Post: Great, if you could hop a track home

[unimaginative2]

I think the most obvious thing to do would be to take two lanes out of both King and Queen for a transit ROW, and make them into a one-way pair, banning parking during rush hour. Traffic wouuld move just as quickly as it does now because of the road being one way, and it would surely be much more saleable than the one way with alternating direction every block that was proposed for King.

 

[Chuck100]

King and Queen were not designed to be high capacity transit routes, high capacity car routes, and high volume pedestrian streets all at the same time. That is why the issue has been discussed for the past 50 years without any sort of reasonable solution proposed. Historically speaking, once transit ridership reaches a critical level, the service is placed underground in subway tunnels and the street returned to cars and pedestrians.

For sentimental reasons, it would be sad to see streetcars taken off of those streets (especially Queen) however transit WILL continue to stagnate unless a new downtown subway is built. How about starting a new subway line at Queen and Rencessvalles, running it east to Queen and Parliament, then heading north to become an eastern downtown relief line. The entire 504 route would be scrapped, as well as streetcar service on Queen in the areas covered by the subway.

 

[MetroMan1000]

What about closing either Richmond OR Adelaide to general traffic. Widen the sidewalks and leave one lane each way for a cross downtown streetcar from Yonge to Bathurst.

This would allow for reliable East-West transit downtown which is what is most urgent right now.

 

[spmarshall]

Better to close Queen or King, I think, as Richmond and Adelaide are built to serve the car already. A DRL really should follow Front, but a Queen streetcar subway through at least part of the central area (say Jarvis to Bathurst) would help things a lot.

 

[socialwoe]

How about a friggin' east-west subway line through the core? The King, Queen and Dundas streetcars carry 125000 people every day...a subway is blatantly obvious. Apparently corn fields and "getting people out of their cars" are more important.

I wholeheartedly agree! Have you ever heard of a world city servicing the suburbs better than its own core/CBD? The crackpots that overlooked this in favor of BD decades ago deserve to be smited >: !

No shit. A Queen tunnel through the central core would be a great place to start. It was first proposed in the 1930s. Even better is a DRL running both sides of the downtown that could intercept riders from the east and west it was seriously proposed in the 1980s.

What's needed is a full Queen subway from Fallingbrook to Humber. To the east if the Toronto Hunt Club permits, continue the line northeast to Kingston Road to hit Cliffside Village, Scarborough GO or even follow GO's alignment to Kennedy, creating a potential five-way radiation of subways there. To the west, given the extreme low-density on the Queensway and preexisting success and density along Lakeshore, it could follow the path of 501 to Long Branch and possibly up Brown's Line to Sherway Gardens.

Better to close Queen or King, I think, as Richmond and Adelaide are built to serve the car already. A DRL really should follow Front, but a Queen streetcar subway through at least part of the central area (say Jarvis to Bathurst) would help things a lot.

See this is where the DRL and logic part ways. Why on earth would you give Front St another subway and stalemate Queen perpetually with streetcars? If something does run through the rail corridor it most certainly doesn't have to be a subway, it can be ran on the surface and shouldn't be built until Queen's given a bone, since we all know the TTC is just squirming at the chance to find another excuse- er reason- to not commence building one of two desperately overdue subway lines, the other being Eglinton.

For sentimental reasons, it would be sad to see streetcars taken off of those streets (especially Queen) however transit WILL continue to stagnate unless a new downtown subway is built. How about starting a new subway line at Queen and Rencessvalles, running it east to Queen and Parliament, then heading north to become an eastern downtown relief line. The entire 504 route would be scrapped, as well as streetcar service on Queen in the areas covered by the subway.

Right on! Toronto loves its streetcars, I get it. However obviously the line between nostalgia and just plain common sense has been divisive as well. Most North American cities have long annexed them from their transit systems. Stop the insanity Toronto!

The people pushing for streetcar routes to be added to subway maps are apart of the problem. They act like streetcars and subways are the exact same thing, when they're not and only further retard the process of modernizing our entire transit system. I'll be the first to let out the battle cry: "All streetcars MUST leave Toronto's streets and soon, by the end of the decade if we can help it!"

I like your plan but I guess I still need to be sold on the value of the Pape-Don Mills corridor and why a simple DRL network that connects to subways at Queen, Bloor, Eglinton and Sheppard couldn't be just as successful as a full-scale DRL.

 

[adma]

Right on! Toronto loves its streetcars, I get it. However obviously the line between nostalgia and just plain common sense has been divisive as well. Most North American cities have long annexed them from their transit systems. Stop the insanity Toronto!

The people pushing for streetcar routes to be added to subway maps are apart of the problem. They act like streetcars and subways are the exact same thing, when they're not and only further retard the process of modernizing our entire transit system. I'll be the first to let out the battle cry: "All streetcars MUST leave Toronto's streets and soon, by the end of the decade if we can help it!"

This isn't the Howard Roark era anymore, bucko. These days, pushing for that kind of progress! progress! progress! in that way just makes you look like an incredibly insensitive jerk.

You might as well be saying it was a great thing that NYC tore down Penn Station...

 

[socialwoe]

It's not that I'm insensitive as much as I'm aware of the mentality of some people who use streetcars as a crutch. If not for the infrequency of scheduling on St Clair, the 510 replacement buses were superior to the streetcars in terms of speed and actually made riding that corridor a joy for me again. Five minute lay-overs in SCW goodbye!

