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

[unimaginative2]

Tunneling it under where? How is the surface route less useful? The best part about the rail corridor route is that it's so central. It's equidistant (two blocks) from both the developments along Queens Quay, and the St. Lawrence and West Don Lands neighbourhoods. If you tunnel under, say, Front it'll be too far from the East Bayfront lands to be useful.

 

[Second_in_pie]

East Bayfront will be served by LRT, and a Front-Eastern alignment goes right through West Don Lands and St. Lawrence, and much more centrally than the rail corridor does.

 

[unimaginative2]

It goes through St. Lawrence and West Don Lands a block more centrally. They're served by LRT, too. The East Bayfront is a major development site, and an LRT that will take at least 15 minutes to get to Union Station is not sufficient. Why not directly serve both? With the rail corridor route, the catchment area of a Sherbourne station would stretch north of King as well as down to the lake. There are obviously advantages to both routes, but the Front underground route would likely permanently preclude a Queen subway and cost hundreds of millions more for limited extra benefit. The segment in the rail corridor would be incredibly cheap, requiring most of its length only the laying of rails and the construction of inexpensive Rosedale-style surface stations.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Actually, you're right.

And I assume that they could start with the cheap Rosedale-style stations, then when the rail corridor is finally buried, they could build real (but hopefully not huge) underground stations, as well as building an underground subway but basically not paying for the tunneling costs by having them paid for by a bigger project. That alignment would also serve the development that will spring up on top of the corridor as well as the other areas. I guess it's actually better than I thought.

 

[unimaginative2]

You're exactly right. I'm all for burying the rail corridor, and I've talked about it at length in the past. I don't know if you can search through my posts or something, but I've described in detail a report that I have from the 80s that talks about burying the corridor through the downtown core. It was prepared for CP and claims that it would be not only feasible but also economically attractive to the company. I expect the costs would be quite high, but the developable land that would be freed would help to defray the cost and the benefits to the city at large would be immense.

The greatest shame is that our civic forefathers didn't preserve the Walks and Gardens trust and let the railways build their tracks in the Queen Street area.

One thing I might note is that I don't necessarily have a problem with huge stations. My problem is with huge stations where they are obviously not needed. Richmond Hill Centre and York University should be amply sized to accommodate the heavy traffic they can be reasonably expected to serve. Bessarion and Sheppard West do not need to be built to vast scale because they aren't likely to ever serve crushing loads. On the other hand, I wish that the downtown stations had been built to twice their current size. It's also important to note that small size doesn't have to mean mediocre design. They're to independent variables. Rosedale is one of the most economical stations in the system, but it's quite well designed.

 

[Whoaccio]

Its worth noting that a subway theoretically shouldn't have to run exclusively under one street or ROW. The beauty of a subway is, at least in some ways, that it is meant to go where people want as opposed to where roads go. It goes without saying I don't have detailed origins/destination data for trips downtown. That said, its pretty uncommon elsewhere on earth to build transit lines exclusively along a street grid. So, maybe, people in Regent Park would rather just go strait to Union/CBD than E/W along Dundas.

As it relates to the 'queen vs. railway' debate, maybe it would be best to sort of split the difference. Use the rail corridor between the Don/Union, west of that though it could hook north through the Entertainment District and just gradually snake it's way through the west end so as to as to pick up as much local ridership as possible. I personally don't see the point in running a subway exclusively along Queen when 2-4 stations in the vicinity of Queen as part of a larger line could do a lot of the same thing.

Also, when talking about new subway lines, I think it would make sense to consider moving to a new and lighter rolling stock. I've said it before, but something more along SRT scale would be more practical than the 3.5m wide super trains the TTC currently uses. The system should be able to handle tighter curves, so as to allow more flexible route planning, have a narrow enough profile to avoid having to design complex twin tunnel structures and be 100% automated from the outset to allow 90 second headways.

 

[Dan416]

Its worth noting that a subway theoretically shouldn't have to run exclusively under one street or ROW. The beauty of a subway is, at least in some ways, that it is meant to go where people want as opposed to where roads go. It goes without saying I don't have detailed origins/destination data for trips downtown. That said, its pretty uncommon elsewhere on earth to build transit lines exclusively along a street grid. So, maybe, people in Regent Park would rather just go strait to Union/CBD than E/W along Dundas.

As it relates to the 'queen vs. railway' debate, maybe it would be best to sort of split the difference. Use the rail corridor between the Don/Union, west of that though it could hook north through the Entertainment District and just gradually snake it's way through the west end so as to as to pick up as much local ridership as possible. I personally don't see the point in running a subway exclusively along Queen when 2-4 stations in the vicinity of Queen as part of a larger line could do a lot of the same thing.

