Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

[Allandale25]

I noticed this comment on Steve Munro's blog post about the Ontario Line open houses:

Ming | January 10, 2020 at 5:57 pm
Metrolinx hasn’t been very forthcoming about the fact that the Ontario Line involves the construction of a giant 15m tall wall through east Toronto. How are people supposed to comment if Metrolinx won’t even provide an artist rendering? I’ve tried making some rough visualizations of it myself though.

The website is here with the visuals of what this person thinks the OL will look like:

Ontario Line: a Giant 15m Wall through East Toronto?

Toronto's subways are over capacity, so it needs a new subway line to carry all the passengers, particularly one in downtown to provide reli...

my2iu.blogspot.com

 

[Steve X]

I noticed this comment on Steve Munro's blog post about the Ontario Line open houses:



The website is here with the visuals of what this person thinks the OL will look like:

Ontario Line: a Giant 15m Wall through East Toronto?

Toronto's subways are over capacity, so it needs a new subway line to carry all the passengers, particularly one in downtown to provide reli...

my2iu.blogspot.com

One thing for sure is they will never build the OL structure over a pedestrian bridge. They'll take it down and built a new over over it especially considering Gerrard Square will need access to the new OL and GO station. There would be elevators for accessibility so height won't be a huge problem. The OL at the worst would be a 8m wall and 12m over any street that requires double decking.

 

[Leo_Chan]

One thing for sure is they will never build the OL structure over a pedestrian bridge. They'll take it down and built a new over over it especially considering Gerrard Square will need access to the new OL and GO station. There would be elevators for accessibility so height won't be a huge problem. The OL at the worst would be a 8m wall and 12m over any street that requires double decking.

At what point do pedestrian tunnels make more sense?

 

[chinesehorse]

Please scan more pics and put on here!

The plan studied several different options, including elevated and underground options of the recommended route (Pape Ave. to Eastern Ave. to railway corridor to Front St. to the intersection of Spadina Ave. and Front St.) Here's a plan showing a conceptual elevated alignment at Union Station. Yuck:

Ewww:

Conceptual elevated alignment near the convention centre. Ultimately, the study recommended the underground alignment because of the "unacceptable [...] visual impacts and reduction of pavement and sidewalks lengths":

Conceptual underground alignment at Union Station:

"Pape & Lipton Ave. Station" plans:

The study also analyzed potential routes. Interesting that a Bay St. route was examined. It was to be an underground extension of the Harbourfront streetcar (stops at King, Queen, Dundas, College, Wellesley, and Bloor), but was rejected because of the ineffectiveness in long-term relief of both the Bloor-Danforth and Yonge-University subway lines. The study notes that a subway on Bay St. was also considered in the study but difficulties connecting the tracks to the existing lines, and the lack of a yard if the subway was built with no connections to the existing subway meant that it was a non-starter.

 

[JSF-1]

The plan studied several different options, including elevated and underground options of the recommended route (Pape Ave. to Eastern Ave. to railway corridor to Front St. to the intersection of Spadina Ave. and Front St.) Here's a plan showing a conceptual elevated alignment at Union Station. Yuck:

View attachment 225356

Ewww:

View attachment 225358

Conceptual elevated alignment near the convention centre. Ultimately, the study recommended the underground alignment because of the "unacceptable [...] visual impacts and reduction of pavement and sidewalks lengths":

View attachment 225359

Conceptual underground alignment at Union Station:

View attachment 225353

"Pape & Lipton Ave. Station" plans:

View attachment 225355

The study also analyzed potential routes. Interesting that a Bay St. route was examined. It was to be an underground extension of the Harbourfront streetcar (stops at King, Queen, Dundas, College, Wellesley, and Bloor), but was rejected because of the ineffectiveness in long-term relief of both the Bloor-Danforth and Yonge-University subway lines. The study notes that a subway on Bay St. was also considered in the study but difficulties connecting the tracks to the existing lines, and the lack of a yard if the subway was built with no connections to the existing subway meant that it was a non-starter.

View attachment 225354

That Union stations plan is horrifically bad. If they wanted to go elevated at Union why didn't they consdier putting the platform out back alongside the rest of the rail infrastructure?

 

[smallspy]

That Union stations plan is horrifically bad. If they wanted to go elevated at Union why didn't they consdier putting the platform out back alongside the rest of the rail infrastructure?

Because then the connection to the existing subway station and the then-future LRT platform at Union would have been horrific.

Dan

 

[robmausser]

That Union stations plan is horrifically bad. If they wanted to go elevated at Union why didn't they consdier putting the platform out back alongside the rest of the rail infrastructure?

Thats exactly what I was thinking

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Thats exactly what I was thinking

That's also not where the financial core is at the time - the area is nothing like the way it is now.

AoD

 

[M II A II R II K]

Or build the stations on the rooftop of Union to be accessed from the building itself.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The plan studied several different options, including elevated and underground options of the recommended route (Pape Ave. to Eastern Ave. to railway corridor to Front St. to the intersection of Spadina Ave. and Front St.) Here's a plan showing a conceptual elevated alignment at Union Station. Yuck:

View attachment 225356

Ewww:

View attachment 225358

Conceptual elevated alignment near the convention centre. Ultimately, the study recommended the underground alignment because of the "unacceptable [...] visual impacts and reduction of pavement and sidewalks lengths":

View attachment 225359

Conceptual underground alignment at Union Station:

View attachment 225353

"Pape & Lipton Ave. Station" plans:

View attachment 225355

The study also analyzed potential routes. Interesting that a Bay St. route was examined. It was to be an underground extension of the Harbourfront streetcar (stops at King, Queen, Dundas, College, Wellesley, and Bloor), but was rejected because of the ineffectiveness in long-term relief of both the Bloor-Danforth and Yonge-University subway lines. The study notes that a subway on Bay St. was also considered in the study but difficulties connecting the tracks to the existing lines, and the lack of a yard if the subway was built with no connections to the existing subway meant that it was a non-starter.

