Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

[44 North]

Except none of these extensions would be cheaper. I want you to think about this logically. Let's say we choose to replace the Yonge Line with a Light Metro extension. Problem #1 You now have to build an MSF for the line. Problem #2, you know have to build a new platform at Finch Station which really wouldn't be easy (unless you want to make a Cross Platform Transfer at Finch, but that would seriously reduce the capacity of Line 1). With just these 2 additions, you are now looking at a project that would be the same cost as the current subway extension, but let's continue. Forcing people to take a linear transfer at Finch would be absolutely ludicrous. If you're on the Steeles bus, that means instead of going straight to finch, you have to transfer at steeles, then take this light metro to Finch, then everyone transfers to Line 1, which is absolutely silly, and also dangerous. When you have a linear transfer, you are basically forcing all of the people riding on one line to transfer to the other line all at one, leaving people to rush to get from platform to platform. One of the biggest issues with the Scarborough LRT plan is that linear transfer. In 10 years, the Scarborough Line is projected to carry over 100 000 passengers per day, and imagine all of that traffic just stampeding down 3 floors at Kennedy as all of them rush to get on a train to Line 2. This is why linear transfers create so many problems.

Now one can make the argument that Line 1 should be extended to Steeles, but that's even worse since now you have to get 2 different TBMs, and at this point you get the literal opposite of economy of scale. Adding a light metro as a cheap way of extending a line has literally never worked. I can only think of a few places it has been done, and none of them have been successful. I'm looking at cities like Moscow, San Francisco, and hell we literally have the SRT here in Toronto, a line that was so bad that even though it terminated right next to the highway, Kennedy is still one of the biggest parking lot stations on the system simply because people don't want to deal with it, and just drive from the 401 to Kennedy. The Scarborough LRT wouldn't have fixed this. It would be wasting money on a line that is literally worse than a refurbished SRT.

The Ontario Line is a completely different story. Its a brand new line on a brand new corridor, that serves its own market of riders. Its not a tumour that sticks out at the end of another line, its a completely different service area. Using different rolling stocks is totally fine here. Same story would've been for a light Metro on Eglinton or Sheppard, had they been built with this technology at the start.

There are places to build MSFs. And these aren't one off extensions and the system's complete. They'll continue indefinitely and requests to extend further have been coming in for awhile. That's a lot of money that needs to be factored in.

So again using arguments on previous pages about: TR being oversized, ample unused capacity, not able to handle grades/turns, extreme depth, extreme costs, low density, etc - it makes sense to look at smaller-sized lines in place of suburban extension. Over time a network gets built. Compared with plus-size piecemeal extensions of a "bad" train that even in isolation are some of the planet's costliest transit projects, transitioning to another line is pretty logical. Does a transfer really nullify all your arguments against the TR and general issues of costly subways in this thread? Obviously not. They should still be true.

 

[ARG1]

There are places to build MSFs. And these aren't one off extensions and the system's complete. They'll continue indefinitely and requests to extend further have been coming in for awhile. That's a lot of money that needs to be factored in.

So again using arguments on previous pages about: TR being oversized, ample unused capacity, not able to handle grades/turns, extreme depth, extreme costs, low density, etc - it makes sense to look at smaller-sized lines in place of suburban extension. Over time a network gets built. Compared with plus-size piecemeal extensions of a "bad" train that even in isolation are some of the planet's costliest transit projects, transitioning to another line is pretty logical. Does a transfer really nullify all your arguments against the TR and general issues of costly subways in this thread? Obviously not. They should still be true.

Does a transfer really nullify all your arguments against the TR and general issues of costly subways in this thread? They absolutely do. Linear transfers are absolutely massive problems when it comes network design, and there is a reason why you almost never see them anywhere. Please I beg you, please name me a single time a city built a linear transfer in their subway network that was actually successful and wasn't considered to be an absolute bomb.

