SmartTrack (Proposed)

[denfromoakvillemilton]

You guys must think the NYC subway is awful then. Elevated almost everywhere outside Manhattan, Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.

 

[ssiguy2]

#3 Road in Richmond near the SkyTrain stations actually has a lot of pedestrian traffic and far more than it di before the Canada Line. Also there has been huge infill in the area and due to taking away traffic lanes the road is easier to cross as before it was like trying to cross Sheppard. #3 Road was never a nice street but now it now has a lot of people walking along it which it never had before.

 

[salsa]

You guys must think the NYC subway is awful then. Elevated almost everywhere outside Manhattan, Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.

These photos speak for themselves.

 

[LNahid2000]

I actually like the feel of the elevated lines in NYC. This is one of my favourite neighbourboods:

This area is always full of people and feels so vibrant. Probably much busier than most streets in Toronto.

 

[ehlow]

You guys must think the NYC subway is awful then. Elevated almost everywhere outside Manhattan, Long Island City and Downtown Brooklyn.

NYC and Chicago look quite different from the newer Vancouver style elevated structures. They're metal instead of concrete, and in my opinion have way more character. But I personally like the grimy gritty aesthetic, so I prefer NYC elevated subways to Vancouver. They also have much less elaborate stations.

 

[JGHali]

#3 Road in Richmond near the SkyTrain stations actually has a lot of pedestrian traffic and far more than it di before the Canada Line. Also there has been huge infill in the area and due to taking away traffic lanes the road is easier to cross as before it was like trying to cross Sheppard. #3 Road was never a nice street but now it now has a lot of people walking along it which it never had before.

That's all true. The major point, though, is that elevated LRT would still take away traffic lanes, and requires much more expensive station infrastructure than at-grade LRT. No. 3 Rd has been slowly improving for a while - especially downtown Richmond - but it would be even nicer if the LRT ran at-grade in a ROW. I don't think the Canada Line technology really allows for that, though. Of course, the reason it's not buried in Richmond is because the city is built on a sandbar in the Fraser delta.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Eglinton West now:
View attachment 41641
Suburban section of Skytrain:
View attachment 41642
View attachment 41638
View attachment 41639

Blech. I agree, a 21st C narrow elevated guideway is identical to a hulking six-lane 1950's-era expressway, and it does nothing but sully the pedestrian-friendliness of a suburban arterial.

To be completely honest, I think the elevated Canada Line looks pretty good, and blends in well in those pictures. Looks modern and efficient. Thats just my opinion however.

 

[44 North]

How big of a deal is not stopping at traffic signals?

For me, it means the difference between rapid transit, and plain transit. If an RT line has one or two crossings - particularly in a lesser-used section of a line, or a key downtown transit mall - that's okay. But every few hundred metres is a bit excessive, slows service, constrains speed, reduces reliability, affects ridership potential, affects traffic..and numerous other issues. And people will say: "well, traffic lights are placed far apart" Yes, at first. But once development along the corridor occurs, there will be more traffic lights. Every grocery store and development project will want a light out front. We've seen this already with the East Bayfront: Transportation EA said one thing, development said another. And that line hasn't even started yet. I agree with in-median LRT. But find it to be a poor compromise if a real RT option exists.

NYC and Chicago look quite different from the newer Vancouver style elevated structures. They're metal instead of concrete, and in my opinion have way more character. But I personally like the grimy gritty aesthetic, so I prefer NYC elevated subways to Vancouver. They also have much less elaborate stations.

I agree, the comparison to 80yo sections of EL in NYC and Chicago is not fair. Concrete engineering has come a long way, and present-day guideways found across the world are a testament of this. And although I like grittiness, rust, and wood - the problem with NYC and Chicago's ELs are the size, and the location. I don't agree with ELs in such high density areas. Concrete guideways in a suburban realm, through a greenspace, or in a specific circumstance to bridge a section or on a ample roadway allowance are okay IMO. But not a hulking mass overtop the majority of the street.

Edit: and I hope people get that I was being sarcastic when I dismissed those images of Skytrain. And @ehlow again. That section of road didn't always look like that. If you want to check it out, you can go back 5 years on Streetview and see how it looked before. One thing I particularly like are the anti-graffiti trellis racks they put around the pillars, and the amount of plant growth over that time. The trees and their foliage makes for a major improvement, too.

 

[silvercity]

For Canada Line in particular, I quite like walking under the SkyTrain tracks in Richmond. It uses newer technology so you almost couldn't hear the train above you, it's extremely quiet. Also, it's a great weather shelter. In the summer it blocks the sun, in the winter it blocks the rain. Lastly, there has been art installations under the tracks and on the pillars making it very very pleasant to walk through. Some people say "The elevated tracks are not that bad on Canada Line", I would say, it's a fantastic addition to No. 3 Road, making it much much more walkable.

That's one thing that puzzled me always - why Toronto does not consider ANY elevated rapid transit outside the central area? In all discussions it's the battle between underground and at grade.

A lot of major world cities have underground metro system in the city centre and the trains would come up on elevated tracks in suburban areas. Elevated tracks maintain train speed and reduce construction cost. And innovative designs and uses of elevated guideways can be really good - like Canada Line in Richmond. It looks futuristic and adds metropolitan feel as well.

