My Masters Projects on the Downtown Relief Line

[gweed123]

Clearly we have the same thought pattern. It's not that Queen couldn't support a subway of some kind, it's just that it needs to have close stop spacings, so it wouldn't work for the DRL. If stop spacing is close, then street life should be fine (ie. Bloor). The concern would be during construction though, as you pointed out.

Exactly. And after the St. Clair West boondoggle, any transit project in an urban or inner suburban setting (ie not a 6 lane suburban arterial) that involves shutting down or severly limiting the street will be met with severe opposition by business owners.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I can completely understand wanting to serve Distillery/Corktown but I strongly feel that it should north/north west once it hits Parliament and then head west. It doesn't necessarily have to go down Queen but Richmond and possible Adelaide will do. It will serve just as much of the King/Bay area as it will Queen/NPS/Eaton Centre. It would also not interfere with the the King/Queen streetcars.
I don't see the reasoning for going under Esplanade. If you are going that far south you might as well save a cool billion and use the Lakeshore rail ROW which is only one further block south. If the intent is to get to Union station then you might as well just put in some high frequency EMUs and save a small fortune.
Union already has the best service in the city so I don't see the point of just duplicating it. To me using a line straight to Union is the equivalent of building a DRL starting at Church. All that is going to happen is that you are twinning service.
Also being further north is better in the long term. King/Bay is built out and offices and future hotels cannot spread further west due to CityPlace and east due to St.Lawrence Market and Distillery. That means that there will be one direction for further commercial/office development...........north of King. Also anyone heading to Union during 9-5 business hours who live outside the original city boundaries are much more prone to take GO so a new DRL will mean nothing for them.
Adelaide is just as close to King/Bay as it is to Union but you would also be serving the busy Queen shopping/entertainment areas as well as the large employers of City Hall, the Law Courts/ University/Queen government/business centres and the massive employment and shopping of the Eaton Centre.
If the purpose of the DRL to get people strickely to Union then save the billions and just use all the existing rail ROW for high frequency EMUs a la Melbourne/Sydney/Berlin S-Bahn.

If the Queen route were chosen it would HAVE to be triple or even quad tracked in order to accomodate the dual needs of the corridor for express and local service.

 

[ssiguy2]

Adelaide and/or Richmond tunnel would not interfere with the current busy King or Queen streetcars.

 

[Chuck]

If the Queen route were chosen it would HAVE to be triple or even quad tracked in order to accomodate the dual needs of the corridor for express and local service.

Thank god someone finally raised this point. Any new subway line should be designed with the same degree of forward thinking that was incorporated into the plans for the Bloor Viaduct - we may be fine with a traditional 2 track subway line today, but a generation or two from now, there will be significantly more demand in the corridor.

Even 10 years ago, who could have predicted the scale of the condo boom? $1.50 for a litre of gas? Imagine what the city will be like if these trends continue for another 10 years or more. The future holds a lot of potential that in all likelihood will result in massive ridership increases. Most new subway lines through the inner city should have an express/local tunnel configuration.

 

[gweed123]

Adelaide and/or Richmond tunnel would not interfere with the current busy King or Queen streetcars.

Neither would a Wellington tunnel, and it would also serve more major trip generators than a Queen alignment would, but that has already been explained, several times...

 

[Fresh Start]

Neither would a Wellington tunnel, and it would also serve more major trip generators than a Queen alignment would, but that has already been explained, several times...

Wellington's the best alignment for the central core. However the further out one goes, the more relevant a Queen St Subway becomes to the discussion. This is why I strongly believe that the DRL should run along both corridors via Liberty Village and the West Don Lands:

I hope this map helps to clarify where I was coming from with my suggestions earlier, Jupiter.

This is the downtown core, virtually every station along the way would see a higher than average daily walk-in use than all the non-downtown subway stop locations. This is why I don't buy into the argument that a DRL needs less stops than doing the same commute via B-D and YUS to give a bulk of riders incentive to switch. Another matter, costs. Frankly any DRL will cost exorbiant amounts of money, but that's not an excuse to cut corners by buying it much too far away from the denser traditional parts of the city. I think ssiguy's point with a Queen Subway is that pedestrians might find it an easier walking distance south/north to Chinstown and other attractions near Dundas than from alignment anywhere to the south. So the DRL outlined in the map may provide the best of both worlds, a line that completely dismisses the need for the 504 King Car (truncated Roncesvalles-King West and Broadview routes could still exist), and distributes loads of 501 Queen's/503 Kingston's suburban commuters over a number of stops vs dropping evryone off at a singular hub.

 

[Jupiter]

Wellington's the best alignment for the central core. However the further out one goes, the more relevant a Queen St Subway becomes to the discussion. This is why I strongly believe that the DRL should run along both corridors via Liberty Village and the West Don Lands:

I hope this map helps to clarify where I was coming from with my suggestions earlier, Jupiter.