Now there is sort of an exception to this, those being natural termini and large scale transit hubs. This is where the line terminates in a massive regional hub, where connections can be made to many different services and lines, locations that act as massive funnels. The most important aspect of these termini is that traffic should not be primarily coming from one source. An example of this would be VMC, where traffic disperses to all sorts of directions, and people come in from different routes and services, coming from different directions. Maybe an argument could be made that most of the traffic is coming from the west, but I think that mostly has to do with Brampton Transit doing a much better job at providing high quality bus service compared to YRT. Compare VMC with... Finch, where there are some busses going west, some busses going east, but the vast majority of the traffic is coming in from the north.

I feel like people who aren't from North York don't know this, or don't grasp the situation that is going on at Yonge. The Yonge Street corridor between Steeles Avenue and Finch is the busiest bus corridor IN THE ENTIRE CITY. It is busier than Eglinton, it is busier than Finch West, it is THE BUSIEST CORRIDOR. If you stand along that section even during off peak hours, you will see a bus pass by every 30 seconds at least. The amount of traffic that corridor gets is absolutely insane. Finch Station is also the biggest and busiest park and ride at any TTC station in the entire network, the vast majority of which is filled with people travelling from York Region, and other areas north of the station. The amount of demand that the corridor has cannot be compared with many other areas on the network. As a result the extension under your proposal falls under a major dillema.

Situation 1: A light metro is built, and is hugely successful, successfully diverting all bus traffic onto it, whilst attracting a ton of new riders as well. You are now stuck with a linear transfer at Finch, where 10s of thousands of people are changing from train to train, causing a dangerous amount of overcrowding, and a situation where people are all at once flooding into subway trains, tripping each other over chokepoints.

Situation 2 (the more likely scenerio): A light metro is built, and is a complete bomb. The network is even more tedious to traverse than before, and the commutes of many people are even worse than before. Similar to the SRT, people start finding ways to avoid using this light metro. Drivers will continue to drive to finch and park there, meanwhile bus users prioritize taking busses that go straight to Finch instead of to the light metro (we see both of these situations with the SRT today, where many people take the Kennedy or Midland bus over the SRT, and despite Scarborough Centre being right next to the 401, many drivers purposefully avoid STC, and purposefully drive to Kennedy instead for their park and ride)..


I can tell you're desperately trying to play the whataboutism card here, and are trying to conflate our arguments with the Ontario Line and point them to places like SSE and YNSE. The fundamental problem you're failing to understand is that you are making an Apples to Oranges comparison. The factors that these 2 subway projects have to consider and have to take into account are entirely different to the Ontario Line, and thus pointing at these projects and asking why they get high capacity trains while the Ontario Line doesn't is a flawed discussion point and argument.

If you want to make an argument that the Ontario Line doesn't have enough capacity, make an argument about the Ontario Line not having enough capacity. That is something that I, and many others can agree with, and is something I do think is a genuine issue with the line. However don't start pointing at YNSE as if that argument means something. You go from sounding like you have a reasonable concern, to sounding completely ignorant to the realities of transit planning and network design.

 

[44 North]

Does a transfer really nullify all your arguments against the TR and general issues of costly subways in this thread? They absolutely do. Linear transfers are absolutely massive problems when it comes network design, and there is a reason why you almost never see them anywhere. Please I beg you, please name me a single time a city built a linear transfer in their subway network that was actually successful and wasn't considered to be an absolute bomb.

Now there is sort of an exception to this, those being natural termini and large scale transit hubs. This is where the line terminates in a massive regional hub, where connections can be made to many different services and lines, locations that act as massive funnels. The most important aspect of these termini is that traffic should not be primarily coming from one source. An example of this would be VMC, where traffic disperses to all sorts of directions, and people come in from different routes and services, coming from different directions. Maybe an argument could be made that most of the traffic is coming from the west, but I think that mostly has to do with Brampton Transit doing a much better job at providing high quality bus service compared to YRT. Compare VMC with... Finch, where there are some busses going west, some busses going east, but the vast majority of the traffic is coming in from the north.

I feel like people who aren't from North York don't know this, or don't grasp the situation that is going on at Yonge. The Yonge Street corridor between Steeles Avenue and Finch is the busiest bus corridor IN THE ENTIRE CITY. It is busier than Eglinton, it is busier than Finch West, it is THE BUSIEST CORRIDOR. If you stand along that section even during off peak hours, you will see a bus pass by every 30 seconds at least. The amount of traffic that corridor gets is absolutely insane. Finch Station is also the biggest and busiest park and ride at any TTC station in the entire network, the vast majority of which is filled with people travelling from York Region, and other areas north of the station. The amount of demand that the corridor has cannot be compared with many other areas on the network. As a result the extension under your proposal falls under a major dillema.

