SmartTrack (Proposed)

[BurlOak]

The idea I was trying to get across was to split Smarttrack off to as many stations as possible on GO corridors that already exist, rather than trying to ram a corridor down Eglinton.

There are two keys to NOT having SmartTrack making the curve onto Eglinton.

1. Show that SmartTrack can be just as efficient and serve many people by following a GO corridor for its full length. This is relatively easy - as is evidenced by the line going to Malton or Brampton. This is somewhat symmetrical with the East end going to Markham, and provides better service to the north-west corner of Toronto.
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2. Show that the Airport Corporate Centre area can be served by higher order rapid transit in another way. The most obvious way is to elevate the LRT line through most of Etobicoke. It is obvious that on-street LRT would not be sufficient - because it is the exact on-street plan that led to Mr. Tory's SmartTrack promise in the first place.

 

[rbt]

Is it? I haven't heard (or I've forgotten) about this. Is it documented somewhere?

Way back during the St. Clair EA this was something GO expressed an interest in building.

More recently (September 2014), it was explicitly mentioned in the EA tender for Barrie Line as part of RQQ-C1-14-055. We'll see if the station makes it through preliminary analysis.

It wouldn't surprise me if they chose Eglinton OR St. Clair (not both), and adjusting Caledonia Station on Eglinton has got to be the easier/better way to go at this point. A 2km station gap is okay for electrified GO but this EA is for 12-car diesel service expansion (McGuinty all-day promise, not the Wynne 15-minute frequency promise).

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

Every time I see a map with that "Woodbine" station on the KW line I wonder....."who do we expect would use that station".

Might not be a terrible idea as a special events only station. Days like the Queen's Plate can draw 30-40000 people, and there's not really a transit option that is remotely appealing.

 

[TOareaFan]

Might not be a terrible idea as a special events only station. Days like the Queen's Plate can draw 30-40000 people, and there's not really a transit option that is remotely appealing.

I think QP is the only date that draws that sort of crowd....but, that said, there is no entrance to the woodbine grounds at the south end of the property (where the station would be). The only thing at that end of the property is the exercise track (riders on the KW GO often get an nice view of horses being exercised) so a station there is not a solution to getting people into Woodbine as you would still need to create some sort of shuttle service to get people around the bottom of the track to the entrances. While this might be possible to create, it is only marginally closer and shorter than such a shuttle service would be from Etobicoke North or, even, from Malton (along Derry/Rexdale Blvd) and neither of those would need building a new station to provide such service.

 

[gweed123]

Every time I see a map with that "Woodbine" station on the KW line I wonder....."who do we expect would use that station".

When I first saw the station proposed it was in conjunction with the UPX...one idea was trains on the GO line connecting to a spur at this Woodbine station taking them into the airport (a change of train was necessary....people would get off the train on the GO line and switch to the train into the airport) even then I did not support the idea (thought the same could be achieved cheaper at Malton station) but understood why a Woodbine station was being proposed.

Now that we have decided to take people to the airport with a service that goes right into the airport...eliminating the need to change trains....i just wonder what the purpose of a Woodbine station would be.

Personally, I see it as a logical terminus for the FWLRT. The ROW for Highway 27 is massive, and from Humber College down to the station it would hit the mall and the racetrack. It would also provide the option for people to flow west in the AM peak instead of east.

 

[TOareaFan]

Personally, I see it as a logical terminus for the FWLRT. The ROW for Highway 27 is massive, and from Humber College down to the station it would hit the mall and the racetrack. It would also provide the option for people to flow west in the AM peak instead of east.

I have not been reading/following the FinchWest discussion.....since this is so far south of Finch I had not factored in the notion that a Finch service would come that far away from Finch.

 

[gweed123]

I have not been reading/following the FinchWest discussion.....since this is so far south of Finch I had not factored in the notion that a Finch service would come that far away from Finch.

It's not in the official plan for the FWLRT, which is slated to stop at Humber College. I'm just saying instead of having the FWLRT as basically a spur line off of YUS, curve it southward and have it terminate at a future Woodbine Station. South of Rexdale Blvd especially, on the west side there is a massive corridor that could easily accommodate an LRT line.

Have Woodbine Station itself west of Highway 27 (with the far east end of platform at Highway 27), the LRT loop south of Entrance Rd, and the LRT extending north between Highway 27 and Grandstand Entrance Rd. Have the Rexdale Station on the south side of Rexdale, with perhaps a covered walkway between the station and Woodbine Racetrack. North of Rexdale, the LRT would continue on the west side of Highway 27, with a station in front of Woodbine Mall at Queen's Plate Dr. It would continue on the west side and link in with the proposed station at Humber College.

Conversely, you could have the line veer off Highway 27 at Queen's Plate, run along the south/east side of Queen's Plate, then directly into the Woodbine Racetrack site. If you reconfigure the parking lots, you can have it run through the parking lot without much difficulty (it's just pavement, after all). With a station near the main entrance, it would cut eastward and link up with the corridor between Highway 27 and Grandstand Entrance Rd.

Either way, this shouldn't be that big of an expense since there would be no expropriation or demolition necessary. The project would provide a key connection though, giving people along Finch West a 2nd option for quickly accessing downtown, or Brampton.

 

[nfitz]

Way back during the St. Clair EA this was something GO expressed an interest in building.

More recently (September 2014), it was explicitly mentioned in the EA tender for Barrie Line as part of RQQ-C1-14-055. We'll see if the station makes it through preliminary analysis.

Interesting ... I hadn't realised that.

