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Sheppard Line 4 Subway Extension (Proposed)

TheTigerMaster said:
Is there enough room in the McCowan corridor for elevation?
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Besides politicians and planners dislike for elevated transit, the other problem is the transition from underground to elevated.

For subway, at a portal, there would be a bit of soil/asphalt on top (say 300mm), plus the thickness of the top of tunnel (say 500mm), plus the height of the train (say 3.8m). Thus, the top of rail is about 4.6m below grade.
For elevated transit, the support girders would have to be 5.0m above ground. Depending on the spacing of girders, the girder depth would be about 2.0m (50m pier spacing and 25 span-to-depth ratio), the deck on top would be 200mm, the ballast and rail would be about 500mm. Thus, the top of rail would be about 7.7m.

Thus, the train would have to change about 12.3m of elevation. If a subway can do a grade of 2%, that means you need at least 600m of uninterupted space for this change to happen. Unless the train is going from 15m underground to 20m above ground, there is a vertical curve, which gradually changes from a flat 0% grade to the 2% grade. This means the 600m distance is likely more like 800m.

There just isn't the distance anywhere to make this transition. The only possible location is within the SRT corridor. Either between Kennedy and Lawrence, or if it goes up the East side of the corridor (then it would be at grade), between the corridor and Midland. Also possible if it goes in the SRT corridor to the Gatineau hydro corridor, then trenched to Brimley, and the transition could be made between Brimley and McCowan (along with a curve to go up McCowan).

If it's LRT or SkyTrain we are talking, then the allowable grades are more like 5%, and the 800m distance becomes more like 500m - still a pretty big number to do along any street.
 
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sixrings said:
please take this and send it into steve munro or any other transit expert and get their opinion. Im just a rider but as fancy as this looks on a map, it equally looks like a disaster. I only say this because you keep reposting this map and its great to think out of the box but why if this is so great has no one else suggested it. I really like your dufferin Subway though.
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I see a big difference of opinion between transit planners and the public. Transit planners want mainly to change the streetscape and actually prefer on-street LRT because it does this. It has more stops, is slower, and reduces the speeds for cars. The public, on the other hand, wants rapid and reliable transit. They accept farther stop spacing because most take buses to the stops, and those buses have frequent stops. They also see reliability benefits of being fully grade-separated.
I have heard Steve Munro mock any idea of using the Gatineau Hydro corridor (or the Finch hydro corridor), since it wouldn't add to the urban fabric and it wouldn't attract walk-up traffic (even though almost any location would rely more on bus transfers than walk-ins).
 
BurlOak said:
Thus, the train would have to change about 12.3m of elevation. If a subway can do a grade of 2%, that means you need at least 600m of uninterupted space for this change to happen. Unless the train is going from 15m underground to 20m above ground, there is a vertical curve, which gradually changes from a flat 0% grade to the 2% grade. This means the 600m distance is likely more like 800m.

There just isn't the distance anywhere to make this transition. The only possible location is within the SRT corridor. Either between Kennedy and Lawrence, or if it goes up the East side of the corridor (then it would be at grade), between the corridor and Midland. Also possible if it goes in the SRT corridor to the Gatineau hydro corridor, then trenched to Brimley, and the transition could be made between Brimley and McCowan (along with a curve to go up McCowan).

If it's LRT or SkyTrain we are talking, then the allowable grades are more like 5%, and the 800m distance becomes more like 500m - still a pretty big number to do along any street.
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If it weren't for Crosstown East, you could do it in the centre-median of Eglinton, between Kennedy and Danforth. That would be a 1,600m room.
 
BurlOak said:
I see a big difference of opinion between transit planners and the public. Transit planners want mainly to change the streetscape and actually prefer on-street LRT because it does this. It has more stops, is slower, and reduces the speeds for cars. The public, on the other hand, wants rapid and reliable transit. They accept farther stop spacing because most take buses to the stops, and those buses have frequent stops. They also see reliability benefits of being fully grade-separated.
I have heard Steve Munro mock any idea of using the Gatineau Hydro corridor (or the Finch hydro corridor), since it wouldn't add to the urban fabric and it wouldn't attract walk-up traffic (even though almost any location would rely more on bus transfers than walk-ins).
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Maybe to make transit planners happy (at least the Waterfront planners), I could add a funicular from Lawrence to Kennedy Station to connect these 2 lines as well.

WislaHD said:
If it weren't for Crosstown East, you could do it in the centre-median of Eglinton, between Kennedy and Danforth. That would be a 1,600m room.
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If you put a portal just East of the GO corridor, it means that Midland and Brimley (and Gilder) would be closed to through traffic since the clearance would not be enough to allow trucks under until that point.

3 other streets would not be able to turn north to west. Also, couldn't get to the various businesses on the other side of the street.
 
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W. K. Lis said:
Shows the high density development that follows by putting in rapid transit before the development around it, instead of putting in rapid transit in after developing low density.
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Conditions in the early 20th century were very different. Building elevated subways are no longer cheap, and I suspect neither Toronto or NY are growing anywhere near the rate they were back then.
 
OneCity said:
Exactly. Bus service improvements and a possibly an LRT extension of Eglinton East one day thru Malvern town Centre. Hardly worth using as justification for poor connectivity of the Core.

And while these people further East on Shappard would have see some benefit, the ones in the West Sheppard would have an extra transfer from a short stretch of LRT to the stub.
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Line 4 cut-and-cover extension to Agincourt GO; doesn't need to connect STC because there is little demand of people travelling east towards STC. For those east of Agincourt they board a bus which drops them off at either at STC (line 2 ends) or Agincourt (line 4 ends). If they want to get to any of the stations on the Relief Line, they will take a 5km (4 stations) subway ride and transfer at Don Mills; but remember those who are bounded for places around Union station would have transferred at Agincourt onto Stouffville RER.
 
This would be ideal as it would allow the Sheppard line to connect and service the Consumers road business area and make it a seamless way to get there from downtown and 905 with connections to Stoufville RER and RH GO. Taking it West to Allen Rd while expensive would provide a good network connection and extra redundancy when things go wrong.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
Conditions in the early 20th century were very different. Building elevated subways are no longer cheap, and I suspect neither Toronto or NY are growing anywhere near the rate they were back then.
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Don't forget that when it was built, NIMBYism didn't exist and suburbs were smaller but denser.
 
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