Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

Very few people will switch from the subway to a Don Mills-downtown-Jane streetcar, so running looong vehicles may not be necessary. There may be no overcrowding, just a multi-billion dollar price tag for an underused, partially underground line. Nice.
 
Use your imagination! Just think if the Toronto planners of the 1940s had built a streetcar subway on Yonge. Streetcars could have travelled north up Yonge and branched out across the city. Imagine it... streetcars boarding downtown, heading north, then leaving the tunnel offering a single-seat ride east and west across Bloor, St. Clair, Eglinton, Lawrence.

It would have been convenient and comfortable!

It also would have been unreliable, expensive, insanely overcrowded within a few years of opening, and likely would have limited the growth of the downtown core.
 
Still no response from W.K. Lis. You write about how many streetcars to use as if it's a fait accompli. Why streetcars? Think about it. Why shouldn't this line use the subway technology that has been so successful in Toronto, especially on a line that would be completely grade-separated anyway? Why would we use vehicles that are 25% narrower than Toronto's existing subway trains? Longer stations are a hell of a lot more expensive than wider ones.

As you said, a single subway car carries 315 people. According to the Bomber, the streetcars we're ordering can carry 246. Again, as you said, a standard six-car subway train can carry 1,890 people. Five LRV cars, which would be longer than the 6-car subway train (meaning more expensive stations), could only carry 1,230 people.

But wait, there's more! The new subway cars cost about $2.9 million apiece. The new LRVs with (being generous) approximately the same capacity as a subway car will cost $6.8 million apiece. The economies of light rail!
 
Grade-separated? Puh-leeze. A W.K. Lis version of the DRL would be at grade for most of Jane and Don Mills, so that people at Wynford waiting to go north will be delayed because of bunching southbound on Jane at Finch. And since long streetcar routes work so well in this city, W.K Lis' silly streetcar line would be a wonderful 45km long!

edit - of course, the Don Mills and Jane lines may not run straight downtown...which means an underground LRT with Pape to Dundas West terminii *would* be grade-separated, but would also require transferring...which removes the relief component entirely for people coming from the Don Mills and Jane stretches. People from the Bloor or Danforth lines would transfer either way, but why spend several billion on an underground LRT when a subway line can do the same thing with tried and tested technology, capacity to handle the huge crowds the line could see, and overall simplicity and reliability?

RedRocket191 said:
Seeing as he hasn't been active on the forum in the last 24 hours, I'm not sure how pointing out that he hasn't responded proves anything...
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Uh, he did post after unimaginative's "why LRT?" question, but didn't answer it. Twice, actually.
 
RedRocket191 said:
24 hours = my bad. All i'm saying is that he isn't here now.
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So what? Perhaps if unimaginative asks him a third time, he might respond. If such a simple question about LRT can't be answered by someone who regularly extolls the virtues of LRT, perhaps we should think twice about spending at least $8 billion on the stuff.
 
There is an article about west-end travel options in the current edition of the Liberty Gleaner. The DRL is discussed in an interview with me as are some other options. Unfortunately, the Gleaner does not have a website, otherwise I'd link it here. There are copies available all over the west end though.

Geeks...Is there a way to easily upload a .PDF somewhere? If so, let me know and I'll link it!
 
Darkstar416 said:
There is an article about west-end travel options in the current edition of the Liberty Gleaner. The DRL is discussed in an interview with me as our some other options. Unfortunately, the Gleaner does not have a website, otherwise I'd link it here. There are copies available all over the west end though.

Geeks...Is there a way to easily upload a .PDF somewhere? If so, let me know and I'll link it!
Click to expand...

I got the file down from 613kb to 22kb, but that's STILL to big to upload to UT. I could save it as a GIF and post it that way, but there's a height and width limitation on GIF files.
 
I can host stuff files gttavisions.com if you guys like, but you'll have to email me the file
 
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