Alternatives to Transit City, the Spadina Extension, Yonge Extension, Etc.

[toraerach]

The only way to have the DRL at a reasonable cost is to use the railroad ROW on both the east and west ends to get to the level of Queen/Adelaide. If the entire thing is in a new ROW, it would be ridiculously expensive.

We can't start judging projects on upfront costs alone though. Even though the DRL would probably cost more than upgrading the GO line, it has the potential to benefit many more people. It's like a school reaching capacity: you can keep sticking portables into the playground to increase capacity for cheap, but eventually building a new school for more money just becomes more beneficial for all involved.

 

[nfitz]

The only way to have the DRL at a reasonable cost is to use the railroad ROW on both the east and west ends to get to the level of Queen/Adelaide. If the entire thing is in a new ROW, it would be ridiculously expensive.

In the west end, the availability of ROW is questionable. In the east end, it's non-existant, at least north of Eastern; it's maximum 4 tracks, and GO is already using 3. Given that the first phase of the DRL is in the east end, the use or railway tracks won't be part of it.

On the other hand, it isn't particularily long ... it's only about 6 km from Pape station to Queen station. Which almost sounds cheap at $4-billion or so. Compared to the 30-km length or so length of the Eglinton line

 

[Epi]

In the west end, the availability of ROW is questionable. In the east end, it's non-existant, at least north of Eastern; it's maximum 4 tracks, and GO is already using 3. Given that the first phase of the DRL is in the east end, the use or railway tracks won't be part of it.

On the other hand, it isn't particularily long ... it's only about 6 km from Pape station to Queen station. Which almost sounds cheap at $4-billion or so. Compared to the 30-km length or so length of the Eglinton line

Well you can also tunnel under the ROW as well.

The point is that the ROW already exists and it would be far easier to construct under it or on it, then buying up houses and properties to dig under them. Someone who knows vastly more about trains and subways than I do outlined this quite clearly on another unnamed message board

Obviously if we had a ton of money to blow, then we could go all the way, but well I don't see how that would be.

 

[unimaginative2]

Okay, just to clear things up for everybody, the main advantage of the DRL with respect to use of existing rail corridors is in the downtown area. The originally-planned route used the rail corridor between Yonge Street and the Don River. From there, it ran along Eastern to a planned yard site on the former Toronto Film Studios property and then north under Pape to Danforth. No detailed studies were carried out on the section west of Spadina, though all of the options had a common route along the Front Street Extension right-of-way. Now that the road project has been abandoned, it would be incredibly easy to put a subway through on the surface from Bathurst to Dufferin. West of Dufferin, there were two serious options. The first would run north along Dufferin to Queen, where it would join the rail corridor to run northwest to Dundas West. The study was insufficiently detailed to determine whether the corridor had sufficient width to accommodate the subway line on the surface. If it did not, the cost advantage of the rail corridor route would no longer exist. The other option would continue running west from Dufferin along the rail corridor, in the right-of-way now proposed for the Waterfront West LRT. At Roncesvalles, it would go underground north to Dundas West station.

There's no advantage to tunneling under a rail corridor, a road, or houses. A bored tunnel isn't affected by what's on the surface, other than at access shafts and station sites. You can tunnel under buildings without affecting them. Cut and cover tunneling, generally less expensive than using TBMs, is an option under roads or undeveloped land.

 

[Dan416]

Okay, just to clear things up for everybody, the main advantage of the DRL with respect to use of existing rail corridors is in the downtown area. The originally-planned route used the rail corridor between Yonge Street and the Don River. From there, it ran along Eastern to a planned yard site on the former Toronto Film Studios property and then north under Pape to Danforth. No detailed studies were carried out on the section west of Spadina, though all of the options had a common route along the Front Street Extension right-of-way. Now that the road project has been abandoned, it would be incredibly easy to put a subway through on the surface from Bathurst to Dufferin. West of Dufferin, there were two serious options. The first would run north along Dufferin to Queen, where it would join the rail corridor to run northwest to Dundas West. The study was insufficiently detailed to determine whether the corridor had sufficient width to accommodate the subway line on the surface. If it did not, the cost advantage of the rail corridor route would no longer exist. The other option would continue running west from Dufferin along the rail corridor, in the right-of-way now proposed for the Waterfront West LRT. At Roncesvalles, it would go underground north to Dundas West station.

Pictures would be better than words (I'm too lazy to map it out)

 

[Paleo]

Well you can also tunnel under the ROW as well.

