from the north till the Bayview / River St. intersection, then dips underground, veers west, and enters downtown in a tunnel under Dundas.

That route avoids lower Don completely, and the section that still runs along Don north of Dundas can hopefully be protected by an embankment.
 
Steve X said:
This tunnel would have to completely bypass the Don River banks as ML would not want to spend money upgrading a line that is prone to flooding. It's a major reason why they won't electrify this line.
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I have been thinking that Union really needs to go underground. Leave the existing train shed for intercity travel, but when a line gets upgraded to all day, each way 15 minute service or better, the station stop for it would be a tunnel under Union. Kind of like how grand Central is underground.
 
I like how this thread always has circular discussions on not enough ridership, too much ridership causing over crowding, we need the Relief Line first, convert the Richmond Hill line to RER, combine the Richmond Hill Line with the Relief Line North, this should end at Steeles Ave, why does Royal Orchard Stations exist, York Region should pay the operating costs, York Region should build their own subway. Not saying that these discussions aren't unnecessary, but often times the same facts are repeated over and over.
 
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Leo_Chan said:
Not saying that these discussions aren't unnecessary, but often times the same facts are repeated over and over.
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Indeed. The questions have been around for over a decade but the authorities who could produce answers have largely ignored them; or made a minimal effort answer that was trivial to find issues with their report.

It doesn't help that the model changes for every study released. Iterative model changes are expected (take real results from a project, change assumptions for future projects) but that's not what's happening; even projects studied in parallel have different baseline assumptions built into them.
 
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Reecemartin said:
Union does not need to go underground, like at all. . . Union has an insane number of platforms and even when they are widened and rationalized there is more than enough room for hypothetically expanded GO service and a few platforms still dedicated to Via. This type of thinking only serves to burn money that could be better spent on a million other things.
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So, there is enough space for GO RER and Via HFR?

If you feel there is space, how often is the threshold that would require platforms to need to be constructed underground?
 
Reecemartin said:
Unfortunately, the connection at Unionville to Downtown Markham for Pedestrians SUCKS right now, is that being improved with the current works? If it's not thats more than a little tragic .
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Don't really know. It's so difficult to request a site plan from the City of Markham. In Toronto, you just need to go to development applications. The western connection will definitely be built, just don't know when. Also, Metrolinx is considering adding a fourth track and platform at Unionville GO, which allows for greater flexibility in turning trains around I think.
 
This should not even be under consideration at this time, it should be last on any list.
This should not even be discussed until the DRL, Waterfront and whatever is going on in Scarborough is sorted.
Why is this even a thing, right now?
Oh right, because anything is better than nothing?
Because "It's better than what was there before" Toronto city motto.
 
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