Also Scarborough to Allen Road (Spadina Line) for those going to York U and U of T.
True. In fact I hope a lot of riders take the extra couple of stops over to Spadina anyway, in order to avoid Yonge. Part of the reason so many riders get on at Yonge is because that's where the bus routes are split. Even just trying to cross Yonge on Eglinton right now is a PITA, because most of the time you have to physically transfer buses.
The 2 main alternatives are to have the continuous ECLRT/SRT or to have in-median ECLRT, no SRT, and B-D extended to STC (or Sheppard). My question is which would work better:
1. The ECLRT/SRT with the Kodak Yard in the West and a small yard at McCowan in the East - No Conlins, or
2. The ECLRT with the portion to Kennedy in-median, with only the Kodak Yard in the West.
I would guess that having a smaller yard in the East, with extra track would be better than no yard in the East, with a shorter track length.
IMO the decision on the B-D extension needs to happen at the same time as a decision on Eglinton East. The two are really intertwined, and one or the other is needed in order to not have transfer mania just to get into or out of Scarborough. It's really one or the other, and either way I hope at least some of the funds come from changing the SELRT from LRT to shoulder bus lanes. That $650 million could probably cover most of the elevated section of Eglinton East, but more would be needed if the subway extension option was chosen.
As for the yards, if the B-D option is chosen the Kodak yard should work fine. If the interlined option is chosen, I would think that a small supplementary yard at McCowan would do the trick (in addition to Kodak). If I recall correctly, the rationale behind a new yard at Conlins is that the SELRT would need a yard anyway, and McCowan wouldn't be big enough to accommodate both, so they decided to build a new larger yard near the intersection of the two lines. With the SELRT out of the picture (hopefully) in the interlining scenario, that rationale mostly goes out the window, so McCowan can be retrofitted and used as a secondary yard.
A B-D extension probably wouldn't require a new yard, although it's likely than any subsequent extension of B-D would (say to Sherway or Sq 1).
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