The point is that the ROW already exists and it would be far easier to construct under it or on it, then buying up houses and properties to dig under them. Someone who knows vastly more about trains and subways than I do outlined this quite clearly on another unnamed message board

How would you build the stations? I can't imagine building tube stations (a la Queens Park) under the rail ROW to be easy or cheap to do. Certainly not cheaper than cut and cover right on a city street.

If the route followed streets, they wouldn't have to buy up a whole lot of properties to build stations since most of them are directly under city streets.

Let's be real here. At best you're looking at a few tens of millions of dollars in property acquisition in the context of a $4 billion+ project. Saving a few pennies is not a good reason to put stations away from where people live and work.

The old plans followed the railway alignment because it presumed that it could be constructed above ground (thus much cheaper) not because it would be the best route for capturing passengers.

Everything I have read on the matter suggests that the room on the ROW has pretty much disappeared or will disappear within the next few years as GO has put or will put down more track for more service.

Given that, I don't think there's any serious reason to follow the train tracks to create a GO lite service.

 

[nfitz]

Well you can also tunnel under the ROW as well.

The point is that the ROW already exists and it would be far easier to construct under it or on it, then buying up houses and properties to dig under them.

Yes, that's an option. And while it might help bring the costs down to the more traditional $300-million per kilometre, it won't bring it to the $100-million or so that some people seem to think a DRL built primarily along the railway would cost. Neither the Yonge nor Spadina extensions has particularly excessive property purchases, except at the stations; which will still be necessary.

Perhaps the biggest advantage would be that you would have a somewhat shorter line, so that might be a bit cheaper. On the other hand, I'm not sure what the railways would think about the geotechnical considerations of boring under their track.

 

[unimaginative2]

How would you build the stations? I can't imagine building tube stations (a la Queens Park) under the rail ROW to be easy or cheap to do. Certainly not cheaper than cut and cover right on a city street.

If the route followed streets, they wouldn't have to buy up a whole lot of properties to build stations since most of them are directly under city streets.

Let's be real here. At best you're looking at a few tens of millions of dollars in property acquisition in the context of a $4 billion+ project. Saving a few pennies is not a good reason to put stations away from where people live and work.

The old plans followed the railway alignment because it presumed that it could be constructed above ground (thus much cheaper) not because it would be the best route for capturing passengers.

Everything I have read on the matter suggests that the room on the ROW has pretty much disappeared or will disappear within the next few years as GO has put or will put down more track for more service.

Given that, I don't think there's any serious reason to follow the train tracks to create a GO lite service.

Just to be clear again. The DRL studies did not conclusively call for a route in the northwest rail corridor west of downtown. That area was not studied in detail as it was reserved for a future phase. The initial phase from Spadina and Front to Pape station was studied in detail. A major advantage of the route as proposed was that it could run in the surface along the rail corridor/hydro corridor between Yonge and the Don River, about a third of the length of the first phase route. In the context of complex downtown construction, that's a potential savings of hundreds of millions of dollars compared with an all-underground route, particularly at the stations.

There's no advantage to tunneling under a rail ROW. I'm inclined to suspect that there is sufficient room for DRL tracks to be accommodated along the northwest rail corridor with minimal property acquisition, but it's impossible to know without a detailed study. After all, it's wide enough that they were considering it for an expressway. If it's not sufficiently wide, then I'd say they should go with the Lakeshore/Roncesvalles route up to Dundas West.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Given that, I don't think there's any serious reason to follow the train tracks to create a GO lite service.

Which is why I'm starting to like the Queen alignment better. Also, with a Queen alignment then the TTC might actually consider extending the subway further along Queen and The Queensway. I don't think a lot will be lost anyways. Front St. doesn't have much on it, and I'm not sure whether another Bloor & Danforth-Union subway connection is actually needed as badly as some might think.

 

[unimaginative2]

Think about it, though. Front Street has way more on it than Queen. The Front-Railway alignment directly serves the West Don Lands, the East Bayfront--both rapidly developing areas that would do well to have transit in place as they are built--the central waterfront, the ACC, the SkyDome, Metro Hall, at least all of the financial district south of King, Union Station, CN Tower, the Convention Centre, Cityplace, and an assortment of other offices and condos. A Queen alignment would be useless to the rapidly-developing waterfront and wouldn't be useful for workers in the bottom end of the financial district (BCE Place, Royal Bank Plaza, arguably TD Centre and Commerce Court). Its connections to the PATH are also much weaker than a Front Street alignment. Think about what's actually on Queen Street: the Eaton Centre, City Hall, and the Sheraton. That's where the biggest problem with Queen comes in. The street both west and east of the immediate downtown core is a low-density commercial and residential neighbourhood that is a jewel for our city. Subway stations undoubtedly spark major redevelopment. I wouldn't want to see a subway stations along Queen sparkign the demolition of much of the Queen West strip for condo towers. The area is also really not particularly densely populated. The Front/Railway alignment passes through an area that is either already developed at very high density or well suited to high-density development.

