Maybe I'm missing something but this plan (the Ontario Line in general) seems pretty ill-considered compared to the Relief Line. I also wonder if the smaller, shorter trains are going to result in a Canada Line-type scenario where the Ontario Line will be running over capacity soon after opening. And all the added turns in the new alignment don't seem desirable from a speed/operational perspective.
Too many people are still far too rosy-eyed about the real Relief Line South plans. RLS only really attempted to solve one major problem: congestion at Bloor/Yonge. That's it. Precisely zero of the other subway stations being built along the route were solving any significant capacity problem in a significant way. I'm sure some GO commuters would've transferred at Gerrard, too, providing some relief at Union. But the Gerrad station design was absolutely horrible, with five long escalators required to get from the Lakeshore East GO track level to the Relief Line track level. Five escalators. FIVE. ESCALATORS. Plus, if GO and TTC fares are still separate like it is today, then people who'd normally walk from Union to Adelaide/Queen businesses through the PATH would probably not be interested in paying the additional TTC fare.
Aside from that, the RLS stops at Queen/Carlaw, Broadview and King/Sumach were all pretty pointless. Heck, the original plan was to put a stop at Queen & Pape! No transit planner would ever look at a map of Toronto, point to that intersection, and say, "Yes! That's the spot!"
If we're going to spend hundreds of millions of $$$ on subway stations instead of, oh, I don't know,
affordable housing or something, could we at least put them where they'll do the most good for the most people? Surely that's reasonable, yeah? Corktown is almost unquestionably a better spot than King/Sumach. There is a ton of residential + office density there already, with a lot more to come. Plus it serves the Distillery district, all the co-op housing south of the Esplanade that most people forget is there, and it's also within reasonable walking distance of the vast swaths of new development going up south of the Gardiner & west of Cherry.
East Harbour is going to prove to be a lot better than Queen/Broadview in the long run, too. The plan is to build a large new district south of Eastern & east of the DVP, with a lot more traffic than Queen/Broadview will ever see on its own.
The RLS Yonge & University stations were both also designed to maximize connectivity with the Sheraton Hotel and City Hall, at the expense of good-quality connections to Line 1. The new design puts the OL platforms directly underneath the Line 1 platforms, which will be more efficient for more people.
.....
And that's before we get to all the other "relief" benefits of having station stops at Exhibition GO (which provides more relief at Union), King/Bathurst (which gets people off the sardine-can 504 streetcars), and an Eglinton Crosstown connection (which provides relief on both Line 1 and Line 2).
