Toronto Eglinton Line 5 Crosstown West Extension | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

I feel those numbers are too high, how can the west end of Line 2 handle 250K users per day? That would be 250K / 2 = 125K during the morning rush, or 125 / 3 = 42K per hour per direction. Line 2 doesn't even have that much capacity. Maybe, that's 250K users per day on the whole Line 2, split approximately in half between the west end and east end?

But either way, Line 5 built to the subway speed standard, and having a major feeder connection at Renforth, migh surprise on the upside .. and then we might regret the choosen vehicle and platform size.

Should have adhered fully to a single design paradigm. Either Transit City with minimal tunneling and surface running wherever possible, then the LRT train size would be sufficient. Or a subway / light metro style, then the trains need to be larger.

We are getting a hybrid, the Golden Mile section and the train size from Transit City, the west end from the light metro concept. That inconcistency might cause some grief.
Gee, it's like they should've picked light metro technology from the very start 🙄
 
Especially if Eglinton East extension is also tunneled.
Well at the moment there is no evidence of that even being considered - only certain sections like Kennedy - Midland, Lawrence - Kingston, and a proposed tunnel for UTSC (although unlikely to happen).

However again, this leads to the potential need in the future to split up the Eglinton Line completely between the east and the west.
 
Gee, it's like they should've picked light metro technology from the very start 🙄

Knowing that the western section will be tunneled; yes, it would be best to use light metro with higher capacity, and elevate or tunnel the eastern section.

Or, follow the original Transit City pattern, with large at-grade sections both west and east; that would work as well.
 
Well at the moment there is no evidence of that even being considered - only certain sections like Kennedy - Midland, Lawrence - Kingston, and a proposed tunnel for UTSC (although unlikely to happen).

However again, this leads to the potential need in the future to split up the Eglinton Line completely between the east and the west.

I don't see a need of full split though. More likely, the west section will have more trains and half of them will turn back at Brentcliffe.
 
I don't see a need of full split though. More likely, the west section will have more trains and half of them will turn back at Brentcliffe.
First I hope its not brentcliffe, and they instead find a way to be able to consistently short turn at Science Center, either by grade separating SP or adding extremely strong signal priority, heck even boom gates might be needed.

Second and most importantly however, a major problem with such a large line is what happens on one end will directly impact the other. We see this with Line 1 where a delay at Yorkdale can impact the reliability of the Yonge section. Now we're applying this to a line that is longer, and is at grade. In other words, say there's a car accident on the line around UTSC, that will likely cause significant delays and slowdowns for people travelling through etobicoke from the Airport.
 
One problem I can see is the slowdown of trains at the terminal or crossovers. We'll likely see trains slow down, crawl, or even stop between the second last station and the terminal station, before it enters the terminal station.

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The legacy streetcar network uses loops.
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In Montréal, and other cities, they use a reversing track, or tail track, to reverse. They should have done this with all new rapid transit lines, but being Toronto, they don't want to change the status quo.
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From link.
 
First I hope its not brentcliffe, and they instead find a way to be able to consistently short turn at Science Center, either by grade separating SP or adding extremely strong signal priority, heck even boom gates might be needed.

Second and most importantly however, a major problem with such a large line is what happens on one end will directly impact the other. We see this with Line 1 where a delay at Yorkdale can impact the reliability of the Yonge section. Now we're applying this to a line that is longer, and is at grade. In other words, say there's a car accident on the line around UTSC, that will likely cause significant delays and slowdowns for people travelling through etobicoke from the Airport.

Brentcliffe isn't dramatically worse than Science Centre, as a turnback location. Consider it functionally double service west of Yonge only, but with nearly-empty short-turning trains going to Brentcliffe and back. Yes, some wasted in-service time with little passenger load, but on the scale of this line, that's a minor issue.

If the westbound train from Kennedy gets delayed between Warden and Vic Park .. well, there will be a gap in service at every westbound station, but the stations west of Brentcliffe will just get 2 consecutive trains that short-turned at Brentcliffe. Not the end of the world.

