S
socialwoe
Guest
I don't if that helps any but I came across it and it does outlay details for a complete DRL juxtaposed with the current system. I think Degrassi+ Logan may be a bit much but otherwise it's okay.
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I don't if that helps any but I came across it and it does outlay details for a complete DRL juxtaposed with the current system. I think Degrassi+ Logan may be a bit much but otherwise it's okay.
D
Degnaw
Guest
oh yeah, thats what i meant
A
allabootmatt
Guest
Socialwoe: can you repost that? It's not showing up on my screen. \
Thanks
Thanks
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socialwoe
Guest
I can't seem to get it up so here's a link.
server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=westonsubwaymap.jpg&mode=1
server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=westonsubwaymap.jpg&mode=1
A
akaFTech
Guest
DRL route to the mayor
Is the orange route the DRL? If it is, it would greatly interconnect the city, is the Pearson stop the Airport stop?
Is the orange route the DRL? If it is, it would greatly interconnect the city, is the Pearson stop the Airport stop?
D
Degnaw
Guest
Re: DRL route to the mayor
^yeah, Pearson = Toronto Pearson International Airport
That map looks cool, but i doubt it would ever be built in its entirety, unfortunately.
^yeah, Pearson = Toronto Pearson International Airport
That map looks cool, but i doubt it would ever be built in its entirety, unfortunately.
A
allabootmatt
Guest
Re: DRL route to the mayor
Well, I have just forwarded my pitch, which will be sent on to the mayor and cc'ed to councillors along the route. Hopefully this at least generates some discussion and interest among them, if not the mayor, and leads to some action on this front.
Well, I have just forwarded my pitch, which will be sent on to the mayor and cc'ed to councillors along the route. Hopefully this at least generates some discussion and interest among them, if not the mayor, and leads to some action on this front.
D
Darkstar416
Guest
Re: DRL route to the mayor
Awesome Matt! Thanks for doing this!
Any chance we could see the actual pitch?
If you get nowhere with this, maybe we should start a DRL Society. Joking...sort of.
Awesome Matt! Thanks for doing this!
Any chance we could see the actual pitch?
If you get nowhere with this, maybe we should start a DRL Society. Joking...sort of.
E
EnviroTO
Guest
Re: DRL route to the mayor
Well there was a Spadina-York subway website for quite some time. Maybe a DRL website isn't such a bad idea.
Well there was a Spadina-York subway website for quite some time. Maybe a DRL website isn't such a bad idea.
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scarberiankhatru
Guest
The Weston bunch already has one:
westoncommunitycoalition.ca/
westoncommunitycoalition.ca/
A
allabootmatt
Guest
Here is the text of what I sent. Also added a couple of maps:
To: Mayor David Miller
From: Matthew Campbell
CC: Councillors Pam McConnell, Kyle Rae, Paula Fletcher, Case Ootes, John Parker, Shelley Carroll, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Gord Perks, Frank Di Giorgio, Frances Nunziata, Girogio Mammoliti, Rob Ford, Adam Giambrone, Adam Vaughan, Joe Pantalone, Cesar Palacio. Suzan Hall.
Re: ‘Relief Line’ Subway Proposal
Introduction: Many transit-watchers in Toronto have been consistently surprised that, in considering new subway route alignments, the TTC and Toronto City Council have habitually ignored the potential of extant railway corridors that traverse the city in favour of expensive, tunneled suburban projects such as the York/Vaughan and Sheppard subways. Focusing subway expansion on such rail corridors, and related routes, could utterly transform the shape of rail transit in the city with a significantly greater return on investment than that of presently-planned extensions. A project similar to that outlined below was approved by the TTC in the 1980s as the ‘Downtown Relief Line’ scheme, but has since disappeared from all discussions of transit planning; it was not even considered in the Commission’s 2001 Rapid Transit Expansion Study. This was a grave error, and the concept deserves serious and urgent consideration.
The Concept: Essentially the Relief Line concept involves using existing surface railway corridors to add subway services heading Northeast and Northwest from Union Station, using the Toronto Terminals Railway (TTR) mainline alignment in the Downtown area and the Kingston rail subdivision to the West. These rail corridors, both of which are wide enough to accommodate added tracks for subway services, pass directly through the following areas of the city, many of them targeted for intensive redevelopment:
West:
1. The Rogers Centre/Cityplace zone, currently undergoing redevelopment which will add tens of thousands of new residents.
