Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[gweed123]

I haven't see any indication that people will be able to get a one-seat ride from STC to downtown.

??? They wouldn't even if Bloor-Danforth was extended to Sheppard & McCowan. They'd still have to transfer at Bloor-Yonge. If Eglinton is a thru-line, it just changes the transfer location from Bloor-Yonge to Eglinton-Yonge.

The key to all of it though is elevating Eglinton East for a 100% grade-separated rapid transit line, which is mainly what I'm advocating for now. It's a much more realistic request at this point.

 

[nfitz]

The key to all of it though is elevating Eglinton East for a 100% grade-separated rapid transit line, which is mainly what I'm advocating for now. It's a much more realistic request at this point.

How is it realistic? It would significantly add to the cost, only save a few minutes, and isn't necessary for travel times. Meanwhile the tendering process has now been started. The need to push ahead with this, and get the tender awarded well before the 2015 election - or it becomes at risk.

 

[gweed123]

How is it realistic? It would significantly add to the cost, only save a few minutes, and isn't necessary for travel times. Meanwhile the tendering process has now been started. The need to push ahead with this, and get the tender awarded well before the 2015 election - or it becomes at risk.

It's not about travel times, it's about being able to maintain the frequencies that an interlined Eglinton-Scarborough LRT would demand. At-grade LRT just won't cut it. I've never used travel times as a justification for it in any of the posts I've made advocating for an elevated Eglinton East.

Tunnelling is still going to begin on the central portion of Eglinton, regardless of what happens on Eglinton East. The SRT is still going to be revamped, regardless of what happens on Eglinton East. I say the perfect time to have a serious discussion about this is now, while Metrolinx is already in the process of making changes to the line.

Just 2 months ago I had 3 major complaints about the Eglinton LRT: that the design of the mobility hub at the western end of the line sucked, that having at-grade LRT from just east of Laird to just west of Don Mills was a severe restriction on the future operational capacity of the line, and that Eglinton East shouldn't be at grade. 2 of those 3 have been fixed in the past 2 months alone. I find it very hard to believe that suddenly the window for changes has completely closed. Other than the Ford debates (which have been far from constructive), there hasn't been a serious discussion at all about the design of Eglinton East. There was one about the Mt. Dennis mobility hub, and guess what? Metrolinx changed the design accordingly.

 

[ssiguy2]

I think Primove is an excellent idea. I appreciate that the boring machines are already bought so that's fine but any elevated/at grade section wouldn't have the ugly poles and wires all over the damn place. If Miller and his crowd want "complete streets" then sticking poles down the middle of the road and having wires all over the damn place that weren't there before doesn't help that cause. They are actually safer than catenary lines as wind can't blow the lines down and neither can an accident. Their power is from the road bed but is only activated when the train is over that section.

Not having to place all the damn wires saves a lot of time and time is money and would save a small fortune on the SRT conversion do to not having to fart around with the station roofs and elevation is much easier without having extended catenary poles.

Proprietary technology is not an issue in Toronto because we {and all our grandchildren} will be 6 feet under by the time the TTC ever purchases a rail product that isn't from Bombardier. Let's suppose that it is 2113 and the city is celebrating as it has finally finished it's enviornmental review for the DRL. In light of this historic event Toronto finally decides to let someone bid on a rail project where suppliers besides Bombardier may actually have a chance at landing it well proprietary technology will not be an issue. You see Alstrom has also come out with the exact same LRT vehicle with it's power supply from the roadway. Alstrom doesn't have much of a presence in NA which is dominated by Siemens and Bombardier but in Europe they are a large rail supplier and they have been quite successful in plying their catenary-free LRT there because cities don't want the visual "pollution" of overhead wires especially in the historic cores. I do not know if they are completely compatible or not but the technology seems the same as they too use standard LRT trains.

I actually contacted the Crosstown office about the Primove. She {Nicole} had never heard of the technology but I explained it and it's many advantages over catenary systems and she seemed genuinly impressed. I told her to look Primove up on the Bombardier website and to have a look at the videos and she said she would. She was quite intrigued by the notion of it and said she will do some research and discuss it with her superiors and planning dept. She said she would email me back by the end of the week at the latest.

She didn't give me the standard bureaucratic responses at all and she was surprised it had never come up. I mentioned to her about how they are already running the systems in Europe and still had catenary overhead in case they had to be used temporarily for another line that used catenarys.. I also mentioned how the Fraser Valley group railforthevalley which wants comprehensive LRT for the valley and not a 6km SkyTrain extension towards Langley , has brought up the Primove technology as their preferred choice if they win the day.

I was quite surprised because after our 10 minute talk I actually walked away thinking that she really did listen to me. It was a very positive response and a very pleasant conversation.

As for my comment about doubling the Metro system, I stand by it. Toronto will already have the track and some of the stations for a 23 km new Metro line built by 2015, they just want to make sure no one can afford to take it. Electrifying that 23 and adding another 5 stations could easily be done for a $1 billion. Of course the other expansions would require the idea of elevation, using current Hydro corridors and, wait for it, using it's current huge rail network to actually transport Torontonians and not just freight and people outside the city.

Toronto has a very enviable amount of rail corridor throughout the city and uses none of it for it's transit system, surely the only city on the planet that doesn't. That was one of the good ideas that came out of the OneCity Plan.

 

[nfitz]

It's not about travel times, it's about being able to maintain the frequencies that an interlined Eglinton-Scarborough LRT would demand. At-grade LRT just won't cut it. I've never used travel times as a justification for it in any of the posts I've made advocating for an elevated Eglinton East.