It wouldn't surprise me if they chose Eglinton OR St. Clair (not both)

Caledonia (Eglinton) seems to be a no-brainer if stations are to be added, with the intersection to a rapid transit line. I'd have thought a station at Bloor would be more useful than one at St. Clair.

Still, that's a lot of new stations, with the one at Downsview park, and another planned in Concord. With chatter about keeping the existing York University or moving it a bit north to Steeles, there could easily be 5 stops between Rutherford and Union, rather than the 1-stop currently. This won't make the train run any faster to Barrie!

 

[nfitz]

Might not be a terrible idea as a special events only station. Days like the Queen's Plate can draw 30-40000 people, and there's not really a transit option that is remotely appealing.

What about the TTC 191 Highway 27 Rocket that only stops once between Kipling Station and the corner of 27/Queen's Plate. It's very frequent. Really, all you have to do is add a stop at the corner of Rexdale and 27 and a walkway, and your as close to the grandstand than the furthest parking spot (thought it's only a 15-minute walk from where the 191 does stop ... probably closer to 12 minutes if you cut through the Woodbine Centre.

I'm not sure how useful a GO statoin adjacent to Woodbine would be. It's still a kilometre from the tracks to the grandstand. And the racetrack is in the way too - by the time you walk around that, it's about a 20-minute walk, and there is precious little else around!

 

[TOareaFan]

It's not in the official plan for the FWLRT, which is slated to stop at Humber College. I'm just saying instead of having the FWLRT as basically a spur line off of YUS, curve it southward and have it terminate at a future Woodbine Station. South of Rexdale Blvd especially, on the west side there is a massive corridor that could easily accommodate an LRT line.

Have Woodbine Station itself west of Highway 27 (with the far east end of platform at Highway 27), the LRT loop south of Entrance Rd, and the LRT extending north between Highway 27 and Grandstand Entrance Rd. Have the Rexdale Station on the south side of Rexdale, with perhaps a covered walkway between the station and Woodbine Racetrack. North of Rexdale, the LRT would continue on the west side of Highway 27, with a station in front of Woodbine Mall at Queen's Plate Dr. It would continue on the west side and link in with the proposed station at Humber College.

Conversely, you could have the line veer off Highway 27 at Queen's Plate, run along the south/east side of Queen's Plate, then directly into the Woodbine Racetrack site. If you reconfigure the parking lots, you can have it run through the parking lot without much difficulty (it's just pavement, after all). With a station near the main entrance, it would cut eastward and link up with the corridor between Highway 27 and Grandstand Entrance Rd.

Either way, this shouldn't be that big of an expense since there would be no expropriation or demolition necessary. The project would provide a key connection though, giving people along Finch West a 2nd option for quickly accessing downtown, or Brampton.

No idea what the cost of that would be but it would be about 3.2 km of LRT to your proposed station south of Woodbine plus the cost of building the woodbine station. While it would be 4.2km of LRT track to an already existing station called Etobicoke North with no cost to build the new station.

 

[gweed123]

No idea what the cost of that would be but it would be about 3.2 km of LRT to your proposed station south of Woodbine plus the cost of building the woodbine station. While it would be 4.2km of LRT track to an already existing station called Etobicoke North with no cost to build the new station.

That's true. Although personally, I would prefer to have 2 stations at Woodbine and Islington instead of 1 at Kipling. It would provide greater service to Northern Etobicoke IMO.

 

[TOareaFan]

That's true. Although personally, I would prefer to have 2 stations at Woodbine and Islington instead of 1 at Kipling. It would provide greater service to Northern Etobicoke IMO.

So shut down the Etobicoke North station, the one by the Home Depot and replace it with the Islington Station by the Lowes?

Kidding aside, is there even available land there?

 

[gweed123]

So shut down the Etobicoke North station, the one by the Home Depot and replace it with the Islington Station by the Lowes?

Kidding aside, is there even available land there?

Hahaha, I suppose so. And yes I think there is. There's that odd triangle piece of land between the rail corridor, the 401, and Islington. With a minor modification of the ramps and Resource Rd, they could service the station pretty effectively. I see the Islington station being a pretty convenient transfer point between 401-related GO buses and GO RER. Pretty easy to hop off and back onto the 401 at that location, whereas Etobicoke North is harder to access from the 401.

 

[kEiThZ]

You really need to look into this before blaming the Provinces. That is not the case at all.

Ontario already attempted this, and got this in return:

"“We did not lower the GST to have it taken away from Ontarians by the Wynne government with a new sales tax hike,” Flaherty said"

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/05/30/flaherty-rips-proposed-new-taxes-to-fund-ontario-transit-plan

So no, every Province is not free to raise its own revenue. No the feds did not create room for them to raise what they need, and no this is not akin to Toronto not employing the VRT and then blaming the Province for its transit woes.

Exactly my point. This is politics. Now if transit really mattered, the Ontario Liberals would have had no issues using political capital to raise the HST. They certainly had no issues raising an income tax called "Health Care premium" that went into general revenue and wasn't dedicated to health care.

Federal politicians will want credit for reducing taxes. Provincial politicians, in their cowardice, keep insisting that the Feds hand over revenue, instead of raising taxes themselves and facing the consequences with the electorate.

 

[TOareaFan]

Hahaha, I suppose so. And yes I think there is. There's that odd triangle piece of land between the rail corridor, the 401, and Islington. With a minor modification of the ramps and Resource Rd, they could service the station pretty effectively. I see the Islington station being a pretty convenient transfer point between 401-related GO buses and GO RER. Pretty easy to hop off and back onto the 401 at that location, whereas Etobicoke North is harder to access from the 401.

I am just not sure how easy it would be to modify those ramps and create access to the triangle (if it is the NW corner in this picture).