2. The Exhibition/Liberty zone, similarly undergoing intensive redevelopment.
3. The Parkdale zone, which is rapidly densifying.
4. Dundas West subway, already a connection point with GO Transit.
5. The Junction zone, a revitalized residential area undergoing significant development.
6. The Weston zone, a populous area tremendously underserved by transit.
7. The Rexdale zone, one of the city’s most deprived and dense areas and similarly underserved by transit
8. The Airport zone, as the Weston sub passes within about 2 kilometers of Pearson International, which is why it is the planned alignment for the stalled Blue22 service.
East:
1. The St. Lawrence zone, an obviously popular area.
2. The Distillery/East Bayfront zone, an area targeted for massive redevelopment under waterfront revitalization plans.
3. The West Donlands/Portlands zone, similarly targeted for redevelopment.
Beyond the Don River, the existing Kingston railway sub is too narrow to accommodate TTC tracks. However, the TTC’s initial Downtown Relief Line plan envisioned cut-and-cover tunnels and surface alignments from the Don toward the Northeast, crossing the Danforth at Pape and continuing into the former borough of East York and beyond roughly parallel to Don Mills Road. Such an alignment today would allow service to the Flemingdon and Thorncliffe Park areas as well as eventual interchange with the Sheppard Line.
Advantages: A subway along the alignments discussed above has several enormous advantages over any currently planned project.
1. Cost and return on investment: For much of the proposed route, the cost of this plan would be extremely small relative to potential, and to proposals like the $1.5Bn York/Vaughan extension. Within the TTR and Weston railways, the only cost to the TTC would be the laying of track, basic stations, and rolling stock, since the land for the alignment already exists and no tunneling would be required. East of the Don, cut-and-cover rather than bored-tunnel construction could allow a major extension at relatively low cost; Vancouver’s 19-kilometer Canada Line is being constructed cut-and-cover for about $2Bn.
2. Creative Financing Opportunities: Since so many points on the proposed alignment are targeted for substantial redevelopment, there would exist enormous potential for tax-increment financing against projected increases in property-tax revenues.
3. Rail service to some of the city’s densest unserved areas (see map): The alignment would bring true rapid-transit to the densest parts of the city, both Downtown and in the Northeast and Northwest, which currently lack it. Streetcar services in much of the central city appear to be inadequate to cope with population growth (as in the Liberty area, for example) while areas like Rexdale, Flemingdon Park, and Thorncliffe Park, some of the densest in the city, presently have no rail transit whatsoever.
4. Relief of pressure on Yonge and Bloor-Danforth Lines: By providing an alternate route to Union Station and other Downtown areas from the Northeast and Northwest, the proposal would relieve significant pressure on both main subway lines as well as the Yonge-Bloor interchange, which would make possible a number or other TTC goals which are currently impractical, including a Yonge extension to Steeles and beyond or a new North-South line at the top of the city.
5. Meaningful, accessible service to Pearson Airport: Unlike the indefinitely stalled Blue22 proposal, a TTC service along the Weston rail alignment would bring true rapid transit to the airport, accessible for the price of a TTC fare and with intermediate stops for trips not beginning or ending at Union. Additionally an express service, perhaps stopping only at Dundas West (like Blue22) would be possible if additional track space could be obtained.
6. Service to the ‘905’: Both the Eastern and Western portions of this concept could be extended well into the 905 suburbs at relatively little cost, especially at the Western end. This would be accomplished without added stress on the Yonge line, since both would provide a one-seat ride to Downtown Toronto.
7. Rail service along the Don Mills corridor: This transect is currently the subject of an Environmental Assessment for light-rail transit, as it contains some of the city’s busiest bus routes and major employment nodes. True rapid transit would serve the area much more effectively.
8. Relief and rationalization of streetcar service: All four of the main East-West streetcar lines (King, Queen, Dundas, and College) are overloaded at peak times, and none operates on a street consistently wide enough for exclusive transit rights-of-way, making significant improvements in speed, reliability and capacity unlikely. The proposed alignment would allow the streetcar lines to operate as they do best, in serving local and short-distance traffic, while shifting longer commuter trips, especially to the city centre, to the higher-capacity subways.
Conclusion: Revisiting some form of the long-forgotten Relief Line plan makes excellent sense in a context of limited resources for subway expansion. The emphasis of transit planning in Toronto must be on value for money. The TTC and City Council would be seriously remiss, given this fact, in failing to consider a plan which would deliver city-wide advantages several times greater than those of any currently proposed subway expansion at relatively low cost. It is not an overstatement of suggest that implementation of the plan described here would utterly transform Toronto’s rapid-transit system from its present skeletal form into a true, interconnected network. As such it deserves immediate further study and priority over other planned rapid-transit expansions. Toronto’s present lack of an overarching, ambitious vision for the future of transit is generally blamed on lack of funds; but the project proposed here offers visionary potential at an affordable price.