Also, when talking about new subway lines, I think it would make sense to consider moving to a new and lighter rolling stock. I've said it before, but something more along SRT scale would be more practical than the 3.5m wide super trains the TTC currently uses. The system should be able to handle tighter curves, so as to allow more flexible route planning, have a narrow enough profile to avoid having to design complex twin tunnel structures and be 100% automated from the outset to allow 90 second headways.

But we already got our new trains being built in Thunder Bay right now. I don't see the TTC introducing yet another type of subway train any time soon.

 

[unimaginative2]

That's an interesting point, whoaccio. It's not uncommon for cities to have different types of rolling stock on different routes. Paris, London, New York, Vancouver, Tokyo to name a few. What you're suggesting is exactly what they were going for with ICTS. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the technology has received an extremely hostile reception here in Toronto. In a way, it's also sort of what they're going for with some of the new LRT lines.

It does make sense to use more compact rolling stock on some routes, but I don't think the DRL is one of them. It has enormous ridership potential, especially if it is extended up Don Mills, and I think we would quickly regret going with a lower-capacity system.

 

[Second_in_pie]

That's an interesting point, whoaccio. It's not uncommon for cities to have different types of rolling stock on different routes. Paris, London, New York, Vancouver, Tokyo to name a few. What you're suggesting is exactly what they were going for with ICTS. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the technology has received an extremely hostile reception here in Toronto. In a way, it's also sort of what they're going for with some of the new LRT lines.

It does make sense to use more compact rolling stock on some routes, but I don't think the DRL is one of them. It has enormous ridership potential, especially if it is extended up Don Mills, and I think we would quickly regret going with a lower-capacity system.

I bet we will regret going with a lower capacity system even if it just goes to Bloor. The TTC may not be willing to admit it, but the ridership of our subway lines is on steroids. The reason they have such high ridership is that they're basically the only option. Once you put another option up, the floodgates will open and I imagine we'll see the DRL full from day 1, maybe day 2 at the most.

 

[Whoaccio]

It does make sense to use more compact rolling stock on some routes, but I don't think the DRL is one of them. It has enormous ridership potential, especially if it is extended up Don Mills, and I think we would quickly regret going with a lower-capacity system.

Well, partly, lower vehicle capacity could be offset by higher vehicle headway. I would prefer smaller trains coming every 90s or so to marginally larger trains every 3m. Many Euro cities use fairly narrow train sets already. The bomber trains used on the Paris Metro are 2.37m wide, the Tube trains at 2.6m and the Berlin trains at a Kate Moss 2.3m run on some fairly busy routes. So, I'm not terrified that using similar train sets would lead to mass delays within our lifetimes. It also wouldn't necessarily be the biggest deal if the every now and then someone would have to wait for the next train. I at least see that as preferable to the inevitable TTC estimate of 700m/km for a 'heavy' subway into downtown in 2020. The 58 bay bus terminal under St. Lawrence Market will be, like, a billion dollars. The priority has to be to lower costs to RAV levels, by any means necessary.

I can't remember what Metrolinx estimated the DRL's 2025 ridership to be, something like 150k/day yea? The RAV out West is designed to accommodate about 100k/day in 2010 and it doesn't even run with particularly tight headways, we could probably graft a few extra cars onto it also. The important thing should be how much money it costs for the capacity. So, lets say the Yonge extension will have 2x the capacity as RAV. The costs are probably around 4x RAV though. So, in my mind, that isn't a good deal.

 

[gweed123]

I'm personally in favour of an east railway-wellington-front west alignment. East railway for the reasons previously mentioned, and Front west for reasons previously mentioned.

However, I don't think that using a Front or Railway alignment through Union is a reasonable possibility. The amount of money spent and disruption caused by creating a second platform under the current Union subway station (à la St. George most likely) would be extremely expensive and extremely disruptive to service. It would be to the point where trains would have to be turned back at St. Andrew and King for months while the station was completely redesigned.

Wellington works because:
1) It's in the heart of the Financial district (1 block south of King and Bay).
2) It's close enough to Union to BE Union, using a Spadina-like walkway
3) It would not require a complete and disruptive redesign of the existing Union, because all that would be required is access to a pedestrian walkway between the platforms.
4) Wellington, aside from a few easily relocatable bus routes, has no transit on it what-so-ever, and most of the underground parking garages that access Wellington also access Front or King (or the adjacent N-S street). Basically, it wouldn't be that missed in the grand scheme of things if it became a trench for a while.

