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

[ARG1]

The bad news is that the stations can be very far apart in LA. From link (2016).

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.

LA has the right idea though. While LA does have a lot of problems with local service (something it should definitely improve on), anything that considers itself Rapid Transit should never have short stop spacing unless its at the very end of a line (The short stop spacing in Long Beach for instance is generally okay.) Having trains stop less often generally means that if you're building an LRT, you can offset the time loss that is incurred by having the system run at grade, making it more like actual "Rapid Transit". Again I point to Viva as an example in Toronto where this is generally done right, Viva Blue still has the 98/99 bus running alongside it, Viva Orange has the 7, Viva Silver will have the 4(A) and the 20, etc.

 

[Steve X]

LA built a cheap subway system which needs good integration with a bus network. It’s designed for getting to the core.

Finch west is completely opposite. it’s designed for local use and to get around Finch.

 

[Rainforest]

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.

Indeed, I wouldn't be concerned about the eastern section. With the volume split between multiple transfer points - Yonge, Science Centre, Kennedy, the load is unlikely to exceed 5,000 pphpd at any given point. That can be handled, even with 2-car trains. Each train carrying up to 2 x 175 = 350, 15 trains per hour will provide the required capacity.

But the western section demand is hard to predict. With ECLRT tunneled, it will become a de-facto subway, and as such will prompt the riders of north-south buses: Kipling, Islington, Royal York, to transfer to ECLRT instead of staying on the bus till it reaches Bloor. The scale of that shift is unknown.

Furthermore, there might exist a latent demand for transit trips between Mississauga and mid-town Toronto. Currently, that demand is totally invisible because no route serves it. Only the most desperate riders can use Eglinton or Lawrence buses for such trips, everyone else either drives or avoids the trip altogether. Once a somewhat decent travel option is provided by the combination of the Transitway and the Eglinton LRT, that demand will show itself. Again, the scale is unknown.

So, the combined Eg West demand can vary broadly, from "less that Eg East" and then everyone will be asking "why did we build a tunnel for such a low-demand route", to > 10,000 pphpd and then everyone will be saying "perhaps we should have built larger stations". I still don't believe it will reach 15,000 pphpd, but anything above 11,000 will probably require a switch to 3-car trains. If the highest manageable frequency is one train in 2 min, then we can have up to 30 trains per hour. With 2-car trains, that's 10,500 pphpd max. With 3-car trains, up to 15,700 in theory, if the station platforms and stairs can handle that.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Indeed, I wouldn't be concerned about the eastern section. With the volume split between multiple transfer points - Yonge, Science Centre, Kennedy, the load is unlikely to exceed 5,000 pphpd at any given point. That can be handled, even with 2-car trains. Each train carrying up to 2 x 175 = 350, 15 trains per hour will provide the required capacity.

But the western section demand is hard to predict. With ECLRT tunneled, it will become a de-facto subway, and as such will prompt the riders of north-south buses: Kipling, Islington, Royal York, to transfer to ECLRT instead of staying on the bus till it reaches Bloor. The scale of that shift is unknown.

Furthermore, there might exist a latent demand for transit trips between Mississauga and mid-town Toronto. Currently, that demand is totally invisible because no route serves it. Only the most desperate riders can use Eglinton or Lawrence buses for such trips, everyone else either drives or avoids the trip altogether. Once a somewhat decent travel option is provided by the combination of the Transitway and the Eglinton LRT, that demand will show itself. Again, the scale is unknown.

So, the combined Eg West demand can vary broadly, from "less that Eg East" and then everyone will be asking "why did we build a tunnel for such a low-demand route", to > 10,000 pphpd and then everyone will be saying "perhaps we should have built larger stations". I still don't believe it will reach 15,000 pphpd, but anything above 11,000 will probably require a switch to 3-car trains. If the highest manageable frequency is one train in 2 min, then we can have up to 30 trains per hour. With 2-car trains, that's 10,500 pphpd max. With 3-car trains, up to 15,700 in theory, if the station platforms and stairs can handle that.