After all, we don't expect the YUS line to be split into 2 or 3 segments in order to avoid the delay propagation. I don't see the reason to treat Line 5 differently.
 
Brentcliffe isn't dramatically worse than Science Centre, as a turnback location. Consider it functionally double service west of Yonge only, but with nearly-empty short-turning trains going to Brentcliffe and back. Yes, some wasted in-service time with little passenger load, but on the scale of this line, that's a minor issue.

If the westbound train from Kennedy gets delayed between Warden and Vic Park .. well, there will be a gap in service at every westbound station, but the stations west of Brentcliffe will just get 2 consecutive trains that short-turned at Brentcliffe. Not the end of the world.

After all, we don't expect the YUS line to be split into 2 or 3 segments in order to avoid the delay propagation. I don't see the reason to treat Line 5 differently.
Science Center is a far more important transfer point because of the Ontario Line connection. Forcing all trains to short turn earlier because of a single at grade crossing is just sad.

Sure, but any form of delay will have serious knock on effects. Remember we're considering Eglinton here including the Eglinton East extension, so now if you want to transfer to the Ontario Line northbound, or even trying to reach Scarborough Center, you know have to get off your train, wait for another train to pass, and them maybe you can now continue east just to ride it out 2 stops, all because of some accident at UTSC. The thing about YUS is that while delays do happen due to its length, at least its fully grade separated so the causes of delays are limited to some guy decided to run on the tracks, or someone held the door. With Eglinton, trains in Etobicoke can be delayed due to anything from some passenger taking too long to cross, to a car resting on the tracks because of congestion, a car accident, poorly timed traffic signals, or some idiot walking along the tracks (far easier and far more likely compared to the subway).
 
Science Center is a far more important transfer point because of the Ontario Line connection. Forcing all trains to short turn earlier because of a single at grade crossing is just sad.

Sure, but any form of delay will have serious knock on effects. Remember we're considering Eglinton here including the Eglinton East extension, so now if you want to transfer to the Ontario Line northbound, or even trying to reach Scarborough Center, you know have to get off your train, wait for another train to pass, and them maybe you can now continue east just to ride it out 2 stops, all because of some accident at UTSC. The thing about YUS is that while delays do happen due to its length, at least its fully grade separated so the causes of delays are limited to some guy decided to run on the tracks, or someone held the door. With Eglinton, trains in Etobicoke can be delayed due to anything from some passenger taking too long to cross, to a car resting on the tracks because of congestion, a car accident, poorly timed traffic signals, or some idiot walking along the tracks (far easier and far more likely compared to the subway).
I mean we'll just have to wait and see how things work out when the line and its extensions open, but I don't think the line will have to be split. There are many lrt lines that are just as if not more prone to delays that are longer and manage. I think having everything ready to split the line in two at science centre will be good for if there are any delays on either side, but having the line split in two during normal operation kind of ignores the point of having a "crosstown" line in the first place.
 
Science Center is a far more important transfer point because of the Ontario Line connection. Forcing all trains to short turn earlier because of a single at grade crossing is just sad.

Sure, but any form of delay will have serious knock on effects. Remember we're considering Eglinton here including the Eglinton East extension, so now if you want to transfer to the Ontario Line northbound, or even trying to reach Scarborough Center, you know have to get off your train, wait for another train to pass, and them maybe you can now continue east just to ride it out 2 stops, all because of some accident at UTSC. The thing about YUS is that while delays do happen due to its length, at least its fully grade separated so the causes of delays are limited to some guy decided to run on the tracks, or someone held the door. With Eglinton, trains in Etobicoke can be delayed due to anything from some passenger taking too long to cross, to a car resting on the tracks because of congestion, a car accident, poorly timed traffic signals, or some idiot walking along the tracks (far easier and far more likely compared to the subway).

All those causes of delay are possible, but do not happen that often on the existing bus routes or surface streetcar routes. 95% of delays on those routes are caused by traffic congestion, which will not be the case for any part of ECLRT.