Both of them have their advantages, but I think the combination of service area and relative economy make Front Street clearly superior.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Think about it, though. Front Street has way more on it than Queen. The Front-Railway alignment directly serves the West Don Lands, the East Bayfront--both rapidly developing areas that would do well to have transit in place as they are built--the central waterfront, the ACC, the SkyDome, Metro Hall, at least all of the financial district south of King, Union Station, CN Tower, the Convention Centre, Cityplace, and an assortment of other offices and condos. A Queen alignment would be useless to the rapidly-developing waterfront and wouldn't be useful for workers in the bottom end of the financial district (BCE Place, Royal Bank Plaza, arguably TD Centre and Commerce Court). Its connections to the PATH are also much weaker than a Front Street alignment. Think about what's actually on Queen Street: the Eaton Centre, City Hall, and the Sheraton. That's where the biggest problem with Queen comes in. The street both west and east of the immediate downtown core is a low-density commercial and residential neighbourhood that is a jewel for our city. Subway stations undoubtedly spark major redevelopment. I wouldn't want to see a subway stations along Queen sparkign the demolition of much of the Queen West strip for condo towers. The area is also really not particularly densely populated. The Front/Railway alignment passes through an area that is either already developed at very high density or well suited to high-density development.

Both of them have their advantages, but I think the combination of service area and relative economy make Front Street clearly superior.

I do realize this, but I think in the shorter term, Queen would be better. If we were actually focused on subway building instead of... umm what exactly are we focusing on right now? LRT? Well yeah, if we were actually into building subways instead of assuming LRT could do the Job, I would say that we should build the Queen alignment DRL right now, then a couple years after that, build a front alignment. Then we could have the DRL, and continue to extend the Queen subway. It would be a powerful combination for downtown to have for sure. The way things are going though, the current probability of this happening in the next 50 years is probably around 0.2%.

 

[unimaginative2]

Don't be so pessimistic. The money is there. The MoveOntario2020 pot of money could very easily fund a DRL. It's simply a matter of political will, and we're working on that.

The need for both a Queen subway and a DRL subway is an open question. While both would certainly be well-used by global standards, it's probably best to build one first and then wait a few years to see if downtown needs another east-west subway. I support building the DRL first because it could be built as the new waterfront neighbourhoods are being built, because it would provide relief to the Yonge subway and Bloor-Yonge station that is needed immediately, and because it could be built most economically.

The Queen line would serve a very different market, bringing rapid transit to areas like the Beach that are currently poorly served by surface transit. While this is certainly desirable, significant improvements to transit accessibility in those neighbourhoods could be provided by the DRL alone. If the streetcar ran as a separate route from the Beach to Queen and Pape, it would be much shorter and presumably easier to manage than the existing 501 car, and would miss much of the traffic through the downtown core. The same is true for the western segment, where the Queensway/Waterfront West LRT could connect with the subway at either Roncesvalles and Queen or the Exhibition.

I'm also very hesitant about the idea of rapid transit along Queen. Queen street isn't the same street that it was sixty years ago when the plans for a Queen subway were first mooted. The street is consistently low-density and low-rise outside of four blocks downtown, and it's very unsuitable to redevelopment. I just don't think it's the best rapid transit corridor.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

A long-term 'good enough for forever' plan could include both the DRL and Queen subways, but would a Queen subway be a better transit service for Queen than the Queen streetcar? You'd have to find room for stations, escape hatches, ventilation shafts, hydro substations, etc., which may not be easy in some spots. It could also easily decimate service on Dundas and King, while running through Union would bring service to new areas.

 

[Dan416]

I definitely prefer the idea of running along Front Street through Union. If we ever do get a Queen St. subway, we don't want the DRL to be too close to it.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Hopefully if and when it gets built, it will follow a different path than the rail corridor though. I hope the TTC doesn't get tricked into taking the much easier, much less useful path along the rails rather than tunneling it.