Situation 1: A light metro is built, and is hugely successful, successfully diverting all bus traffic onto it, whilst attracting a ton of new riders as well. You are now stuck with a linear transfer at Finch, where 10s of thousands of people are changing from train to train, causing a dangerous amount of overcrowding, and a situation where people are all at once flooding into subway trains, tripping each other over chokepoints.

Situation 2 (the more likely scenerio): A light metro is built, and is a complete bomb. The network is even more tedious to traverse than before, and the commutes of many people are even worse than before. Similar to the SRT, people start finding ways to avoid using this light metro. Drivers will continue to drive to finch and park there, meanwhile bus users prioritize taking busses that go straight to Finch instead of to the light metro (we see both of these situations with the SRT today, where many people take the Kennedy or Midland bus over the SRT, and despite Scarborough Centre being right next to the 401, many drivers purposefully avoid STC, and purposefully drive to Kennedy instead for their park and ride)..


I can tell you're desperately trying to play the whataboutism card here, and are trying to conflate our arguments with the Ontario Line and point them to places like SSE and YNSE. The fundamental problem you're failing to understand is that you are making an Apples to Oranges comparison. The factors that these 2 subway projects have to consider and have to take into account are entirely different to the Ontario Line, and thus pointing at these projects and asking why they get high capacity trains while the Ontario Line doesn't is a flawed discussion point and argument.

If you want to make an argument that the Ontario Line doesn't have enough capacity, make an argument about the Ontario Line not having enough capacity. That is something that I, and many others can agree with, and is something I do think is a genuine issue with the line. However don't start pointing at YNSE as if that argument means something. You go from sounding like you have a reasonable concern, to sounding completely ignorant to the realities of transit planning and network design.

Linear transfers are 'dangerous', they can't handle 100,000 over the day? St George handles a heck of lot more than that and it's linear. I already called out your double standard re: OL/RL, but this inability to have a transfer thing is pretty silly.

 

[KhalilHeron]

Linear transfers are 'dangerous', they can't handle 100,000 over the day? St George handles a heck of lot more than that and it's linear. I already called out your double standard re: OL/RL, but this inability to have a transfer thing is pretty silly.

... a linear transfer doesn't just mean the lines are parallel... it means you're forced to transfer while continuing in the same direction. St George is in no way a linear transfer. Kennedy is. If the Sheppard east lrt was built, don mills would be. sometimes linear transfers are necessary, sometimes they just slow down travel.

 

[44 North]

... a linear transfer doesn't just mean the lines are parallel... it means you're forced to transfer while continuing in the same direction. St George is in no way a linear transfer. Kennedy is. If the Sheppard east lrt was built, don mills would be. sometimes linear transfers are necessary, sometimes they just slow down travel.

Yes aware of the concept. But in response to arg's attempt at a technical analysis about why an aligned transfer creates a dangerous situation, St George works quite easily in refuting it.

Slowing down travel is a good example of the drawbacks of linear transfers - it dings ridership. No denying that. Similar about removing stations, or adding them, or bringing lines away from the main roadway. What I try to weigh is where the benefits lie with the introduction of a transfer / transition to a diff system. Not a bus or surface LRT, but a similar system. I believe longer term there ways to recoup that dinged ridership and then some, and also save money. Using a lot of the same logic in this thread re: OL. Studies on Line 3 provide ok info in that regard but elsewhere a bit more nebulous since it's never been looked at.

 

[KhalilHeron]

Yes aware of the concept. But in response to arg's attempt at a technical analysis about why an aligned transfer creates a dangerous situation, St George works quite easily in refuting it.