I imagine that the majority of riders will prefer a continuous route at the cost of being delayed once in a couple of months, rather than a route permanently split to avoid the delay propagation.
 
The Crosstown LRT spanning from Hurontario to UTSC would be a whopping 47 km. That would be one of the longest tram lines in the world, although it wouldn't come close to the Belgian Coast line, which is 67 km.

Capacity would not be an issue unless it exceeds 15,000 pphpd at any single point.

On the eastern half of the line (east of Yonge), peak ridership will be very low. Only 5,400 people were anticipated to be travelling westbound into Yonge Station in the peak hour without the Ontario Line. With the Ontario Line in place, Eglinton Crosstown will see even less peak ridership into Yonge Station. In fact the 504 King and 510 Spadina lines will likely have higher peak ridership than the westbound Eglinton Crosstown at the AM peak (King currently sees 3,000 max pphpd eastbound at Spadina).

On the western half, capacity will be more of a concern, although it should still be manageable. About 7,000 pphpd were anticipated to be travelling eastbound into Eglinton West Station at peak hour if the line were extended to Renforth. That's a volume-to-capacity ratio of 0.45. It's very hard for me to imagine an extension to Hurontario more than doubling the eastbound peak ridership into Eglinton West Station, so I don't see capacity being an issue there either. It's very unlikely that travellers from Mississauga will be making the trip all the way to Eglinton West. Especially when we consider the that GO RER and the Ontario Line will both likely be in place to receive crowding west of Eglinton West.

If I had to take a half educated guess, I'd say that any Eglinton Crosstown extension to 'sauga will primarily be used to travel between Hurontario and Renforth Gateway to access the Airport employment lands.

It's important to remember that the travel destination on the Eglinton Line are a lot less concentrated than what we see on Line 2. With Line 2, the AM peak alightings are primarily at Bloor-Yonge, St. George and Pape (when the Ontario Line opens). This means that on-train crowding will continue to increase until the train reaches on of those three stations. With the Eglinton Line, those AM peak alightings would UTSC, Kennedy, Don Mills, Yonge, Eglinton West, Mount Dennis, Renforth Gateway (Airport) and Hurontario. That means that despite the length of the Crosstown, the multitude of destination stations along its route will keep peak ridership low.
 
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If I had to take a half educated guess, I'd say that any Eglinton Crosstown extension to 'sauga will primarily be used to travel between Hurontario and Renforth Gateway to access the Airport employment lands.
Also, if this is the case, a Crosstown extension to Mississauga would not make any sense. These trips will be served adequately by the Mississauaga Transitway. A Crosstown extension would only make sense here to add additional capacity to the transitway.
 
The Crosstown LRT spanning from Hurontario to UTSC would be a whopping 47 km. That would be one of the longest tram lines in the world, although it wouldn't come close to the Belgian Coast line, which is 67 km.
Fun fact! LA's A Line will surpass the length of the Belgian Coast line at 79.7km once the Regional Connector is completed next year.
 
Fun fact! LA's A Line will surpass the length of the Belgian Coast line at 79.7km once the Regional Connector is completed next year.
The bad news is that the stations can be very far apart in LA. From link (2016).
Here is a interesting way of looking at L.A. County’s rail and Bus Rapid Transit systems. Martin Leitner at Torti Gallas and Partners architecture firm did a “map hack” showing how long it takes to walk from each Metro station to the next. From Leitner:

We found that some stations are only a few minutes apart, 7-12 minutes in Koreatown and East LA, they are a stunning 104 minutes apart on the Green Line (Long Beach Blvd – Lakewood Blvd) and 79 minutes apart between on the Red Line (Hollywood/Highland – Studio City). Some long walk times also on the Gold Line.
WalkTimeMap.jpg

For higher resolution see [PDF]

Wait a minute! WALK in LA? 😄 😄 😄 They have sidewalks?

About the walks between the stations in LA, add more time because of cul-de-sacs, crescents, and other mazes, fences, and construction.
 
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