Don't forget about Line 6 (Finch West LRT), which would draw bus passengers from around and north of Finch Avenue (and west of Jane Street and Keele Street), to get them to the Finch West Station on Line 1. They might be able to get a seat on Line 1 going south to downtown.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Furthermore, there might exist a latent demand for transit trips between Mississauga and mid-town Toronto. Currently, that demand is totally invisible because no route serves it. Only the most desperate riders can use Eglinton or Lawrence buses for such trips, everyone else either drives or avoids the trip altogether. Once a somewhat decent travel option is provided by the combination of the Transitway and the Eglinton LRT, that demand will show itself. Again, the scale is unknown.

I'm not convinced we'll see huge AM inbound travel demand towards midtown Toronto. The demand for office space in Midtown Toronto is rather low, even with the Eglinton Crosstown about to open.

Businesses have a very strong preference for locating Downtown, and I do not see that changing in the foreseeable future, particularly with the huge amount of highly desirable Downtown office space coming down the development pipeline (including East Harbour on the periphery of Downtown).

But the western section demand is hard to predict. With ECLRT tunneled, it will become a de-facto subway, and as such will prompt the riders of north-south buses: Kipling, Islington, Royal York, to transfer to ECLRT instead of staying on the bus till it reaches Bloor. The scale of that shift is unknown.

It is hard to predict. But I don't think the shift to an underground alignment will dramatically increase ridership. With the targeted grade separations in place and elimination of mid-block stops, the surface alignment would've operated at similar speeds and reliability compared to the underground alignment.

So, the combined Eg West demand can vary broadly, from "less that Eg East" and then everyone will be asking "why did we build a tunnel for such a low-demand route", to > 10,000 pphpd and then everyone will be saying "perhaps we should have built larger stations". I still don't believe it will reach 15,000 pphpd, but anything above 11,000 will probably require a switch to 3-car trains. If the highest manageable frequency is one train in 2 min, then we can have up to 30 trains per hour. With 2-car trains, that's 10,500 pphpd max. With 3-car trains, up to 15,700 in theory, if the station platforms and stairs can handle that.

I more or less agree. I'd expect ridership of about 7,000 to 10,000 pphpd eastbound into Eglinton West Station (probably on the lower end of that spectrum), unless we see a massive midtown office boom.

 

[ARG1]

I'm not convinced we'll see huge AM inbound travel demand towards midtown Toronto. The demand for office space in Midtown Toronto is rather low, even with the Eglinton Crosstown about to open.

Businesses have a very strong preference for locating Downtown, and I do not see that changing in the foreseeable future, particularly with the huge amount of highly desirable Downtown office space coming down the development pipeline (including East Harbour on the periphery of Downtown).


It is hard to predict. But I don't think the shift to an underground alignment will dramatically increase ridership. With the targeted grade separations in place and elimination of mid-block stops, the surface alignment would've operated at similar speeds and reliability compared to the underground alignment.


I more or less agree. I'd expect ridership of about 7,000 to 10,000 pphpd eastbound into Eglinton West Station (probably on the lower end of that spectrum), unless we see a massive midtown office boom.

The thing is that there probably will be a midtown office boom. In fact I'd wager and say that there's going to be significant upzoning and massive developments along the entirety of Eglinton, and we might begin seeing capacity constraints as soon as in 15 years.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The thing is that there probably will be a midtown office boom. In fact I'd wager and say that there's going to be significant upzoning and massive developments along the entirety of Eglinton, and we might begin seeing capacity constraints as soon as in 15 years.

There is no sign of a midtown office boom - historically midtown had been stagnant like NYCC (at best) in terms of office commercial developments - and whatever proposals there are are more or less 1:1 replacement. What we will have is a condo boom for sure (but that had been going on for awhile).