Slowing down travel is a good example of the drawbacks of linear transfers - it dings ridership. No denying that. Similar about removing stations, or adding them, or bringing lines away from the main roadway. What I try to weigh is where the benefits lie with the introduction of a transfer / transition to a diff system. Not a bus or surface LRT, but a similar system. I believe longer term there ways to recoup that dinged ridership and then some, and also save money. Using a lot of the same logic in this thread re: OL. Studies on Line 3 provide ok info in that regard but elsewhere a bit more nebulous since it's never been looked at.

They're not talking about aligned parallel transfers. They're talking about linear transfers, which St George is not an example of.

 

[syn]

... a linear transfer doesn't just mean the lines are parallel... it means you're forced to transfer while continuing in the same direction. St George is in no way a linear transfer. Kennedy is. If the Sheppard east lrt was built, don mills would be. sometimes linear transfers are necessary, sometimes they just slow down travel.

But Kennedy isn't. You're going almost directly north.

I've never seen it as any different than transferring at St. George to go north or south.

Spending many billions of dollars to eliminate this particular transfer clearly seems like a poor use of available resources.

 

[EnviroTO]

Could Ontario Line trains not fit in the Line 1 and 2 tunnels? TTC procures replacement trains every decade so if Ontario Line is the solution then it can be applied to the end of the lines.

The problem I have with transit plans that exist now is that there is no clear answer that says "for minimizing impact to communities with V characteristics the solution is W, for capacity X the right technology is Y, and the best place for a transfer of modes is at a point like Z". Instead is seem clearly political and piecemeal.

 

[rbt]

Could Ontario Line trains not fit in the Line 1 and 2 tunnels? TTC procures replacement trains every decade so if Ontario Line is the solution then it can be applied to the end of the lines.

They would probably require non-trivial modifications.

Ontario Line trains will almost certainly be using overhead electrical feed, a different voltage than Line1/2, and standard gauge track. They're also a different width, meaning a gap at platforms may exist.

Also, neither TTC or Metrolinx will own the Ontario Line trains (if I understood the limited information available about the tender correctly); so using them on another line would involve some type of purchase agreement.

 

[EnviroTO]

I don't mean identical trains. Every transit authority seems to get something with a suite of standard technologies and components, plus some unique design aspects. I mean equipment substantially the same. The Flexity streetcars we have have trolley pole, pantograph, TTC guage, and ability to handle single point switches... but they have shared components with the Flexity Outlook product line. I would think that there is no real reason to not have a technically similar train set on Lines 1-3 as on the Ontario Line if the Ontario Line equipment is "better". There are a number of lines that handle a mix of third rail and pantograph. People pitch Ontario Line vehicles as better across all measures... so why stick with TR at all? It seems like we are married to the built infrastructure, not the rolling stock.

 

[ARG1]

But Kennedy isn't. You're going almost directly north.

I've never seen it as any different than transferring at St. George to go north or south.

Spending many billions of dollars to eliminate this particular transfer clearly seems like a poor use of available resources.

https://imgur.com/6JdbfAS

Considering where the final destination is, its basically the same direction.

Linear transfers are 'dangerous', they can't handle 100,000 over the day? St George handles a heck of lot more than that and it's linear. I already called out your double standard re: OL/RL, but this inability to have a transfer thing is pretty silly.

Yes aware of the concept. But in response to arg's attempt at a technical analysis about why an aligned transfer creates a dangerous situation, St George works quite easily in refuting it.

Slowing down travel is a good example of the drawbacks of linear transfers - it dings ridership. No denying that. Similar about removing stations, or adding them, or bringing lines away from the main roadway. What I try to weigh is where the benefits lie with the introduction of a transfer / transition to a diff system. Not a bus or surface LRT, but a similar system. I believe longer term there ways to recoup that dinged ridership and then some, and also save money. Using a lot of the same logic in this thread re: OL. Studies on Line 3 provide ok info in that regard but elsewhere a bit more nebulous since it's never been looked at.

The question ultimately is where is the traffic coming from. 1st, St. George was designed to be an interchange station, Finch was not. Second, St. George has a reason to be an interchange station, Finch does not. St. George is the intersection between a major north south line and a major east west line. Traffic is inevitable, and even then St. George itself should not be used as an example of a well designed interchange station. The stairs are very narrow and platform crowding is a serious issue. The only reason you want a transfer at Finch Station is because you want to save money, money that won't actually be saved in the long run due to the need to build more stations and invest in a ton of new rolling stock for Yonge North.