Tunnelling is still going to begin on the central portion of Eglinton, regardless of what happens on Eglinton East. The SRT is still going to be revamped, regardless of what happens on Eglinton East. I say the perfect time to have a serious discussion about this is now, while Metrolinx is already in the process of making changes to the line.

How do you award a PPP with large questions still hanging out there like that? For better or worse, the time for serious debate has long ended, and this merely becomes a fantasy discussion. Or else you just create fodder for massive and expensive change orders.

Besides - operationally there's no point in running an interlined Eglinton-Scarborough LRT at the same frequency. The demand on the Scarborough leg dwarfs the eastern leg of Eglinton.

 

[innsertnamehere]

important to note that under Fords plan of a grade separated (though the overly expensive option) eglinton east, ridership projections on that line went wayyyy up.

 

[rbt]

important to note that under Fords plan of a grade separated (though the overly expensive option) eglinton east, ridership projections on that line went wayyyy up.

And ridership of Bloor Danforth went way down. They aren't new customers.

More importantly, it also greatly increased the cost of a Yonge Relief line because just going to Bloor isn't enough anymore.

We (TTC and Metrolinx too) really should be looking at the network as a whole because anything that impacts Yonge will potentially impact half a million trips per day.

 

[gweed123]

How do you award a PPP with large questions still hanging out there like that? For better or worse, the time for serious debate has long ended, and this merely becomes a fantasy discussion. Or else you just create fodder for massive and expensive change orders.

How can you say it's long ended, when Metrolinx has made some pretty major changes in just the past couple of months? There's a disconnect there. Based on their very recent history, they seem pretty open to asking the 'large questions' about sections of this line.

Besides - operationally there's no point in running an interlined Eglinton-Scarborough LRT at the same frequency. The demand on the Scarborough leg dwarfs the eastern leg of Eglinton.

It's not about demand on the eastern section of Eglinton, it's about creating better transit for everyone in Scarborough. It's about not forcing passengers to transfer just to get out of Scarborough. It's about getting a truly grade-separated Crosstown line that can handle the demand and doesn't have to artificially constrain itself because one segment of the line wasn't built to handle the ridership.

 

[gweed123]

And ridership of Bloor Danforth went way down. They aren't new customers.

I wonder if they really did an impact study though of how many people living along the Danforth who used to say 'screw it, it's too busy' would start taking transit again. Much like what I would suspect would happen along Yonge should the DRL be built.

More importantly, it also greatly increased the cost of a Yonge Relief line because just going to Bloor isn't enough anymore.

Why is that a bad thing? From a network perspective, the DRL needs to go to Eglinton anyway. Shifting the E-W ridership further north provides a greater incentive for that. I see that as a positive, not a negative.

 

[Platform 27]

And ridership of Bloor Danforth went way down. They aren't new customers.

I think I remember reading somewhere that B-D is at 95% peak capacity. Why not learn from the mistake of Yonge and actually relieve the line in the near term? The traditional Toronto solution appears to be sit around, wait until it eventually creeps up to 110%, and then complain that something different should have been done decades ago.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I feel the yonge line will always be packed. I wouldn't be surprised if it was built to handle 50,000 pphd and it still ran at capacity. There is a lot of latent demand for that line I feel.

 

[M II A II R II K]

And this highly trafficked Scarborough Line will only be packed as a feeder route, to the feeder route that is the BD Line to then transfer downtown.

 

[gweed123]

I think I remember reading somewhere that B-D is at 95% peak capacity. Why not learn from the mistake of Yonge and actually relieve the line in the near term? The traditional Toronto solution appears to be sit around, wait until it eventually creeps up to 110%, and then complain that something different should have been done decades ago.

Being proactive and solving a problem before it becomes a big problem? That's just not the Toronto way . Toronto waits until it becomes a big problem, and then waits an extra 10 years before something is done about it.

Artificially hampering Eglinton so that it can't properly relieve Bloor-Danforth is short-sighted. We're spending a little bit less money now to build a line that won't be able to handle the overflow when Bloor-Danforth does become over capacity (which it will).

There are two ways to do things: right, and again. It's clear that with Eglinton East, the 'again' option is being chosen. As in in about 15-20 years we're going to need to spend a boatload of money (at least double what we would have to spend now in order to get it right the first time) in order to elevate Eglinton East.

Spend the extra money, do it right, and not have to spend anything else on that line for the foreseeable future.

 

[Voltz]

Grade separating Eglinton East is not the only possible option to relieve the Bloor Danforth line, the often ignored GO Train lines of which the are two running through Scarborough including a station right at Kennedy can be vastly improved to provide faster service that cost less to build and covers a much larger area.

 

[rbt]

I think I remember reading somewhere that B-D is at 95% peak capacity. Why not learn from the mistake of Yonge and actually relieve the line in the near term? The traditional Toronto solution appears to be sit around, wait until it eventually creeps up to 110%, and then complain that something different should have been done decades ago.

No reason not to do that, but we need to recognize that it's not a $500M cost to elevate the line; it's closer to a $3B cost to elevate Eglinton and extend the DRL to Eglinton. They need to be budgeted together as a package.

For that money, you could very easily have 5 minute all-day frequences on an GO express between Union Station and Milliken station with stops at Kennedy, Sheppard (Agincourt), Finch (new station), and Ellesmere (SRT connection); and some form of fare integration with the TTC. Re-route many local bus stops to go to this new GO trunk route instead of going to the SCC.

This really would transform how people in Scarborough get downtown. Steeles to Union (or an underground station under Wellington) in 30 minutes, under 40 minutes to Dundas and Yonge (take subway north from Union).


Very few people from Scarborough want to go to destinations on Eglinton. Why spend a single dime trying to force them that way when far better options exist?