To: Mayor David Miller
From: Matthew Campbell
CC: Councillors Pam McConnell, Kyle Rae, Paula Fletcher, Case Ootes, John Parker, Shelley Carroll, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Gord Perks, Frank Di Giorgio, Frances Nunziata, Girogio Mammoliti, Rob Ford, Adam Giambrone, Adam Vaughan, Joe Pantalone, Cesar Palacio. Suzan Hall.
Re: ‘Relief Line’ Subway Proposal
Introduction: Many transit-watchers in Toronto have been consistently surprised that, in considering new subway route alignments, the TTC and Toronto City Council have habitually ignored the potential of extant railway corridors that traverse the city in favour of expensive, tunneled suburban projects such as the York/Vaughan and Sheppard subways. Focusing subway expansion on such rail corridors, and related routes, could utterly transform the shape of rail transit in the city with a significantly greater return on investment than that of presently-planned extensions. A project similar to that outlined below was approved by the TTC in the 1980s as the ‘Downtown Relief Line’ scheme, but has since disappeared from all discussions of transit planning; it was not even considered in the Commission’s 2001 Rapid Transit Expansion Study. This was a grave error, and the concept deserves serious and urgent consideration.
The Concept: Essentially the Relief Line concept involves using existing surface railway corridors to add subway services heading Northeast and Northwest from Union Station, using the Toronto Terminals Railway (TTR) mainline alignment in the Downtown area and the Kingston rail subdivision to the West. These rail corridors, both of which are wide enough to accommodate added tracks for subway services, pass directly through the following areas of the city, many of them targeted for intensive redevelopment:
West:
1. The Rogers Centre/Cityplace zone, currently undergoing redevelopment which will add tens of thousands of new residents.
2. The Exhibition/Liberty zone, similarly undergoing intensive redevelopment.
3. The Parkdale zone, which is rapidly densifying.
4. Dundas West subway, already a connection point with GO Transit.
5. The Junction zone, a revitalized residential area undergoing significant development.
6. The Weston zone, a populous area tremendously underserved by transit.
7. The Rexdale zone, one of the city’s most deprived and dense areas and similarly underserved by transit
8. The Airport zone, as the Weston sub passes within about 2 kilometers of Pearson International, which is why it is the planned alignment for the stalled Blue22 service.
East:
1. The St. Lawrence zone, an obviously popular area.
2. The Distillery/East Bayfront zone, an area targeted for massive redevelopment under waterfront revitalization plans.
3. The West Donlands/Portlands zone, similarly targeted for redevelopment.
Beyond the Don River, the existing Kingston railway sub is too narrow to accommodate TTC tracks. However, the TTC’s initial Downtown Relief Line plan envisioned cut-and-cover tunnels and surface alignments from the Don toward the Northeast, crossing the Danforth at Pape and continuing into the former borough of East York and beyond roughly parallel to Don Mills Road. Such an alignment today would allow service to the Flemingdon and Thorncliffe Park areas as well as eventual interchange with the Sheppard Line.
Advantages: A subway along the alignments discussed above has several enormous advantages over any currently planned project.
1. Cost and return on investment: For much of the proposed route, the cost of this plan would be extremely small relative to potential, and to proposals like the $1.5Bn York/Vaughan extension. Within the TTR and Weston railways, the only cost to the TTC would be the laying of track, basic stations, and rolling stock, since the land for the alignment already exists and no tunneling would be required. East of the Don, cut-and-cover rather than bored-tunnel construction could allow a major extension at relatively low cost; Vancouver’s 19-kilometer Canada Line is being constructed cut-and-cover for about $2Bn.
2. Creative Financing Opportunities: Since so many points on the proposed alignment are targeted for substantial redevelopment, there would exist enormous potential for tax-increment financing against projected increases in property-tax revenues.
3. Rail service to some of the city’s densest unserved areas (see map): The alignment would bring true rapid-transit to the densest parts of the city, both Downtown and in the Northeast and Northwest, which currently lack it. Streetcar services in much of the central city appear to be inadequate to cope with population growth (as in the Liberty area, for example) while areas like Rexdale, Flemingdon Park, and Thorncliffe Park, some of the densest in the city, presently have no rail transit whatsoever.