With your Finch idea, the vast majority of the passengers at that station will be going from one terminus to the other. Any paid transit network planner would tell you that this is horrendous transit network design and that it should be scrapped in the first draft. YOU DO NOT PUT LINEAR TRANSFERS IN RANDOM OFF THE BEAT STATIONS LIKE FINCH. Finch is only a regional hub because it was where the planners of the 70s chose to end the subway. As a regional hub it is absolutely horrendously placed and does not do a good job to connect with other lines (hell Kennedy is way better than Finch in this regard due to the GO train, and even then its not that great). There are no regional rail lines, highways, or any form of infrastructure that permits it to be a well designed regional hub. A lot of GO busses travel to Finch Station from the 401 GO bus corridor, and to do so they travel 3km along Yonge Street where they pass by 2 subway stations before reaching Finch. The only way that Finch works as a hub is maybe eventually Line 6 could be extended there which isn't that much. The vast majority of passengers will be flooding in from the North, especially in 30 years time when the 407 Transitway is built, RHC densifies, and now you have a ton of regional travelers + the massive amount of future traffic as well as existing traffic funneling through this light Metro, and you have a recipe for what would be seen as what happens when you cut corners and build linear transfers for "extensions". All of this because you wanted to save, maybe at best, half a billion dollars, or 10% of the cost.

 

[Steve X]

Does a transfer really nullify all your arguments against the TR and general issues of costly subways in this thread? They absolutely do. Linear transfers are absolutely massive problems when it comes network design, and there is a reason why you almost never see them anywhere. Please I beg you, please name me a single time a city built a linear transfer in their subway network that was actually successful and wasn't considered to be an absolute bomb.

Now there is sort of an exception to this, those being natural termini and large scale transit hubs. This is where the line terminates in a massive regional hub, where connections can be made to many different services and lines, locations that act as massive funnels. The most important aspect of these termini is that traffic should not be primarily coming from one source. An example of this would be VMC, where traffic disperses to all sorts of directions, and people come in from different routes and services, coming from different directions. Maybe an argument could be made that most of the traffic is coming from the west, but I think that mostly has to do with Brampton Transit doing a much better job at providing high quality bus service compared to YRT. Compare VMC with... Finch, where there are some busses going west, some busses going east, but the vast majority of the traffic is coming in from the north.

I feel like people who aren't from North York don't know this, or don't grasp the situation that is going on at Yonge. The Yonge Street corridor between Steeles Avenue and Finch is the busiest bus corridor IN THE ENTIRE CITY. It is busier than Eglinton, it is busier than Finch West, it is THE BUSIEST CORRIDOR. If you stand along that section even during off peak hours, you will see a bus pass by every 30 seconds at least. The amount of traffic that corridor gets is absolutely insane. Finch Station is also the biggest and busiest park and ride at any TTC station in the entire network, the vast majority of which is filled with people travelling from York Region, and other areas north of the station. The amount of demand that the corridor has cannot be compared with many other areas on the network. As a result the extension under your proposal falls under a major dillema.

Situation 1: A light metro is built, and is hugely successful, successfully diverting all bus traffic onto it, whilst attracting a ton of new riders as well. You are now stuck with a linear transfer at Finch, where 10s of thousands of people are changing from train to train, causing a dangerous amount of overcrowding, and a situation where people are all at once flooding into subway trains, tripping each other over chokepoints.

Situation 2 (the more likely scenerio): A light metro is built, and is a complete bomb. The network is even more tedious to traverse than before, and the commutes of many people are even worse than before. Similar to the SRT, people start finding ways to avoid using this light metro. Drivers will continue to drive to finch and park there, meanwhile bus users prioritize taking busses that go straight to Finch instead of to the light metro (we see both of these situations with the SRT today, where many people take the Kennedy or Midland bus over the SRT, and despite Scarborough Centre being right next to the 401, many drivers purposefully avoid STC, and purposefully drive to Kennedy instead for their park and ride)..


