Danforth Line 2 Scarborough Subway Extension

[Rainforest]

Correct, and perhaps Eglinton East is a corridor where LRT makes sense but even then I feel like a light metro is already justified on that route. As I have said many times, LRT isn't a bad idea on its own, and there are situations where it is the best option. Even though I completely trashed on iON earlier, I do think LRT was the right choice for the city. iON just suffers from a lot of design choices, and what seems to be a case of Urban Planner getting overconfident with their theories on urban design, for instance believing that splitting up lines is a good way to increase coverage (it really isn't). Even in Transit City, a plan I constantly trash, there were some plans in there that actually made sense, those being Scarborough Malvern, Waterfront West, and Finch West. This conversation however started from the idea that we should be building a "network of LRTs" throughout Scarborough which we shouldn't and there is no reason to spend so much money on a network where the amount of benefits for that cost is minimal.

I wouldn't build a network of LRT's in Scarborough just for the sake of having a network; rather, would look at individual routes. Some routes may have the numbers for LRT, while others will be just fine with bus-only lanes.

1. Eglinton East: maybe LRT or maybe light metro, but something better than bus lanes is desirable.

2. Three other major nodes in the east of Scarborough are Malvern Centre, Centennial Progress Campus, and UTSC. If the ridership numbers are there, then two major lines connecting those nodes to the subway may be suitable for LRT. One line from Malvern Centre to Sheppard&McCowan, the other line from UTSC to Progress Campus, and then either to STC or to Sheppard&McCowan.

3. Finch East: a very busy bus route, but will not get a subway or light metro because it is so close to Sheppard subway. Thus, another LRT candidate, which can join Finch West and form a new crosstown route.

4. McCowan North: may be a candidate for LRT going into Markham, or may be fine with BRT. I don't know what kind of ridership can be expected there.

Other routes that may be sufficiently served by bus lanes: Lawrence East, Ellesmere, Steeles East, Warden, Kennedy.

 

[Rainforest]

I understand what your point is that once you are in the suburbs you have less job opportunities than downtown. Agreed. On the other hand if your downtown happens to be a place like mcc or the new Vaughan downtown it has more jobs than many other places in the country that people choose to live. For instance if you live in Stratford you likely have to find a job in Stratford. Same goes for Peterborough, brockville, Belleville. My point is others manage to find jobs in their own neighborhood and perhaps if a close commute is important to you than said person could at least have more opportunities if their own suburb attempts to attract businesses. It might not be perfect but it’s better than just being a bedroom community.

Definitely, more jobs = more opportunities. Probably works better for more remote places though. Say, commuting from Peterborough or Stratford to DT Toronto every day is a major pain, most of people will only do that if they really have to, and look for other options. So, offices located in Pereborough or in Stratford will have mostly local workforces. Conversely once the plase is closer to DT and the commute becomes bearable, the workforces become intermixed.

 

[sixrings]

I wouldn't build a network of LRT's in Scarborough just for the sake of having a network; rather, would look at individual routes. Some routes may have the numbers for LRT, while others will be just fine with bus-only lanes.

1. Eglinton East: maybe LRT or maybe light metro, but something better than bus lanes is desirable.

2. Three other major nodes in the east of Scarborough are Malvern Centre, Centennial Progress Campus, and UTSC. If the ridership numbers are there, then two major lines connecting those nodes to the subway may be suitable for LRT. One line from Malvern Centre to Sheppard&McCowan, the other line from UTSC to Progress Campus, and then either to STC or to Sheppard&McCowan.

3. Finch East: a very busy bus route, but will not get a subway or light metro because it is so close to Sheppard subway. Thus, another LRT candidate, which can join Finch West and form a new crosstown route.

4. McCowan North: may be a candidate for LRT going into Markham, or may be fine with BRT. I don't know what kind of ridership can be expected there.

Other routes that may be sufficiently served by bus lanes: Lawrence East, Ellesmere, Steeles East, Warden, Kennedy.

Even I think that this extension might as well get to wood side square (finch) now that we have committed to it.

as an old finch resident I would have appreciated a LRT there. Yes sheppard is in theory close but in reality it’s too far too walk to.

 

[ARG1]

I wouldn't build a network of LRT's in Scarborough just for the sake of having a network; rather, would look at individual routes. Some routes may have the numbers for LRT, while others will be just fine with bus-only lanes.

1. Eglinton East: maybe LRT or maybe light metro, but something better than bus lanes is desirable.

2. Three other major nodes in the east of Scarborough are Malvern Centre, Centennial Progress Campus, and UTSC. If the ridership numbers are there, then two major lines connecting those nodes to the subway may be suitable for LRT. One line from Malvern Centre to Sheppard&McCowan, the other line from UTSC to Progress Campus, and then either to STC or to Sheppard&McCowan.