AoD

 

[W. K. Lis]

There is no sign of a midtown office boom - historically midtown had been stagnant like NYCC (at best) in terms of office commercial developments - and whatever proposals there are are more or less 1:1 replacement. What we will have is a condo boom for sure (but that had been going on for awhile).

AoD

Depends upon one's definition of "midtown". Wouldn't Eglinton & Don Mills see mixed-use development? What about Eglinton & Black Creek? Most likely developments will be mixed-use, commercial AND residential, not single-use.

See link.

 

[superelevation]

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.

Yeah but most LRT lines (in America) aren't run at the frequencies we operate in Toronto, that makes delay and timing issues much worse.

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.

If the Eglinton Crosstown doesn't need 10,000+ ppdph of capacity on day 1 I can't help but see that as a failure, it has an incredibly important existing bus route and is the only proper crosstown line in the city besides Bloor. It is mind boggling that in a city this large we would expect so little demand, that's only the same as a few successful bus routes peak capacity.

And by the way, the section East of Yonge should be busy, its going to have two of the busiest bus routes in the city (Don Mills and Lawrence East) feeding into it, if it doesn't attract people at Kennedy, maybe a slow tram line shouldn't have been the second crosstown.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

If the Eglinton Crosstown doesn't need 10,000+ ppdph of capacity on day 1 I can't help but see that as a failure, it has an incredibly important existing bus route and is the only proper crosstown line in the city besides Bloor. It is mind boggling that in a city this large we would expect so little demand, that's only the same as a few successful bus routes peak capacity.

And by the way, the section East of Yonge should be busy, its going to have two of the busiest bus routes in the city (Don Mills and Lawrence East) feeding into it, if it doesn't attract people at Kennedy, maybe a slow tram line shouldn't have been the second crosstown.

With the Ontario Line on the table, the best configuration for the Crosstown would have been a fully grade separated intermediate capacity line travelling between Etobicoke and Scarborough Centre. Such a line would have facilitated travel "across the town". Eglinton Line customers could transfer at Scarborough Centre to access most of Scarborough's major bus routes.

The problem with pursuing a fully grade separated intermediate capacity line travelling between Etobicoke and Scarborough Centre back in 2010 is that the Yonge Line was already overcapacity and it absolutely could not handle the demand that would be induced by that Eglinton Line configuration. The Yonge Line crowding issues limited the Eglinton Line configurations that would have been genuinely feasible back then.

If I could go back in time, and if money were no object, I would have scrapped the Eglinton Crosstown in favour of a Downtown Relief Line terminating at Eglinton and Don Mills. Only after its completion would I have then pursued the Eglinton Crosstown terminating at Scarborough Centre. This sequencing would ensure that the Eglinton Line would not crush the Yonge Line with overcrowding.

However a compounding issue was the imminent retirement of the Scarborough RT. Would it have been possible to build the DRL to Eglinton and replace the SRT with the Eglinton Line prior to the SRT retirement? Almost certainly not. Especially with the very limited funds being provided by the McGuinty government of the day. If I remember correctly, only about $7 Billion was on the table, with no further funds anticipated to come down the pipeline. That would have been enough to build either: (A) Eglinton Crosstown to Scarborough Centre or (B) the Downtown Relief Line to Eglinton. Option A would leave the Yonge Line pepetually overcrowded with no relief plans in sight and option B would relieve the Yonge Line, with no replacement for the SRT. Both options were technically unacceptable.

So in short, yes, I find the current configuration of the Crosstown to be unfortunate. I would have preferred a genuine crosstown line, and the current configuration falls well short of that. If there's any lesson in this, I suppose its that we must design transit projects that work well in relation to the broader network, while also being a little less tight with the purse strings for critical infrastructure.

 

[JSF-1]

If I could go back in time, and if money were no object, I would have scrapped the Eglinton Crosstown in favour of a Downtown Relief Line terminating at Eglinton and Don Mills. Only after its completion would I have then pursued the Eglinton Crosstown terminating at Scarborough Centre. This sequencing would ensure that the Eglinton Line would not crush the Yonge Line with overcrowding.

