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Downtown Rapid Transit Expansion Study

Optimal solution should be...

  • The construction of new rapid transit lines ; Downtown Rapid Transit (DRT) line

    Votes: 193 76.3%

  • Expanded GO Rail capacity (including additional GO stations in the City of Toronto)

    Votes: 15 5.9%

  • Improvements in streetcar services to enhance shorter-distance transit accessibility downtown

    Votes: 4 1.6%

  • Others (Some/all of the above, other ideas)

    Votes: 41 16.2%
  • Total voters
    253
sixrings said:
I am sure Dufferin could be widened. IF Lawrence and Dufferin sees redevelopment which there is a major preposal somewhere on another thread here and Yorkdale starts seeing condos being lined across the street on dufferin and Eglinton sees redevelopment because of the LRT then an already busy route will see more riders. PLus with all the development happening the streets will have to be addressed to. Widening the road to accomodate a Streetcar might make sense. Or how about in the areas where it can fit ROW have ROW and the other areas which can only support mixed traffic have the streetcar in mixed traffic.

Bathurst was suggested because the tracks already exsist. Add the LRT on Eglinton and I would support the streetcar connecting to the LRT line. However if Lawrence sees a LRT being constructed again the streetcar should connect to lawrence. A connected city with new streetcars and increasing congestion will cause people to rethink using transit. It would also make the older riders more satified with new Streetcars VS the buses they have been using.
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I think that consistent widening of Dufferin is not possible, unless you demolish quite a few buildings.

Running in mixed traffic for a part of route defeats the purpose of ROW. Increased road congestion will make all kinds of fully or partially separated transit (subways, LRT, busways) more appealing, but it will actually make mixed-traffic transit less appealing. If you are in your own car, you can at least try to bypass the most congested areas.

Dufferin LRT would be great from the ridership standpoint, but it must be separated from general traffic to be useful, and that will be very, very expensive.

Likewise, there is no point laying streetcar tracks on Bathurst north of St Clair and running in mixed traffic to Eglinton or Lawrence. Such a streetcar service will be less reliable than bus.

Bathurst North is quite another matter though. North of Wilson, the street can accommodate 2 streetcar ROW lanes and 4 general traffic lanes; and it has significant density. Bathurst North LRT could connect to Wilson subway in the south, and run to Promenade Mall or even to Major Mac in the north.
 
leopetr said:
What frequency of service would you expect on such a spur? A subway train once every 30 minutes?
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With a fully developed Portlands? Maybe 5 minutes. Any transit whatsoever in Portlands is overkill.... unless you're talking about future development plans, as I was.
 
I'd love for there to be a subway along College, King, as well as a new north-south line somewhere in the west end. The latter two might be part of a DRL. With so many hundreds of thousands of people using streetcars as it is, plus the multitude of up and coming areas developing outside the typical downtown core, we'd do well to provide the increased capacity and speed that is needed. People who use transit every day do not enjoy the leisurely pace of a streetcar stuck in traffic - only tourists do. They'd rather zip from Dufferin to Yonge in 7 minutes on a subway line. I highly doubt that central Toronto's transit needs will be adequately served by surface transit, particularly traditional streetcars, in 50 years. The demand will be too great. We'd be best to pony up the funds now.
 
Should the powers-that-be decide on a DRT that connects or just terminates at the one or two points of the Bloor-Danforth HRT subway, they had better make sure that crossovers will exist at the connection or transfer stations on the Bloor-Danforth. That way in case of problems alternate routes are available to get to a downtown destination using the DRT.

Currently there are crossovers on the Bloor-Danforth, but not at all alternative routes to downtown. For example, there are crossovers at Keele, but none at Dundas West. Dundas West has two streetcar routes that could be used as alternate routes downtown (504 King and 505 Dundas). Keele has no alternate route available to downtown. Keele has been used as a shuttle terminal, but Dundas West has larger capacity vehicles as alternatives.

Crossovers on the Bloor-Danforth should be worked on now, to help provide alternate routes for the near future and whenever the DRT should be built.
 
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W. K. Lis said:
Crossovers on the Bloor-Danforth should be worked on now, to help provide alternate routes for the near future and whenever the DRT should be built.
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That's something very helpful that would be relatively easy to implement. The same thing goes for the Yonge line, especially the downtown section. There used to be crossovers just north of King and just south of College, but they were removed to save on maintenance. They should also be reinstated to minimize the size of shutdowns on the busiest stretch of subway in the city.
 
Leave the subway west of Union as it is on the map.......looks good to me. The Eastern section is another matter.
Subway to Portlands area but should NOT cross the Don River but follow the GO Line north to a new station at Bloor with stations of Queen and Dundas in between. North of Bloor use elevation or at grade to continue north to Don Mills/Eglinton either along the GO Don Mills line or parrell to the CN route. Nothing north of Portlands would need to be tunneled.
Here's the kicker. At the Dundas DRL station make it two levels for an eventual downtown east/west line leaving Main station using the ROW to Dundas East all the way across to Yonge and eventually further west.
Really the DRL doesn't need to be tunneled at all if the City starts to plan for it now before all the development begins. The entire eastern sections of 2 new lines only requiring about 4 km of tunnel from DVP to Yonge on a new Dundas Line.
 
Exhibition serves Liberty Village well enough. Cherry St. and Roncesvalles are too close from Union to be served by the current GO set-up. If GO was electrified with EMU's...
 
Exactly. I don't expect any GO stations in the core to be viable until we start running EMUs. Despite a station in Liberty village (Near King or Queen) being relatively close to Exhibition, these stations are on different lines, and unless the DRL is somehow routed into Dundas West, I beleive another station on the georgetown line will be needed to connect to the DRL.
 
I think there should also be a GO station just west of Spadina/Front (replacing the current rail yard), to be built in the future to relieve overcrowding at Union. There is quite a lot of development on that side of downtown now (CityPlace, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, CN Tower, Rogers Centre, CBC Headquarters, RBC Centre, etc.), and will probably be more in the future (Downtown Toyota will be gone in 10 years).
 
You guys keep talking about more GO stops but it does nothing for the average citizen. GO trains are much more expensive and are not transferable to the TTC system. If it is in the same city, and hence the same tax levels, it should not have to pay extra.
 
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