4. Relief of pressure on Yonge and Bloor-Danforth Lines: By providing an alternate route to Union Station and other Downtown areas from the Northeast and Northwest, the proposal would relieve significant pressure on both main subway lines as well as the Yonge-Bloor interchange, which would make possible a number or other TTC goals which are currently impractical, including a Yonge extension to Steeles and beyond or a new North-South line at the top of the city.
5. Meaningful, accessible service to Pearson Airport: Unlike the indefinitely stalled Blue22 proposal, a TTC service along the Weston rail alignment would bring true rapid transit to the airport, accessible for the price of a TTC fare and with intermediate stops for trips not beginning or ending at Union. Additionally an express service, perhaps stopping only at Dundas West (like Blue22) would be possible if additional track space could be obtained.
6. Service to the ‘905’: Both the Eastern and Western portions of this concept could be extended well into the 905 suburbs at relatively little cost, especially at the Western end. This would be accomplished without added stress on the Yonge line, since both would provide a one-seat ride to Downtown Toronto.
7. Rail service along the Don Mills corridor: This transect is currently the subject of an Environmental Assessment for light-rail transit, as it contains some of the city’s busiest bus routes and major employment nodes. True rapid transit would serve the area much more effectively.
8. Relief and rationalization of streetcar service: All four of the main East-West streetcar lines (King, Queen, Dundas, and College) are overloaded at peak times, and none operates on a street consistently wide enough for exclusive transit rights-of-way, making significant improvements in speed, reliability and capacity unlikely. The proposed alignment would allow the streetcar lines to operate as they do best, in serving local and short-distance traffic, while shifting longer commuter trips, especially to the city centre, to the higher-capacity subways.
Conclusion: Revisiting some form of the long-forgotten Relief Line plan makes excellent sense in a context of limited resources for subway expansion. The emphasis of transit planning in Toronto must be on value for money. The TTC and City Council would be seriously remiss, given this fact, in failing to consider a plan which would deliver city-wide advantages several times greater than those of any currently proposed subway expansion at relatively low cost. It is not an overstatement of suggest that implementation of the plan described here would utterly transform Toronto’s rapid-transit system from its present skeletal form into a true, interconnected network. As such it deserves immediate further study and priority over other planned rapid-transit expansions. Toronto’s present lack of an overarching, ambitious vision for the future of transit is generally blamed on lack of funds; but the project proposed here offers visionary potential at an affordable price.
D
Darkstar416
Guest
Awesome letter. It's pretty darn perfect!
Let us know how things proceed and what kind -- if any -- responses you get. If the response is lacklustre (which the cynic in me thinks it will be), I think Urban Toronto (or perhaps a new sub-group) should take this on and try to generate some media/political support for the idea. Yes, with a website and all!
If the provincial government will build a subway to a Wal-Mart in Vaughan in order to maintain their finance minister's seat, I'm sure that hundres of thousands of residents along the DRL corridor can make a more convincing argument.
Let us know how things proceed and what kind -- if any -- responses you get. If the response is lacklustre (which the cynic in me thinks it will be), I think Urban Toronto (or perhaps a new sub-group) should take this on and try to generate some media/political support for the idea. Yes, with a website and all!
If the provincial government will build a subway to a Wal-Mart in Vaughan in order to maintain their finance minister's seat, I'm sure that hundres of thousands of residents along the DRL corridor can make a more convincing argument.
A
allabootmatt
Guest
....except for my egregious misspelling of councillor mammoliti's first name. oh well. all's fair in love and war, or something.
I agree with the idea of bringing up media/public pressure on this. i think if the average torontonian were shown a map of the proposal, he/she would be very likely to vote for whatever candidate promised to make it happen, because the DRL literally has benefits for the ENTIRE city and beyond.
anyway, fingers crossed.
edit: and i called the weston sub the kingston sub. f@!$&*(^$&^!
sorry. i am usually a good proofreader.
I agree with the idea of bringing up media/public pressure on this. i think if the average torontonian were shown a map of the proposal, he/she would be very likely to vote for whatever candidate promised to make it happen, because the DRL literally has benefits for the ENTIRE city and beyond.
anyway, fingers crossed.
edit: and i called the weston sub the kingston sub. f@!$&*(^$&^!
sorry. i am usually a good proofreader.
D
DavidsonAve
Guest
Matthew, that's a great letter. On behalf of all transit enthusiasts, I thank you for taking the time to write the letter, to pitch a better way to approach subway expansion.
How about sending a copy of your letter, or another like it, to the Toronto Star, Globe, or some of the other papers?
How about sending a copy of your letter, or another like it, to the Toronto Star, Globe, or some of the other papers?
C
cassiusa
Guest
www.ReliefLine.to seems to be available. I can host it if need be.