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Parliament Streetcar

Why haven't they restored the Parliament streetcar? It would get good ridership, it's a way to provide north-south service in downtown and also help provide relief to Yonge line a bit.

Why not?

Have you looked at the ridership numbers for the Parliament bus? It's no where close to needing to upgrade to streetcar service.

It's a bit out of date, but this will still give you a good idea about the TTC's thought process about these kinds of things: http://www.transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/reports/opportunities_for_new_streetcar_routes.pdf

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
In addition to the Parliament streetcar, there were King Trippers that went up Parliament and Bloor to the Erindale loop at Broadview & Danforth.

That's interesting to know. A King Tripper would be near identical to what I proposed not too long ago in the DRL thread:



This would boost ridership along the Parliament corridor immensely.
 
Have you looked at the ridership numbers for the Parliament bus? It's no where close to needing to upgrade to streetcar service.
Might be a case of chicken or egg here. When I want to get from my house near Spruce St. and Sumach to the subway, I always know that when I walk to Spruce and Parliament the 65 bus will have either just raced past or I have to wait 20 mins for the bus. This means I either take the 506 to Yonge or walk to Castlefrank. With the Distillery population dramatically increasing, perhaps those folks would like an easy means to the subway straight up Parliament?
 
I think the route probably would do better if it was not an infrequent bus.

That's actually an argument for buses, not streetcars. A route's frequency is determined based on the TTC's loading standards, which are about 50 people per bus, or 130 people per streetcar. So assuming that the ridership is not strongly correlated with the vehicle type, a bus would be more than twice as frequent as a streetcar for a given route.

That said, I do also like the idea of a Parliament streetcar as a blue-sky idea, as long as it's more than simply an electrification of the existing Parliament bus. I think as a first phase, it could be extended down the existing Cherry Street line to Distillery Loop, providing a new north-south connection for the developing West Don Lands. As a future phase, it could be extended under the railway into the Portlands along Cherry Street, connecting with the new East Bayfront streetcar at Commissioners Street along the way.

Existing tracks in blue, new tracks in bright green. Rosedale Valley bridge shown in blue to highlight the location of the existing unused subway structure.
ParliamentStreetcar.jpg


To reach Parliament Street from Cherry Street, I've proposed a one-way looping, westbound on King Street and eastbound on Queen Street. This is because Sumach Street isn't wide enough north of King to accommodate two-way streetcar traffic. A new westbound right turn streetcar track would be required at King & Parliament.

The big opportunity I see here is the available subway level of the Rosedale Valley segment of the Prince Edward Viaduct. As we all know, the bridge was built in 1918 with the foresight to include with a lower level for subway trains, which proved extremely helpful when the Bloor-Danforth Subway was built 48 years later. But the new subway only used the Don Valley segment of the bridge, since the curve would have been to sharp for subway trains to reach the Rosedale segment. Instead, a new covered bridge was built just north of it, leaving an unused subway level on the Prince Edward Viaduct, perfectly aligned for a Parliament streetcar heading to Castle Frank Station.

Rosedale Valley bridges: Prince Edward Viaduct (Bloor St) in foreground, Rosedale Valley Bridge (Line 2) in background.
RosedaleBridges2.jpg


To accommodate single-ended streetcars underground at Castle Frank, it would take a big underground loop, which would be extremely expensive. But by the time this would open, we would have completed the transition to pantograph operation, so the next generation of streetcars could be bidirectional if we so choose. That would allow for a much cheaper-to-build arrangement at Castle Frank:
CastleFrankConcourse.JPG
 

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Have you looked at the ridership numbers for the Parliament bus? It's no where close to needing to upgrade to streetcar service.

It's a bit out of date, but this will still give you a good idea about the TTC's thought process about these kinds of things: http://www.transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/reports/opportunities_for_new_streetcar_routes.pdf

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

The Parliament bus actually doesn't perform so bad at all:

http://ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Ridership_and_service_stats_2014.pdf

The 65 carries 4600 riders per weekday. This is with less than half the frequency of the 75 Sherbourne which only has 2900 more riders per weekday over a longer route.

Why Parliament is getting overlooked by the DRL planning department makes no sense.
 
The Parliament bus actually doesn't perform so bad at all:

http://ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Ridership_and_service_stats_2014.pdf

The 65 carries 4600 riders per weekday. This is with less than half the frequency of the 75 Sherbourne which only has 2900 more riders per weekday over a longer route.

Why Parliament is getting overlooked by the DRL planning department makes no sense.

i think we should be looking at a parliament streetcar in the longterm, but i think the drl station is fine at sumach as the streetcar will probably be a northern extension of the existing cherry line and west don lands is developing too so id rather have the station there.
 
