Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[OneCity]

While waiting inside a Highway 7 Viva stop, I just couldn't help thinking about how poorly designed the Crosstown stops are when it comes to protection from the elements. Especially in winter. I took a browse at one of the Crosstown presentations where it covered the on street stop designs and had a good chuckle at the explanation of the protection it will offer.

I wish good luck to those who have to brace -15C and lower with windchill. Even the humble TTC bus shelters with 3/4 enclosure are more comforting.

What Metrolinx should do is put the designer-consultants out there on the street and have them wait for the estimated Crosstown frequency. This simulation should knock some sense into their heads.

These uninspiring skeleton shelters are also in areas where people would be walking furthest just to access the stop in bad conditions. Do they really want people to use public transit? These details make a huge difference.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

These uninspiring skeleton shelters are also in areas where people would be walking furthest just to access the stop in bad conditions. Do they really want people to use public transit? These details make a huge difference.

The biggest problem with the shelters for YRT is they ar huge putting one on the streets of Toronto more poel would complain about not being able to see across the street then being able to stay under cover in bad weather. Given the nature of the size of the right o way and the frequency that they pan to operate then on yu relly don't need massive shelters or heat lamps at them. They will probably be the same as the ones they have on Spadina/ Queens Quay and on St, Clair, people my not like them as they aren't proper shelters but there are concessions that have to be made for the space on the streets and building codes for wheelchairs. Building anything now that the general public have to use on a daily basis has gotten vastly complicated with having elevators and escalators in both directions and having ramps so anyone can get onto a platform easily.

 

[nfitz]

115 Silver Hills could have been routed to serve Oriole GO station and Leslie station, but no, the people of Silver Hills would rather go to York Mills station instead.

115 already serves Oriole GO.

Not sure how running 115 to Leslie does anything but slow down most subway riders commutes.

The one they SHOULD have extended to Don Mills or Leslie is the frequent 91C and D Woodbine service, which terminates only one stop from Don Mills Road, at York Mills and Silverdale. From there it's only 5 more bus stops to Sheppard (though running it up Valentine, Fenelon, Graydon Hall is tempting)! The service is quite uni-directional, especially north of Lawrence.

As it runs past the Line 5 stop at Bermondsey, I'd assume that it won't survive what would have to be major bus route changes when Line 5 opens. Presumably a split at Eglinton, and hopefully a relatively quick Bermondsey to Don Mills station bus.

It could also run down York Mills, and up Lesmill to Leslie, providing service to the unserved chunk of Lesmill north of Duncan Mill.

Come 2021, TTC will have better access to UPX/KW lines for Dundas Subway, but still a walking trip for buses and streetcars riders, but better than it is today.

Walking in a tunnel though though with the tunnel being about 3o metres long, and

The other 2 still requires long walks, but Oriole should be closers to the Leslie Subway than today.

With them moving the platform, it will be. If they'd put a walkway over Leslie Street, it would be a simple 150 metre walk to the tunnel from Leslie station to that new office tower to the west (what happened to that anyways, I thought it was all approved years ago, with the approval to remove the knockout in the station as well).

Presumably there's another knockout in the south as well - that TTC parking lot south of the station would work much better as a building, and put the platform only 100 metres from a sheltered walk to Leslie station. Could probably do a no- or low-cost deal with the land to the south as well, if it included access to the walkway over Esther Mills - heck cover that, and it will feel like they are connected.

And a shorter walk from the planned western entrance to East Harbour station (were I assume there'll at least be a TTC bus stop), to the attached Downtown line subway platform.

 

[smallspy]

The one they SHOULD have extended to Don Mills or Leslie is the frequent 91C and D Woodbine service, which terminates only one stop from Don Mills Road, at York Mills and Silverdale. From there it's only 5 more bus stops to Sheppard (though running it up Valentine, Fenelon, Graydon Hall is tempting)! The service is quite uni-directional, especially north of Lawrence.

That was one change that the TTC looked at doing for the opening of the Sheppard Line. They decided against it, likely because they'd need to add a bus to the schedule and they couldn't justify the increase in costs.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[ssiguy2]

Without going reading back ten pages.............have they started construction on the non-grade separated sections of the line from roughly the DVP to Kennedy?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Without going reading back ten pages.............have they started construction on the non-grade separated sections of the line from roughly the DVP to Kennedy?

Work has been underway since summer 2017. The centre medians have been removed since then.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Main Street Subway/Danforth GO.

any sort of connection is physically implausible do to the condos and the subway track both being in the way of any usable tunnels. Plus not enough people transfer from the subway to Go Traist from there to make such a project worthwhile for either side even if RER and or Smart track or whatever you want to call it adds extra capacity to it.

 

[ssiguy2]

Work has been underway since summer 2017. The centre medians have been removed since then.

Thanks. I had no idea that construction was already well underway.

 

[OneCity]

Thanks. I had no idea that construction was already well underway.

As much as I feel Metrolinx has cut important corners on the design with a narrow focus just to build LRT this is good news as doing nothing here is far worse. The actual line itself is still very important and we need to move forward on this local line further down Eglinton East in a reasonable time frame to UTSC. With the current angst on details for the Eglinton West line, we couldn't afford to leave this project vulnerable heading into the election.

