Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s

Did they, though? Michael Schabas is also the same man behind the hydrogen push at Metrolinx. And the high-speed railway alignment to London that was infamously "researched" via Google Maps. I would be highly skeptical of anything he suggests without another party thoroughly verifying his research.

Same brilliant guy that introduced SmartTrack and insisted it eliminated the need for the Relief Line.

Why do politicians keep listening to this guy?
 
I am assuming you are speaking of the Gerrard-O'Connor stretch of the OL alignment as I doubt this would be much of an issue for the hard rock tunneled portions downtown. From a settlement standpoint, if you had say... a volume loss between 0.5% and 2.5% I could see an increase in tunnel diameter being a bit of an issue here. I must admit I haven't looked into it though so it would be hard for me to say the extent. Going deeper could help avoid that, but merely shifts the costs elsewhere.

I am also a fan of using GWY as a intermediate yard for staging. I personally was of the opinion that the RLN extension would likely have a new yard built for it, merely using GWY as a stepping stone.
I'm really speaking for the entire downtown section, Exhibition to East Harbor. Soil settlement isn't really a big issue there, yes, but clearances still exist. We are tunneling under/between 2 active subway lines, PATH, and a network of sewers, watermains, gas lines, and oil lines we haven't fully mapped. Vibration concerns/dynamic loading on these existing structures is a huge cause for concern, so in this case, you're probably right that it won't be worth it building the subway at a higher elevation without utilizing cut & cover. That being said, there is still the possibility that it might be cheaper to tunnel a few meters higher using a narrower tunnel while incurring the risks of damage to existing infrastructure, so it can't be ruled out altogether (during initial design phases).

Regardless, if the IBC of the Relief line stated that it was best to deep bore this thing, the OL will have to be deep bored as well, especially if the tunnels are wider.
 
Same brilliant guy that introduced SmartTrack and insisted it eliminated the need for the Relief Line.

Why do politicians keep listening to this guy?


I don't think many people liked the Smarttrack plan, he was just the best option to beat Rob then Doug at the ballot. Aside from his bad transit plane when lets face it we have not had a good one since David Miller, he has been doing a pretty good job representing our city as Mayor. Olivia Chow screwed up her campaign, she should have been the mayor.
 
To the point the Ontario line is superior to RL and RL north planning and that it's lower capacity is a non-issue. Of course RL planning was predicated on using the same rolling stock/gauge as existing TTC subway and hence why using Greenwood made sense. I am not suggesting RL was a flawless plan, but blindly endorsing it's replacement and accepting all of Metrolinx/Ford government's argument that it is superior is troubling. And beyond all that the planning of the Ontario line being planned in secret and unsurped all the consultative work the TTC did is even more troubling.

OL has the superior alignment. What was at King and Sumach that needed a RL stop there so badly? At least Parliament's a major corridor.
 
That's the "myth of fiscal conservatism". See link.
I realize property tax calculations are complex, but a while back I found a website calculator for Toronto (I think the real estate board or a realtor, or something). I plugged in my assessed value and it came out about the same as it apparently would be in Toronto. I live in a township that has no transit (the County recently started a limited service), No major expressways, no sanitary waste system and a few small municipal water systems (I realize this is a separate line item in Toronto) and a volunteer fire department that will come and hose down your foundation.

Isn't that silly? You should be assessed lower. That proves that Toronto's taxes are too low and should be raised. It won't as it will be political suicide. However, it is needed.
 
Isn't that silly? You should be assessed lower. That proves that Toronto's taxes are too low and should be raised. It won't as it will be political suicide. However, it is needed.

If course the flipside to Toronto's low homeowners property taxes is Toronto's unaffordable, astromically high rental units. The poor non homeowners get gouged whereas owners profit and benefit from the liquidity of their homes. Where's the justice in that?
 
If course the flipside to Toronto's low homeowners property taxes is Toronto's unaffordable, astromically high rental units. The poor non homeowners get gouged whereas owners profit and benefit from the liquidity of their homes. Where's the justice in that?

That is another problem with the low tax rate.it makes things seem as investments instead of homes.
 
I was clearing my downloads folder on my laptop (as per quarantine induced boredom) and stumbled upon this timeline for the Relief Line.

1584669268413.png


Really goes to show how much we dropped the ball on the Relief Line. Construction phase pushed out to 2025? I don't think I fully grasped how disappointing that was back in April 2018 when this document was released.
 
I was clearing my downloads folder on my laptop (as per quarantine induced boredom) and stumbled upon this timeline for the Relief Line.

View attachment 237093

Really goes to show how much we dropped the ball on the Relief Line. Construction phase pushed out to 2025? I don't think I fully grasped how disappointing that was back in April 2018 when this document was released.
But at least the Relief Line was being planned carefully and thoroughly with the capacity at mind. I would've taken that over a rushed line that will quickly reach capacity.
 