I can tell you're desperately trying to play the whataboutism card here, and are trying to conflate our arguments with the Ontario Line and point them to places like SSE and YNSE. The fundamental problem you're failing to understand is that you are making an Apples to Oranges comparison. The factors that these 2 subway projects have to consider and have to take into account are entirely different to the Ontario Line, and thus pointing at these projects and asking why they get high capacity trains while the Ontario Line doesn't is a flawed discussion point and argument.

If you want to make an argument that the Ontario Line doesn't have enough capacity, make an argument about the Ontario Line not having enough capacity. That is something that I, and many others can agree with, and is something I do think is a genuine issue with the line. However don't start pointing at YNSE as if that argument means something. You go from sounding like you have a reasonable concern, to sounding completely ignorant to the realities of transit planning and network design.

If that happens. It’s time for relief line 2 or a real smarttrack line. Ontario Line is not the final line and never will be. Calm down.

 

[ARG1]

If that happens. It’s time for relief line 2 or a real smarttrack line. Ontario Line is not the final line and never will be. Calm down.

uh, I feel like you're responding to the wrong person, I completely agree with this point lol. I'm arguing against 44 North's idea to make YNSE a separate light metro line...

 

[44 North]

https://imgur.com/6JdbfAS

Considering where the final destination is, its basically the same direction.



The question ultimately is where is the traffic coming from. 1st, St. George was designed to be an interchange station, Finch was not. Second, St. George has a reason to be an interchange station, Finch does not. St. George is the intersection between a major north south line and a major east west line. Traffic is inevitable, and even then St. George itself should not be used as an example of a well designed interchange station. The stairs are very narrow and platform crowding is a serious issue. The only reason you want a transfer at Finch Station is because you want to save money, money that won't actually be saved in the long run due to the need to build more stations and invest in a ton of new rolling stock for Yonge North.

With your Finch idea, the vast majority of the passengers at that station will be going from one terminus to the other. Any paid transit network planner would tell you that this is horrendous transit network design and that it should be scrapped in the first draft. YOU DO NOT PUT LINEAR TRANSFERS IN RANDOM OFF THE BEAT STATIONS LIKE FINCH. Finch is only a regional hub because it was where the planners of the 70s chose to end the subway. As a regional hub it is absolutely horrendously placed and does not do a good job to connect with other lines (hell Kennedy is way better than Finch in this regard due to the GO train, and even then its not that great). There are no regional rail lines, highways, or any form of infrastructure that permits it to be a well designed regional hub. A lot of GO busses travel to Finch Station from the 401 GO bus corridor, and to do so they travel 3km along Yonge Street where they pass by 2 subway stations before reaching Finch. The only way that Finch works as a hub is maybe eventually Line 6 could be extended there which isn't that much. The vast majority of passengers will be flooding in from the North, especially in 30 years time when the 407 Transitway is built, RHC densifies, and now you have a ton of regional travelers + the massive amount of future traffic as well as existing traffic funneling through this light Metro, and you have a recipe for what would be seen as what happens when you cut corners and build linear transfers for "extensions". All of this because you wanted to save, maybe at best, half a billion dollars, or 10% of the cost.

Didn't go into details about Finch being the station or not, but regardless bus->station transfers could happen little diff than with an extension.

Costs again need to be weighted with what's on the table semi-officially or logically. You mentioned 30yrs out. In that we have YR's tmp with Line 1 extended to or beyond Major Mack, both sides of the U (that's in 20yrs). Sheppard even if funded to McCowan still leaves much of Scarb short, so possibly UTSC. Line 2 maybe to Malvern. These are big costs and somewhat real expectations for extensions. Would a smaller more modern system reduce costs? I think so. Def more than $0.5bn.

 

[Deadpool X]

Linear transfers are 'dangerous', they can't handle 100,000 over the day? St George handles a heck of lot more than that and it's linear. I already called out your double standard re: OL/RL, but this inability to have a transfer thing is pretty silly.

Don't mind me saying this but if you are giving St. George as an example of linear transfer, then I think you should stop discussing and derailing the thread. I'll suggest reading more about linear transfers first, otherwise this discussion will keep going in an endless loop.

Also, applicable to those who think Kennedy is not a linear transfer because Line 3 heads north.