"Downtown Core Line" - Possible Alignments?

[kEiThZ]

Why would you assume we haven't? I'm sure everyone in this discussion has been on the Queen car and witnessed first-hand the crush-loads and the unreliability of the service.

Not only that but we are able to translate that experience into a projection of what would happen to the streetcars along the waterfront should that district experience growth as projected by Waterfront Toronto. Slides 32 onwards in the following presentation compare the Portlands to various districts that already exist in Toronto:

http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/dbdocs//447f37fce9e22.pdf?PHPSESSID=00fe08f8a8713ae8ecefe8cdf8620961

Of note is slide 36 which shows that the Portlands are 3.9x the size of the Financial District. Sure, not building a subway on Queen was a mistake. But failing to account for the growth of an entire district that's slated to be nearly as large and well developed as the entire core today should surely count as a bigger failure. And that's just one of the districts that's going to be developed.

If one think Queen is a mess with two subway stops, streetcar lines and in a decade a relatively nearby DRL, what does that portend for an area the size of the core if it gets not even a single subway stop? That's what I would like the proponents of a Queen subway to answer. How do they plan on serving the Portlands if the DRL is built along Queen?

 

[Darren B]

Why would you assume we haven't? I'm sure everyone in this discussion has been on the Queen car and witnessed first-hand the crush-loads and the unreliability of the service.

I'm not assuming. There was doubt about the claim that Queen is the busiest surface route in Toronto. Queen is infamously the busiest for those who use surface routes.

 

[Anth]

I'm not assuming. There was doubt about the claim that Queen is the busiest surface route in Toronto. Queen is infamously the busiest for those who use surface routes.

So you're saying we should plan all our multi-billion dollar infrastructure simply by eyeballing it?

 

[Darren B]

How do they plan on serving the Portlands if the DRL is built along Queen?

The same can be said the other way around, with the question being how a DRL under the Portlands would serve the needs of the numerous more riders who currently commute along Queen then those who commute along the Portlands?

 

[Darren B]

So you're saying we should plan all our multi-billion dollar infrastructure simply by eyeballing it?

No. If you read what I wrote, then you'll know what I was saying in black and white. If anyone has doubt about the busiest surface route then they have not used the Queen car recently

 

[Anth]

Well I have to admit I do find what you write difficult to read, so I skim and skip mostly.

 

[Disparishun]

The same can be said the other way around, with the question being how a DRL under the Portlands would serve the needs of the numerous more riders who currently commute along Queen then those who commute along the Portlands?

If they manage to build a DRL in time to meet current 2009 use, I for one will be very impressed.

 

[Darren B]

Well I have to admit I do find what you write difficult to read, so I skim and skip mostly.

Well that is your choice to do so. The discussion at that particular moment was "Whats the busiest surface route?" I'm not asking for a subway line to built based on 'eyeballing'. So I don't understand why you claimed I did say that.

 

[Whoaccio]

Speaking of the Portlands, what is the progress with the WFELRT (worst acronym, ever)? Is the Union Streetcar terminal ever going to be converted into a conventional, non loop, station?

 

[MisterF]

Not only that but we are able to translate that experience into a projection of what would happen to the streetcars along the waterfront should that district experience growth as projected by Waterfront Toronto. Slides 32 onwards in the following presentation compare the Portlands to various districts that already exist in Toronto:

http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/dbdocs//447f37fce9e22.pdf?PHPSESSID=00fe08f8a8713ae8ecefe8cdf8620961

Of note is slide 36 which shows that the Portlands are 3.9x the size of the Financial District. Sure, not building a subway on Queen was a mistake. But failing to account for the growth of an entire district that's slated to be nearly as large and well developed as the entire core today should surely count as a bigger failure. And that's just one of the districts that's going to be developed.

If one think Queen is a mess with two subway stops, streetcar lines and in a decade a relatively nearby DRL, what does that portend for an area the size of the core if it gets not even a single subway stop? That's what I would like the proponents of a Queen subway to answer. How do they plan on serving the Portlands if the DRL is built along Queen?

Even along the rail right of way, I don't think the DRL would be a major transit mode for people in the Port Lands. The ship channel is over a kilometre from the rail corridor and 1.4 km from Front St. If that area is ever fully developed at high density it could merit its own rapid transit line. It could be a branch of the DRL or a separate line altogether, like the Docklands light rail in London. It could serve the East Bayfront and even be extended east to the Beaches.