This was essentially the order of operations for Network 2011. The Sheppard Line was to be built first, followed by the DRL and then the Eglinton West line last. Now the Eglinton West Subway was a horrible idea and were lucky it wasn't built but thats another story. Now we can argue if the Eglinton Line and Sheppard Line should have been Light Metro's although at the time Light Metro's weren't really a thing and the ICTS Trains were the first of there kind and didn't impress on the SRT. It kind of soured the TTC on the whole idea, although that wasn't helped by the fact the ICTS trains were really the only major Light Metro trains on the market. Not to mention the politics about all of it. Try telling the suburbs they are going to get a "Half-subway" while downtown gets a full subway. This was even a problem back then.

 

[Steve X]

It’s there really a definition for light metro? Is ML’s claims really true?
Some cities would call our Sheppard Line light metro cause it’s shorter than regular trains which could be 8-12 cars long in some cities.
Some cities call a fully grade separated system light rail while others could use light rail vehicles on a light metro system.

Calling things half subway would just fuel a war. This city should stop terms that add confusion and give the media stupid things to pick on. They should have called the SRT LRT project the “SRT renewal upgrade” instead of calling it converting to light rail. It got everyone fooled that it will end up like Shappard East in the middle of the road.

 

[ARG1]

It’s there really a definition for light metro? Is ML’s claims really true?
Some cities would call our Sheppard Line light metro cause it’s shorter than regular trains which could be 8-12 cars long in some cities.
Some cities call a fully grade separated system light rail while others could use light rail vehicles on a light metro system.

Calling things half subway would just fuel a war. This city should stop terms that add confusion and give the media stupid things to pick on. They should have called the SRT LRT project the “SRT renewal upgrade” instead of calling it converting to light rail. It got everyone fooled that it will end up like Shappard East in the middle of the road.

TBF at least Light Metro is a bit more well defined than LRT, which at this point can mean absolute anything. It can mean a mixed traffic tram, or a tramway in its own lanes, a lower capacity S-Bahn style service, A fully grade separated metro-like service, and even a single tracked diesel service running european regional rail trains.

 

[robmausser]

Just call this thing the Crosstown and thats that. Its its own animal. Not quite subway, not quite streetcar, its its own thing.

 

[Rainforest]

If the Eglinton Crosstown doesn't need 10,000+ ppdph of capacity on day 1 I can't help but see that as a failure, it has an incredibly important existing bus route and is the only proper crosstown line in the city besides Bloor. It is mind boggling that in a city this large we would expect so little demand, that's only the same as a few successful bus routes peak capacity.

And by the way, the section East of Yonge should be busy, its going to have two of the busiest bus routes in the city (Don Mills and Lawrence East) feeding into it, if it doesn't attract people at Kennedy, maybe a slow tram line shouldn't have been the second crosstown.

The opening day peak forecasts for EC LRT were in the range of 5,500 to 7,500. Definitely below 10,000. Might be greater in the west now, with EW LRT being fully grade separated.

A failure? Definitely not. Sheppard subway had a peak of 5,500 pre-Covid. TYSSE is about same as Sheppard, or less. SSE forecast is up to 14,000 (east of Kennedy), but I think it is a bit exaggerated, 11,000 - 12,000 is more likely. And SSE is a trunk line for a huge suburb with a large population. So, 7,000 is a decent load.

The section east of Yonge will be very well used, but don't forget that it will have 3 transfer points: Yonge, Science Centre, and Kennedy. That means, riders will come and go. Unlike many existing bus routes, where the riders keep piling up until the bus reaches the ultimate destination at Yonge or at Bloor. Furthermore, a fair number of ECLRT riders will travel counter-peak, for example from Brentcliffe to Ontario Line in the AM peak. That kind of usage pattern results in a high total number of boardings, but a modest peak load.