I think the real problem is that there's serious discrimination against adding more mixed traffic streetcar routes. This needs to change.
 
Have you looked at the ridership numbers for the Parliament bus? It's no where close to needing to upgrade to streetcar service.

It's a bit out of date, but this will still give you a good idea about the TTC's thought process about these kinds of things: http://www.transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/reports/opportunities_for_new_streetcar_routes.pdf

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

If the parliament streetcar had a frequency of 5-6 minutes, and goes to the core, the ridership would be vastly different.

From the map, it shows this bus stops at Queen and King, plus Richmond and Adelaide. No wonder few people want to take it. King and Queen are like 400 meters apart and TTC needs to have 2 stops in between. Blows my mind.

http://www.ttc.ca/Routes/65/RouteDescription.jsp?tabName=map
 
Think it would be a good idea. Sherbourne is ridiculously overcrowded since (George Brown students). It's also just one lane.
 
The big opportunity I see here is the available subway level of the Rosedale Valley segment of the Prince Edward Viaduct. As we all know, the bridge was built in 1918 with the foresight to include with a lower level for subway trains, which proved extremely helpful when the Bloor-Danforth Subway was built 48 years later. But the new subway only used the Don Valley segment of the bridge, since the curve would have been to sharp for subway trains to reach the Rosedale segment. Instead, a new covered bridge was built just north of it, leaving an unused subway level on the Prince Edward Viaduct, perfectly aligned for a Parliament streetcar heading to Castle Frank Station.

To accommodate single-ended streetcars underground at Castle Frank, it would take a big underground loop, which would be extremely expensive. But by the time this would open, we would have completed the transition to pantograph operation, so the next generation of streetcars could be bidirectional if we so choose. That would allow for a much cheaper-to-build arrangement at Castle Frank:

Where would the tunnel entrance be located? Sounds like big potential NIMBY movement waiting to occur since the upper stretches of Parliament are largely built up and the road isn't wide enough like Spadina to fit an entry down the middle. I think it would be far more affordable to simply follow what the old Parliament streetcar did and create a new surface loop at Castle Frank.

Overall not a bad idea- I think it might not only be a relatively affordable stop-gap measure, but something that could also connect new neighbourhoods like Regent Park and create a new north-south connection east of the Yonge line.
 
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That's actually an argument for buses, not streetcars. A route's frequency is determined based on the TTC's loading standards, which are about 50 people per bus, or 130 people per streetcar. So assuming that the ridership is not strongly correlated with the vehicle type, a bus would be more than twice as frequent as a streetcar for a given route.

That said, I do also like the idea of a Parliament streetcar as a blue-sky idea, as long as it's more than simply an electrification of the existing Parliament bus. I think as a first phase, it could be extended down the existing Cherry Street line to Distillery Loop, providing a new north-south connection for the developing West Don Lands. As a future phase, it could be extended under the railway into the Portlands along Cherry Street, connecting with the new East Bayfront streetcar at Commissioners Street along the way.

Existing tracks in blue, new tracks in bright green. Rosedale Valley bridge shown in blue to highlight the location of the existing unused subway structure.
View attachment 102971

To reach Parliament Street from Cherry Street, I've proposed a one-way looping, westbound on King Street and eastbound on Queen Street. This is because Sumach Street isn't wide enough north of King to accommodate two-way streetcar traffic. A new westbound right turn streetcar track would be required at King & Parliament.

The big opportunity I see here is the available subway level of the Rosedale Valley segment of the Prince Edward Viaduct. As we all know, the bridge was built in 1918 with the foresight to include with a lower level for subway trains, which proved extremely helpful when the Bloor-Danforth Subway was built 48 years later. But the new subway only used the Don Valley segment of the bridge, since the curve would have been to sharp for subway trains to reach the Rosedale segment. Instead, a new covered bridge was built just north of it, leaving an unused subway level on the Prince Edward Viaduct, perfectly aligned for a Parliament streetcar heading to Castle Frank Station.

Rosedale Valley bridges: Prince Edward Viaduct (Bloor St) in foreground, Rosedale Valley Bridge (Line 2) in background.
View attachment 102970

To accommodate single-ended streetcars underground at Castle Frank, it would take a big underground loop, which would be extremely expensive. But by the time this would open, we would have completed the transition to pantograph operation, so the next generation of streetcars could be bidirectional if we so choose. That would allow for a much cheaper-to-build arrangement at Castle Frank:
View attachment 102972
This looks good and I especially like the loop, it provides extra service to east downtown. My question is if the DRL gets delayed, how would we connect a Parliament streetcar to union station?
 

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