This is the downtown core, virtually every station along the way would see a higher than average daily walk-in use than all the non-downtown subway stop locations. This is why I don't buy into the argument that a DRL needs less stops than doing the same commute via B-D and YUS to give a bulk of riders incentive to switch. Another matter, costs. Frankly any DRL will cost exorbiant amounts of money, but that's not an excuse to cut corners by buying it much too far away from the denser traditional parts of the city. I think ssiguy's point with a Queen Subway is that pedestrians might find it an easier walking distance south/north to Chinstown and other attractions near Dundas than from alignment anywhere to the south. So the DRL outlined in the map may provide the best of both worlds, a line that completely dismisses the need for the 504 King Car (truncated Roncesvalles-King West and Broadview routes could still exist), and distributes loads of 501 Queen's/503 Kingston's suburban commuters over a number of stops vs dropping evryone off at a singular hub.

The map actually looks pretty similar to mine, IMO. The only difference in the east is a stop at Queen and Carlaw rather than taking the rail corridor, and a stop at Sherbourne, which seems incredibly close to Jarvis. It wouldn't be the closest two stations in the system, but I don't think it's really needed nor would justify the cost. In the west, it takes the Queen West route I considered in the "route determination" section, and doesn't dip down to Bremner. Overall they're not a whole lot different, and I'm not entirely sure how my way would cut corners and miss dense parts of the city that this would hit, with Jameson being the one exception.

So in conclusion, I have nothing really against your map... cause I don't see it as being a lot different from my route.

 

[Fresh Start]

The spacings there are actually Bay, Church, Sherbourne and Trinity Sts to have one subway station every 600 metres and to minimize instances of overcrowding station entrances and walkways (via feeding more people into a single stop location vs. walk-in load distribution). No worries though, I just thought I'd throw that out there for your consideration.

 

[dunkalunk]

-A lot of the need for a Queen subway could be relieved by a new transit city Streetcar with better signal priority and reduced left turns from Queen.
-A lot of the demand for a railway alignment would be reduced by a high signal priority Waterfront LRT.
-As GO purchases more and more inner city lines, RER-type service on the Lakeshore and Weston lines becomes more of a possibility, reducing need for a DRL. (additional stations at Roncesvalles, Liberty Village, Cherry Street, and Carlaw)

If all of these projects come to pass, then Toronto would need something to fill the gap between 200m local service and 2-3km RER service. The decision that would have to be made is whether or not you'd want to build a new system on already tight transit corridors with well-used existing services, or pick another nearby corridor (Wellington/Front for example).

 

[Swarley]

Thank god someone finally raised this point. Any new subway line should be designed with the same degree of forward thinking that was incorporated into the plans for the Bloor Viaduct - we may be fine with a traditional 2 track subway line today, but a generation or two from now, there will be significantly more demand in the corridor.

Even 10 years ago, who could have predicted the scale of the condo boom? $1.50 for a litre of gas? Imagine what the city will be like if these trends continue for another 10 years or more. The future holds a lot of potential that in all likelihood will result in massive ridership increases. Most new subway lines through the inner city should have an express/local tunnel configuration.

It's easy for you to propose but it doesn't matter whether it's good planning or not, no government will EVER fund a quad track DRL. The chances of getting even a Danforth to University double track section look pretty slim right now.

 

[ssiguy2]

I also have an issue with tunneling in suburban areas. As far as I'm concerned outside of the original City of Toronto boundarie suchas Keele. All lines should be at grade or elevated. Torontonians have these aversion to at grade or elevated systems that the rest of the planet takes for granted. Its beliefs like that which have helped bring subway expansion in Toronto to a near halt for the last 30 years. Subways are much quieter than they use to be. The Canada Line which is standard Metro is very quiet and smooth. $3 billion for 8km in the burbs?...........outrageous! Frankly I wouldn't have given Toronto a nickel if I was at Queen's Park or in Ottawa. They could have elevated it or used the rail ROW north to roughly Steeles and head west to YorkU and saved themselves a small fortune. Those saving would have gone a long way for the beginnings of a DRL or Eglinton line.
If Torontonians want an extensive rapid/mass transit system then they better damn well get use to the idea that outside the original Toronto boundaries tunneling is not a consideration.

 

[Parkdalian]

After several months of research, writing, and coding, my project is finally ready.

I just wanted to say, great work! It's good to see someone putting a lot of thought into this issue.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Transit City is the wave of the future! A mark of C- for you

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

-A lot of the need for a Queen subway could be relieved by a new transit city Streetcar with better signal priority and reduced left turns from Queen.
-A lot of the demand for a railway alignment would be reduced by a high signal priority Waterfront LRT.
-As GO purchases more and more inner city lines, RER-type service on the Lakeshore and Weston lines becomes more of a possibility, reducing need for a DRL. (additional stations at Roncesvalles, Liberty Village, Cherry Street, and Carlaw)

If all of these projects come to pass, then Toronto would need something to fill the gap between 200m local service and 2-3km RER service. The decision that would have to be made is whether or not you'd want to build a new system on already tight transit corridors with well-used existing services, or pick another nearby corridor (Wellington/Front for example).

You may have a point in the west end as Dundas West Go station is fairly close to the DT core but in the east the nearest Go station (Main?) is quite a ways away from the core.

 

[kEiThZ]

Transit City is the wave of the future! A mark of C- for you

You're against the DRL too? Wow. Even most TC fans wouldn't be with you on that one.