 

[unimaginative2]

I'm not sure where you get the idea that building a DRL station at Union would be so difficult. First of all, the study in 1985 examined the site in detail and found that there's no reason why an additional two platforms and tracks couldn't be added to the south of the existing station on the same level. Even if the TTC decided to build at a different grade level, remember that Yonge station on Sheppard was built on top of an active subway station. It can be done. There are some significant constructibility issues with Wellington as well. For one thing, you'd have to build two challenging interchange stations, and you'd also have to deal with the garage under University Avenue. It obviously has its advantages, but I think Wellington would be quite a bit more difficult to build than Front.

When it comes to smaller rolling stock, it would obviously take a lot more study to really find out exactly how much money could be saved. The RAV/Canada Line in Vancouver was indisputably built much more cheaply than a Toronto subway. The question is how much of that can be attributed to the vehicle size, how much to the PPP arrangement, and how much to different construction techniques like cut and cover tunnels.

I think that generally speaking, Paris and London would be very happy to have larger vehicles and their small loading gauge contributes to their capacity issues on busier lines. Berlin can get away with smaller trains because it's a much more decentralized city than Toronto and it doesn't have the same kind of rush hour we do. I lived in Berlin for a bit and commuted for 9am to the central business district. Not once did I fail to get a seat, other than a couple times at 4am (it's Berlin).

 

[Epi]

I'm not sure where you get the idea that building a DRL station at Union would be so difficult. First of all, the study in 1985 examined the site in detail and found that there's no reason why an additional two platforms and tracks couldn't be added to the south of the existing station on the same level. Even if the TTC decided to build at a different grade level, remember that Yonge station on Sheppard was built on top of an active subway station. It can be done. There are some significant constructibility issues with Wellington as well. For one thing, you'd have to build two challenging interchange stations, and you'd also have to deal with the garage under University Avenue. It obviously has its advantages, but I think Wellington would be quite a bit more difficult to build than Front.

When it comes to smaller rolling stock, it would obviously take a lot more study to really find out exactly how much money could be saved. The RAV/Canada Line in Vancouver was indisputably built much more cheaply than a Toronto subway. The question is how much of that can be attributed to the vehicle size, how much to the PPP arrangement, and how much to different construction techniques like cut and cover tunnels.

I think that generally speaking, Paris and London would be very happy to have larger vehicles and their small loading gauge contributes to their capacity issues on busier lines. Berlin can get away with smaller trains because it's a much more decentralized city than Toronto and it doesn't have the same kind of rush hour we do. I lived in Berlin for a bit and commuted for 9am to the central business district. Not once did I fail to get a seat, other than a couple times at 4am (it's Berlin).

The DRL would serve downtown far better if it ran further north up on Adelaide even. The reason for this is, if you run another line through Union, you're going to create a super station, and an extremely complicated mess of lines. It would be extremely expensive to dig under Union to create another subway station, and likely the station would be at odd angles. The amount of pedestrians going through there is already going to double in the next 20 years, so why add even more?

Most people going to Union end up walking north from it anyway. If the DRL was situated to the north of Union, it would work.

As for serving the people living around the rail lines, I'm not sure how you're proposing the subway stations will be built. Under the rail line? Over it? Any sort of option in this super busy stretch is going to be extremely disruptive to train traffic. As well, the waterfront is already going to get a lot of investment in transit with the new LRT lines.

It's better to create a DRL which also ends up serving the super overtaxed Queen and King corridors by putting it inbetween on Adelaide and Richmond, and which also ends up putting CBD commuters right in the middle of the CBD instead of even further south which makes it a much less attractive option then the current arrangement and thus will do even less 'downtown relief' due to longer walk times.

 

[Dan416]

I've stated before and I'll state it again. I think the DRL has to run through Union. It provides an idea point to transfer to either the Yonge line or the University-Spadina line and vice-versa. I don't like the idea of splitting the transfer to two different stations. It seems to me that that would make things more difficult. I realize that the TTC isn't GO Transit and Union Station isn't the TTC's hub, but it is Union Station! I don't see how you can have a DRL that fails to serve a place like Union, especially when it'll very likely be running at least partially in the rail corridor.

 

[doady]

The DRL would serve downtown far better if it ran further north up on Adelaide even. The reason for this is, if you run another line through Union, you're going to create a super station, and an extremely complicated mess of lines. It would be extremely expensive to dig under Union to create another subway station, and likely the station would be at odd angles. The amount of pedestrians going through there is already going to double in the next 20 years, so why add even more?

Most people going to Union end up walking north from it anyway. If the DRL was situated to the north of Union, it would work.

No one has ever proposed that the DRL go directly under Union. It was proposed to go underneath Front Street.

And, yes, Front Street is north of Union.

Front is the best alignment, provides the most convenient transfer. Building it further north would be pointless if there isa Queen subway as well.