I'm really speaking for the entire downtown section, Exhibition to East Harbor. Soil settlement isn't really a big issue there, yes, but clearances still exist. We are tunneling under/between 2 active subway lines, PATH, and a network of sewers, watermains, gas lines, and oil lines we haven't fully mapped. Vibration concerns/dynamic loading on these existing structures is a huge cause for concern, so in this case, you're probably right that it won't be worth it building the subway at a higher elevation without utilizing cut & cover. That being said, there is still the possibility that it might be cheaper to tunnel a few meters higher using a narrower tunnel while incurring the risks of damage to existing infrastructure, so it can't be ruled out altogether (during initial design phases).

Regardless, if the IBC of the Relief line stated that it was best to deep bore this thing, the OL will have to be deep bored as well, especially if the tunnels are wider.
Yes, you are correct that there are a lot of additional concerns through the downtown section when compared to the eastern portion of the line. To the best of my personal knowledge, clearances through the downtown stretch on most utilities would be quite good if the OL is at a similar depth to the RLS. Boring through rock beneath the downtown would be easy compared to the eastern portion which is likely in soil. I'd expect an order of magnitude or so of difference in settlement between the two. A tenth of an inch vs an inch of settlement can change a lot when dealing with utilities.

I'd imagine that the downtown portion of the line should be deep enough to avoid most interactions with utilities with the possible exception of the Enwave tunnels. It is my understanding that Enwave has large-bore tunnels that are quite deep in the area, and of course the interactions with these large tunnels would be more severe than any smaller utility tunnels. There's also likely some very stringent clearances and settlement regulations for high pressure water/steam lines like that. You might be able to shave off a bit of clearance to the Enwave tunnels by using a smaller diameter bore, but you would probably save more by moving the alignment to avoid being directly beneath them. If moving an alignment over by 20 m and up by a couple metres saves more than reducing the bore diameter by 0.2m, then the bore diameter is not as much of a concern.

I wouldn't be surprised if the OL alignment ended up being offset from the Enwave tunnels, which I believe lay near the centre of the roads. I'm not entirely sure what the distribution of the Enwave system is in this area so it would be great if someone could correct me. Offsetting the alignment could also save on the amount of property acquisition required for stations, as you could build a station off to the side of the road, only needing to build small accessory tunnels to reach the opposite sides. This has been used by the TTC before and makes quite a bit of sense here considering a TBM does not necessarily need to follow the surface features in the area.

In regards to stations, given that an interchange will likely be built beneath Line 1, special care would probably be taken to underpin them regardless of the tunnel diameter. As I've discussed previously, I'd think this would be a much larger issue in areas where the previous stations have been cast-in-place in soil. For the downtown portion of the line, I don't forsee any issues tunnelling beneath the stations, as this would be easily overtaken by issues caused by mining stations out beneath them regardless.
 
In regards to stations, given that an interchange will likely be built beneath Line 1, special care would probably be taken to underpin them regardless of the tunnel diameter. As I've discussed previously, I'd think this would be a much larger issue in areas where the previous stations have been cast-in-place in soil. For the downtown portion of the line, I don't forsee any issues tunnelling beneath the stations, as this would be easily overtaken by issues caused by mining stations out beneath them regardless.

Osgoode was underpinned when it was built in the 60s which was pretty forward thinking. Small potatoes, but still a bonus. Would've been smart if Pape was too. But I think there's decent room to create an interchange without problem. We should just buy up much of the block, tear down, and upsize it afterward.
 
Osgoode was underpinned when it was built in the 60s which was pretty forward thinking. Small potatoes, but still a bonus. Would've been smart if Pape was too. But I think there's decent room to create an interchange without problem. We should just buy up much of the block, tear down, and upsize it afterward.
If I recall while a platform was built below Queen for a Streetcar-subway, Osgoode didn't but the utitilites were laid out in such a way to allow for a line to pass below it. Also I remember reading that Donlands was underpinned for some reason.
 
If I recall while a platform was built below Queen for a Streetcar-subway, Osgoode didn't but the utitilites were laid out in such a way to allow for a line to pass below it. Also I remember reading that Donlands was underpinned for some reason.

Osgoode didn't get a whole station built below it like Queen, but I believe it was underpinned. I don't know about utility re-allocation, but makes sense they were adjusted too in the process.

Very interesting to hear about Donlands. Not sure if it's true or where you heard that, but I could believe it. With the yard there maybe at the time they thought it would make a good interchange.
 
Osgoode was underpinned when it was built in the 60s which was pretty forward thinking. Small potatoes, but still a bonus. Would've been smart if Pape was too. But I think there's decent room to create an interchange without problem. We should just buy up much of the block, tear down, and upsize it afterward.
I don't know if those underpinning is useful or actually gets in the way. The underpinning for Queen was designed for a cut and cover streetcar line. The elevation of the streetcar tunnel is too shallow for any deep tube TBM tunnel hence making that underpinned tunnel useless. Not only would it be not wide enough for a busy platform, it might interfere with the newly planned station and they would have to spend money to remove it.

When they were building the Eg West subway, they installed a bunch of piles for a cut and cover subway near Allen. They had to remove them cause they would interfere with the TBM.
 

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