Ask yourself this, is it fair to minimum 125,000+ commuters have to endure slugging upto an hour through the core when a subway could accomplish the same feet within 10 mins? No traffic, no stop lights, no jaywalkers, no weather impedements, no car accidents, just one smooth soar through the core.

As for the DRL, what are you sentencing six-figure passenger volumes to when you drop them off at Dufferin and Broadview hapless? Same sluggish, unreliable streetcars to get back into the core or out to the peripherial suburbs. Is that progressive? All I'm saying is that we can't afford to continue this apathetic view of transit, settling for mediocrity while Hwy 7 gets prioritized ahead of the downtown core.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"Why on earth would you give Front St another subway"

Where on earth is Front's first subway?

 

[Brighter Hell]

What I don't get is why downtown councillors, developers, and employers aren't pushing for a DRL the way their suburban counterparts are. Getting new subway lines built is a political game, so why isn't someone like Kyle Rae leading the charge?

I'll be the first to let out the battle cry: "All streetcars MUST leave Toronto's streets and soon, by the end of the decade if we can help it!"

Streetcars serve a vital role on routes that are too busy for buses and not busy enough for subways. Look beyond North America - streetcars are all over the world, even in mixed traffic routes.

 

[unimaginative2]

Socialwoe, just read my article about the DRL on Transit Toronto. Yes, the route isn't perfect, but much of it could run on the surface and would thus be much cheaper than a route further north. It would also be greatly supportive of the waterfront developments, and would connect with Union Station. Long-distance streetcar riders would be able to transfer to the subway at Roncesvalles and Queen and Pape and Queen. West of there, the streetcar travels quickly in its own right of way on the Queensway. To the east, Queen street is somewhat less congested than in the core, and transit priority measures should be possible.

 

[socialwoe]

Where on earth is Front's first subway?

Um, Bay and Front. If planners forsaw the construction of the Convention Centre, CN Tower and Skydome, and chose Spadina instead of University for the original DRL a stop easy well could've gone to John/Front too. However that'd further minimize the need for the 510 LRT and today's DRL and we all know how you feel about that!

 

[unimaginative2]

Okay, so the DRL is a bad idea, because if planners had decided 40 years ago to route the subway along Spadina instead of University, the DRL's usefulness would have been diminished.

Subways do have to connect somewhere, you know, and Union Station is a great spot for it.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"Um, Bay and Front."

Okay, then, measuring like that, Eglinton already has 3 subways...does it really deserve a fourth?

You really think people want the DRL solely to shuttle people along Front?

 

[socialwoe]

Okay, so the DRL is a bad idea, because if planners had decided 40 years ago to route the subway along Spadina instead of University, the DRL's usefulness would have been diminished.

Well think about it...

JOHN- Skydome, CN Tower, Toronto Convention Centre, CBC Building, Metro Hall, Roy Thompson Hall, Royal Alexandria Theatre, Second City, Planet Hollywood, etc.

KING WEST- vinicity of aforementioned nodes plus City Golf, Bremmer condominiums, etc.

QUEEN WEST- Queen West shopping, CHUM/City, Paramount Cinema, Fashion District, Art-Deco District, Ceramics District, Entertainment District, cluster of low-rise offices, etc.

CHINATOWN- Chinatown Centre, asiatic street marketplace, Kennsington Market, AGO, Toronto Western Hosp.

COLLEGE WEST- U of T, CAMH, North Chinatown, Little Italy.

HARBORD- U of T central.

And the rest is history with no long curve to hit St Geogre. If PATH was extended to Jarvis/Front the subway's a 5 min walk away in weatherless comfort. But if Queen East isn't as dense as Queen West the routing of a potential Queen line could include a diversion from Eaton Ctr down to Front serving Union, SLM and Distillery before reemerging at River or Broadview/GO tracks.

Okay, then, measuring like that, Eglinton already has 3 subways...does it really deserve a fourth?

It's thinking like that why transit's become such a mess in this city :rolleyes !

You really think people want the DRL solely to shuttle people along Front?

I do because if I recall an earlier proposal I had to run a Queen Line to Coxwell (in the same geographical grid as Don Mills and with preexisting nodes East York Civic&Hosp.) was shot down because it didn't reach the imaginary major nodes along Front/Eastern. Ditto on the western wye since a crumbling fort and a seasonal expo deserve a full-fledged subway ahead of City Hall, Osgoode Hall, CHUM, Spadina, Bathurst, Niagara, Shaw, Dovercourt, Parkdale, Jameson, Ronchesvalles, St Joseph's. And of course veering northwards for a handful of people cuts off Swansea and South Etobicoke from their chance at connectivity sans a lousy bus run every half hour or worse with no evening/weekend service. I'll go smoke now :smokin !

 

[unimaginative2]

Sigh...socialwoe, yes, in retrospect it would have been nice if the subway had been built along Spadina. However, it wasn't. That is why the Downtown Relief Line along Front would be very useful.

Most of the spots you mentioned (it seems you're just enumerating the stops on your fantasy map) would be well-served by a DRL turning north at Roncesvalles. In the real world you can't divert an east-west subway down over a kilometre and back up again, so clearly a Queen line cannot serve the waterfront. A DRL would encourage growth exactly where the city wants it: in the West Don Lands, Port Lands, East Bayfront, Railway Lands, and Fort York neighbourhood.