3. Finch East: a very busy bus route, but will not get a subway or light metro because it is so close to Sheppard subway. Thus, another LRT candidate, which can join Finch West and form a new crosstown route.

4. McCowan North: may be a candidate for LRT going into Markham, or may be fine with BRT. I don't know what kind of ridership can be expected there.

Other routes that may be sufficiently served by bus lanes: Lawrence East, Ellesmere, Steeles East, Warden, Kennedy.

1. I already put my input.

2/3. I actually really agree that especially if the Sheppard Subway gets extended east, a Finch LRT might make some sense. What could be done long term actually is have the Finch East LRT connect to Malvern Centre from the North, and maybe you can put a spur to connect it to the subway at Sheppard McCowan (what to do with Sheppard between these 2 nodes is kind of up in the air though). If we build Eglinton East fully grade separated (and assuming we manage to grade separate the section between Laird and Kennedy), we could have a grade separated line reaching UTSC along Eglinton+Kingston, Finch will run through Malvern Center then divert down to UTSC - create a little transithub there alongside the DSBRT, and then have some enhanced bus service along Sheppard.

4. BRT is perfectly acceptable here.

 

[Voltz]

As a recap, the issue with the SLRT plan was that it was just a downgrade of the refurbishment plan, and in many ways the SLRT was a downgrade from the existing SRT. It would take an existing Light Metro Line and kneecap it with worse capacity per m of train, connection to other LRT lines would significantly reduce its maximum potential frequency, all while sticking with the exact same problematic transfer and allignment the current SRT has.

None of this is true,

 

[ARG1]

None of this is true,

Exactly what part of this is untrue? Low Floor LRVs have much smaller capacity per meter than ICTS trains, due to having less available floorspace from hiding the mechanic parts under seats. This is a fact. When you have a section of the line that is at grade where disruptions are possible or some form of external interference, you cannot have ATC, and you cannot run tight headways. This is also a fact. From what we know about the SLRT, part of the plan was to through run some of the Eglinton Crosstown trains through to the SLRT so the SLRT didn't have any of the benefits of full grade separation. This is a similar problem we will soon see with the Underground section of the ECLRT where despite having ATC, because of the existence of the surface section, tight headways reaching 90 seconds are impossible unless you split the line at Laird and make both sections separate lines. This means that the capacity per m of the SLRT was smaller than the SRT, and the maximum headway of the line unless they chose to isolate the SLRT from the rest of the network was less than the SRT.

As such, what were the benefits of the SLRT over a refurbishment plan of the SRT? Being integrated with a greater LRT network could mean the reduction of a linear transfer at Kennedy, however the line it was to interline with is the Eglinton Crosstown, meaning the vast majority of SLRT riders would be transferring over to Line 2 making this a very questionable benefit at best, and the SLRT theoretically would've had more immunity to seasonal climates, but as shown to us by the disastrous launch of the Confederation Line in Ottawa, this is far from a guarantee.

So let me ask you again, what part of what I said is untrue?

 

[sixrings]

Part of me wishes that we just refurbished the SRT and left it a unreliable mess. Then used the money to just extend sheppard which I could have lived with. Either way in the end it’s easy to imagine people would complain that now they had to travel down busy Yonge and would demand that the SRT be converted to subway.

Really I think it was a no win situation but if I lived out there a sheppard lrt would be fine with me if the DRL or now OL got to sheppard at least. And eglinton east I think was a good design for the most part.

 

[Voltz]

o let me ask you again, what part of what I said is untrue?

The same transfer, connection to other LRT lines, worse, than current line,

There was no plan to interline with the Crosstown,

 

[ARG1]

Part of me wishes that we just refurbished the SRT and left it a unreliable mess. Then used the money to just extend sheppard which I could have lived with. Either way in the end it’s easy to imagine people would complain that now they had to travel down busy Yonge and would demand that the SRT be converted to subway.

What we really should've done is refurbished the SRT and extended it west along Eglinton instead of building the Eglinton Crosstown.

The same transfer, connection to other LRT lines, worse, than current line,

There was no plan to interline with the Crosstown,

commas, hard to see point, when randomly placed, commas are

"There was no plan to throughrun with the crosstown". I honestly find that hard to believe. Transit City was an extension plan for the Toronto Streetcar system, where all lines would run on the at the time planned Flexity Outlook streetcars. The 7 proposed lines were less isolated lines and more brand new corridors to expand the network into. This is why stuff like Eglinton Crosstown were shown separately from Scarborough Malvern - unless you seriously want to tell me that they genuinely believed that continuing east of Kennedy, people would have to take a linear transfer from one Streetcar to Another (which honestly wouldn't surprise me one bit, but would still be hilariously stupid).