View attachment 225354

What was the capacity of this proposal? It's using the same cars as the SRT, which has a capacity of under 5,000 pphpd under four-car transits. The trains depicted in this image are larger, utilizing 6-car sets, but even then that is a capacity of under 7,500 pphpd. The ICTS trains shown here take up the full length of the station platforms, so it's not even like they planned the stations with room for longer trains, as we've done with Line 4. But even if we were able to double the length of these stations (probably an impossible task), that's still a capacity of under 15,000 pphpd.

I question if the ICTS Relief Line proposal even had the capacity necessary to get the line up to Eglinton/Don Mills (as depicted in the map), let alone any future extensions along Don Mills towards Sheppard.

This plan seems incredibly short sighted, unless there's something about the capacity that I'm missing. If not for the recession and drop in transit ridership in the 80s/90s, we'd need to be supplementing the capacity of this proposal with either expensive retrofits, or a whole new Relief Line, just years after this would've opened.

Can you confirm the length of the underground platforms in these plans, @chinesehorse. The pic is a bit too low resolution to resolve those details

 

[chinesehorse]

What was the capacity of this proposal? It's using the same cars as the SRT, which has a capacity of under 5,000 pphpd under four-car transits. The trains depicted in this image are larger, utilizing 6-car sets, but even then that is a capacity of under 7,500 pphpd. The ICTS trains shown here take up the full length of the station platforms, so it's not even like they planned the stations with room for longer trains, as we've done with Line 4. But even if we were able to double the length of these stations (probably an impossible task), that's still a capacity of under 15,000 pphpd.

I question if the ICTS Relief Line proposal even had the capacity necessary to get the line up to Eglinton/Don Mills (as depicted in the map), let alone any future extensions along Don Mills towards Sheppard.

This plan seems incredibly short sighted, unless there's something about the capacity that I'm missing. If not for the recession and drop in transit ridership in the 80s/90s, we'd need to be supplementing the capacity of this proposal with either expensive retrofits, or a whole new Relief Line, just years after this would've opened.

Can you confirm the length of the underground platforms in these plans, @chinesehorse. The pic is a bit too low resolution to resolve those details

The study "assumed an ICTS technology to provide a framework for geometric planning and environmental impact evaluation", and that "with a limited number of changes in geometry a subway technology could be readily adopted."

In the ICTS section of the description of technology options, it mentions either use of the vehicles we have today on the Scarborough RT or the longer and wider vehicles proposed for the then planned GO ALRT lines. Their numbers say that a line capacity of 18,000 pph using six Scarborough RT style trains at a headway of 90 seconds could be achieved, and a line capacity of 30,600 pph using six GO ALRT style trains running at a headway of 120 seconds. The forecast ridership at the time of the study predicted 18,000 pph on a "peak season basis" by 2001.

The cross-section of the proposed Pape-Lipton Avenue station suggests a platform length of 140 meters, as does the Union Station cross section.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

In the ICTS section of the description of technology options, it mentions either use of the vehicles we have today on the Scarborough RT or the longer and wider vehicles proposed for the then planned GO ALRT lines. Their numbers say that a line capacity of 18,000 pph using six Scarborough RT style trains at a headway of 90 seconds could be achieved

Well 90 second headways are totally unachievable on transit lines with high utilization rates. Metrolinx is peddling a similar lie with the Ontario Line, claiming that unachievable 90 second headways would provide adequate capacity.

Realistic headways on the ICTS Relief Line would've been around 120 seconds, which would've provided for a capacity of 13,500 pphpd. That's way, way under capacity, and if not for the sudden drop in transit ridership over the 90s, this ICTS proposal would've needed to either be rebuilt or supplemented with a new line very shortly after opening (likely within a decade). The Ontario Line will be in a similar situation within its first 10 or 20 years (so, around 2040), unless Toronto's transit ridership and population growth craters. Toronto is currently set to add 1 Million people by 2040.

and a line capacity of 30,600 pph using six GO ALRT style trains running at a headway of 120 seconds

Now this actually sounds realistic. Had this been built, I'd hope we'd be wise enough to opt for this option

 

[rbt]

Well 90 second headways are totally unachievable on transit lines with high utilization rates.

I don't think that works as a general statement.

It might apply here, in North America, but there are locations with very high ridership, reliable 90 second headways, and manually driven trains (Moscow for example).

That said, Metrolinx will surely be tendering for an expected passenger capacity and quality of service (typical trip time, etc.) rather than for a 90 second kit. The important piece is how we measure quality of service and penalties for not meeting those obligations. Hard part about service contracts is allowing complications like emergency stop use without letting the vender say such events are "not our responsibility and don't apply to capacity/quality calculations".

 

[smallspy]

Well 90 second headways are totally unachievable on transit lines with high utilization rates.

SELTRAC is easily capable of that, and better, should the track configuration allow. A lot of the ATC/ATO products on the market can, too.

Hell, even the crappy old fixed-block signalling system on the Toronto subway can achieve that in sections, and for short spurts.

Dan

 

[Allandale25]

^ I've seen this concern before. Why do some believe 90-second headways aren't possible? What's the challenge to meeting them if the technology is available? Crowding?