 

[Tuscani01]

I assume that they’ve left some details out the drawing. This isn’t an engineering drawing, after all.

However I haven’t been impressed with the temporary lane configurations along the Crosstown route. The temporary lanes are often faded or non existent, and they’ve frequently failed to remove old lane markings.

A few months ago, I saw a collision happen at Avenue and Eglinton. I can hardly blame the drivers involved. There were two conflictaing lane markings on the roadway (one instructing drivers to go straight, and the other telling them to merge into the next lane), and I figured it would only be a matter of time before a crash happened.

The constant changes to Don Mills/Eglinton have also been a bit chaotic. Lanes seem to shift on a weekly basis, with little to no changes made to the pavement marking or signage. I have already seen two pretty bad accidents in the past few weeks where cars have pretty much hit head on because the lane markings didn't exist.

The middle lanes sometimes seem to lead into the opposing lane from the other direction, or lanes simply end with no warning, forcing last minute lane changes. There was also a few days of the middle lane disappearing mid-intersection, forcing cars to suddenly change lanes illegally and at the last minute, in the middle of the intersection. Absolutely no signage or warning, and impossible to see from afar as the jog in Don Mills now directs you to the right before reaching the intersection. The contractor needs to do better at managing traffic flow. I don't think they are even trying at this point.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The detours are horrible, for sure. Especially when compared to the Spadina subway detours, which were clearly painted and signed.

 

[BurlOak]

The constant changes to Don Mills/Eglinton have also been a bit chaotic. Lanes seem to shift on a weekly basis, with little to no changes made to the pavement marking or signage. I have already seen two pretty bad accidents in the past few weeks where cars have pretty much hit head on because the lane markings didn't exist.

The middle lanes sometimes seem to lead into the opposing lane from the other direction, or lanes simply end with no warning, forcing last minute lane changes. There was also a few days of the middle lane disappearing mid-intersection, forcing cars to suddenly change lanes illegally and at the last minute, in the middle of the intersection. Absolutely no signage or warning, and impossible to see from afar as the jog in Don Mills now directs you to the right before reaching the intersection. The contractor needs to do better at managing traffic flow. I don't think they are even trying at this point.

The Station could have gone on the SW corner, along with the bus station. Construction would have been a lot smoother.

 

[11th]

With them moving the platform, it will be. If they'd put a walkway over Leslie Street, it would be a simple 150 metre walk to the tunnel from Leslie station to that new office tower to the west (what happened to that anyways, I thought it was all approved years ago, with the approval to remove the knockout in the station as well).

Canadian Tire was content with their current office and decided not to build their new HQ (at Leslie).

 

[aquateam]

So, today was a huge announcement for the REM, bringing it into the realm of reality (construction starts in two months!), and I just want to compare and contrast the two projects. Both have similar costs (Eglinton is $5.3 billion in $2010, $9.1 billion including maintenance, whereas the REM is $6.3 in $2017)

• But the REM is 67 kilometers, compared to 19 kilometers for the Eglinton LRT.
• The REM is being built to modern standards (driverless, platform screen doors, entirely grade separated). The Eglinton LRT is missing those features, which any newly built system elsewhere (in Europe or Asia) would have.
• Whereas the REM is 100% grade separated and will achieve fast top speeds and represents massive time savings. The Eglinton LRT will run on street, stopping midblock and at red lights.
• The REM will be entirely automated. The Eglinton LRT will cost $80 million/year to operate (in addition to the 30-year $3.8 billion maintenance contract.)
• The REM represents a big connectivity improvement, linking the Airport, North Shore, South Shore, in routes that had not existed before. The Eglinton LRT is an improvement on an existing bus route, and did not through-route with the SRT at its end or connect to the airport.
• I cannot find any figures for the daily ridership of the Eglinton LRT, but I am certain it is less than the 167 000 daily riders projected for the REM.
• The Eglinton LRT has been planned in various forms since the 1960s, with construction having previously been started in the 1990s. It will be in service in 2022. The REM was first conceived about 2 years ago (although it builds off of previous proposals, e.g. for metro Line 3), and will be in service about the same time as the Eglinton LRT (2021-2022).

The REM is what GO-ALRT would have been like. Completely new travel patterns would be possible by public transit, at a fraction of the cost of normal subway development, mostly by leveraging existing ROWs.

This isn't meant to be a pissing contest, I'm just pointing out that a lot of things about the Eglinton line need a value-for-money comparison. And also take a look at how other projects have been able to rapidly go from conception to construction.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I don't get the point of singling out the Crosstown of all projects. The same points could be made with regard to just about any of our transit proposals

GOALRT and ECLRT serve two completely different trip patterns. One does not negate the other.

REM will be a great addition to the MTL transit network, but it was also rushed and will have more than its share of operational problems, because proper due diligence was not conducted. This project reminds me a lot of the problem with the Canada Line, but REM is worse in a lot of aspects.

RER will largely be serving the function of ALRT when it is operational.

Toronto needs to build infrastructure faster and cheaper, without repeating the mistakes of Canada Line and REM.