 

[andomano]

No. If you read what I wrote, then you'll know what I was saying in black and white. If anyone has doubt about the busiest surface route then they have not used the Queen car recently

Clearly you haven't been on the Carlton, King, Spadina Cars or Dufferin Bus;

From the 2005 -2006 Ridership and cost statistics for bus and streetcar routes:

506 Carlton - 41,200
29 Dufferin - 43,600
504 King - 47,900
510 Spadina - 43,400

501 Queen - 41,200

I haven't been able to find anything more recent, so do correct me if you do, and show me the link so I can see the report.

 

[kEiThZ]

The same can be said the other way around, with the question being how a DRL under the Portlands would serve the needs of the numerous more riders who currently commute along Queen then those who commute along the Portlands?

Do you ever bother to read the links we post or just hit reply right away? Read the link first and then we'll talk. Otherwise, your boosterism here will seem fairly uninformed.

In my books, it's entirely valid to ask why Queen should be under consideration when there is a development multiple times the size of the ENTIRE financial district that isn't even getting a single subway stop under your scenario. In 20-30 years that congestion on Queen might be a pittance compared to that along the Waterfront. There are some of us here who would rather not make the same mistake twice....particularly if zoning along Queen does not change and it remains a 'stable neighbourhood' taking on no more residents and jobs as other developments press forward.

Even along the rail right of way, I don't think the DRL would be a major transit mode for people in the Port Lands. The ship channel is over a kilometre from the rail corridor and 1.4 km from Front St. If that area is ever fully developed at high density it could merit its own rapid transit line. It could be a branch of the DRL or a separate line altogether, like the Docklands light rail in London. It could serve the East Bayfront and even be extended east to the Beaches.

Personally, I would support a Docklands type of solution for the Portlands. However, the city has made no mention of this. Heck, they don't even dedicate a Transit City line to an area that our entire civic leadership views in the same light as Canary Wharf. And I suspect some of that silence has to do with the fact that they thought the DRL would serve that district...that's why the city preferred the Front alignment. I fear for what would happen to the Waterfront if their plans prove inadequate or blunted by a northerly shift of the DRL. I might be willing to support a Queen DRL if the city was more forthcoming on how it plans to serve a district that will have more jobs and residents than half the towns in this country and most districts in this city.

 

[kEiThZ]

Clearly you haven't been on the Carlton, King, Spadina Cars or Dufferin Bus;

From the 2005 -2006 Ridership and cost statistics for bus and streetcar routes:

506 Carlton - 41,200
29 Dufferin - 43,600
504 King - 47,900
510 Spadina - 43,400

501 Queen - 41,200

I haven't been able to find anything more recent, so do correct me if you do, and show me the link so I can see the report.

http://www3.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Operating_statistics.jsp

504 King was busiest in 2007 with 47 300 riders daily.

 

[nfitz]

The 2007 numbers are on the TTC website - page 43 of http://www3.ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/service_improvements_2008.pdf

506 Carlton - 41,200
29 Dufferin - 43,600
504 King - 53,100
510 Spadina - 48,000
501 Queen - 43,500

Also of note is:
24 Don Mills 40,600
32 Eglinton West 41,100
39/139 Finch East 44,600
36 Finch West 42,600
35 Jane 39,000
(which looks amazingly like Transit City ... no big suprise where it came from).

Now this is total ridership. Surely one should divide the ridership by the route length, to find out which route is the busiest. Though that would still only be approximate unless you knew the average trip length for each route. TTC's Origin-Destination study for the Queen Street route shows that 0% of the riders getting on before Humber are getting off past Woodbine.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Total rides per day is one thing, and rides/km is another, but peak loads are something else entirely. Steeles East is probably one of the busiest peak load routes but won't show up on many homemade ridership lists because turnover along the way approaches zero (therefore, low total ridership) and because the route is quite long (therefore, low riders/km). I'd be surprised if Jane had higher peak loads than Steeles, but I know that Steeles is currently not a good candidate for anything other than a Rocket bus. When huge numbers of people get on a bus and ride out past the horizon, we have to start thinking about where they're going and if they mightn't be better not taking the Steeles bus such a long way in such large numbers. I bet either of the Steeles buses are as busy as the Queen streetcar, too, let alone a dozen other routes.

The busiest surface route is either King (AM rush, I assume), Finch East (ridiculous frequency), or possibly Spadina. King is split by the subway lines, but Finch East has a reasonable amount of turnover. Eglinton West, Dufferin, Jane, etc., are all lowered by subway-splitting, too. Transit City did not target the busiest routes...they threw a few priority neighbourhood darts and hit some of the busy routes, though.

Why would you assume we haven't? I'm sure everyone in this discussion has been on the Queen car and witnessed first-hand the crush-loads and the unreliability of the service.

I rarely ride the Queen streetcar...I often try but end up walking for 20-30 minutes and get where I'm going before one ever shows up. Same with College. When they do finally show up, of course they're completely full.