"Connection to other LRT lines". Are you suggesting that a benefit of the SLRT was other LRT lines being built? We are discussing the line's merits on its own, Eglinton Crosstown could've been built regardless of if its an SLRT or SRT, this point is moot, especially if "there was no plan to interline with the crosstown".

Come on, you can make an argument with complete sentences, its not that hard.

 

[NoahB]

You've been on my ignore list for a while, with your alternate reality ramblings, still check out some of your posts for amusement.

The same transfer, connection to other LRT lines, worse, than current line,

There was no plan to interline with the Crosstown,

I do agree that have an interesting way of using commas. You also do not seem to be adding any data or conjecture to the conversation. Moving on...


And for people who are saying there was no plans to potentially convert the SRT to a streetcar here you go:

In order to achieve economies of scale in vehicle manufacturing and allow for integrated operation with other streetcar and possibly new LRT services, cost estimates are based on the acquisition of light rail vehicles (LRVs) that are similar, in most respects, to articulated replacement streetcars now being considered by the TTC. p45

The TTC was thinking that if they convert to LRT, it might as well be what they will be ordering for the wider streetcar network. They were even thinking of limiting the train size to 2-car tarins to accommodate possible street running portions outside the SRT corridor. (infer: future extensions)

Dimensions, aside from length, are approximately equivalent to the articulated streetcars now used by the TTC. In length they are assumed to be 28 metres in contrast to the 23 metre length of the TTC’s current ALRVs. Although estimates have been prepared both for 2-car and 3-car LRT trains, for operation “on-street” in mixed traffic or in segregated LRT lanes beyond the present Scarborough RT corridor, probably only the 2-car trains should be considered. p45

An interesting tidbit that the document theorized that it is possible to reduce the SRT/Subway transfer by rebuilding the LRT plan as well as the refurbishment plan at Kenedy to be at ground level or underground.

Relocation of the Kennedy Station to provide a double track, centre platform terminal also offers potential for improving the transfer between the subway and the RT by eliminating at least one (if the new terminal is constructed on the surface) or two levels (if the new terminal is constructed below grade and connects directly with the Kennedy Station platform of the Bloor-Danforth subway). The latter option requires study and analysis that is beyond the scope of this stud. p43

from the TTC's Scarborough RT Strategic Plan – Study Report FINAL REPORT August 2006

 

[NoahB]

Again no numbers or sources but I see what you did there. Very original.

While ARG1 should have brought the docs to improve their case, most of what they said is available online to look up. For example, Translink studied BRT, LRT, and Skytrain for the Fraser Highway route and found the LRT/BRT would take 29min to travel it, while it would take 22min by Skytrain. Also, they found that the BRT/Skytrain hybrid would bring the most ridership and new riders.

Here's the doc for your convenience:
Surrey Rapid Transit Study Finding

 

[Voltz]

While ARG1 should have brought the docs to improve their case, most of what they said is available online to look up. For example, Translink studied BRT, LRT, and Skytrain for the Fraser Highway route and found the LRT/BRT would take 29min to travel it, while it would take 22min by Skytrain. Also, they found that the BRT/Skytrain hybrid would bring the most ridership and new riders.

Here's the doc for your convenience:
Surrey Rapid Transit Study Finding

So I haven't looked at their proposals in detail, but how would that apply here? LRT or SRT here were identical routes, no difference in travel times,

 

[sixrings]

While ARG1 should have brought the docs to improve their case, most of what they said is available online to look up. For example, Translink studied BRT, LRT, and Skytrain for the Fraser Highway route and found the LRT/BRT would take 29min to travel it, while it would take 22min by Skytrain. Also, they found that the BRT/Skytrain hybrid would bring the most ridership and new riders.

Here's the doc for your convenience:
Surrey Rapid Transit Study Finding

But what was the cost difference to achieve that faster route?

 

[ARG1]

But what was the cost difference to achieve that faster route?

All of the money that was going to go to the LRT got diverted to the phase 1 extension of the Langley Skytrain which went as far as Fleetwood with that money. In Short:

This:

https://imgur.com/ETm2W71

Became This:

https://imgur.com/WsRT7O3

 

[NoahB]

But what was the cost difference to achieve that faster route?

Disappointed in you...
Open the link. It showed the direct comparison in 2013 dollars. You can find the more current numbers by going to www dot google dot come on.