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St Louis surpasses T.O. in rapid transit expansion

Downtown Toronto is not as well served as many other cities its size. Even in Montreal, in my opinion, has better downtown coverage, though, the frequencies are definately not on par with Toronto (in terms of subway - streetcars in mixed traffic really just give the same service as buses, except buses can weave in and around traffic). I would argue that submerging certain streetcar lines within downtown, with them coming above ground in their own ROWs are the best answer. Improving downtown infrastructure, along with improved GO should be the priorities of the GTA.
 
Improving downtown infrastructure, along with improved GO should be the priorities of the GTA.
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These two really have to go hand in hand. You can increase service to the suburbs, but without upgrades to the downtown infrastructure (Lakeshore, Union, the subway lines) bottlenecks will occur and transit will choke without new capacity. Likewise, if you upgrade downtown services without also expanding to the suburbs and bringing in new riders, you are only going to saturate the existing market and reduce the financial strength of new lines and services.
 
"Even in Montreal, in my opinion, has better downtown coverage"

Montreal also has, arguably, a larger downtown.
 
I havn't seen any stats on that, but walking around both, I've always assumed they were similar, with the difference of Toronto being more organized in terms of having a dedicated financial core, with Montreal really having an absense of one.

But even if Montreal does have a larger core, thats not the reason why there coverage is better. The service is definately centered around downtown movement vs Torontos which is more geered to pull people into downtown from further distances away.
 
I think the urban-looking footprint of Montreal may be bigger, but I don't think its downtown is. What I mean by this is that the urban-looking areas of Montreal radiate out from the downtown a bit further than in Toronto's case. Some of this likely has to do with the fact that Montreal is on an island and has therefore been forced by georgraphy to be somewhat more dense. Moreover, it's also an older city and thereby has more pre-car neighbourhoods.

However, Montrealers don't really consider a lot of what we may consider as "downtown Montreal" as downtown. If you stand at Peel & Ste-Catherines and walk 1.5 km each direction, that's basically what is considered downtown (which elimiates many areas like Old Montreal, Westmount, Mont-Royal, Quartier Latin, etc.). Whereas in Toronto, most people would consider King & Bay, Yonge & Bloor, Queen & Spadina, Jarvis & Gerrard and Harbourfront as all being "downtown." Most Montrealers I know consider Toronto to have a "huge downtown" and don't quite understand all the business nodes we have (e.g., Mint, Bloor-Yorkville, Yonge & Eglinton, etc.).

Indeed, I think it is fair to say that the STM's metro is more about moving people around the urban part of the city, whereas the TTC's subway tends to be more of a feeder system for the near suburbs. Ideally our streetcar system could play the role of Montreal's metro, but operating in mixed traffic makes it hard to do so.
 
A few of my wife's parents customers in Montreal consider Toronto to be the 'big city', which actually kind of shocked me. I think its merely due to the amount of tall buildings. Montreal definately has an impressive array of midrises/row houses that surrond the downtown area.
 
The current failure of downtown Toronto transit is east-west transit in the south end. Try living in Parkdale and getting over to Leslieville easily. Unless you have a car it takes forever by transit. Montreal's downtown coverage is better because the loop of the orange line parallels the green line about a mile south for a couple of stations effectively covering most of the downtown area. The existence of the blue-line also ensures that you can get from Rosemount to Westmount with relative ease... for example.
 
Though in the rawest terms, how much Parkdale-to-Leslieville traffic is there?
 
Though in the rawest terms, how much Parkdale-to-Leslieville traffic is there?
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In raw terms, probably not THAT great. Although they are two of the current "hippest" neighbourhoods out there.

The M.O. of a DRL/Queen Subway wouldn't be about a Parkdale-to-Leslieville express, but more about a Don Mills to Weston/Pearson (and everything in the U-shape in between, yes including, Parkdale and Leslieville).

All three of the places I've lived since moving downtown T.O. 8 years ago have either been a block north or a block south of Queen St and all three places have been horrible for trying to go east or west in this city. It's at the point where I really don't even treat the TTC as an option anymore.
 
I spent a lot of time at the Drake last week during NXNE. I cabbed it almost everytime from Queen and Sherbourne. Couldn't stand to wait for the long streetcar ride.
 
In my opinion, the DRL is not enough. Its great to add it as a backbone for east west travel, but really, just a piece of the puzzle. All Streetcars need their own right of way with traffic signal priority. Even in new toronto, when I DRIVE past the downtowner streetcar, I think what a waste. Its not like the road is fully 2 lanes each way with streetcar infrastructure every so often interupting car traffic, but its not its own ROW exactly either as cars weave into the streetcar lane. You might as well just make it fully ROW to improve trip times, and hopefully ridership.
 
"Though in the rawest terms, how much Parkdale-to-Leslieville traffic is there?"

Probably not even enough to justify a streetcar line, but it's just one of the many features of a DRL. When you add College, Dundas, Queen, and King together, you get a decent number of people that will benefit from zipping from Parkdale to Leslieville in 10 minutes on the subway.
 
Let's also not forget the "relief" it provides to the B-D and the Y-U-S lines (and thereby allowing for their eventual expansions).
 
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