We should stop always turning to American cities.. they mostly have really bad transit... Chicago and NYC's elevated tracks are one of the worst - old, crumbling and noisy. If not for the slight historic feel, they would be complete eyesores. But the world is far bigger than America. Modern elevated trains are everywhere in the world. Check out London, Tokyo, Shanghai etc...

Like this is Line 3 in Shanghai. You hear absolutely nothing walking near the tracks....

 

[BurlOak]

That's all true. The major point, though, is that elevated LRT would still take away traffic lanes,

What are those pier columns, maybe 2m diameter? What is a width of a traffic lane, maybe 3m? When I do the math, it appears that the elevated structure takes away about 2/3 of a lane (i.e. less than 1), not lanes. Needing only 2m also means that the pier column can fit in the boulevard between the road and the sidewalk (or between the sidewalk and property line) and take away ZERO lanes. The ROW only needs some widening at the major intersections with stations - and the ROW always gets wider at intersections anyway.

 

[CDL.TO]

View attachment 41636

If you mean, by example, this streetview at [url]https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.171252,-123.136465,3a,75y,155.4h,84.57t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sz7fzlaTXxATgmlZAL-eXdw!2e0[/URL] then it should be remembered that the concrete is "new". I'm sure the Gardiner Expressway looked "nice" when it was "new".

View attachment 41635

Give it a couple of decades.

The original phase of Vancouver's Expo line is about 3 decades old now:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2010...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s8tf4sVl_u0Tf-gLxy_SIHg!2e0

Still looks decent to me!

 

[wopchop]

The problem with getting elevated proposed and accepted, IMO, is that everyone in the GTA knows the Gardner Expressway. They immediately associate any elevated structures with it, and this causes them to immediately dismiss it as an option for their area. Any politician or planner would need to craft a major marketing campaign to overcome that built-in association.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Another problem with elevated or underground stations is that elevators (and escalators) are required for accessibility. Sounds fine, but I have been in stations where the escalators and/or elevators are out-of-service, sometimes for weeks, if not months. Sometimes it is planned (see this link), but sometimes it is not planned (see this link), or worse the unreported outages.

Maybe once all the transit stations get at least one elevator, they'll start on duplicating them for out-of-service situations.

Also why they prefer the center platforms for stations, only need one set of elevators/escalators to serve both directions, at a lower cost. Will the Eglinton West portion be center platform, to save on the cost of elevators, or go for the more expensive side platforms?

 

[mdrejhon]

For Canada Line in particular, I quite like walking under the SkyTrain tracks in Richmond. It uses newer technology so you almost couldn't hear the train above you, it's extremely quiet. Also, it's a great weather shelter. In the summer it blocks the sun, in the winter it blocks the rain. Lastly, there has been art installations under the tracks and on the pillars making it very very pleasant to walk through. Some people say "The elevated tracks are not that bad on Canada Line", I would say, it's a fantastic addition to No. 3 Road, making it much much more walkable.

Thinking about this more, I think a Skytrain-style elevated guideway would actually 'enhance' the walkability of suburban Eglinton -- a modern guideway provides optional shelter from the sun & rain if you want to walk underneath it -- and I agree there's been a huge increase of pedestrians underneath Skytrain lines, which show that a modern guideway can be integrated well into a suburban landscape, and be an attraction into itself for pedestrians. The Shanghai-style would be too much clutter, but the Skytrain-style would be perfectly fine in low-density suburbania, especially if a nice pedestrian walkway is well-integrated underneath. And the 30-year-old Skytrain guideways have survived pretty well, probably not going to go into true ugliness anytime soon if maintained well. And nowadays, they can put a nice continuous strip of nice LED lighting to brightly illuminate the path at night, too.

One big question I do have, is how wide the guideway needs to be for heavy rail, versus SkyTrain technology. Another big question is I know that way more salt is used in Toronto than Vancouver, so that can age a concrete structure faster. Another big question is the extra noise of heavy rail technology over SkyTrain style technology. They could ban salt on the raised structures, however, and perhaps limit speed past residental areas in the late evenings (with adjusted timetables), so there are solutions to keep it desirable and pretty 50 years from now.

It would take time to convince Toronto, though. A good marketing campaign is needed, to show the pluses of the slim Skytrain guideway versus ugly-crumbling Gardiner. Also, good 'realistic' concept art is needed, and promises of never using salt on the raised structures, plus pictures of Skytrain at its best.

Chopping the Eglinton spur would be quite fine with me, replacing it with an ECLRT extension to Square One, but if we're essentially installing a new grade-separated line down Eglinton, I see a Skytrain-style slim elevated line actually benefitting suburban Eglinton. Then we don't need this raised-SmartTrack discussion at all (though I *could* see ECLRT being someday upgraded to an elevated dedicated-ROW -- maybe not within my lifetime -- once traffic warrants).

 

[ehlow]

That's one thing that puzzled me always - why Toronto does not consider ANY elevated rapid transit outside the central area? In all discussions it's the battle between underground and at grade.

Well, the SRT is elevated, and the Scarborough LRT would have been elevated, including a new elevated extension up to Sheppard and up to Malvern. The UPX has an elevated section too. Maybe SmartTrack will have an elevated section. Parts of the subway are elevated: Bloor in the west and Spadina line through 401 area.